How long has it been Charity? That's a good question. Well I've lived in Iowa City for almost two years and I have yet to come to Kelowna.
So I think it's been since maybe the last time I was in that Shiloh would have been like maybe Maryland's funeral, 2015. Oh yeah. Yep. I avoid it.
Until today. Thanks. Thanks for being here with me to witness this moment.
Charity Novelessi and I are driving to where the Living Word Cult's compound, Shiloh, once stood. It's been four years since Shiloh burned to the ground, and we are going to see what has become of the property today. I don't want to cry. I don't know what's wrong with me.
People... Oh wow. Why do I feel dumb for being emotional?
I feel like I shouldn't be. Can you try and spot any of the landmarks that we could oppose? Well, it's weird.
Yeah, the lake isn't there anymore. There used to be a bunch of... What's over there, trees?
Oh, it does look totally different. But it feels the same. It feels the same. The Colts compound that was known as Shiloh and built by John Robert Stevens and the followers of the Living Word in the 1970s is now a suburb of the small town of Kelowna, Iowa, where Shiloh's main building once stood now lays a sprawling empty field. The amphitheater that once played host to fantastic fireworks displays has been replaced by a small pond and the iconic Shiloh water tower still stands now blank-faced on the horizon.
Where's the cemetery? Up here? I want to try to figure out if John and Marilyn are still buried there.
The once ornate Living Word Cemetery is now a depressed field with only small sticks marking the graves of former dedicated followers of John Robert Stevens. The question is, how did this sprawling compound that was built by thousands of Living Word members over decades end up this way? In the fall of 2018, Shalom Abrahamson released letters that led to the exposure of widespread sexual abuse in the Living Word Fellowship of Churches. led by then head pastor Gary Hargrave.
She named Rick Holbrook and others. Since then, multiple lawsuits have been settled in favor of former members who experienced abuse and negligence at the hands of multiple church leaders. Gary Hargrave stated in an apology in the wake of Shalom's letters in 2018 that certain actions would be taken, including the initiation of the process of ending the Living Word Fellowship's legal structure, thus allowing each local church to decide on its own how to move forward as an independent local congregation.
At the end of 2018, there were properties and assets funded by congregants of the Living Word sprinkled across the United States and beyond. In the 1970s, the Living Word had 100 affiliated churches, and at the end of 2018, just a handful remained. A compound in Shiloh, Iowa, a facility in Palmer Lake, Colorado, Church of the Living Word in Los Angeles, Living Word Publications building in North Hollywood, California, And churches in San Diego, Washington, D.C., Grants Pass, Oregon, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Anahea, Maui. Six years later, the Living Word is a shadow of what it once was.
Some of the properties were abandoned, some still stand. Today on Oops, I'm in a Cult, we're going to track down what became of all the assets, find out who's loyal to the Living Word, and try to discover where the money is now. Show me the money. Show me these monies.
We're rolling. We're just kicking this off. What is this podcast about, Charity? John Robert Stevens.
The Living Word. The Walk. Our Great Family Ministries. Let's expand out into, like, things that matter.
Let's get it out. Let's get the story told. You're going to watch as two former cult members try to de-dumbify themselves by doing a podcast about the cult that they were involved in their entire life.
I thought it was a church tour, now it was a cult. Oh, there's a good tagline. That's it, that's it, that's it.
Oops, I'm in a cult. When we conceived of this episode, it was like in an effort to let former members know. Yeah. What happened to all of their tithes and offerings and not to mention all the volunteer labor that was put in to maintain these properties, upgrade these properties, all the construction, all of the effort, all of the hours, the volunteer labor, in addition to financial contributions.
So essentially, it's like these congregants were the ones that funded the whole operation. Yeah. And then when everything collapsed, it's like none of us.
know where any of that money went to. If it's a now defunct organization, like where did all of our money go? Yeah.
Most former members of the living word in the wake of Shalom's letters and all the comments online and everything that kind of came out immediately after that in early 2019, late 2018 into early 2019, um, essentially just stood up and left because they were done with the fellowship. They were done with the teachings. They were betrayed by the leadership.
They were hurt. They were grieving, they were traumatized, they were trying to figure out, you know, what's next for them personally. And in what happened there, they left multimillion dollar properties behind that are owned by the organization.
Now, originally, as we'll see, some of that, you know, was tied to the apostolic company and the governing body, and it was all tied to the fellowship. This thing that was huge. And all this money that was in it and the various bank accounts and the various properties and all the assets and all the effort and all of that stuff left it behind to essentially people that were still loyal and or tied to the organizations by signature. And so somebody had to figure out what to do and something had to happen with all of this stuff. And so for the past five years.
We haven't really known what's going on, and that's what we're trying to compile. And we were kind of waiting until the lawsuits were settled to really understand, like, if things were on pause because they couldn't do anything with these properties until then. Well, the lawsuits have been adjudicated and settled, and now it's like, well, okay, where do things stand now? And with some of these churches we're going to look at, we did speak to former members who were a part of this transition time, right? Like, what happened?
in the immediate aftermath of Shalom's letters, because every, everyone was like, what is going on? So there were meetings, you know, town hall style meetings happening in individual churches. And so for a few of these, we had a chance to speak with former members who kind of gave us insight into what was going on and how things were handled and the general sentiment among the group of like, do we move forward? How do we move forward?
Or do we just leave this all behind? Yeah. And what right do congregants have? legally and morally to these assets. Yeah, because there is some suspicious stuff here.
There is some like weirdness, like I don't feel good about what I have learned. Let's go through all of our research and show you what we were able to figure out. It's everything from organization status to how much money everything was worth, land sales that have happened in transfers, new organizations that have popped up and beyond.
So we're getting into that first stop. We're gonna swing by Palmer Lake. Palmer Lake, Colorado.
Hello, this is Micah Brawl with the TLW video newsletter. I'm here in Palmer Lake, Colorado at the Living Word Chapel. It surely will prove to be an excellent facility for future camps and conferences.
When we came in here initially, it looked like apocalypse at half. I mean, there's like half-drink water bottles and just like tissues on the floor and it's like everybody just stood up and left. They literally just went.
Yeah, like they just walked out. We weren't anticipating that we would never come back. That was not the intention at the time. This was everybody's friendships, social group, identity, because we were a cult.
Okay, show me that. What does it say? I love Latin. Welcome to the cult.
In the mid-90s, the Living Word Fellowship converted an old Salvation Army camp into a local community church in the small town of Palmer Lake, Colorado. In the wake of Shalom's letters, the church tried to soldier on, but today the facility has been completely abandoned by its former congregation and leaders. I'm visiting the remains of the Living Word Chapel to try and piece together why this happened here. We're taking the kids on a field trip.
A little field trip. Go see the old property. The old church property.
This was a bridge. They pulled the bridge off so that basically the community was just cut off from the church. It was a beautiful bridge. Alex Farr, his wife Jessica, and their two toddlers.
are going to be giving me a tour of the building that has been boarded up. Alex moved to Colorado as a teen to be a part of the Palmer Lake Church. In 2020, Jessica was elected to the town council, and today she is part of the team that is tasked with deciding the fate of this property and buildings.
But because they left in such a quick hurry, they didn't do anything. They did it winterized? Nothing got winterized, just like frozen pipes everywhere.
And we've replaced the windows on these pieces of glass a few times because now it's just been sitting here vandalized like kids are just breaking into it because it's fun. What else is there to do? What remains in this building itself tells a sad story.
The chairs in the sanctuary are shoved aside. Tissues are on the floor. The church's large kitchen is still supplied with dishes, aprons, industrial equipment, first aid kits, and cleaning supplies.
The church's nursery is trashed. The library is empty. The walls are vandalized and everything is covered in a thin layer of fire retardant from firefighter and police training drills. Upstairs in the dormitory, phallic images are spray painted onto the walls.
The doors are open and most closets and file cabinets have been rummaged through. In the sanctuary, speakers are left hanging from the ceiling while the audio booth and all its equipment has been picked over. Still, I was able to find an old audio recorder still plugged into what was left of the sound system.
