Truth Now Told: I was banned from James River Church!

CHAPTER ONE

OZARK, MO — The following is a true story of how I was banned from James River Church.

This is not a story I wish to tell, but recent, growing controversy surrounding a men’s conference last weekend surfaced and I decided now was the time to share my story. Click here for a controversy article about the 2023 men’s conference.

The church also received notoriety and caused a ruckus after a healing service at one of its satellite locations. Click here for more about that. Many people said the report of a woman growing toes after amputation were unsubstantiated, while others swear it’s true.

This past weekend in April 2024, another men’s conference at JRC drew more controversy. Fellow news blogger David Rice had some pretty specific criticism, calling John Lindell a “false prophet” for a male stripper being part of the entertainment. The stripper was performing as a sword swallower during the conference, not as a stripper. That would be going too far for any standard. Click here for more.

Here is my personal story

My name is John Cockroft. I go by my pen name, Johnny Rooster. I publish the Christian County Trumpet, a news and entertainment blog for Christian County, Missouri taxpayers and voters. (Christian is the county name and not associated with Christianity.)

First of all, I am a Bible-believing Christian, active in church and alert to helping others in need. My joy is connecting new people and making them feel welcome and valued. I am highly creative and observant, loner by nature, but eager to interact with a variety of people in different stages and walks of life. All that to say I don’t fit the mold of church membership, going along with the programs and getting involved in traditional volunteer ways. I see opportunities and insert helpfulness as needed, on the fly. I teach Sunday school when asked, but won’t ever be a formal, tithing member of a church again because of my experiences at James River Assembly (now James River Church or JRC) in Springfield and Ozark, MO from 1997 until 2011.

I was active in ministry at JRA (now JRC) from 1997 until 2011, when I got kicked out. This story is true and as accurate as my memory serves. It will be written chapter by chapter until I’m done.

My James River Church journey

In August, 1997, my wife and I were expecting our firstborn. Living in Kansas City, I felt the need to return to my roots in the Ozarks to raise our new family. My parents offered me to build a home on their rural acreage in Oldfield where I had grown up.

We were active in church (I’d been on staff at a small church in Chillicothe, MO when I met my wife at church camp). We married in 1993 and moved to KC in 1995. By 1997, we were tired of the small church of 40 people at Kansas City Free Methodist (the church has since closed). It was time for something new, big, fresh, dynamic.

When I moved back to the Ozarks, I decided to attend the largest church in the area, as long as it was Bible based. I didn’t want to be needed. I was tired of small churches asking me to fill in for this or that. I just wanted to attend church and see where I could fit in. James River Assembly had grown to 3,000 population in 1997. It met in the building later purchased for a million bucks by the Evangelical Free Church. It was the blue roof building west of 65 between Evans Road and James River Freeway.

The first time I attended, a guest speaker was there and I was disappointed that I didn’t hear John Lindell, the famed pastor of the big purple church.(The carpet and chairs were purple; the jackets the ushers wore were similar in color.)

I’m not going to name names, but I remember many names and faces from that era.

John Lindell was back in the pulpit the next week. I introduced myself to him. He had dark, shorter hair and a detective style mustache. A long, lean, marathon jogging looking guy with a partial pinky finger on his left hand. He learned my name was John and greeted me BY NAME the following week.

I know, our names are the same, but John Lindell is amazing at remembering names. I asked him once how he did it, and he said, “There’s really no method; I just remember them.”

He had a thousand names in his head, according to him, and I believe him.

Lindell was a captivating speaker, bringing the Word of God chapter and verse in the expository style. I like that over a storyteller who just works on a laugh. Lindell was a man of substance. Baptisms were a big thing. Scores of baptisms on Sunday nights. There were Wednesday night prayer meetings, too. We sat on the front row for Sunday morning services. Scotty Gibbons was the youth pastor. His future wife, Casey Hartley, wore a powder blue outfit one Sunday and my infant son, Luke, upchucked on it. Oops.

I got involved in Sunday school and my wife joined the choir. We joined the church and I got on the camera crew when they moved to the new green roof building they now occupy on CC and 65 in 2000.

In 1999, I was able to go on a mission’s trip, but had recently admitted to a moral purity failure, having participated in chat room sessions with sexually explicit conversations with anonymous women. Therefore, I was in counseling with the church counselor. He was a good guy who reminded me of Bob Newhart. Again, I’m not naming names.

During this time, a leader in the church abandoned his wife. I will name him because he already was highly publicized in the main stream press. His name is Tim Carpenter. I knew his wife and two daughters. My son was born in 1998 and they babysat him. The Carpenters were in our Sunday school class and Tim was on the church board.

In a bizarre event, Tim, owner and founder of Christian Publisher’s Outlet and one of the founding members of James River Church, made his office look like he’d been abducted. He ended up with a hooker in Memphis and that’s where John Lindell found him and coaxed him back to his car to return to Springfield to get psychiatric help. Click here for more about that.

I remember Lindell going frantic behind the scenes, putting up fliers for Tim when he was missing. Lindell went through a tough time. That was in the fall of 1998. My wife and I had dinner with John and Debbie Lindell at their home, and they gave us some of their old dining room furniture for our home, which we built in 2001. John and Debbie personally came out to our home in Oldfield and prayed over each room of the house. It was a special time of anointing.

Another time, we had dinner with them at a restaurant. We set appointments up with Norma, his long-time administrative assistant. Lindell had a long waiting list of people seeking personal time.

John was a real-world guy at the dinner table, joking about his sons David and Brandon playing paintball with him and how one of them “shot him in the butt”. His dry humor and friendly mannerisms set me at ease. I felt like he was the real deal.

To the public, Lindell is a people person, generous, and compassionate. A powerful speaker and defender of the truths in the Bible, in the face of cultural opposition. I like that about John. He came out against false cults, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, even Catholics. He backed it up with Scripture. He raged against drinking alcohol and one well known wealthy dentist gave up booze after that one. Pretty powerful stuff.

Behind the scenes, however, Lindell is specific. Blunt. A perfectionist. He is not a people person; a fact he often shares with those close to him. I wasn’t that close to him; I just observed. I was on the first media crew when they moved to the new building on CC and 65.

Before the carpet was installed, church members gathered in the new building and wrote Scripture verses all over the floor in magic marker. I was part of that with my wife. We were involved in everything. Our first two sons were born in 1998 and 2000. We were in the children’s area helping as a result. One time a foster daughter of my parents (with mental challenges) picked up my oldest son, then 4, from the church nursery. She took him to the main service without our knowledge. When I went to pick him up, Luke was no where and the new childcare worker hadn’t seen him from the previous shift. We had a search party looking all over the building and parking lot. I was sick inside. He was finally located in the sanctuary with the foster teenager.

After that, the church adopted a check in system with photo verification for each child. It’s interesting that most large churches do that now, all because of my son (at least that’s what I say!)

Not allowed to drink

Leaders in the church weren’t allowed to drink; even wine was off limits. Lindell claimed Jesus drank non fermented wine (thought that is an outright lie). Pharisees said of Jesus “here is a glutton and a drunkard who eats and drinks with sinners” about Jesus hanging out with Matthew the tax collector and Mary Magdalene the prostitute.

But the Gospel according to John Lindell is strong at JRA.

Stay tuned for Chapter Two next time.

Johnny Rooster is publisher of The Christian County Trumpet, a news/entertainment blog for taxpayers and voters in Christian County, MO.

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