This is the first episode of Letters to the Church, the series that begins with an actual document and then works out what it says. The opening document is a letter from October 1990, written by Pastor Larry Neville to Wayman Mitchell and the elders of Christian Fellowship Ministries. It matters for two reasons. Larry Neville was not an outsider looking back years later; he was a pastor, board-elder, and missionary who had been inside from the early days. And the concerns he set down in 1990, enforced separation, reputational discipline, pressure on relationships, and structural rigidity, are the same ones that resurfaced in reporting about The Fellowship decades later. He wrote this while the first exodus was still unfolding.
Who Larry Neville was
By the account of Charisma magazine, Larry Neville worked with Wayman Mitchell for thirteen years, from the late 1970s until 1991, and planted churches extensively in Asia. Public biographical material also credits him with pioneering congregations in Arizona, Pennsylvania, the Philippines, and Singapore, and with writing several books, including one produced while he was still inside The Fellowship, titled The National Church in a Nationalistic Age. When he wrote this letter from Singapore in October 1990, the network was in the middle of its first large split. Colorado pastor Ron Jones, who had worked with Mitchell since the early 1970s, had severed his ties, and by the reporting around a hundred pastors left with him. Neville’s letter is his own answer to that moment. In keeping with this series, it is reproduced in full below, followed by the analysis. Document first, analysis second.
The letter of October 1990
97 Mimosa Crescent, Singapore 2880
The Potter’s House Christian CentreTo Pastor Mitchell and the Elders
October 1990For almost a year now, I have agonized in my spirit over the divisions in the fellowship. Being in an overseas setting I have tried to stay out of it and submit no matter how I felt. I must now speak up.
I have not found sufficient Biblical backing to satisfy me concerning the actions to dis-communicate certain leaders (Jack Harris, Ron Jones, Peter Edwards, Ron Simpkins and any who associate with them) who have chosen for various reasons to break-a-way.
There has been time for me to retrospect and view this in light of: My Personal Christian and ministerial ethic. Scriptural reasons for total dis-association from fellowship. Moral justification.
I can not agree with the way these men have been: Disassociated from all relationship with fellowship ministers. Their Character attacked. Families and friends separated and fighting.
I understand loyalty and commitment. I’m aware some who broke-away have been moved by wrong and divisive spirits. But, we are not dealing with young converts in a local church, rather with Men of God who have years of proven and fruitful ministries. There must be a difference in handling them than just simply saying “he’s a rebel.” My Christian spirit and beliefs cannot allow me to treat fellow ministers of the gospel that way. I cannot just cut these men off as though I never had any relationship with them.
Jack Harris: Has spent years helping every man in this fellowship. He has been an encouragement and a partner in ministry to me. I know of no Biblical, doctrinal, or moral reason why I should not associate with him.
Ron Jones: Has been called a rebel, immoral, power hungry, church splitter, liar, and much more. I cannot accept that. I see no Biblical stand to disassociate myself or ministry from him.
Ron Simpkins: Is a personal friend of mine. I have no Biblical reason to break relationship with him or not allow him in my pulpit.
Peter Edwards: I believe Peter to be a man of integrity. One of the main accusations against him was that he choose not to abide by a rule which required him to break relationship with a relative and friend many years.
I can’t imagine what would happen if “The Fellowship” would draw me into a conflict with my own brother, my father or my son. As I have seen happen this past year with some families.
Structure is not divine. It is human and flawed at best. It must always be flexible to adjust with growth, maturity and circumstances. It must become large and flexible to allow for mature men to exercise their personal visions. It must allow for complete release at some point in a man’s maturity and fruitfulness.
What drew me to the Arizona Fellowship 13 years ago was the vision to invest in men and see them fulfil their destiny. Planting churches was the means to release them. Now planting churches has become the process whereby men are used to build “The Fellowship.” The worker becomes expendable. The work becomes more important than the worker. The investment is in equipment, cars and buildings. The “Indigenous Church” has become the “Fellowship Church.”