Oh you know what that is? That's a tape recorder. Later on on that device, I was able to recover the last recorded meeting of Palmer Lake's Living Word Chapel.
Well good morning everybody. It's so good to see you guys. For any visitors that are here, this is a very unusual morning. And I'll give you a little context for what we are in the middle of here at this church.
We've had a significant event in the last few weeks, and I won't go into all the gory details about it, but there's been a moral failure by a senior leader and lack of reporting and handling of that failure. by many members of senior leadership in a church that we are affiliated with. Just know that a bomb has dropped, and we are all reeling in this room, every single one of us.
And so I'd ask for your grace for us if you're here visiting, and we're in the middle of mourning. That day, I remember sitting down in the seats, and the pastor's wife sat down next to me and said, Have you seen the letter? And I was like, what letter? I had just seen it.
And so she said, you need to read it, and you need to read every single comment that people are making, and then you need to make up your own mind. We talked with Sam and Michaela Terrace, who are both involved in the transition process at Palmer Lake, and they're going to share with us a little inside look at those final days. And then Sunday came, and we had the big Sunday where they opened the mic and everyone shared their stories.
Which was incredible. In like a horrible way. Incredible in a horrible way. But like these people. who had never been allowed to share their stories were now like come up to the mic and don't you don't have to prophesy or make up something you're coming up and you're just telling your experience and people told about how they stayed the only reason why they stayed was so they wouldn't be cut off from their kids because if they left their kids wouldn't talk to them and they'd not have access to their grand right obviously you all know this um stories story after story of all sorts of psychological spiritual emotional abuse And, you know, we shared a little bit of our story too.
And so that was just like, whoa. And then the next Sunday was the counselor for grief and loss. Thank you again for asking me to come up here.
What I'm hearing you all say is we want to be heard, and that's legitimate. How does my voice get heard in a system that wasn't allowing your voice to be heard? After this meeting, the Palmer Lake Church hired an organization that would help them navigate this transition. This organization is called Pastor Serve, but one of the things they do is they come in alongside a church when there's a moment of need and they help guide us through the process.
They came in and there were some of us that were selected to meet with them. So I was a part of the Pastor Serve group. And I was part of the transition team.
The transition team was voted into place individually. Like people... submitted names of individuals that they thought would be good for the transition team.
And it didn't include any leadership. A former leader, yeah. Or former leadership of the church. It was all lay people. The fact that it was so incredibly different and more democratic and more people's voice was a radical departure, obviously, from any way that anything had been done before, ever, even under the healthiest version of local leadership.
This is the start. of our journey we wanted to have voice and haven't felt that way right but what i just started thinking about is like this isn't our one shot to hear have our voice be heard this is just one moment and then we're going to continue i hope more like this where we're already able to share our thoughts and ideas and decision making in that way i think it was around like 80 percent that wanted Maybe higher. Something.
Maybe higher. Something to continue. And for some people, that meant not even having a church. That meant having like a community center where people got together and played pickleball.
But just a way for people to continue to get together and be together. And then for some people, they wanted it to be a church. And then for some people, they wanted it to be a church based on the living word.
But I would say like, maybe it was higher than 80%, but a lot of people wanted to stay together. If they were here trying to do their own thing separate of the LA body, if they had an opportunity here in Palmer Lake to make something of a church, why does things that are completely out of their wheelhouse dictate the fact that this body shuts down? This podcast is br-Your friendly neighbor- clusters oops i'm in an advertisement if you'd like to support our efforts and access exclusive bonus content like behind the scenes conversations let's put this behind us what they mean access to our research and more head over to supercast where you can subscribe monthly or yearly it's exclusive it's personal it's Behind the scenes. All about the Living Word Cult.
Going to the records department. Trying to get filings for John Robert Stevens'divorce. This is an unskippable advertisement. Thanks and enjoy the rest of the episode.
Hi, my name is Alina. I was molested when I was five and six by one of the shepherds in the church in Grand Junction, Colorado. And I kept that to myself for many years.
And I just came out with that myself recently. My name is Macy Johnson Chadwick. My physical abuse was in Grand Junction, Colorado.
As bad as that was, it Totally paled in comparison to the abuse that we were put through here in Colorado Springs, in the church here in Colorado Springs, on my lake, on my lake. After reading Shalom's letters, hundreds of former members took to social media to share personal stories of abuse, making it clear that abuse in the Living Word Fellowship was systemic. And then he was having like panic attacks.
Over some of the information that he was being told. And I mean, this is because people for decades hadn't been allowed to use their voice or question or critically think. The decades of history and history of abuse, the more that the pastor served learned about that, the more evident it became that they did not think we would be able to move forward as a healthy church. I was taught that you obey the shepherd no matter what you do whatever they say without question always and that was because of how things were structured we were kept asleep for a long time and things people are starting to wake up now.
And the more people were reading what people were posting about their experiences through decades, the more people were able to go, oh no. And so by the time we hit the end of the transition team, nobody, I mean, that we know of, nobody protested that doors were closed and would not ever open again. In mid-2019, this email communication was sent from the Living Word Chapel Palmer Lake board to the congregants. It reads, We, along with the transition team, have received many ideas as to what to do with the assets, and we appreciate it. Our attorney is helping us come up with a process and set of criteria by which we can evaluate those ideas.
I remember this palpable feeling of deep exhaustion. There was nothing left to give at that point. And it was just like, we need to take a break. And so the break became, it never started again.
What was your take on like their experience? I just thought it was really, really fascinating and interesting because like I had left the church by that time, so I didn't know any of what it was like to go through this and just hearing their process. I mean, it was really heartbreaking, actually, because like they started to realize they had already a realization about the abuse that they had gone through. But then going through this process and when everyone started like revealing what. the abuses that they'd gone through.
Like say I'm having panic attacks about it. It's like you're processing other people's traumas and realizing more of the depth of your own traumas and then going, Oh my God, how did I not see this all these years? It's just so much. So I can see why in the end it's like, everyone's like, I can't, I don't, this is too much energy to put into something. I need to just go heal.
Like it's, it's amazing because like when through all of that stuff, it, the, the church falling apart. and everybody trying to figure out what to do with the pieces, realizing they're not even equipped to pick up the pieces is, is devastating to realize like how, and then everybody sharing their trauma. It's like, Oh my God, everyone, we're all experiencing it. And like, what are we even doing here? What are you trying to hold on to?
What is it even, you know, the, the conversations of like, let's make it a community center where we can all see each other still. But it's like, that wasn't even going to work and couldn't really do it. And, you know, so it's. They couldn't keep that community. They realized it was, it was like in deep in all of our psyches, right?
That like, if we all just kept hanging out with each other, it's gonna be more of the same, whether it's in the service format or not. Even without the like centralized like belief system, it was still just too much to be on a transition team of like, what do we do with the property? What do we do?
What do we realize that everybody has these like levels of, of trauma to deal with? Yeah, and our other source that we spoke with, she was a part of the transition team as well. And she, you know, they mentioned the survey that was sent around and she shared with us her survey and what she had said. And the thing that stuck out to me the most was like, I'm paraphrasing a little bit, was like, she did not want to continue as a church, even separate from the Living Word Fellowship, because she had a really good point. It's like, there's no way we all carry the same baggage.
There's no way that we can move forward together as a group and not repeat some of these same. things these same behaviors these same ways of thinking which i thought was like so insightful and that's another person from our generation right yeah i'm just like again just always continuously impressed with the people in our age range because it's like oh my god you get it some of the old folks do too but like the majority of us i'm just like floored with some of these people like that how they just immediately like got it yeah and then some of these other people are like still can't be convinced. I think, I think there's a lot of layers to the experiences that are like hard to, hard to shake stuff. And maybe it's easier for when you're younger to realize like, oh, I never made the choice of this place. And so then when you go to make your choice, it's easier to like kind of throw it away.
Whereas if you choose it, you're stuck with it in a way you're throwing away yourself. If you, you know, right. The identity thing.
