Los Angeles (AP)-The Star of Sean Feucht, once a little known conservative Christian worship leader began to climb in 2020 while challenging the restrictions of the government caused by the hardening of the coronavirus in the world.
In well -attended protest concerts that shamelessly mocked the rules of social distancing, it became a son of posters against public health regulations that reduce religious practice in person. He put Feucht in the League with high -profile conservative experts and elected officials of President Donald Trump to the influential conservative Charlie Kirk and Pete Hegseth, now Secretary of Defense.
Together with his state of Christian Rockstar, the income of the Ministry of Feucht also shot up, jumping from $ 243,000 in 2019 to $ 5 million in 2020, the last year that his ministry presented a form 990 before the IRS. It is that flood of money, the accumulation of expensive real estate of Feucht and its expensive real estate ministry and its lack of financial transparency, which has the former ministry staff and volunteers who now accuse the leader of fund adoration of the Ministry of Mala Management.
Three ancients associated with FEUCHT worship organizations, such as Burn 24-7, worship and illuminate a candle, shared details with Associated Press about the alleged financial poor management of Feucht, verbal abuse and volunteers of excessive work without fair wages.
Christy Gafford, former national director and communications leader for Sean Feucht ministries, said he was fired in May 2024 after demanding responsibility and questioning why the volunteers had to pay for Feucht to come to their communities.
“He would get very vague answers,” said Gafford, who served for eight years in several roles, including leading a chapter of Burn 24-7 Texas. She believes those answers because the charismatic Christian world emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit in the form of spiritual gifts, and that faith leaders embody that spirit. “You are supposed to trust your leaders.”
After being fired, Gafford began to question why Feucht and his organization spent more money for the initiatives of the local ministry when Feucht and his organization spent millions in real estate.
Feucht, who did not respond to repeated requests for comments from the AP, dismissed these accusations as false in a video of social networks published in June. He called them “bitter, annoying, enraged the former volunteers” who had no knowledge of the financial situation of the Ministry and “had to be discarded by moral problems.”
“We are in great position with the IRS, with our accountants,” he said. “Every penny you have donated to fulfill a purpose ordered by the Kingdom and defend it.”
Real estate acquisitions
Feucht said his ministry has spent money on visits to the 50 state capitals and another 30 American cities, bought a tourist bus and sound systems for concerts and acquired real estate throughout the country.
“We have real estate in DC, which is incredible,” he said, referring to the headquarters of his ministry known as Camp Elah in Capitol Hill in Washington. “It is a great blessing. We are taking the land of Jesus and we are not apologizing for that.”
Property records published online by former Associates Show Show of Sean Feucht Ministries have bought almost $ 7 million in properties since 2020. The properties include two parsonages in Washington, DC, and San Juan Capistrano, California, a 40-acres hunting property with a cabin in Creston-Bigfork, Montana and 458 acres in the Real County scenic known as the “Swiss Alps in Telps Telps Telps”.
Property records also show that Feucht and his wife are personally have $ 4.5 million in real estate. That includes seven rental properties in Pennsylvania and a house in Redding, California, which were bought between 2009 and 2023; A condominium in the Dana Point Oceanside community, California, which they bought in April; and a great bifurcation, Montana, properties about 15 minutes from the Ministry’s hunting field.
In January, the couple also sold a house in an exclusive community from Orange County, California, for $ 1.7 million.
Peter Hartzell, who with his wife Amanda helped lead Burn 24-7 in Montana from 2008 to 2010, said he questions the need for a religious organization and a worship leader to accumulate high value properties throughout the country.
“How many of these properties are really being used for the ministry?” He asked, pointing out how a property in Orange County that appears as a parish house for Sean Feucht ministries is approximately 8 miles (13 kilometers) of another residence personally owned by Feucht.
Christian guard dogs raise concerns
FEUCHT real estate acquisitions have also been questioned by independent Christian surveillance organizations such as Ministrywatch and the Trinity Foundation.
