In my research of Jack Miller’s life and ministry, I’ve encountered too many redemption stories to fully recount in one dissertation, or a single book.
Among these remarkable stories is the account of World Harvest Mission’s (WHM) devastating loss of over $1,000,000 in the tragic New Era philanthropic fraud scandal—an event that sent shockwaves through numerous Christian institutions across the United States.
During the early 90s, WHM was experiencing rapid growth but also faced financial strain due to rapidly expanding global missions and renewal work in the United States, which led WHM to place funds with New Era.
As Jack was recovering from a severe stroke, his son Paul delivered the gut-wrenching news about the New Era Foundation’s fraud and collapse.
Jack’s declining health also prevented Jack from attending the crucial WHM leadership retreat in Bavaria, scheduled just weeks after the financial crisis had unfolded.
Below you will find a letter—better yet, a series of communications—penned by Jack titled ‘Beauty’ that span from March 30, 1995, to June 21, 1995, in the aftermath of the New Era Foundation’s collapse.
What Satan intended for evil, God meant for good. Ironically, God would use this terrible loss to actually save WHM and fund their continued growth in a remarkable way in the short term. The Lord used this adversity to humble Jack and fellow WHM leaders, compelling them to explain to donors what had happened and to plead for support to avoid closing WHM.
But the story doesn’t end there. Through the generosity of so many people, WHM not only received enough support to survive. When the bankruptcy court managed to recover up to 90% of the funds lost to the fraudulent foundation, these reclaimed resources sustained and fueled WHM’s growth through the death of their beloved founder the following year and during subsequent challenging periods over the next decade. Amazing!
As I prepare to return to the United States, I’ve realized I’m further behind in my own financial support than I initially thought—approximately $3,200 per month once I factor in both personal expenses, as well as church rent and utilities in Italy.
In total, we need to raise $8,000 per month, along with one-time expenses totaling $7,000.
Fortunately, New Life Vicenza has been blessed with many generous donors over the years that has provided a reserve balance, which affords us some financial stability as we continue our work in Italy while seeking additional funding.
While I was feeling deeply humbled and helpless, I “fell upon” these communications from Jack Miller, which have been a blessing to me at just the right time.
I also believe Jack’s letter about faith when it comes to money and financial support will also hold wisdom that could benefit many of you as well.
May you find encouragement and inspiration in Jack’s words as I did.
Enjoy! Mike Graham, TE New Life Vicenza; Director, The Jack Miller Project
May 30, 1995
Warm greetings, brothers and sisters, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Recently I watched the video of the missionary retreat made by Robert Carr. I really missed being there, but I do count it an honor to serve our missionaries by praying for them with the confidence wrought by the Holy Spirit.
It was greatly encouraging to see your faces and hear your voices. To get “a feel for what God was doing.” My joy was great as I heard your testimonies, greetings, and expressions of repentance. I also wept with Dick Kaufmann as he spoke about the abounding sufficiency of Christ and told the story of Bill Broadhurst, the handicapped runner. Bill ran a 10-kilometer race with such pain that he fell behind the other runners, was tempted to despair, but finally staggered across the finish line—and was embraced as a winner by Bill Rogers, the man who had already won the race. At the end of the race Rogers took his own victory medal and put it around the exhausted man’s neck. I wept with Dick.
Isn’t this story a window into the grace of Jesus? He has already won the race for us, and as we labor in pain to complete the marathon we are so tempted to let the pain cause us to quit, but finally we get to the finish line. There the Winner (Jesus) embraces us and puts the victor’s medal around our necks.
Is this a parable of our own experience at World Harvest? In the past? And also now?
Thanks too, Robert, for taking pictures of the world outside the meeting place. Bavaria was beautiful, and the mountains were majestic. But the beauty of the new heaven and the new earth also catches my eye, a glory destination for struggling athletes. I believe the Lord will keep me here for a good time yet, but my soul grows in eagerness to reach the heavenly land, that heavenly Bavaria where the King is all glorious. But I do long desperately for a heavily populated kingdom. Oh how my heart longs to be there with crowds of those that together we have worked to bring to Christ! To see and talk with Kenyans, Ugandans, Irish, Dutch, English, Russians, Spanish, Germans, and Americans. And with hosts of former Hindus, Muslims, and Sikks.