It's like, like Sam, I think Sam had mentioned that. So, yeah. So, um, We will circle back to Palmer Lake.
We want to swing by Hawaii. In 2023, Scott and I swung by Oahu to record our very first episode of the podcast and see some friends on the island. While there, we decided to visit the old Living Word properties, including the old church on Yonge Street that John Stevens founded on the island way back in 1967. Where are we going? Young Street.
The old OG Grace Chapel. The small church still stands in its original location on Young Street. It's a quaint little chapel that looks more like a family home. Today, the church is flanked by an O'Reilly's auto parts and large office buildings have been erected all around it. This is like a humble little chapel, but it's much more charming.
It makes more sense for a church. It's the kind of thing that you hear a lot of the old people. We'll talk about where like John was doing something humble and of God or whatever. Maybe. Well, I mean, remains to be seen.
It decided to rain on our topless Jeep as we made our way over to a fairer part of Honolulu to see what's happening with the new property. Whatever it takes to get good living word content. I'm like walking out here in this water. It's like knee deep, it's low tide.
And so you can... Sneak around the edge. There's a little bit of beach back there from the park. And then if you kind of skirt your way up along this seawall, you can get up to the church property. You know, just trying to see how functional it still is.
At the end of 2018, the Honolulu Church was where Gary made his home. It was a very small group of maybe 100 that met weekly. The property sits on the edge of the ocean with a beautiful surf break on the reef.
It has a swimming pool, a meeting hall, kitchen and dining room, and offices in addition to the chapel. According to the property surveys, it's currently assessed at $9.9 million. So the market value on that would be higher.
So this is a nearly $10 million property that is sitting vacant. Absolutely beautiful location right on the beach. And I believe if our, like my notes were right, it was purchased for $5 million.
Yeah. Which is already like a huge, I mean, we had so many questions about that and heard speculations from a number of people at such a small church out there. You know, thinking about just congregation size of the various churches, like in California that had much larger congregations and this such a small congregation getting a loan out for a $5.5 million beachside villa. you know, meeting place.
It's, it's hard to justify that. It is. And it's also that thing of like, um, So it's now like it was bought for around five million and now it's worth like 10 million.
Part of that is, you know, naturally like things appreciate over the years. But it's also because like when I was living there, church members were doing a ton of work to upgrade it. Yeah.
So it was all like volunteer labor. And of course, like all the properties were like that. I mean, you can think that like a lot of the reason the value of these properties might be up. Um, if they were properly assessed is because of the effort, the labor, free labor that was put into this stuff, um, that, you know, no one will ever see likely. Um, we recently reached out to Lenny Davis, who was a former guest on oops, I'm in a cult early, early on.
And, uh, she's also a former member of the grace chapel of Honolulu and living fellowship. And she wanted to share her account with us from, uh, 2018, late 2018 in the wake of Shalom's letters. Yeah. So we asked her like, just to recap what was going on at that time. And she said, after the announcement of Shalom's letters, there was a church member meeting.
Three significant questions were asked as follows. One was the pastor of Grace Chapel of Honolulu. Was she the female at the young adult summer program held at Shiloh who allowed Rick Holbrook into Shalom's dormitory room to look at her breasts? So was that the same person? Was that the same person that led?
Spoiler alert. It was according to Shalom. The pastor denied that it was her, and most people seemed to believe her.
Some did not. Number two, will Grace Chapel of Honolulu continue to conduct services? It was agreed to pause services for a period. Okay, what's the third question? The third question was, would future teachings of John Robert Stevens'word be vetted rather than just continuing with those teachings, you know, of Stevens and the Hargraves?
In general, there was an anti-Gary Hargraves sentiment. Most firmly believed. still believed in John Robert Stevens'vision and word.
Yeah, so that's end of 2018. I think there was a lot of room for that still. Everyone's come a long ways. Not everyone.
Okay, so she goes on to, Lenny goes on to say. The group agreed to meet again in about a week for further discussion. It was announced at the following meeting that the leadership group, made up of the same leadership group as before Shalom's letters were published, conflict of interest, that a mediator was recommended to help move the process forward. This mediator was vice president and dean of associative arts studies at Shiloh University and came highly recommended by Gary Hargreave. Oh, well, I'm on board.
I mean. OK, what does she continue to say? That mediator, by the way, we are going to hear more more from shortly. This is the same one. We'll call it back here so you can you can understand more about that.
But let's hear about the mediation process for now. The mediation process did not move anything forward and contributed to delay. During these meetings, I repeatedly requested to see and read the Grace Chapel of Honolulu bylaws.
My request was deflected many times, and finally I was granted permission to read the bylaws on the GCH property with supervision, and I was told that no copies of the bylaws could be taken from the GCH library where they were filed. While I read the bylaws, I discreetly took photos of each page. The bylaws confirmed what I feared, the property and all assets would be subject to APCO, the Apostolic Company, under the fathering ministry of Hargrave Family Ministries. It's so interesting that they were like gatekeeping them, you know, and I just love the sneaky camera. This is the very beginning of everybody doing like all so many former members doing their own little investigations into things, which is what we're building all of this stuff on is like all of that work.
And there's a lot of these documents that we had to get this information shared with us by piles of of people who had done their own research into finding and looking into different organizations and things. And this is one little example of that. Yeah. Sneaking in and getting those photos.
Good for you, Lenny. Every single time. Yeah. Lenny's always been on the level. She's a real G.
And so today, Scott, where does where does Grace Chapel of Honolulu stand? Yeah. The organization of Grace Chapel Honolulu is still registered and in good standing as a nonprofit in Hawaii. Um, the board of directors are still the former head pastors of the church. So same head pastors that were there.
And they're the same ones that are signing all the documents from all accounts. They do not hold services or meetings. We visited the property last year.
You saw that earlier and it appears dormant. And when you go on Google, it says temporarily closed. Yeah.
We just like the other day looked it up and it said that. Yeah. And we have some unverified reports. That only a handful of members are still involved and still support the former pastors of Grace Chapel of Honolulu. So essentially you have this $10 million property sitting there vacant, only like a handful of members, air quotes, of this church.
So like. What a waste. Yeah, it's just sitting there. Okay, so in Maui now, jumping over a couple islands, the former church, Hail Onakalua.
No. So sorry. Nice try.
In Maui, the former church, Hale Onakaula, is now listed as Anuhea Chapel, and they hold regular services. The property was given to them by the Living Word Trust in accordance with the dissolution of the apostolic company. And according to a source familiar with the transition, the Anahea property belongs entirely to the local church now. The Living Word Trust forgave the mortgage so long as it continues to be a church for a certain amount of time.
He thinks either two or five years. So that tie has been cut. The bylaws were rewritten to exclude the apostolic fathering misery.
This is what he wrote. I don't think that was a typo either. I think that he did that over his which I love. But he's referring to the Apostolic Fathering Ministry, Gary Hargrave. And their website does not list any allegiance to John Robert Stevens or the living word.
But it does say, We have been blessed by belonging to a fellowship of churches in the past. Recent years have brought many changes to our structure, and we now operate as a fully independent church. We believe that God has prepared and equipped us with the power to do what we need to do. equipped us to walk in the teachings and the foundation that he has established, but opened the door for us to walk in the new day and find the next step for this congregation. Yeah, so that's the only problem I have with this is like, we've been blessed by belonging to a fellowship of churches in the past.
Like, have you met this fellowship of churches? Yeah, exactly. And there's some like coded... Lines in here that I think are interesting, like we believe God has prepared and equipped us to walk in the teachings and foundation that he established.
Like, is that alluding to the Living Word Fellowship? Well, he does use this new day, which we heard five million times. Exactly. It's a new day. And then open the door for us to walk in this new day, you know.
So that is what that is. I kind of think it feels like what would have happened at Palmer Lake had they chosen to continue. It's that kind of like a bunch of former Living Word members just being like, nah, we're not Living Word anymore.
