Thread by @News4Mass

The Venue Church in Chattanooga (under Pastor Tavner Smith) filed for bankruptcy yesterday, roughly 9 months after the pastor's alleged affair received national attention.

Here's what stood out to me in the megachurch's filings. 1/

But first, we have to link to some background reading for "y'all readers" just catching up. 2/

timesfreepress.com/news/2022/jan/…

A week before Christmas last year, nearly all staff at the megachurch quit after confronting Smith about the alleged affair he was having with a staff member (Smith was married at the time). 3/

timesfreepress.com/news/2021/dec/…

The mass exodus of staff and controversy (which played out in local, national and international media) caused a huge drop in the number of people attending the church.

We're talking a drop from hundreds of people a week to a few dozen. The church closed its satellite campus. 4/

Just take a look at the revenue cliff shown in the bankruptcy filing. 5/

And here is the listing of the cash or cash equivalents owned by the church at the time of declaring bankruptcy.

Venue was a church known for its lavish services and big gifts/events. 6/

The bankruptcy filing required the megachurch to list its 20 largest creditors with unsecured claims.

You can see the amounts for yourself. 7/

These filings also confirm the church was largely operating without a board of directors to oversee operations.

The Times Free Press had reported that much of the board quit during the controversy. 8/ timesfreepress.com/news/2022/feb/…

The Chattanooga newspaper also reported when Ron Phillips Sr. of Abba's House resigned from the board (it occurred in February 2022, not January as the filing suggests). 9/

timesfreepress.com/news/2022/feb/…

Someone with sources should really talk to Ron Carpenter, Steven Furtick and Benny Perez about this. But anyways... 10/

Another aside: The filings list the vehicles owned by the church, including a 2017 Ford F150 and a 2018 Chevy Suburban. 11/

But it also appears the F150 was acquired this year after the church traded in a 2021 Chevy Tahoe.

Also, the megachurch sold a LED screen to Abba's House (another Chattanooga megachurch) in June for $40k. 12/

That's all the Chattanooga/megachurch news for today, folks! Back to work on Pennsylvania/Penn State stuff. /end

@DeploraVille @CrayonVille