Let’s also not forget our children as co-workers with us in this grand enterprise. I think that the best beauty was in all the children. Thanks, Robert, for the gift of your videotaping and taking special care to follow the little ones around, getting good action shots. Over the past year the Lord has put on my heart a prayer burden for our young ones, including our teenagers.
So it was a delight to see them. In them we have small present missionaries training for a grand missionary future. Let’s welcome them the way we welcome Christ! Too, let me ask both parents and singles to encourage our younger ones to pray diligently at this time of crisis claiming Scripture promises. Please, let’s begin with John 14:13–14. Then let the faith of our children inspire us. Actually, we all know that we will learn more about prayer and its power by letting our children teach us!
How shall we understand our present crisis? Clyde Godwin says that we must see it as “a declaration of war.”
God blessed us wonderfully at the retreat in Germany. We are thrilled by evidences of God bringing solid revival to us. Praise God from whom all blessings flow! But the devil is not asleep. Soon after the retreat Satan used the collapse of the New Era Foundation to hit us hard. He has declared war against us and a large number of other evangelical groups. His intention is clear. He wishes to destroy our faith, undermine our oneness, divert us from the missionary cause of the gospel, and shame us before the world. He is very, very evil.
But that is only part of the picture. What we really need to see is that missions itself is war! The Great Commission is a declaration of war, leading to a massive jubilation celebration (Daniel 7:1–14; Matthew 28:16–20; Revelation Ch. 5, 11:15–19, Ch. 12:19–21). A greater Conqueror than Alexander is here. One little word from him and the enemies blow away in the wind like chaff. Think of it. The preaching of his word causes Satan to “fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18).
Still, we have questions. Where is the Conqueror on the white horse leading us? Did he get caught by surprise by our present crisis? And what are we to do on our part of the battlefield?
Here are three things Clyde expressed to me this morning:
1) Let’s get rid of the fear that the mission may fail or that we may fail.
Then we shall move into the conquering faith described in Mark 9:23 and John 14:13–14.
2) Let’s dethrone all idols.
Among the idols we may find the worship of WHM, our own ministries, gifts, material resources and comforts. Let’s put no trust in any human being—or our own leaders—to do for us what God alone can do. He must work in hearts and lives or all our work is vain. But his work will triumph.
3) Let’s go to war by faith.
Let’s abandon civilian status, sign up for the duration. Our struggle with finances is war. This is one big battle. We shall be working and struggling as never before. However, the biggest battle is still to get the word of the gospel rooted more deeply into our lives and to gain the King’s passion for the lost. Then let’s go out and win the lost with all the wisdom, love, humility, and passion the Spirit supplies.
Clyde says that our mission till now is like the beautiful crepe myrtle tree in his backyard. Recently it had beautiful growth right near the top, but because the roots of the tree were not strong enough to sustain the tree it began to lean dangerously and had to be held in place with a rope. It’s cure was simple. After the spring flowering he pruned the tree back severely. He cut about 3 feet from the top, and trimmed back its diameter. Since then the pruned tree has quickly rooted itself strongly in the ground, the top-heavy leaning is gone. Now firmly in place this myrtle is putting off an abundance of wonderful new growth.
Clyde’s conclusion: God’s severe pruning is enabling us now to get our roots down into Christ-dependence, the gospel, and real God-glorifying praying. We are moving away from mere words or slogans to the Word of life and finding new grace. The pruning, though, hurts. The pain of the cutting is felt by all of us, and we have the temptation to become fearful orphans. But the Lord rescues us from fear and self-interest and gives us his capacity to draw closer to each other. No question we carry many flaws. We are not yet across the finish line. But we are working together with increasing effectiveness in a situation which is almost completely new to us. Truly a gift of the age to come!
I also want to explain why Rose Marie and I are still going overseas in the light of the severe financial crisis in the mission. On our part we are willing to stay home and raise funds on a crisis basis. The executive committee, however, has decided that we should go overseas according to plan.
