Church of the Highlands dismisses suggestion it is running $4.5M retreat for fallen pastors

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Church of the Highlands, Alabama’s largest church, which is also ranked as the second largest congregation in the nation with some 60,000 reported attendees in 2022, has dismissed reports suggesting it's running a $4.5 million retreat center for fallen pastors called The Lodge at Grants Mill at its Grants Mill campus.

“Unfortunately there are articles out there that are completely false with no truth to them,” Layne Schranz, Church of the Highlands senior associate pastor, told The Christian Post in an interview.

“The Lodge that we have at our church has no recovery aspect to it. We have no restoration program. That's not what The Lodge is for.”

Get Our Latest News for FREE

Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.

Subscribe

AL.com published a report Monday from Anna Claire Vollers of Reckon News highlighting how Church of the Highlands founder and Senior Pastor Chris Hodges called The Lodge a “pastoral recovery center” in 2021 as it was being built.

The pastor's exact wording, however, was that it would be "kind of a pastoral recovery center."

Shortly after construction was completed in April, Hodges called it a place where pastors “from all over the world” can “rest, worship and grow,” which Schranz said reflects more accurately what they hope to use the facility for.

“I'm so excited to tell you about an incredible place that we just finished construction on, called The Lodge at Grants Mill, nestled among the trees next to the Cahaba River. This beautiful facility is a place where our church can host pastors from all over the world for roundtables and events designed to strengthen and build the big C church,” Hodges said in April Instagram video. 

"With beautiful bedrooms and a spacious meeting area, pastors will be able to rest, worship and grow. And as you know, Highlands has always had a unique calling to not only build our congregation, but to do everything we can to invest in pastors and churches, and God has blessed it in an amazing way.”

Vollers stressed in her report that Hodges revealed during a church leadership event in 2021 that he and Highlands Associate Pastor Dino Rizzo were “in the middle of about 20 pastoral, moral failures or restorations right now” and expressed a desire to be known for restoring these pastors.

The report quoted people like Lauen Shackleford, a former employee and Church of the Highlands member, questioning whether pastors who suffered moral failures will be undergoing restoration at The Lodge.

“My biggest concern is, are they being transparent with the congregation and staff about who will be at The Lodge?” Shackleford asked. “How often would (the pastors undergoing restoration) be around other people? Are they teaching? Are they leading small groups? Are they dangerous?”

Rizzo, a member of the congregation’s senior leadership team, returned to public ministry in August 2013 at Church of the Highlands, just over a year after he resigned as senior pastor of the Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, over an inappropriate affair with a woman who was not his wife.

“I think of pastoral restoration as a programmatic attempt on the part of a church or church leaders to reinstate a pastor after some kind of scandal or moral failing, after the offending sin has come to light,” Katelyn Beaty, an author and podcast host who previously served as managing editor at Christianity Today. 

Beaty stated in a tweet on Monday that she doesn’t believe pastors who have abused their positions should get a “wellness retreat.”

“A pastor who has abused their power over people doesn't need a wellness retreat. My concern is that this ‘pastoral recovery’ center will be a place where unhealthy leaders cycle in and out, to check off a box in order to return to public ministry,” she wrote.

“Pastoral burnout is real, and even fallen leaders need places where they can do deep inner work. But when you are dealing with [a] leader with narcissistic or predatory patterns, this kind of center doesn't seem equipped to deal with that and prevent them from acting out.”

Schranz told CP that Hodges is currently working on a more formal response to the speculation about The Lodge but insists that, as of now, there is no program being run at the building, and there are no plans to provide a retreat for fallen pastors at the building.

“We do not have a restoration or recovery program. That's not what it [The Lodge] was built for,” Schranz told CP.  “We don't have a program for [fallen pastors].”