Rock Church (5-Fold) Leadership Hierarchy

Over the last few years after having left the Rock, I’ve worked with hundreds of people who have either lost loved ones to the Rock or who have made their way out from behind the murky veil back into the land of the living. Over countless discussions I’ve come to understand one of the fundamental flaws of the entire system, why it fails so many people, and also how it can churn through ministers/laypeople but still make the apostles incredibly wealthy, in spite of the havoc they wreak in so many lives.

The Leadership Model of the Rock Churches

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At the tip top of a local church is the apostle - he maintains complete control and has an authoritarian leadership style. Anything other than authoritarian will get the minister downgraded to the role of a pastor - a 2nd class leadership type that does not have the benefits, pay, authority, and respect of the apostle. Apostles have complete control of financial resources with no oversight by outside parties - anybody with visibility to budgets is also a paid staffer.

Immediately surrounding the apostle are his full-time ministers. Ideally the apostle has a prophet, pastor, teacher, and evangelist on staff as this is the prototype of the five-fold ministry. Most of the time these staff are pastors who are vying for the lucrative role of the next pastor to be sent out to start another Rock church.

Below the paid staff are the “sons” - most of the time these members are paid on a part-time basis to do various tasks within the church. From running sound, cleaning, mowing, mixing audio CDs, running the website - these staff do much of the day-to-day work or speciality tasks around the church.

The leadership board is called the presbytery. This group is hand selected by the apostle and consists of him, his full-time staff, and select “sons”. Note that women do not have a place on the presbytery.  

Finally, at the bottom of the leadership pyramid are the laypeople.

Why this Model Fails

While this model may seem functional, the problem we have is money. All the leadership are tied to the apostle financially, without exception. Every member of this board/presbytery on up to the full-time staff are getting financial compensation.

What makes matters worse is the culture of the organization creates incredible competition to progress through the ranks. Some laypeople are vying to be “sons”, the sons are trying to make it into full-time positions, and full-time staff are trying to be the next apostle sent to build the next church.

I cannot emphasize how competitive this culture is. The entire system is built around blessing the apostle. It’s a rewards system through and through.

What happens when problems occur? In any group there will be problems. Apostles, his staff, the “sons”, the presbytery - they’re all human. Mistakes happen. So how do issues get resolved?

The model of leadership, while incredibly competitive, works to shield the presbytery and apostle from actually dealing with major leadership failings. The presbytery on up never want to be “that guy” who brings the bad news to the apostle.

Even worse, should something bad have happened that involved the apostle, no son or full-time staffer would be willing to lose their position to stand up for a layperson or anybody else, for that matter.

It’s a horrible feedback loop that simply doesn’t work!

Case in point:

1. Layperson has concerns regarding the doctrine being taught and requests a meeting with the apostle
2. They discuss and the apostle indicates he will not being altering his position, in spite of clear scriptural contradiction (remember, strong authoritarian rule is required)
3. Layperson requests a follow-up discussion with a pastor or member of the presbytery present
4. Apostle continues to reject input

Can we expect the pastor or member of the presbytery present at the 2nd meeting to really push back against the apostle? Absolutely not. Their livelihood is directly to approval from the apostle.

So who could have been at the meeting who may have been able to persuade the apostle to consider a shift in position? I couldn’t tell you. To date, after hundreds of stories have emerged, nobody on staff or in the presbytery has been willing to stand up to the apostle and their “career” survive the encounter. Nobody.

What happens is that the system protects the top - the sons don’t challenge the full-time staff and the full-time staff won’t stand up to the apostle. They’re completely dependent upon him.

How the Model Failed Me

In my case, I observed first-hand a number of incidents where the apostle acted to preserve his pulpit rather than address issues head on. In this case, other members were being lied about by the apostle. It happens. People mess up and knee-jerk defensively. A simple apology to the member and those who were being lied to would have fixed the issue.

I did the standard Matthew 18 model: I went to the apostle privately and graciously tried to discuss the matter. I was told to stand down because “even when I’m wrong, I’m right” was his mantra at the time.

I went back. This time, I was told to “let the dust settle” - which really meant, let the person leave the church so we don’t have to deal with them anymore. This is a very common response. Isolate the member who is causing problems and they’ll eventually leave and they carry on.

Next time, I tried to bring members of the presbytery along. They sat in silence. Same result. No progress. He even admitted his mess up, but the “sons” involved in the discussion weren’t about to stand up to the apostle. Quite literally I was told that “a son does not go against his father.”

As a final measure, I tried to bring different “sons” into the conversation, but at that point they had been told not to discuss the matter with me. The apostle would not meet with an outside pastor or anyone not on his presbytery.

What happened in the aftermath was that a number of precious people were railroaded right out of the church, never given an opportunity to defend themselves, and then blackballed by the members. These are common patterns among the Rock churches and you can find this pattern on any number of other sites as well.

Final Thoughts

This leadership model does not work because it protects the top. The leaders are financially intertwined and have a strong incentive to avoid dealing with problems. It’s a closed feedback loop that shields from dealing with real issues.

The result is a great deal of churn of members. People come in, have legitimate questions or concerns, and if they don’t stand down, they get railroaded out. It’s just how business is done at the Rock. Fortunately for them, it’s a very lucrative business...