An important factor in this decision is the state of my health. At least for the present the doctors have told me that I cannot go to Africa because my heart cannot handle altitudes above 5500 feet. This is very disappointing to me. I was greatly anticipating a trip there in 1995. It also means that I cannot speak at our Sonship weekend for Missionary Internship at Colorado Springs. The cardiologist, though, says he will take another close look at my heart in the fall. He hopes that one of the drugs he is giving me will strengthen it.
Another one of my doctors recently said that I have made “a wonderful recovery from the stroke.” But he also said clearly that once you have had a stroke the risk of getting a second is considerable. Then as early as last November our family doctor said that my schedule in the U.S. was overloaded and my busy lifestyle had given me hypertension. This doctor had never given me a health warning like this before. I accepted his correction. I know I arrived last December in Spain deeply exhausted after all the meetings from September through November.
Then after the stroke the doctor of clinical psychology at the hospital talked to me at length at least twice. She works with stroke patients. Her blunt words, “Given your schedule, you are headed for a second stroke, and a much more severe one unless you slow down your life to a reasonable pace.”
Since ordinarily there is less pressure on me overseas, and because we have extensively thinned out the overseas schedule, I will actually have a good deal of time overseas to work on the mission’s financial stability. What I do well, people tell me, is write letters and make phone calls, and I have been doing that since our crisis began. I do not believe that this will put undue pressure on me, and it is natural for me to communicate about the mission’s financial need from the front lines.
June 2, 1995
What does it all mean? What is our gracious Father saying at this time of financial crisis? How about this? “My sons and daughters, this too is part of my plan, and the plan is good.” And: “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, and the thoughts of his heart to all generations” (Ps. 33). What God is calling us to is a fresh discovery: the joy of trusting in his absolute sovereignty and the goodness of his government.
Many of us have deep struggles here. What has happened has been bad in the sense that a human being has wronged us. It has damaged many Christians and their ministries. Sometimes I think this upsetting dream will just disappear. And I am so sorry for what has happened. It has caused you pain and may continue to cause you pain. I wish with all my heart that you did not have to go through this and that the friends of the mission did not have to endure this pain with us. Together we feel humiliated by what has happened.
But we will find that our good heavenly Father will use this for his glory if we take time together to seek his wisdom—to understand his sovereign purpose here.
When Paul called me on Monday afternoon (May 17), he asked, “Dad, are you sitting down? I have hard news.”
A terrible thought flashed through my mind: a plane carrying some of our missionaries has crashed. Perhaps some of the home staff has been killed returning from Europe. I had been praying against accidents for our gathering in Germany. Had the Lord not heard my prayer? It was one awful moment.
Then Paul said, “It looks like New Era is collapsing. Maybe there’s something fraudulent?”
I was so relieved to hear that all our missionaries and home staff were safe that at first the meaning of his announcement hardly penetrated. Everyone was alive, no one was even injured, and no one had dishonored Christ. Money was lost. But our mission was still in business and so was all our team. Praise God!
God then gave me a gift of sheer grace. I was able to say with confidence, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
June 11, 1995
The Lord also takes away for a purpose. Paul McKaughn, director of EFMA, the accrediting organization to which we are accountable as a mission, wrote in this month’s letter to us:
“We were all sitting around a very nice board room table, wholly respectable-looking in ‘business attire.’ With suitable gravity we used words like accountability, responsibility, truthfulness and integrity, but the topic was really about money and keeping track of it. At first it was almost assumed that elaborate, formal control systems with their measures would do the job of insuring moral behavior. Within weeks, in our own country, the nation where formal financial controls are the most complex imaginable, our world has been rocked by the biggest financial scandal in philanthropic history.”
He’s talking about New Era. “The biggest financial scandal in philanthropic history.”
The finger of God had certainly touched us and our visible resources. Perhaps he wanted to show us that we cannot trust in “formal financial controls” to protect the money entrusted to us by the Lord. Healing questions entered my mind. Is it possible that we have been making a god of money and the elaborate financial systems for protecting it? I do not mean to suggest that we were greedy or that other Christian agencies were. But our wise friend at EFMA was probing, seeking to get us to look twice at what may be another idol.
Are we unconsciously trusting in technologies and human systems for protecting us and our lives? I was thinking of intricate systems for protecting our money, but also of communication technologies, medical and health structures, plans, and techniques for getting our work done. And especially in our own abilities and wisdom to get the job done? These are all good and useful things—but have we given them an importance they do not deserve?
