After more than a week of silence on allegations of financial, spiritual and moral misconduct by former workers of his multiple ministries, activist missionary and worship leader Sean Feucht dismissed them as a spiritual attack and urged his followers to reject them.
In a video response on YouTube Tuesday, Feucht said his natural response is to react when attacked, but he was advised against that approach by his attorneys and spiritual mothers and fathers.
“A big part of not responding to every single attack, hit piece, is it takes a great deal of discernment and patience for me because it’s not my nature,” he said.
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“I want to respond. I want to react. I want to fight back and I have learned through listening to my board, listening through my lawyers, listening to my spiritual fathers and mothers to be very, very, careful,” he said. “And not only not giving credence to falsehoods and accusations but also understanding there’s legal implications. And so there are, just so you know, there are legal implications.”
The former workers made the allegations against Feucht in a series of pages posted on a website called “Truth and Freedom Stories,” purporting to “provide a documented account of longstanding and serious moral, ethical, financial, organizational and governance failures involving Sean (John Christopher) Feucht and the four religious organizations that he founded and directs.” The website claims to highlight “testimony … based on direct experience and first-hand observations of Sean over an extended period of time.”
“I want to start by saying this: I’ve been working on a book on spiritual warfare since the beginning of the year and I had no clue that I would literally be writing it in real time as I’m living in middle of this crazy spiritual war,” Feucht said at the start of the video, also recalling the death of a dear ministry partner and the “riots” in Los Angeles. “[For] me personally, my family, this is crazy.”
Feucht, a former worship leader with Bethel Music, garnered national headlines during the COVID-19 pandemic for organizing “Let Us Worship” rallies in the streets of major cities.
The accusers were connected to three of Feucht’s ministries: Burn 24/7, a worship and prayer movement spanning six continents and more than 250 cities; Light a Candle, a global missions and compassion movement; and Let Us Worship, a movement across America gathering believers to worship and pray boldly for revival.
They identified themselves as Christy Gafford, former USA national director/global communications director for Burn 24/7; Peter and Amanda Hartzell, formerly of Burn 24/7; Liam Bernhard, former OKC director, Burn Field Training, mid-south regional director of Burn 24/7; and Richie Booth, a former administrative staff member for Burn 24/7, Let Us Worship and Light a Candle.
In his statement, Feucht initially dismisses them as angry former volunteers but later refers to his accusers as former employees as he insists the financials of his ministries are in good standing.
“We have incredible accountants. We have an incredible board. We have incredible oversight, and so we’ll respond to these in the coming days, but I can’t say a ton just because of the legal implications of it. But I will say this: you know, when you have embittered, angry, upset former volunteers, these are not staff people. These are not people that were hired. These are volunteers that … we had to dismiss because of moral issues,” he said.
“We had to dismiss them. We had to release them, and a lot of them are from 15 years ago, 12 years ago, 10 years ago. A few of them I’ve only met one time. And a lot of them were in the Burn Movement,” he added.
The former workers allege that in 2020, Feucht’s ministry experienced a substantial revenue increase of $5.3 million. Two years later, in 2022, the ministry reclassified its IRS status to be recognized as a church, which removed “financial reporting requirements” and created “significant transparency issues,” the accusers contend.
The group pointed to the complex organizational structure of Feucht’s various ministries, which seem to overlap in their business activities despite being separate legal entities, along with his questionable real estate holdings in multiple states that they say “raise questions about the proportion of non-profit funds directed towards real estate rather than program activities.”
They believe Feucht’s ownership of 10 homes in California, Montana and Pennsylvania indicates “substantial investment in residential properties.”
The group further states that multiple former employees and volunteers have raised concerns about financial practices at Feucht’s ministry, such as donation diversion, restricted donor fraud, credit card misuse and bulk cash smuggling.
“Issues such as reporting no volunteers on 990 forms, questions about foreign operations like the child sponsorship program in India with no reported foreign bank accounts, and potential failures in required disclosures,” they noted.
A section titled “Abuse” highlights what the accusers say is a “history of manipulation and broken promises,” “patterns of spiritual manipulation,” as well as “spiritual coercion and fear.” They also raised allegations of uncompensated service, “volunteer exploitation” and “retaliation against critics.”
The group is now calling on Feucht to submit to a formal investigation into the financial practices of his ministries.
Feucht insisted on Tuesday, however, that his accusers don’t know what they are talking about.
“When you have this kind of thing happening, it’s like, of course, they don’t know anything about our organization. They know nothing about our day-to-day. They know nothing about our financial situation. They’re just regurgitating what Rolling Stone and all these other hack jobs are saying, and none of those allegations are true,” he said.
“We’re in great standing with the IRS. We’re in great standing with our accountants. Every single penny that has been raised that you guys out there have donated has gone to fulfill its kingdom-ordained purpose,” he added.
“I find myself so much more in the spirit when I resist the urge to fight and resist the urge to get into defamatory conversations with people that know nothing about nothing. And I would encourage a lot of you to do the same thing,” he said.
“You got to realize this is a spiritual battle. We got to stay on mission especially right now. … It’s unfortunate that there’s former employees that want to mount this smear campaign to attack me and you know what, God bless them, but we know that the plans of the enemy and the purposes of division and chaos they’re not going to succeed. And so we are going to go forward with hope, with joy.”
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