Last year, Ministrywatch, a non -profit organization that qualifies the 1,000 largest Christian ministries in the country “based on transparency, responsibility and credibility”, gave Sean Feucht ministries an F, asking donors to “retain” the organization. The accumulation of FEUCHT of expensive real estate was a factor, as was his organization’s decision not to present form 990 after 2020 when his profits increased significantly, said Warren Cole Smith, president of Ministrywatch.
He said that the “largest red flag” was the failure of the organization to present a 990 form, which describes how a non -profit organization assigns its money, but is not legally obliged to some religious organizations. The most recent presentation of the Ministry in 2020 shows that it raised $ 5 million, but only spent $ 1 million in ministry works, leaving a surplus of approximately $ 4 million, Smith said.
It is not clear if the real estate accumulated by the Feucht organization are being used for the Ministry, Smith said, adding that repeated Ministrywatch requests of additional responses from Feucht and his organization have not been answered. Religious organizations do not legally require form 990 form, and it is legal for shepherds to take housing subsidies to buy a house or pay the rent, said Smith.
“But the ownership of multiple homes takes concerns in a notch and would make us want to know more,” he said. “At this time, we just don’t know.”
Smith says that a large majority of the ministries that receive $ 5 million or more annually “behave in a responsible manner” when joining the Evangelical Council for financial responsibility, obtaining audited financial statements and presenting form 990.
“All this costs time and money,” he said. “But when you get millions of profits every year, you have a lot of money to meet these transparency and dissemination requirements.”
Accountant Vio ‘Financial Dodgility’
One of the old associates, Richie Booth in Redding, California, became a 24-7 accountant and lit a candle after arriving in Feucht in 2019 as an administrative interns during the fruitless intention of the leader of worship by Congress. He said he saw irregularities such as the blur of personal and ministry expenses. However, said Booth, initially accepted Fetucht’s “financial dodgility” as part of the chaotic personality he projected.
“Everything is only urgency and crisis created by him, on the one hand, to feed his employees to burn, and on the other, to request donations because everything is urgent and happens at this time,” he said.
Booth said he had no access to FEUCHT commercial credit card extracts to classify expenses correctly. The lines between personal and ministry expenses were blurred, he said. In addition, Booth said he was concerned that employees were not paid for wages due, including overtime, and wondered if Feucht normalized such practices.
Hartzell said he and his wife separated from the ministry after they raised objections to be verbally abused by Feucht and felt pressured to travel to global events at their own cost.
“They often ask us why we had to speak so long,” he said. “You just try to find excuses. It took us some time to understand that this was not normal.”
It remains a unique figure among adoration leaders
Booth, Hartzell and Gafford said they were initially inspired by Feucht’s message.
“I found language, context and theology for many things that I felt they had been in my heart for a long time,” Booth said.
Feucht still works in Churches throughout the south of California, where he lives and throughout the country. It has hundreds of thousands of followers on social networks and the support of shepherds and congregations throughout the country. This summer, his Canadian tour caused a debate of religious freedom after several cities revoked their public place permits for security concerns and reactions about their anti-LGBTQ and Anti-abortion views. After the murder of Charlie Kirk, Feucht acted in a vigil at the Kennedy center in Washington.
Adam Pérez, a professor of adoration studies at the University of Belmont in Nashville, Tennessee, said Fucht has built a strong political platform by “making stump speeches in the form of worship concerts throughout the country” and taking advantage of social problems that resonate with conservative Christians.
“That is what makes it a unique figure between musicians and adoration leaders in the religious right,” he said.
Pérez pointed out the Feucht song “Imelo Dei”, which in Latin means “image of God” about the holiness of life, released shortly after the 2022 Supreme Court decision to end a national law to abortion.
“There are no other figures like him in the space of worship that are completely active in political engineering,” he said.
Despite his initial connection with Feucht’s work, Booth said he discouraged for what he saw within the organization.
“I have seen many people take advantage, go through exhaustion and how he suffered their health for how much they saw in these ministries,” he said. “They separated their own finances and ended ten of how much they gave, thinking they were doing something good and beneficial.”
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