Do these systems for ordering our lives and work somehow become substitutes for faith in the living God? For loving one another? And loving the man said to have defrauded us?
My own idolatry was partly exposed at that moment. Matters came to a head almost exactly three days later. On Wednesday I was slipping into discouragement and self-pity. I think I was also angry, sensing that we had been robbed by a very clever deception. I felt humiliated. The protective technologies had failed, and so had I. Then as Rose Marie and I headed for the door to take our late afternoon walk, she said, “You are getting depressed.”
She was right. But I receive her discerning counsel with enthusiasm. After all, self-pity provides a certain feeling of satisfaction when you are hurting.
Then she paused at the dining room table and pulled out the prayer card from Angelo’s daily prayer box.
The card read, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name I will do it” John 14:13–14.
She handed me the card with a smile and I read it without a smile. However, on the walk that followed I repented of my unbelief and claimed the promise on the prayer card. That evening, I went to our church’s “Food Cupboard,” a free dinner for needy people followed by the gift of groceries for the week. I ate with them and enjoyed spending time with them. I was sitting at the table of grace together with others who had small resources.
I then preached to them before they picked up their groceries for the week. I believe God’s holy anointing was upon me, and those who came in to listen were convicted of the reality of Christ’s powerful salvation and their need of it because they are sinners like me. Physically my body still felt a bit stiff, but the truth was flowing with power in my own life. The preaching was the Holy Spirit’s overflow. The man nearest me said, “I needed to hear that.” Well, my brother, so did I!
I knew, then, that a giant Jesus was on the move.
On Thursday after the early morning mission’s prayer meeting in our home, a friend who is a stockbroker talked with me about what had happened with New Era.
He said, “I am concerned that you and the key leaders at World Harvest don’t start beating up on yourselves over the loss of money. Remember: you didn’t rob anyone. You were robbed. And if someone who has an outstanding reputation sets out to deceive you, you shouldn’t be surprised if they succeed. I have had it happen to me, and it hurts. But don’t sit around second-guessing what you should have done differently.”
That helped clear the air. I was not going to beat up on myself. Then I moved into faith in the promise of John 14:13–14 and Mark 9:23. I liked those mind-boggling words of Jesus: “All things are possible to him who believes.” I then went to the Sending Center and had a wonderful time praying individually with several of our home staff. I came away greatly encouraged by our shared faith in the promise of our generous God of grace. The faith of the home team was a wonderful inspiration to my soul. I really needed their faith.
It now seemed to me that somehow our beloved Father had taken away financial resources with a high purpose: to get our feet securely planted on the holy ground of the promises of grace. To overthrow all idols. Rely on nothing human, nothing strong, nothing brilliant. Give up our need to be controlling. Just living in the land of grace. Grace flowing to us through praying—praying, hungering, grabbing not for security but for the glory of Christ. In prayer crying out to our heavenly Father. Giving him no rest till his glory is revealed as we rely exclusively on his world-mastering promises.
June 12, 18, 1995
Let’s continue this thought. Do we detect a pattern in what the Father is saying? While the mission gathered in Germany for the retreat, a few of us gathered at the home base for prayer. Dan Macha directed our thoughts to the parable of the talents found in Matthew 25:14–29. He called our attention to the attitude of the man who buried his one talent in the ground because he believed that his master was stingy and would punish him if he did not guard it. Dan also said, “I always assumed that the man was at least partly right, that the master was on the stingy side. But then I understood a talent was worth something like 10,000 dollars. Then it became clear to me that the man believed a lie about his master. The master had given a generous sum to him, and he expected him to put it to work in the same spirit. But the man was actually judging the master by his own selfishness and small-mindedness.”
Dan concluded, “Our Father is generous, and we must act upon that knowledge with courage.”
Dan, thanks for the gift of your wisdom. It was so helpful to me. Keep preaching it, Dan! Jesus, help us all to live out of this wisdom!
We have all been greatly strengthened through Paul Leary’s volunteering to come home from Uganda for three months beginning in July. He will seek to raise funds for our campaign to recover from our crisis. Paul, thanks for this gift to God and us. Do remember our Father is generous. Act on that knowledge, full of faith.
