Larry Lea

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Larry Lea
Born
Harold Lawrence Lea

(1951-01-30) January 30, 1951 (age 73)
Texas, U.S.
Occupation(s)pastor, televangelist
Children3
Websitehttps://larrylea.webs.com

Harold Lawrence Lea (born January 30, 1951) is an American pastor and televangelist in Rockwall, Texas.

Early years

Lea graduated from Dallas Baptist University, where he met his first wife Melva. He completed his graduate work at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.[1] Larry and Melva were married in 1972 and had three children.[2] He became the youth pastor of Beverly Hills Baptist Church in Dallas, where the youth department grew from 40 to 1,000 participants. While pastoring Church on the Rock in Rockwall, Texas, Lea also served as Dean of Theological and Spiritual Affairs at Oral Roberts University.[1]

Church on the Rock

Following a stint as an itinerant preacher in the late 1970s, Lea was invited to pastor Church on the Rock in 1980 with 12 people in

The Lord's Prayer. He also began a partnership group where his partners were referred to as "Prayer Warriors
".

In June 1990, Lea stepped aside as pastor to oversee Church on the Rock, which was a group of churches that was called a "virtual denomination" according to Christianity Today.[4]

Controversies

Lea found himself in some controversy later that year, when Lea and several ministers met at the

prayer march through the city's streets.[7]

A year later, ABC's

W.V. Grant and Robert Tilton.[8] The incident involving Lea came as a result of his fundraising appeals, questions as to how much money was going to mentioned projects (specifically a program involving helping start churches in Poland),[9]
and accusations that Lea implied a fire at one of his homes left his family almost destitute even though they still had a five-million-dollar home in the Dallas area.

Aftermath

Lea's organization had grown so quickly, he made the decision to allow the National Religious Broadcasters financial integrity arm, EFICOM (Ethics and Financial Integrity Commission), to audit his ministry to look into the charges.[2] While EFICOM would determine he had been delinquent in sending his financial information, the group determined that Lea had not misused the funds for the Poland project. The EFICOM committee also accused ABC News of misleading Lea about the interview's purpose and ignoring "significant facts"; such as signed affidavits from Polish church officials that would have confirmed Lea's claims.[9] After ending his Change Your Life broadcasts in December 1991 following the exposé, Lea had returned to the airwaves by May 1992 with a show titled America, Let's Pray.

His credibility and prominence in the charismatic community evaporated (though not as quickly as Tilton's), as he traveled with Morris Cerullo at the latter's crusades in the mid-1990s. Lea also claimed that he suffered a relapse of bipolar disorder.[2] In 1994, he took a position as a pastor in San Diego. This lasted until 1997.

After 27 years of marriage, Larry filed for divorce in April 1999.[2] During the divorce, his wife attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.[2] Lea's son John started the Life Church in Rockwall, Texas in the same Dallas suburb where Larry and his ex-wife began Church on the Rock in 1980.[2] Lea has since remarried and has returned to the Rockwall area.[2][10]

The Church on the Rock main campus was later sold to Lake Pointe Baptist Church, a

Southern Baptist megachurch in the Rockwall area which relocated to the site and renamed itself Lake Pointe Church; while the church itself moved to the nearby Rowlett area and was renamed Church in the City in January 2007.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b Randall Herbert Balmer, Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism, p. 333
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Chapman Stertzer, Carol (January 31, 2002). "A Journey Toward Healing". Charisma magazine. Retrieved April 29, 2020.
  3. ^ "Powell's Books | the World's Largest Independent Bookstore".
  4. ^ Kim lawton, "Broadcasters face ethics questions - again," Christianity Today, January 13, 1992
  5. ^ "Charisma Magazine".
  6. ^ "San Francisco Chronicle, 1 November 1990: 6,500 Christians Attend S.F. 'Exorcism'". Toobeautiful.org. 1990-11-01. Retrieved 2010-08-17.
  7. ^ Stein, Mark A. (November 2, 1990). "He Came, Saw but Couldn't Conquer : San Francisco: An evangelist and his 'prayer warriors' are met by 1,500 demonstrators on Halloween. He had hoped to 'exorcise sin' in the city". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
  8. Dallas Morning News
    . Retrieved 2007-01-18.
  9. ^ a b Susan Lockamy, "Ethics Panel Exonerates Lea," Charisma, July 1992
  10. ^ "Larry Lea the Naked Truth". Archived from the original on 2010-04-12. Retrieved 2010-08-17.
  11. ^ "Our Pastors". Archived from the original on 2013-08-26. Retrieved 2013-07-31.

External links

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