But like, let's just take all of our past and kind of keep it there and do something new that is happening today. So it's not acknowledging, it's not revisiting the past. And, you know, and if it is, and again, we have no idea what's happening inside that congregation. So maybe they're like doing great. They might be, I mean, our source said, as far as he knows, that the pastor of...
uh on ohio chapel and a certain member of the board think gary hargreaves is corrupt and i hope that that's true so if that's the case good for you maybe it is a new day maybe they're figuring something out soldier on not all former churches of the living word have uh raced their past in favor of this new day the living word publications and church of the living word in los angeles are both still up and running and carrying on the legacy of the founder john robin stevens Church of the Living Word has undergone a rebrand and it still holds its founder John Robert Stevens, Marilyn, and Gary Hargrave in high regard. And this is from the Church of the Living Word website. The Living Word that John Stevens spoke was the cornerstone on which the Church of the Living Word was founded.
The congregants'dedication to the Word and to walking out the mission of the Church came from experiencing the Word of God as living and active in their lives. Under the leadership of John Stevens and later Gary and Marilyn Hargrave, the church witnessed many incredible ministries who were faithful to their calling, giving their lives in the house of God. The Living Word Fellowship was dissolved in November 2018, and Church of the Living Word reorganized its operating structure. The congregation is now led by local elders and managed by local trustees.
Church of the Living Word is poised for a new season! Not a new day, new season. of growth and blessing as the congregation and leadership commit to faithfully follow the word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
So when we looked up their website, too, and you look at the leadership team and it's all former members. It's like, how can it be a new day and like a whole new thing, a new season? You've got all the same people.
You're still all glory, laudanum to John Stevens. Like you're unashamedly. associating yourself with these people, Gary Hargrave, Marilyn Hargrave, John Stevens.
Yeah. It's the, I feel like out of all the properties, uh, that were, that were left, this is the one that is the most full throated, still the living word fellowship. Yeah.
It's nothing has really changed in terms of the beliefs. Um, maybe there's some practices that is, but there's still. you know paying homage to john robert stevens still believing in those teachings um gary maryland hargrave raised up a lot of wonderful ministers that like in their midst or whatever that really they're just like they're not saying anywhere in there you know like oh man were we part of a cult or what there's a little bit more what like maui's doing they're saying that it's like we were a part of a fellowship of churches but now we're going on they're like we are best buds with John Roberts Stevens and Gary and Marilyn Hargrave are the best, you know.
It's such a slap in the face. It really is. It's like, so hundreds of people have reported abuses at the hands of John Stevens, Marilyn, Gary Hargrave, and so many of their underlings. Like, that means nothing. Yeah, listen to that one.
And Gary and Marilyn Hargrave, the church, like under the leadership of Gary and Marilyn Hargrave, the church witnessed many incredible ministries who were faithful to their calling, including... Was there a calling, like abusing people in every possible way? If so, then yes, five stars. Cool.
So this is about the money. So what do they got going on there? Let's talk a little bit about the properties that that facility claims.
Okay. There's the church. There are six properties.
Yeah. There's the church, the church facility, which is like normal churchy stuff. And then across the street is the school. And then then you have the Rain Street property, which former members will know is the Rain Street Resort. Rain Street Resort, which is like a big party house that we dumped a bunch of money into or time and effort and energy and donations.
Yeah, which was originally purchased for around two hundred and forty thousand dollars and is now assessed at one point three million dollars. Oof. It's a it's a it's a good it's a good investment.
They bought it in 96. Yeah, but it's like also like a. Shit neighborhood that no rational person would invest that much money into a property that's located basically under the 405 freeway. It's really stands out because this is really weird.
Like we're literally joking. Maybe not. We shouldn't be joking about it.
But people have died on the street, like from gunshot wounds and drug deals gone bad right in front of this house. But it's like beautiful landscaping and palm trees and like a fountain. And. circular driveway, Lamborghini shoots out front and like a swimming pool fountains and a hot tub and a fellowship hall dining hall. Oh yes.
And this was all Rick's baby. And when we were all being voluntold to, when I was living there, it was like, you were donating your time to remodel Ray and street. And Rick was all like, this is for you guys.
Like talking to the young people, this is for you guys. You can do your weddings here and your party. And then he was the like most intense gatekeeper. Remember I told you he wouldn't.
let me have my wedding reception there because I had run off with some guy to Texas, which is like in the end he let me, I have no idea why, but it was like two weeks before the wedding. So all this rhetoric and what I'm trying to say is like anything Rick did was not for anybody, but himself, a wine cellar and who got to like be a part of that wine cellar was just his. buddies yeah that's right and there was the bar that was that was there by the pool too and that's where like we had to like feed all the alcoholics yeah i mean it was it was a party house uh that's what it was it was a party house for the church really for rick for anybody that he approved of or didn't approve of and um so that is one of the properties then there's a number of other houses that are right along that same like right behind yeah they're like single family homes that they would rent it out to members usually communal living situations but So all of those properties, the property value.
And again, this is the assessed value like for tax purposes. So the market value would be higher. But the total for all of those properties is seven point three million dollars.
Yeah. So they've got that, which is largely gone unchanged as far as we can tell since the Shalom letters since late late 2018. And they haven't sold any of that as far as we're able to see. It just seems that's just the assessed value of the property that they're all sitting on with this like leftover congregation of very few people that are part of it.
Whatever you you you have a source that kind of told you. Yeah, they shared with me that like the the Zoom calls that they have, which is how they hold their services. There are people physically going to the facility.
They also share the facility with. neighborhood church that like rents it out or shares it for their services, but they hold their services and then they hold them on zoom. And so people are calling in from around the country and still being involved in those services, which are services very likely still connected deeply to John Robert Stevens and Gary Maryland Hargrave.
And how many people did you say? About 70 people might tap in to the, to the call. so there could be a couples on those calls too but you know you're talking about under 100 people all in from all over the country getting involved in it and especially in the local area how many people are actually taking advantage or using this property um what's going on with it i'm no idea how they're able to maintain all of that i did hear that they are renting the rain street resort rooms out um it's unclear as to who one neighbor explained it as um like uh what do you call it like uh frat parties going on which i was like that's not much different than what was happening yeah rick was like the quintessential frat boy never done grown up yeah except for he never went to college so he couldn't have been a real frat um that's right so he created his own um okay so Now, across the other side of the valley in North Hollywood, we've got the Living Word publications.
That's where the facilities were. This was where Rick's studio was. It's also the location of many of the abuses that he is accused of in Shalom's letters and the following lawsuits.
This is where John Robert Stevens and Gary Hargrave's words were published and distributed from. The unassumable building in North Hollywood houses multiple recording studios and offices where many of Rick's productions were prepared and recorded. When Rick was removed from the fellowship and after the collapse, all the intellectual property, meaning like the recordings and CDs and all of that stuff, were moved, packed up and moved to Georgia, where the official offices of TLW exist today. And then those properties were sold. Yeah, because it was the original Living Word building and then they bought the property next door.
Mostly, it seems like it was mostly as a warehouse to house like all the duplicated. CDs and things that they would be sending out and other stuff, warehouse. So these two North Hollywood buildings on Atal Avenue, the first of which was purchased in the 1970s, were sold in 2020 for a total of about $5.5 million.
Yeah, they were sold for about $2.7 million each. As Scott said, Living Word Publications still exists today as an online site. Ordered digital copies of Gary Hargrave and John Robert Stevens recordings and published books.
There are no physical copies of any of the tapes or books left in stock. It's just all digital. It's just all digital. We will come back around to see what is up with the Living Word publications now, right after we swing by Palmer Lake. We're going back to Palmer Lake.
Let's see what's going on there. Since the dissolution of the Colorado church, the local leaders have stepped down. They have handed the property over to the town of Palmer Lake.
Jessica Farr and the town council have been deliberating on what to do with the property now that the town owns it. We were given the property as a gift to the town with two circumstances, which I told you, one, could not sell it for 10 years, and then it should benefit the community. So those were the only things, so we don't pay taxes on it. We don't, you know, it was a free gift to us as the church just left.
The dormitories, watching for the younger residents. With the communal bathroom, so you just had like your own little room. Oh yes!