Hunter Dockery and Josiah will come home in mid-August for six weeks to do the same. Thanks much, Hunter and Josiah, remember: Your God is generous. Preach it, brothers, live it.
Bob Heppe sent an E-mail message home: “Now that we have nothing, let’s risk everything!” As part of this giving of ourselves, members of the home team have given up their present work, in part or wholly, to “risk everything.” Chris French has taken up work in our accounting department, something new to him in order to free up Jerry Kimbro. Paul Miller is heading the crisis recovery effort, with Jerry Kimbro’s valuable help. Bill Parr will be contacting churches for this work. Dave McCarty has stayed in development to help the campaign, and Charley McCoy has delayed his work in communications and kept on supervising missionaries raising support.
Drew Angus, Jeff Salasin, and Stu Batstone are working hard to raise additional support for their accounts to relieve the general budget. We feel for them—and we must earnestly pray for them—because it is much harder to raise support for home team missionaries than it is for overseas missionaries. Pray that they will have all their needs met “according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). On our prayer walks Rose Marie and I have been praying for these brothers with their hard struggle.
As part of our campaign to recover, the staff has pledged to give $70,000 over an eighteen month period. It is a partnering with our generous God by giving freely as a sacrifice of praise.
But let’s train our ears to hear the music of praise and joy. These gifts “are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God,” the eternal Father who sacrificed a Son (Philippians 4:18). What a privilege that we the sons and daughters of God can bring joy and delight to his Fatherly heart! Hear the deep music of the cross and sing.
June 21, 1995
Were the whole realm of nature mine That were an offering far too small. Love so amazing so divine demands my soul, my life, my all.
We have learned that Betty Herron will receive immediate chemotherapy for the treatment of her cancer. We are all beseeching the Father for a complete healing and the speedy return of Dan and Betty to the field. This has been a season of shocks for all of us, but we are confident that nothing in heaven and earth can shake our confidence in the personal presence of Christ working in behalf of Dan and Betty. Go for it, Betty and Dan! We stand with you!
The war is on.
Jesus attended our seminar held at East London Tabernacle Baptist Church last week. We believe that there is very good reason to think that the Conqueror is continuing the work he began at the seminar. One fruit appeared immediately. Team leaders slipped over from Holland and Ireland. How great it was to see Hunter, Josiah, and Norm. Soon after Hunter’s return to Dublin, he and Julie had the joy of seeing a woman receive Christ. She had a background of involvement in a cult-like church group. She appears to have had a wonderful release from legal bondage through the gospel. Hunter and I have been thrilled. We believe that this was “a token of good from heaven,” the first conversion among many to follow.
This was my first seminar since my stroke. I came to it with fear and trembling. I remembered the further warning of the clinical psychologist: “You have a choice, dying by the end of the year through high pressure working or having another ten years of work ahead of you by working at a normal pace.” Gulp!
My fragility was further underscored in my mind by the way I arrived at Heathrow. I asked BA for an electric cart, after explaining that I had a stroke three months before. But they did not send an electric cart, but a wheelchair. So I entered London by means of God’s power vehicle—pushed through immigration and customs in a wheelchair by a young woman. Still, there was power in my weakness. She wanted to know about the big box of literature with our luggage. Rose Marie and she were friends by the time we said goodby. She took a New Life booklet and promised to read it as we headed out the final door. She also said we should ask for her anytime we came through Heathrow.
It was humbling and yet glorious. I began the seminar with the story of the wheel chair and noted that the two other leaders (Bob Heppe and Steve Childers) also had health problems. Bob suffers from leg problems from an old accident, and Steve Childers has had his own major health warnings. But in spite of our weakness, the Lord worked. Steve poured out his life in warm hearted teaching and in personal follow up with pastors and WHM missionaries attending. He made an excellent contribution.
Afterwards our host pastor said things like: this conference “is very important for this country” and “I am very excited about the implications of the conference for my church and hopefully beyond.”
We began the final day of the conference with a feedback time. One brother was very negative about our approach and teaching. It was really discouraging. I could feel the despair knocking at the door of my heart. I had been taking measures to see that I had sufficient rest and kept a tight rein on my use of time to see that I had plenty of rest. But now I was persuaded that in my last talk I had to risk dying, either then and there or soon after. You see, my stroke came one day after an intense weekend seminar and speaking on Sunday.