I am no longer the 27 year old young man who sat across from Pastor Mitchell when he offered to help me establish a church. I am 40 years old and have a much larger vision and a driving desire to see that come about in the next 10-20 years. With the actions that have been taken against men in the past year or so I begin to wonder if the structure is not becoming a threat more than a help and assistance. If a man’s vision is to step into new areas of ministry, enlargement, or if he does not fully agree and submit to every “letter of the law” he might find himself cut off and black-balled from all he helped build for years. That is very difficult to live with, commit to and continue to sacrifice for.
Larry Reed is an example of this. For 20 years he helped build this fellowship, labored and had a positive impact. I had Larry and his family in my church for 2 years and I know of nothing morally or Biblically wrong with him any more than many men of “feet of clay.” Here is a man over 60 years old, out. In all of my Christian life I have never seen a church or organization cut men off like that. Out of respect for the leadership of our fellowship I have abided by the decision toward Larry. That kind of submission and discipline I now bring into question.
I understand the need for disciplinary action in moral issues. Even in relational ethic violations. But, all discipline should be for reconciliation. I believe there should be a healing sought. That process must start with Headship and the Elders. I am not saying there can or will be reconciliation. We can not go back to where we were. But there can be healing in relationships. Ungrounded accusations can be checked. A way can be paved for Christian families and friends to once again share Christian love and relationship.
My personal vision has always been “World Evangelism.” I was involved in Miracle Crusades and Conferences in nations of the world before I came to Prescott. This vision is why I have given years of my life to missions. Now, after 8 years in missions with the fellowship I have come to the conclusion that I cannot fulfill my missionary vision within the structure of the fellowship.
1 Corinthians 9:9 “For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn…” The way we are structured, no matter how fruitful a missionary is, how large his church is, or how long he has been on the field he will have generally the same amount of resources as a pioneer. I have had basically the same amount of support for 8 years in Asia. I have promoted crusades for most every pastor who comes to Asia yet I have never been able to preach one crusade which required more than a few hundred dollars investment, because I have no resources. The heartbreaking thing is that I foresee no means in the context of The Fellowship which will allow us to make impact upon Asia or have resources to do any more.
A number of times I have brought this up to Pastor Mitchell and some of the leadership. I have been told that the only way I can ever have resources beyond basic support is to return to the States or another developed country and build a base like other men have done. Because of my burden for Asia, I have not done that but stayed here functioning under our structure. I always believed that by helping build The Fellowship I was also building a base which would release me, but that has not proven to be true.
Recently God reaffirmed a promise given to me years ago, that I can see powerful miracle crusades and make impact in Asia. I am now going to believe God to raise up a missionary ministry that will service this purpose. This means I am going to step out by faith for the finances needed to respond to the opportunities in Asia. This will require that I move beyond the boundaries and limitations set by The Fellowship and open the door for other churches, ministries and individuals to partner with us in ministry.
I am releasing Pastor Mitchell and the Prescott church from their commitment to support me in missionary work. I will not send a budget to the Prescott church after October 1990. I am also resigning from the position of elder in the Christian Fellowship Ministries.
Yours in Christ,
Larry Neville, Singapore
What Larry Neville was arguing
The letter is careful, and its care is the point. Larry Neville does not reject leadership, discipline, loyalty, or order. He concedes at the outset that some who broke away may have been moved by wrong and divisive spirits. His objection is narrower and harder to dismiss for being narrow. He could not find sufficient Scriptural, moral, or ethical ground for the level of separation being demanded, and he would not treat proven ministers of years’ standing as though a single word, rebel, settled the matter.