Oh fun! Here's the blueprints. They're master plans. One time they had units planned around here.
Yeah, proposed sanctuary. Maintenance building. This is the gym.
Playground. Family center. Daycare. Caretaker.
Gary and Marilyn's pad. It says right here, pad. They're a pad. We gotta get the keys to that. We returned the next day to see the special accommodations for the fellowship's leaders.
Gary and Marilyn. Just like the main property, the small one-bedroom bungalow has been ripped apart. A mattress was leaned up against the wall, dishes were left in the cabinets, and books were left on the shelves. The kitchen sink was literally ripped out of the counter, and everything in the bathroom was coated in various shades of purple and gold.
Almost three years now I have been in the process of many meetings learning of what the town wants, what the people want, what do you want to preserve, what does the parks want, what does administration think we can use, public safety, etc. and what's the best use for the property. Honestly it's an incredible 28 acre property but we have all these buildings that were not being maintained by the church previously and so now they've been sitting in our... you know, hands at least almost three years.
So we're in the process of figuring out long term what we're going to do. I'm proposing after the walkthrough today, like an estate sale, giving the eco spa their thing and letting the park start their trail. So then everybody kind of wins. When I visited the property in Palmer Lake this last year, rummaging around, I found some files and this file is dated from 2014. The assessor came by and said that the property was worth around $2 million, but suggested that they sell the property or that they list the property for $2.25 million. In visiting that property in late 2018, in the wake of Shalom's letters, the head pastor also mentioned that there was a bank account owned by the local church there that had...
millions of dollars in cash. You were there and you heard him say it. I heard him say it, but I don't exactly remember the number.
So accounts from various people who are familiar with this say it was somewhere between one and three million dollars. The future of the property is unclear, but it's totally has nothing to do with the Living Word Fellowship anymore. The church, the local Palmer Lake Living Word Chapel is dissolved completely.
And what we were curious about is what happened to that cash. That was in the property or in the bank account at the time. So we reached out to the head pastor of or the former head pastor of that church, and we got no response.
Instead, we are directed to a lawyer and the lawyer has yet to respond to us. After repeated attempts to speak with the former board members, former pastors and the lawyer representing the Palmer Lake Church, we've received no response. Hey, Scott and Charity here to let you know we've started a brand new podcast all about things mystical, metaphysical, alien, and woo-woo.
A bunch of nonsense, as some people might call it. You're a bunch of nonsense. Each episode, we'll dive deep into the waters of science versus spiritual, debating beliefs and facts.
We're not even trying to pretend we know stuff. Uneducated debate. I'll try to open Scott's mind to the magical wonders of the universe.
While I try to break Charity's hypnotic spell with... cold, hard logic. Shh, don't say that or you might hurt the spirits'feelings.
Oops, I've offended the spirits. All new episodes of Oops, I've Offended the Spirits out now wherever you get your podcasts. In the year after Shalom's letters, the Shiloh compound was all but abandoned.
For two years, the town of Kelowna deliberated on what to do with the vast Shiloh property. It was decided that the main structures no longer met safety standards. Then, in October of 2020, the Washington County Volunteer Fire Department deployed a controlled burn on the old wood buildings that made up Shiloh, including the main chapel and dormitories, the kitchen and cafeteria, and the amphitheater.
Decades of dedication by generations of Living Word members, literally now up in smoke. Since Shiloh burned, the property was purchased by Moina Holdings, which is a development company, and they subdivided it. They have been selling the lots to individuals to build houses on. It's called Southtown, and it is in Kelowna, on the former site of Shiloh. So some of the land was annexed.
by the town of Kelowna and they're making a park and hiking trails from it and promoting the new neighborhood to attract more people to live. The cemetery is being taken over by the city of Kelowna and the headstones will have been like scattered everywhere. They were moved out of the way from what we were told by the town supervisor. They were just moved out of the way for construction so they didn't get damaged and they marked it. It's a very eerie scene seeing like an empty place like that from what we understand.
Marilyn and John's remains have not been moved, and they will be placing those headstones back at some point. On the backside of the old Shiloh property, Charity is taking me on a tour of where the Maryland Farms Company farmhouse once stood. Welcome to my hometown, Scott. I can't remember how old I was.
I lived there until I was 13. Oh yeah, this is the farmhouse right here. Not this house, obviously. but it was right down wasn't it here on this corner yeah this is it this is that's it that's actually on the same exact spot it is yeah because it was it was rose up on a hill that's the same driveway same tree those two anyway the old farmhouse where charity grew up is gone in its place stands a newly constructed home you This actually like this feels really good to me to see that not there because that house is like every time I like revert back to my childhood the majority of my childhood memories and like not good and not in a good way. I was always in that house not that house you know the house that used to be there and then what's weird is like we had to move out and then the and Dottie Forbes moved in and when I became involved with the Forbes I was in that house all the time again as an adult in my 20s and they were like some of the most abusive shepherds I ever have had and so I don't know it's just weird like that same place was compounded the childhood trauma and then being a young woman so fucking glad it's gone It all looks so much smaller now, which is such a cliche, but... We were also curious about the surrounding property which was owned by a for-profit kingdom business, quote, kingdom business of the living word called Maryland Farms.
What was Maryland Farms and why did they have all this property charity? So Maryland Farms Company was a for-profit company that was started, I believe, in the 90s, and it was named after Marilyn Hargrave. And it was supposed to be about the Joseph Ministry, which was like restoring the land, I guess, you know, providing for...
Restoring it back to God's former glory. Moving deeper and deeper into the Joseph Ministry research, you learn that there are other ways of farming, such as utilizing holistic and biological methods in making compost, as opposed to the traditional chemical way. Ed and Dottie Forbes and the rest of the crew at Maryland Farms Company are working diligently and applying everything the Lord is revealing on restoring the land and creating healthy, wholesome foods. It was a part of our big push in the teachings of the living word, of health, diet, and connected to like living forever, resurrection life, and all of that stuff.
It was connected, but it was like a company created. Yeah. To create tinctures and vitamins and tonics. And have.
And raise livestock and sell all of this stuff. But they also had an exotic animal farm. It was very disjointed for a long time.
They took a trip to Kenya so that they could like study exotic animals and make it make sense. It feels like they just wanted a free trip to Kenya. A lot of those animals, exotic animals died in the Iowa winter.
Anyways. That's Maryland Farms. They owned a lot of property around. They owned a lot of property. And like I said, they were a for profit company, but that a lot of the work was done by volunteer labor, myself included.
They made tinctures. I think they eventually hired a couple of people, paid staff. But that was like really later on, like in the maybe like 2003, 2004 time period. But they did own a ton of land. And so these property records that we looked up from the county assessor's website.
Shiloh had sold some property to Moina Holdings. I think it was a total of around $750,000 worth. But then Maryland Farms was the seller of all this other acreage, which was mostly ag land.
We found that at least some of this land was purchased by Shiloh organization and then transferred to Maryland Farms. Yeah. Which is an interesting thing that we're going to kind of walk you through because there's a lot of like different interesting things.
from it but essentially shiloh would be funded of course by um donations and offerings and tithes and that kind of stuff they bought land and then they gave that land for free to maryland farms but let's track the kind of numbers in it so the first time that that land shows up it's 22 acres that it was just two private parties like bought and sold in 1970 for ten thousand dollars then that property was sold in 1986 by just a local person to Shiloh for $312,000. In 1986, $312,000. In today's money, that's $875,615. It's just a good, it's a good, and we'll see why this is still interesting. Let's keep going.
What do the records say? January 3rd, 1986, Shiloh. buys that land from the private seller, the private seller for 312,000.
And then less than a year later, just a month shy of a year, Shiloh sells that land to Maryland Farms for zero dollars. Yeah. Transfers it essentially just gives it away to Maryland Farms. So you can see how it's a Shiloh. The organization is just giving that land over to Maryland Farms.
And then recently, 2021, in 2021, Maryland Farms sells that land to. just a local person for $286,000. So that's what's bizarre is like in today's money, rewind 1986, it would have been in today's money, $800,000.