Here is what I believe God was saying to me and to the mission. It’s all said wonderfully well in Jennifer Myhre’s April prayer letter.
She writes of Caleb, her new baby, living with her and her husband Scott in disease-ridden western Uganda, “In the final accounting, there is no risk to obedience—not even death will separate Caleb from the love of God. He promises that our apparent loss is truly eternal gain.”
So in answer to many prayers, I surrendered my last talk to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Because of his working I threw away all concern for my life. I was able to preach as a dying man to dying men. It seemed to me that I was a spectacle—and almost a spectator—to what God wanted to say to me and through me.
The message was clear. Forget about here and now and concern yourself about”eternal gain.” Therefore I found myself standing before the judgment throne of God and calling myself and everyone there to prepare for that final accounting by throwing away their lives now for Jesus, to forget about human opinion and “stoop down and drink and live” (Bonar’s hymn).
I could feel death in my body. I had no assurance that I would be alive after this message. But my freedom was great. It was the Holy Spirit’s hour, and my safety did not matter. What only mattered was the glory of the Father.
Afterwards the man who had thrown the cold water came and apologized to Steve and me with a spirit of brokenness. It was genuine, a work of God and his pure grace. Glory to his glorious name! He did it. It was his hour, and he alone did the working. Thank him for hearing your prayers and ours. Thank him with great joy!
Jennifer writes, “Jesus is the object of our faith, not health or success or happiness or even life itself. He endured greater suffering than I could ever know, for the joy of saving me.” I would include our mission, our plans, and financial resources in Jennifer’s list. None of it must be the object of our faith.
Paul McKaughn spells it out. He says,
“Observers note that we tend to either measure those things which we think are very important or on the other hand by our measurements we can make things important which may not be. The French theologian and philosopher Jacques Ellul has written about the mythical and sacred attachments we Westerners give to money and how it becomes our major power in a pantheon of deities. It is the measure in our society which eclipses all others … This is the reason we have created intricate financial systems which become almost the sacred rites to add significance to this god, money. With elaborate systems we try to measure and protect it and ourselves from its misuse.”
His point is that our ministry is not first of all utilitarian, to get work done or to use people as instruments of even good purposes. Isn’t he right? How easy it is to see people as objects of our plans, the means for getting work done. I think we have always struggled vigorously against this at World Harvest, but at this crisis perhaps God is saying to all of us to take an closer look at our motivations as we labor to recover from our crisis.
The cure? According to McKaughn, we ought to do what we can to protect our money and to plan well, but then recognize that our main task is not to build systems of protection for our work and its resources, but to build relationships of trust, love, and caring. Our main work, then, in this time of crisis is not to use people, be angry at anyone, or to be successful, but in our suffering and trial to count it all joy. To love one another with Christ’s incredible passion—and to spread that out to our fellow Christian and to the lost!
I would add to McKaughn’s rich insight one further word: we must love others intensely under the umbrella of the Father’s absolute sovereignty.
Let’s love others even though they may never help us with our goals and their realization.
So ours is a love campaign—not first of all a financial campaign!
The roots of this love always go back to the eternal love of the Father expressed in the cross. Let’s fill our minds with this message until we overflow with grace and graciousness.
Then we can say with Maria Allewelt, a member of our International Renewal Team, “We did not lose a million dollars. God spent it on us, so that we could know him better and love one another better.”
As we risk our lives for Jesus, as we give generously ourselves, as we love one another, as we love others beyond our immediate circle, grace will abound, and all our material needs will be met “according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”
What do we see? Circumstances? Human beings who disappoint? A huge task? Humiliation? Death? Fear on the throne, ruling our lives and history?
No, look again, dear child of God. Fear is not on the throne!
“I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne …” With praise to the Lamb,
Jack Miller
P.S. Let’s go for it! As we seek to raise financial means for the work, let’s do the work with a heart hot for Christ! The conversion in Dublin is just the first fruit. We want thousands to get saved. Witness boldly in the name of the Lamb. Let’s expect great things from God and attempt grat things for God.
