The pastor of the fellowship said he believes that Gene Shiveley’s business decisions have harmed the church’s image.
By Olivia Damavandi / Staff Writer
The head of Malibu Performing Arts Center, Gene Shiveley, on Monday agreed to resign from his position as board member of the recently bankrupt nonprofit Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Malibu at the request of numerous congregants who, in written statements and phone calls to The Malibu Times, said his business decisions had tarnished their public image.
The church filed for bankruptcy late last year and must sell all its assets, including the property behind City Hall on Stuart Ranch Road that houses the Malibu Performing Arts Center, or MPAC, which will be auctioned on May 13.
“Gene Shiveley should immediately resign from his position as a board member because he faces serious allegations of fraud that undermine the confidence needed for him to represent our congregational interests,” Jonathan Morris, former associate pastor for Vineyard Fellowship of Malibu and current pastor of Malibu Christian Fellowship, wrote in a letter to board members and congregants dated March 28, which was circulated by e-mail and sent to The Malibu Times.
“These allegations call into question both his honesty and his ability to represent our church,” Morris said in an additional e-mail to The Malibu Times.
Shiveley, who has served as an officer and member of the Vineyard Fellowship of Malibu’s board of directors since 1995, said Monday in a telephone interview he was “totally shocked” at the request for his resignation, but said he will “continue to assist the board in the management and disposition of the church’s property.”
As to what Morris wrote in his letter about him, Shiveley said, “My attorney and the rest of the board are looking into the matter of fraud and have not been able to establish anything that supports any of those claims.
“I am agreeing to step down from the board if that’s what someone wants,” he continued. “I am not admitting I did anything wrong. I would do nothing to hurt the church or anyone with any of this.”
Shiveley was directly involved with the 1998-99 purchase and construction of the building that houses MPAC on the organization’s property at 23825 Stuart Ranch Road and has organized fundraising concerts or other events at the center.
Also, Morris wrote in an e-mail to The Malibu Times that Shiveley “has a clear conflict of interest in acting as both the main selling agent in the possible church property liquidation and the organizer of a group formed to purchase the church property.”
Shiveley said he is not in charge of selling or buying the Stuart Ranch Road property and the MPAC building. However, he may retain involvement with the property through a potential buyer.
“I have an interested party that I would be involved with that is interested in bidding on the property,” Shiveley said Monday in a telephone interview. “But I have no control of that. That’s governed by federal court.”
The fellowship was formerly known as the Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church, until a rift in 2004 between church leaders and the founding pastor, Dave Owen, caused Owen to leave and start a new church in Agoura. The rift created two new organizational entities-Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Malibu and Malibu Christian Fellowship.
Though they are separate entities, Morris said they are unavoidably affiliated with each other because they are both derived from the Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church.
Shiveley, however, said Monday in a telephone interview that he considers the Malibu Christian Fellowship a “completely separate corporation, a separate church,” and that he has no knowledge of why they have vested interest in removing him from the board of directors of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Malibu.
The Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Malibu defaulted on a $12,750,000 loan issued in 2005 by the Minnesota-based Marshall Investment Group before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Neither Shiveley nor Morris issued comments on the futures of Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Malibu and Malibu Christian Fellowship.
A replacement for Shiveley’s position on the board of directors has not been determined.