And then they sell it for 286,000. Yeah. It's crazy how, what the discrepancy in price there is just a really weird, it's really weird. And what I find the most weird about it is like, and we'll get into how we spoke with Phil Forbes, who used to run Maryland farms company and dealt handled all of these transactions. Like He did say that a lot of the land sold for like over market value.
So, but this, it looks to me like, yeah, this is all over the place. It's just a very strange, like the numbers don't really add up, um, in it to, to make it make sense. But I think that was this one that stood out.
We don't really have like an answer for it. I think the only, like the one thing that I think is interesting is it's other than the numbers being weird is that like, you're seeing how Shiloh and Maryland farms were just kind of. together and trading stuff back.
And there's, there's more to that, that we're going to get to in a second. So let's, let's, uh, continue that, that property, the Maryland farms property over the last four years, since, since, uh, 2020, the, uh, property was sold to various people in the community. Some of them are former members. Some of them are Kelowna locals, you know, charity recognized most of the names that we saw there.
There were a couple land sales to a church called English river chapel that we found interesting. So we looked up English River Chapel. We looked up English River Chapel and it appears to be a new offshoot of the Living Word Fellowship, a Living Word church that consists mostly or yeah, with many former Shiloh members on the board of English River Chapel. Again, publicly listed.
You can look that up. Yeah, you can look that up. So according to a source familiar with the English River Chapel, they maintain a library of Living Word materials. And the worship services largely consist of old TLW songs.
We also saw that they bought that church with a mortgage, a partial mortgage or something. A partial mortgage. What was interesting to me was like the purchase price was like $750,000, which was how much Shiloh got for selling the land to Moina Holdings.
Yeah. But then we saw evidence that that English River Chapel had taken out a partial mortgage. It's very weird.
We couldn't really figure it out. What's. To add to it, just these are curiosities. Again, like we don't need anybody.
We're not like running wild with it. We're just kind of looking at what the records are telling us here. In 2020, there are filings that show that Shiloh, the Shiloh board set up a fictitious name for the Shiloh organization titled English River Chapel. It's kind of like a doing business as like Shiloh was still officially the name, but then they're doing business as English River Chapel.
They deactivated that at the end of the year. And at the same time, the English River Chapel entity was created totally separate from Shiloh. So Shiloh still exists and English River Chapel exists. They're two separate entities. They have different people on their boards and signing their documents and publishing their, you know, that information.
Looking at all of the sales of the acreage, it was the majority of it was sold by Maryland Farms Company. Maryland Farms Company. Was run by Phil Forbes and he was the person who dealt with all of these transactions So we reached out to him and he responded immediately which was very refreshing that someone wanted to actually just provide some facts The question that we're asking is we are doing it We're saying that like most of our listeners are former former members of the Living Word. We feel like there is an ethical Duty to disclose what is happening with the assets and the money there is No legal duty to disclose any of this stuff.
So it is a little refreshing when we do hear from it. So explain the situation with Maryland Farms. After we looked up all these sales, what did we do?
So Phil Forbes was the agent involved with all these sales. And so we asked him, like, what happened with all of the earnings from the sale of these lands? And especially and I did mention in my email, like that transaction that we mentioned, like there was this acreage that that Shiloh bought.
and then sold to Maryland farms for zero dollars. So that would essentially be like tithe and offering money that was then rolled into a for-profit company. Then all of that land was sold. Who got that money?
Yeah, I think it's a great question because it's not as clear as like, like a for-profit company doesn't, it goes out to. It's not a it's not a nonprofit. It doesn't have to stay in in that thing.
Right. For a profit company. And that's why we were concerned, because like who was on the board there? Was it Gary Hargrave? So like and and Phil responded right away and said the land was sold to various buyers and the equipment was sold at auction.
Monies were distributed then to the stockholders based on the percentage of stock ownership in the corporation. The stockholders are Shiloh, Shiloh University and the Living Word Inc. So like. living word publications i did verify that particular fact with him and it was living word publications which is now in georgia so no individual person benefited from any money because legally the money belongs to the stockholders that was what he said that's what phil said so but what's curious is like we don't know the percentage how it was divvied up who had how much stock and what so but shiloh shiloh university and living word received The total monies from the sales, which totaled $5,843,993. That's right.
That's a lot of money. $5.8 million is a good chunk of money from all that land sales. And who did you say that, who did he say the money went to?
Who are the stockholders? The stockholders, Shiloh, Shiloh University and the Living Word. Okay.
And Living Word in Georgia. So let's, I think we want to look into it. I think the easiest one.
that we look at first is Shiloh, which was the church, the compound, the organization there. They took some of that money and that organization is still filing. It's still up and running.
But our question about that is like, what? I was just, it is? Like, why?
Oh, like it is, like it's a stockholder? Is that what you think is interesting? Well, no, like that Shiloh even exists as a corporation anymore.
Well, they have a bunch of money. So then what do they do with that money? Exactly.
The individual currently listed as the president of the Shiloh Corporation was contacted and responded to our query with, yes, we are working on closing down the Shiloh Corporation. And when pressed for additional information asking once the corporation is closed down, what happens to the existing funds? They replied, there will be a report put out once things are completed. Then the next thing is to look at the Living Word.
So back at Living Word in Georgia, we already talked about the buildings that they sold in North Hollywood and how the organization moved to Georgia and runs this Living Word publication website where they still sell and share John Robert Stevens and Gary Hargrave material. I almost said paraphernalia. It is paraphernalia. And so we are going to kind of, we're kind of guessing like how much money do they make? Cause we don't know the percentages, but if you kind of just split it into thirds, it's a couple million dollars each, but we don't really know.
So, but they do have that 5.5 million from the sale of the two buildings in North Hollywood. Yeah. So they got that infusion of money.
They, um, then got a few million dollars from this or possibly, you know, some infusion of money from, from this. Um, the CEO. of the Living Word publications is Steve Siebold, who has been a leader at the Living Word building and publications for years.
Um, and so we wanted to reach out to him to see, you know, um, if he could tell us anything we are going to share with you the email that we sent to them. So I said, being that Steve is the registered CEO of the Living Word. Inc. According to Georgia Corporation's Division Records, we would like to know if you care to comment or provide clarity on what the Living Word is currently doing with those funds.
Are you operating as a church, holding services, or anything of the sort? What are the daily operations and or functions of the organization, and who is on your staff? Do you have paid staff members?
Are you yourselves drawing a salary from these funds? And if so, what service are you providing? We feel our listeners who are mostly former members deserve to know what became of the assets of the Living Word, as it was those members whose tithes and offerings funded the organization and the purchase of these properties. And part of the reason like we wanted to ask this is because looking at the Living Word website, it's basically the same shit that's been on there for years.
A lot of the materials have been sold out, the physical material, so now it's just digital. He does do like a shitty little paragraph blog post here and there, right? Like, yes, exactly. He's himself a shitload of money for that. Well, that's that's what we're curious about, I think, is like, OK, so they got all this money into there.
Are they taking salaries? If they're taking salaries, like what are they doing? What's the organization doing? Obviously, they're selling this material. None of it's physical.
So they're not duplicating. They're not creating. It's just digital stuff. located it's a website essentially it's a website it's like a fine website and also they do have a physical address there which we looked up and there's like no no there's not a local phone number associated with it this number phone number associated with tlw is still like the the north hollywood that little area 818 we called it it's steve's voice on a like voicemail whatever hello you have reached the living word you Please leave a brief message with your name and phone number, and we'll get back to you as quickly as we can. Thank you.
That's Steve Siebel. Yeah, he's still on there. That's probably the same thing we've had recorded since. Probably just some phone sitting in an empty warehouse.
But the Georgia address is just like these kind of office suites. They look sort of like warehouse-y, but they're different businesses in each one. And certainly not a place where they could be holding services unless it's like four people.
But... you know, maybe there's no advertisement of services. It's not a church.
It doesn't look like a church. It doesn't act like a church. It's a, it's an office building. It's publications.
