Former Copeland employees speak out 11:42 AM CST on Thursday, November 8, 2007
By BRETT SHIPP / WFAA-TV
11/06: Senate probe targets Copeland, Hinn ministries
2/28: Jet flight records spur Copeland ministry questions
5/03/06: Televangelist couple at center of debt controversy ------
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One day after the announcement of a congressional investigation into their ministry finances, televangelists Kenneth and Gloria Copeland of Fort Worth may have a new set of problems.
Revelations have arisen from former ministry insiders that say Copeland's faithful followers are being misled and that it's time for the truth to come out.
It was News 8 that first reported on the private use of the Copeland ministry's $20 million jet, trips made to a ski resort and exotic game hunting ranch.
But the real turbulence for Copeland's ministry may come from within the security gates of his Eagle Mountain Church and Ministry Headquarters that are north of Fort Worth.
Former employees told News 8 that the Copelands one sees on television are not the same Copelands in real life.
Four former Copeland ministry employees said they are disappointed by the discovery of what they said really goes on inside ministry operations.
Among those who have come forward is Jeff Spradlin, who said he grew up admiring the Copelands and was excited to get a job working for them.
“Within 90 days, I started realizing this was a huge mistake," he said.
For nearly two years, Spradlin said he worked in the mail processing center where prayer request envelopes stuffed with cash would arrive every morning. He said a group of ministers, not the Copelands, would pray over the unopened envelopes.
But Spradlin said he and other mail processors were the only ones who actually read the requests.
“I was sitting there getting this paperwork all the day thinking, Kenneth and Gloria don't see a word of this," he said.
Another former mailroom worker, who asked to remain anonymous, said, “none of the prayer requests I handled were ever seen by Kenneth or Gloria Copeland.”
The same worker said mail processors would send return letters to Prayer Partners, which was crafted to give the look of a personal response. In fact, the ministry recently bought a new high tech printer, which according to the manufacturer, gives Copeland "a finished document that looks 100 percent personalized."
"They think that when they get the letter back that someone has actually prayed,” said Nathan Boutwell, another person who has worked with the ministry. “That's very misleading."
Boutwell also said it was he, not Copeland, that read the prison ministry prayer requests.
"There was no actual human contact with that letter besides my eyes," he said. "But that's ok, Copeland gets 10,000 letters a week. But admit that. Don't imply that you read these personally when you don't."
The former employees News 8 spoke to also said their spirits sank after learning the Copelands have little if any contact with their Prayer Partners and their staff.
"The one time I saw the man was at the Christmas party," Boutwell said.
According to another former employee, Barbara Pierce, workers were told to avoid the Copelands if they ever encountered them.
"It was an unwritten law that if Kenneth or Gloria walked into the office you don't see them, you don't speak to them," she said.
Former employees also said when the Copelands weren't on the road, they spent their days inside their 18,000 square foot parsonage on the shores of Eagle Mountain Lake, surrounded by hundreds of acres of range and ranch land, which was not far from their tennis courts and boat house.
While Copeland told News 8 he does pray over some of his requests, he said he doesn't over all of them due to the volume of mail he gets every day. He said he has a prayer team pray over the requests when he can’t.
Copeland said he has little contact with his staff because he and Gloria are private people who are on the road preaching much of the time. He also took News 8 to task for continually criticizing his ministry.
"You don't want to talk about the productive side of the ministry, you just want to run me down,” he said. “You want to tear down everything you can and I don't understand that."
E-mail
bshipp@wfaa.com
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