From there the letter widens in stages. First, the separation was not only formal. Ministers were expected to sever personal ties, and the fallout reached families and friendships, which Neville names as a Christian concern rather than an administrative one. Second, he distinguishes spiritual authority from institutional machinery in the line the whole document turns on: structure is not divine, it is human and flawed at best, and must stay flexible enough to release mature men rather than bind them. Third, he argues the fellowship had changed character. What once drew him was a vision of investing in men and releasing them, and church planting had become the means by which men were used to build the institution instead. His phrasing is blunt: the worker becomes expendable, the work becomes more important than the worker, the indigenous church has become the Fellowship church. Fourth, he grounds a missions complaint in 1 Corinthians 9:9, the ox that must not be muzzled while it treads the corn: after eight years in Asia a fruitful veteran drew the same basic support as a raw pioneer, and the only path to more was to leave the field and build a base back home. He closes by releasing Prescott from any obligation to support him, halting his budget after October 1990, and resigning his eldership.
The men he refused to shun
The names in the letter are not minor figures. Ron Jones, the Colorado pastor Neville defends against the labels rebel and liar, was the man whose 1990 departure triggered the exodus that roughly a hundred pastors joined. Jack Harris is described as a partner who had helped every man in the fellowship. Larry Reed had given twenty years and was, in Neville’s account, cut off past the age of sixty. And Ron Simpkins, whom Neville calls a personal friend he would still welcome into his pulpit, is credited as the author of the fellowship’s own 1985 in-house history, An Open Door. A group willing to cut off the man who wrote its own history is the one Neville was describing.
What later reporting added
Eleven years on, Neville spoke to Charisma magazine for its December 4, 2001 report on a second exodus, in which around 160 of some 800 churches left. He framed the arc plainly, saying there had once been a move of God in the Potter’s House that had since backed itself into “no TV” and isolationism, unhealthy not because anyone was sinning but because the group had stopped moving on. The same report carried the relational damage a former leader described, families divided for years and children who no longer spoke to parents, and a former CFM trainee’s warning that pastors who left were reluctant to talk because they got targeted. For balance, the report also quoted Harold Warner, a longtime Mitchell associate in Tucson, who defended Mitchell as a strong leader who gave his pastors freedom rather than an oppressive atmosphere, and Mitchell himself framed the departures as loyalty to individual pastors rather than a verdict on him. Readers can weigh those competing accounts. What the 1990 letter establishes is that the critique was already being made, from the inside, before any of that reporting existed.
Why the Larry Neville letter matters
Arguments about whether a group is a high-control system often run on memory and on testimony gathered long after the fact. This document runs on neither. It was written inside the structure, in real time, by a senior insider with thirteen years and a continent of church plants behind him, and it names in order the features later examined in such systems: pressure to sever relationships, concentration of authority, reputational punishment, structural rigidity, and institutional demand overriding conscience and calling. Concede the strongest reply, which is that Neville was one man with his own frustrations and his own vision to pursue. Even granting that, the letter is evidence, because it records how the system looked to someone who had helped build it and still believed in its mission. He borrowed the law’s own image and asked not to be muzzled while he worked. The reply he documents is a structure that had learned to treat that request as rebellion.
The series
This is episode 4.1 of Letters to the Church, and the first in the series. It leads into episode 4.2 on Pastor Rudy van Diermen’s 2003 letter, which turns from relational separation to the notarized pastor’s contract, and into episode 4.3 on Thomas Cunningham’s 2023 withdrawal letter. If you hold other letters, contracts, statements, or internal documents connected to The Potter’s House, The Door, Victory Chapel, or Christian Fellowship Ministries, send them my way. The purpose of the series is simple: document first, analysis second.
Sources and further reading
- Pastor Larry Neville, letter to Pastor Mitchell and the elders, Singapore, October 1990 (reproduced in full above)
- Andy Butcher, “Potter’s House Group Loses Churches Amid More Charges of Rigid Control,” Charisma, December 4, 2001
- On the same period and structure, see the founding history of Christian Fellowship Ministries and Rudy van Diermen’s 2003 letter