And so, but they're not physically public sizing, anything public, public publishing, anything publicizing, anything. Uh, and so it's just basically that website with a blog post every couple months when like a feast rolls around and they suggest like which one to download which so that's the thing that's really suspicious and concerning is that because it is a non-profit like and they're you know him and his wife and whoever they deem to be their staff um they could be drawing salaries and it would be legal but it just doesn't feel ethical like they're not actually if they're not actually perform performing any service they're performing a service for like we said like maybe 70 people Right. Those are the people that are tuning in to CLW to do the services that are still connected to John Robert Stevens and Gary Hargrave in terms of loyalty.
And so the service they're providing is a there's a page to download this stuff at four bucks a pop or whatever it is that they're charging for the download for like. a group of like 70 people and they have a big pile of cash a big pile of cash to fund this incredibly difficult operation and there's nothing that would keep them from taking some of that money and say like oh we're gonna give a offering to gary hargrave every month or that's right you know that's that's the black box of a um the black hole a non-profit religious organization because they don't have to report and they can just do whatever they you like i mean they can't do whatever they want with the money but they can like there's nothing illegal about one non-profit donated to another as long as it fits within the guidelines of their you know of their articles in the corporation or whatever but it just seems shitty like all this money and like there's just no all of us former members who more and more every day coming forward with like the repercussions of what happened to them under this leadership yeah In response to our inquiry, the current CEO of Living Word Publications, Steve Seabolt, said the following. TLW is functioning as it always has as a not for profit 501C3.
The funds are handled with integrity for the purpose of the corporation, which is to make the messages entrusted to us accessible and available. So the question of like, OK, so where is the money? That's where it is last seen for this.
for the living word. So you know that Shiloh has received money for land sales and property. You know that the living word publishing has received money for the assets of the living word that they are entitled to.
Last one was Shiloh University that is now that was Shiloh University was one of the stockholders of Maryland farms and received an infusion of cash from those sales. So Shiloh U though, Shiloh University is now operating as Shiloh Learning, which is dedicated. to K through 12 education in like homeschool and online learning.
They consult with other Christian schools to help them like teach Christian. Gin value is better or something like that. So it's basically just a consultancy.
Yeah. But what I found curious was like, there was no like list of fees. Like the, Hey, this, we provide this services.
How much it costs. It was all just contact us for more information. It's just one of those.
And so when you look at who, who runs this, it's one former member of the living word, Chris Reeves, who was also running Shiloh U. And the other person that runs it is Mark Glenn, who is not. a former member of the Living Word. Now, Marklin's an interesting feller, and we're going to have to talk about him just a little bit from what we were able to gather. So first, Marklin, if you look up his background, he's a Christian educator, a mediator, church mediator, and that's what he was brought in for.
But when he was brought in in 2018. Yeah. uh he was already an employee of the university of shiloh yeah so he was he that's the thing is like what what so he was brought into clw and he was brought into um the honolulu church that's who we were talking about earlier um that lenny was talking about was brought in as the mediator in that highly recommended by gary hargrave right again so this guy was just had just started working for shiloh university according to like linkedin and stuff you At the beginning of 2018, and now he is running Shiloh Learning. He was brought in as an independent, you know, mediator for the Honolulu and Church of the Living Word. He is the voice that I believe I played from one of the meetings that they had or I went on about.
He's the guy that in past episodes on the. You didn't play his, but you played. No, because he was talking about his travel.
Remember how it's 40 minutes of him talking about travel? This is the guy. I'm very busy and important. I'm very busy and important. And so he was brought in to mediate for the school in Los Angeles and the church in Los Angeles and trying to deal with all of that.
He's supposed to be independent, whatever. So he is also, so he's now he's doing Shiloh Learning. He, today he is also. Running the on some level, he is running the North Valley Christian Valley Christian School, which is the renamed version of Centers of Learning, which was the school that belonged to the church still belongs to the church.
It's renamed North Valley Christian School. He is running it to some degree there. He's not the principal, but I think it's something above that. I don't know if it's board member or supervisor or something like that, but he's running it there.
So anyways, so that's, that's who this guy is. He's, he's sitting, it's just, it's interesting to me because he's, he's sitting on this Shiloh learning thing that just got an infusion of cash from Maryland farm sales. He is working at the school in Los Angeles and running that thing over there. And he was somebody that was supposed to have been brought in as an independent mediator.
Now he's deeply embedded in it. And what's key, I think here, that's not benign and shouldn't be lost on you is that Centers of Learning or the North Valley Christian School is run and operated by Church of the Living Word, which we've already talked about is dedicated to John Robert Stevens and Gary Maryland. So we're still connected to that.
According to the website, this is something you should read, too, that just further drives this point home. In the early years of Church of the Living Word, the founder, John Robert Stevens, received a promise from the Lord from the scriptures. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord. Out of this promise, a vision was imparted to the congregation for a school that would provide quality education in an atmosphere of openness to God.
Church of the Living Word believes that North Valley Christian School is part of its congregation's calling and ministry to the community. Okay, this problematic cult that still follows the cult leader, still follows the teachings. Of Gary and Marilyn, who we have covered multiple times in the lawsuits about their problematic beliefs and how children believe about sex and how they should be treated, how there was multiple covers up, cover ups of pedophilia and abuse at the school related to the school connected, not to mention Rick Holbrook and all the abuse that happened in there.
They're still following and connected to Gary and they're running this school and this guy who was supposed to be on the outside. is in there with him. Yeah. It doesn't seem like he is, is, is give, would be able to give an unbiased, you know, opinion as a mediator, if he stands to profit in some way, or if he ends up profiting in some way, like, yeah.
Was he ever like unbiased? It just feels weird to me. I have no idea.
It's just really what he knows though, because people were like telling of all the abuses and stuff. And still he's like, sign me up. I want to be a part of that. And he's okay with the school being connected to Gary and Marilyn Hargrave and John Robert Stevens.
And like, that's, that's my problem too. How. How delusional do you have to be to put on this website the name John Robert Stevens?
Because if you're a parent and you're thinking about enrolling your kid in a school, like maybe you would look that shit up. Like, who's John Robert Stevens? And then they don't even think about the fact that they would find all this stuff on the web about John was a cult leader and like whatever. So that's just weird.
And so it's there's there's just these connections. You're seeing again, this is, I think, what we're kind of showing. Like. You're wondering where your tithes and offering went.
They bought property. It sat in that property, and it's owned by these organizations. It gets sold and paid out.
This is where the money is ending up. It's ending up in these organizations that are still very deeply connected to John Robert Stevens and the Living Word. We made multiple attempts to contact Dr. Mark Glenn for comment, both via email and via the Shiloh Learning website. We have yet to receive a reply.
So it's still festering, I think is the point. The money is still finding its way to organizations run by people that are former members and still believers. Yeah, that's the majority of them.
I'm not sure if you can call, you know, Steve Siebel the believer, but. He's just an opportunist. He's just slinging Hargrave and Stevens.
you know, material, but it is sad that all that money is, is stuck. I mean, and we'll get to DC here just like, but I just want to say it is sad that all that money is stuck with people who really like, don't care about all of the shit that went down. That's how it translates.
That's how it translates in, in some instances. I think, I think that's exactly the feeling on it is we don't, you know, you kind of. we sit here, a lot of these things, we mostly talk about the high level stuff of like Gary and Marilyn and John and whatever. And we kind of see that the Ricks and all of those people are kind of, they're just taking advantage and they don't really care is, is the way that that's just, it's just over and over again painted. Um, but what you're hoping for is like, and it kind of sucks.
I mean, like, I'm not, I don't, I don't, we don't really want to paint. We don't really want to paint anybody in these. positions that are signing these documents and managing these organizations after everything collapsed as necessarily like opportunist or evil in every scenario.
But what you're seeing is some people kind of just picked up the pieces of what was there and are responsible for an organization. There's tons of money sitting in there. No one's really doing anything.
We're having a hard time getting information from some people. Some people are sharing the information, but like, it's just like. wash my hands or like, let's go talk to a lawyer kind of thing. And, um, it's, it's, uh, you know, I think, I don't know.
