Worldwide Church of God Big Sandy Sold

The Painful Truth About The Worldwide Church of God

Ambassador University campus
in Big Sandy, Texas
has been sold for an undisclosed sum.

(Wonder how long Tkach will keep the Worldwide Church of God money machine going once he gets his hands on the Jackpot? Worldwide Church of God ministers beware if you think this scam is going to last. Better be looking for an honest job because this one is going....., going......., )

As I write, it is late Friday evening, March 24, 2000 and the official press release which will officially announce the matter mentioned below has not been finished. However, in the interest of speed, I have been asked to share an early, somewhat unpolished draft of the release with you so that you will be apprised of the essential facts which the release will eventually embody. Here is the draft:

The Worldwide Church of God, based in Pasadena, California, today announced that its Ambassador University campus in Big Sandy, Texas has been sold, for an undisclosed sum, to Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a privately owned corporation headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who in turn is leasing it to the Institute in Basic Life Principles ("IBLP"), a nonprofit educational and service organization based in Oak Brook, Illinois.

The sale preempts an auction which had been scheduled for the University campus on April 4. While the Church fully intended to proceed with the auction, it had stated from the beginning that it would entertain preemptive offers and cancel the sale if it was offered acceptable terms. A spokesman for the Church, Dr. Bernard W. Schnippert, Chief Financial Officer, remarked that the Church was pleased to find itself approached by about a half a dozen parties interested in making a deal before the auction. Other than price, a strong motivating factor in choosing IBLF and Hobby Lobby was their desire and ability to purchase the entire campus and to effectuate a deal quickly. "We are pleased that the campus has been sold essentially intact," Schnippert said, and added "it would have broken our hearts to see it piecemealed out parcel by parcel, even though we were prepared to do this in order to have a successful auction."

All parties have agreed to not disclose the actual sales price publicly in order to focus attention on the new mission for the campus, and not upon the money involved in the transaction, although Schnippert added that, "The Church will of course disclose the various details of the sale, including price, in its private internal member newspaper at an appropriate time later down the road."

"People invariably ask us whether we will regain our investment in the property," Schnippert said. "The Church never invested its resources in the University with the purpose of gaining a financial profit. To the contrary, our mission was to invest in a values-based Christian-centered educational experience for young people who could use their education for productive purposes in society. Measured in these terms, every single penny of our investment has been well spent and has been returned to us and to society many times over."

The Buyers intend to use the property primarily for two important missions according to information released by the IBLP. The first is to train young men for local, national, and international emergency response. The second is for an international orphanage. The two programs will make good and full use of the entire campus with all of its facilities. Six years ago, Mr. Ron Fuhrman, a leader with the IBLP and the one who will oversee day-to-day operations on the University site, saw a need to challenge and train young men to be givers rather than take. He designed the Air Land Emergency Resource Team (ALERT) to train qualified young men to effectively respond to disasters and emergency needs. The campus will now become a training center for this program.

Additionally, the IBLP has been deeply involved with orphanage work overseas, especially in Russia, where they were invited by education officials to teach character and English in their public schools, to work with orphans, to rehabilitate juvenile delinquents, visit youth prisons, and assist pensioner teachers. IBLP anticipates the Ambassador campus can be an ideal place to expand their work with orphans from other nations as they continue serving the nations they represent.

The Church, on the other hand, is prepared to move on. According to Schnippert, "When the Church first acquired the property, it was little more than woods and open fields, which, although beautiful in its own right was nonetheless indistinguishable from its surrounds. After nearly forty years of development, however, it has been turned by the Church into a trophy facility admired by all who have walked its elegant grounds. Now that our mission has ended there and our tenure is over, we are pleased that the property will be used in a way that works to the betterment of society through important acts of charity."

As for what the Church plans to do with the money from the sale: "The proceeds, while measured of course in the millions of dollars, are in fact a modest sum when compared to the scope of the Church's worldwide operations, and will not appreciably change our balance sheet," Schnippert said. "Rather than being used to fund some new enterprise," he continued, "the monies will simply be added to our general fund and used to further the Church's mission of preaching the Christian gospel and supporting its local and international congregations and ministry."

Although the parties are all happy with the deal, the real winner, they believe, will be to the surrounding community that will again begin to see a thriving beehive of activity in a place that had been all but mothballed. Such activity cannot help but be a financial boon to the various vendors and local business which have for the last three years sorely missed the thousands of students, faculty, and families that used to call the campus and the surrounding area their home.

"Tell the people of the East Texas community: "Thanks for the support and for the memories," said Schnippert. And to the new owners: "Good luck in your humanitarian endeavors, we wish you well."

Again, the above text is from an early draft for a press release. It of course does not address all the emotion associated with the sale, and the very important details about which our members will be curious. Please advise our congregations that a future Worldwide News article will give a full and complete update.

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