I mean, like I have sympathy, I think for some of the people that are, that are taking this, I'm thinking Shiloh, for example, of like having to just like deal with it, but what does happen to the money? It will likely never. come back to the congregants no and the majority of it not all but in the majority of it from the people we've talked to that know and the names that we've seen on documents and all that stuff and like there's the people where this money is stuck is with people who are still loyal to either to the teachings of john robert stevens or to gary hargrave and that's just sad to me like and nobody i know it would take a lot of work to like set up a fund but like There wasn't an attempt.
There wasn't an attempt. There's no sorting out. Because my thing was like, why not set up a fund to help pay for mental health care for all of us who have to pay many times out of our own pockets to go to therapy?
It's just sad to me. It just adds insult to injury, and it feels very dismissive. It feels very like, oh, we don't really care that all of you were so fucked over by this organization. Because the— They're mostly the older generation that is still holding on to this money and operating in their like teeny tiny little groups. Exactly.
Well, I think that's what these teeny tiny little groups. Let's kind of wrap up the property thing. And then I want to come back to Gary Hargrave after we do this, because there's there's three properties that we didn't. We didn't talk about yet. There's, um, grants pass and there's, um, San Diego.
And those two are from what it seems like they're still, they're still owned by the organizations that have been there for a long time. Um, they might have small groups that meet up. There's nothing advertised.
There's no like big, you know, website remodel re you know, rebranding or anything like that, like, like church of living word did. But, um, some of them rent out their facility to other local groups, but they still exist. And they're still.
sitting there. Um, we are able to get a little bit of information on DC, uh, which is one, which is the third group that we mentioned here. So what did we find? DC was, was easily like the smallest church in the fellowship and they had bought what was essentially a, like a single family home with a large property that they then built a small chapel on.
Um, and that property was sold in 2020 for $1.2 million. Um, 2020 was the last time they filed a yearly status update as a. as a, an organization. So the current address of the organization is a community center. Unverified reports are that there are a handful of members remaining.
There is no corporation in existence anymore, but they still have a board only because they have a few more financial actions to take care of. They're renting a space to meet and that from, um, and from whatever cash they had from the sale of the property, at least some of it was donated to charitable causes. Wouldn't it have been nice to someone just to set up a charitable cause for like, it's, it's true. It's, you know, it's, it's kind of like the Palmer Lake church that I feel, um, here it's like, yeah, it sucks that the people that put all of their energy into it, didn't get like some sort of just acknowledgement or, you know, some sort of action to like help with the damage, but I'm glad that it's going off to now.
We don't know what charitable causes that is. It would be great to get a list because charitable cause could be Hargrave Ministries. It literally could be.
It literally could be. Now, I want to go back to Hargrave because that's how we started this whole thing is the statement by Gary, his apology. And his apology was, you know, two things. One, the initial process is going to be breaking up.
the Apostolic Company and letting the churches to the wind. And I think from what we're seeing here, more or less, that's kind of the case with everything, just aside from the money and the assets and the property and the, but the congregants too, it was like, Gary was like, break APCO, get out, wash my hands in Christ's blood and leave. And a lot of the congregants, like we saw in Palmer Lake, they sat and they tried to work with it. you know, abandoned by this guy that was like hard fist ruling it for so long. And now let's try and make something of it.
And no one could come to a consensus and it just like collapse. There's abandoned $10 million property in Honolulu. Shiloh is burned to the ground that money went off to various organizations run by a select few of former members.
It's just kind of like all over the place. And Gary Lastly, I will personally resign from any authority within the church or church leadership to simply retire or pursue other avenues of livelihood. And it is clear that his other avenues of livelihood are to come back to the very few people that are still dedicated to him and sling merch.
Yeah. You know, and say. And take them on Jerusalem trips. Take them on Jerusalem.
Send little videos out that say, please donate. to me and i promise i'm going to do something in israel with this money and so what happened to the living word like this i think kind of just paints that picture of this is it this is the disappointing conclusion of it i think these millions of dollars which can we give them the total that we're talking about here of money which i don't think we calculated but i can hit the calculate button right now Well, while you do that, I just want to say that that's what's the most devastating to me is that not one of these people that is still involved and that has access to this money, not one has stepped up and said, maybe we should do something to help these people. Because they're mostly Gary Hargrave, John Stevens apologists. It just feels like being abandoned and traumatized all over again by these people that were, you know, our leaders, our family members, like all older generation people. Trusted community members.
People that you would think. would care about you that always said they cared about us, but they did not. And I find it just deeply disappointing that not one of them has stepped up to say, you know what?
We do owe these people something. They gave their lives. And to me, like, because I know there's the question of the calculation, like, how do you write a check to everybody? And like, how do you verify? But who cares that stuff?
I think what they owe us isn't. Like us, meaning not you and I, but like all like mostly other former members, like what they owe is transparency. At the least. I think at the least, like, hey, look, we cannot like I actually that's what I like about Palmer Lake is like, we don't know what the hell we're going to do.
Just give it to this community. You're like, we're not getting any of the money, but at least we know it's going into a place where it's like, yeah, it's a bit of like a white elephant, like he said. But it's also now something that's like this.
land is going to something it's at least not a drain like that you know again i feel like it would be obviously this making it sound simpler than it would be in practice but to even ask all the former members like where do where would you want to see this money go like if it if it's too much to start a fund where people could apply for financial assistance just like a minimal effort like just to ask like for members you we can't, maybe we don't have the resources to set up a fund where you can apply for assistance to like get mental health care, but like, where would you all want to see this money? What's a cause you guys are passionate for? And like, is that, do you think that that's like, I don't know.
I think out of the realm of possibility, let's, let's take this with the full context because I did my, the computer has finished its calculations. Don't look, I want you to guess how much it's, it's a ballpark, obviously. 200 billion dollars that's pretty close no okay so running all the numbers and the cap of all this is the land assessed value so talking about like clw that didn't sell any of their property but the assessed value of this is all just like land we're not even talking about potential money in bank accounts yeah this is just it's just the land yeah exactly and this is obviously excluding san diego and uh grants pass because we don't know those numbers but this is you The sale of the MFC Shiloh, the sale of DC, the land value of CLW and Honolulu, etc.
The total is $34,121,895. $34 million. That makes me so sad.
Yeah. It's a lot. And I feel like they could blow two million dollars trying to figure out what to do with the rest of it.
Yeah. You could pay. You could literally hire a company to that. What that does runs those kinds of things like a nonprofit that's like where you can apply for assistance. One person could probably run that.
Yeah. Or you could run a really shitty website that you can download. John Robert Stevens. Fuck that. Fuck that.
That is so just shit. I don't have words like I don't have words to like the absolute disregard. for people and what they went through.
So that's the answer. It sucks. The money is sitting around in organizations, bank accounts and property. And it's, you know, I mean, Living Word Publications has the bulk of that, wouldn't you say? I mean, they're between them and CLW, CLW in property, CLW in property, CLW publications in cash.
The other stuff got split up into different areas. Shiloh probably has a few million. And then the property in actually the property just in Honolulu is worth more than everything that CLW has. Just that one property. Can I point out, too, that the former leaders of Grace Chapel of Honolulu were some of the most terrific abusers, especially her.
Yeah. If it didn't, we. Steve Seabolt and his wife. Best buddies with.
Rick the whole time. And Steven and his wife, Becky, have been named... My many people as like just terrifically abusive. And these are the two, you know, that are holding the most money. Yeah.
Yeah. The answer to where the money is, is the bad guys have it. The bad guys have it.
The bad guys have it. Okay. Thanks again for another bummer.
If you made it this far, we barely made it this far. I know, we had to do it twice. We had to do it twice because the recording wasn't going, and luckily this time, Charity didn't have a total emotional breakdown because you don't need to see that every episode. First time around, we have an emotional breakdown, but we don't have the audio for it, so we're rolling the visuals. Thanks for listening to Oops, I'm an Occult.
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