Church’s Dues-Paying Members Lose Patience With Promises Of Billions (Gregg Jones/The Dallas Morning News; Jan 31)

Franklin Frisby says God has entrusted him with hundreds of billions of dollars. And soon, the pastor told a Fort Worth audience last year, he will hand that money out to dues-paying members of his Ambassador for Christ Convention Churches Inc.

Frisby has been saying that for years. He has pledged to give members $50 million each to fund community projects. And he has described how he would pay each project leader an annual salary of $100,000 and cover personal debts – with $60,000 thrown in for a car allowance.

Members have yet to see this money, but church officials say they are working on it. In the meantime, Frisby and his associates are making money – off their members.

The Orlando, Fla.-based church claims more than 6,000 members in 38 states and foreign countries, including several hundred in Texas. The church collects membership dues of $100 to $200 a year and solicits offerings and donations at meetings around the country.

Frisby and other church leaders are evasive about the billions he has promised to members. They speak of U.N. financing, a World Bank connection and certificates backed by billions of dollars in World War II-era gold bullion.

Michael Thomas and his mother, Shirley, of Lake City, S.C., former members who gave thousands of dollars to the church without receiving any of the promised return, have heard it all before. They are among more than two dozen church members from around the country who have questioned the legitimacy of Frisby’s program in complaints filed with the Florida attorney general.

Warren Smith, who has worked closely with the independent watchdog Ministry Watch.com and is the associate publisher of World Magazine, said the group’s practices raise concerns.

“Anybody that’s thinking about getting involved ought to be extraordinarily careful,” said Smith, who is writing a book about faith-based fraud. “Similar schemes are out there, and they make a very few people at the top enormously wealthy.”

Frisby, 61, identifies himself as a doctor of divinity – one of several honorary degrees he holds, he said in a telephone interview. Records on file with the Florida Division of Corporations list Frisby as president of Ambassador for Christ Convention Churches Inc., a nonprofit corporation registered in 2005.

Frisby’s public presentation is part sales pitch and part sermon. He projects more street savvy than theological polish, with a cocky self-assurance.

In a series of interviews with The Dallas Morning News, Frisby said he isn’t making money from the Ambassador for Christ “program.” He said he has borrowed money to keep it going.

That’s not the impression he gives audiences. “I try not to hang around with people (who) don’t have no money,” he declared from the pulpit during the Fort Worth meeting in August.

And: “I like doing a lot of high risk. I make money on things that people don’t even think about.”

He encouraged his audience to embrace financial risk. “In order to make some money, you got to lose some money,” he said in Fort Worth.

The program that Frisby pitches to his audience sounds simple enough: Pay your annual membership dues of $100 a year ($200 for pastors), submit a project proposal, attend a set number of meetings around the country, then wait to get funded.

At the meeting in Fort Worth, Frisby urged pastors and other church members to sign up for security training through TASC Security and Investigations Inc. of Orlando because they would need security when they received their millions. He didn’t mention that he is a director of the company, as Florida records show.

It’s just one of the ways that Frisby and his associates are profiting from the program, critics contend.

Other money-making ventures affiliated with the church include business classes that members are urged to take, proposal-writing services, life insurance and a business that sells honorary degrees

Ambassador for Christ Convention Churches is not a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, an independent group that accredits leading Christian nonprofit organizations that meet established standards for financial accountability, fundraising and board governance.

Frisby told The News that he doesn’t charge for the classes he urges members to take through the church – although church literature lists the cost of the security classes at $300 per person. He also said he collects dues from only a fraction of members.

“If I have around 800 renew their license and pay, then I’m lucky,” he said. “And then out of the 800, if their checks don’t bounce, I’m really lucky.”

He added, “I’m the one that should be coming to you saying these members are taking advantage of me. I’m the one who is borrowing money.”

Michael Thomas, who said he and his parents were among the earliest Ambassador for Christ recruits, said Frisby is better off than he was five years ago.

“When this guy first started, he didn’t have any money,” said Thomas, recalling that Frisby drove an old car and always seemed short of funds. “I heard he’s driving a Mercedes convertible now.”

Florida motor vehicle registration records show that Frisby registered two vehicles last year: a red 2004 Mercedes-Benz CLK320 coupe and a 2000 Mercedes-Benz C280 sedan.

Thomas said he and his parents had high hopes for the program, beginning about five years ago, when a family friend and local pastor told them about Frisby.

Shirley Thomas, Michael’s mother, said that Frisby told them he and other prominent African-American preachers had been entrusted with $200 billion from an unidentified source. Frisby said his fellow pastors had asked him to distribute the money to believers, she said.

Frisby told members like the Thomases to submit proposals for community projects they would like to carry out.

“He was going to do this for poor people,” recalled Shirley Thomas.

She submitted a proposal for a $30 million youth center in Lake City.

“He told me that was a good project,” she recalled.

The Thomases attended several mandatory meetings in Florida, Virginia and South Carolina. Just before Christmas every year, Frisby would tell his followers the funds were close to being released – and remind them to renew their memberships, Shirley Thomas said.

After contributing more than $2,000 in membership fees and offerings, the Thomases left the church around 2008 without receiving a dime of project funding.

“When people get tired, Frisby just gets new people in,” said Michael Thomas. “We got strung along for five years, and we just woke up.”

The Thomases stopped paying their dues more than a year ago, but continue to receive donation requests from Frisby.

“I got a letter from him a few weeks ago,” said Shirley Thomas, “telling me to rush because he needs the money to work on a building.”

Melanie White, a professional grant writer and business consultant, attended a Houston recruiting meeting last December at the request of a local pastor. Speakers described how Frisby had built an orphanage in Africa, and they collected an offering that was supposed to support his humanitarian work, said White.

Keynote speaker Priscilla Jones, church ambassador for South Texas, told the audience that Frisby was increasing the funding amount from $40 million to $50 million for each member’s project.

“People were jumping up and down, shouting, ‘Hallelujah,’ ” said White.

When Jones opened the floor to questions, White asked about the organization’s history and finances.

“They couldn’t give me a concrete answer on where the money was coming from,” said White.

After more vague answers, the meeting organizers asked White to sit down.

Later, White couldn’t find any information or news coverage about Frisby or his purported humanitarian work in Africa. She also found that the Ambassador for Christ Convention Churches hadn’t registered for nonprofit status with the IRS and didn’t release an IRS Form 990 – not required for a church, but steps that nonprofits handling large amounts of money typically undertake.

White also received a call from a church representative who wanted to know why she was asking so many questions.

“She asked if the devil sent me,” White recalled.

Frisby and his associates are vague about the source of the billions they say they have to fund their members’ projects. Bishop Richard Young of The Chosen Vessel, the Fort Worth church that hosted Frisby at the August gathering, said he has been in private meetings where Frisby has talked of accessing “not billions but trillions of dollars.”

The church leader “hasn’t been completely open” about the source of his funds, said Young. “But he doesn’t seem to be, in my opinion, someone that is defrauding people, giving them false hope.”

Addressing several hundred people at the Fort Worth meeting, Frisby described how he came into billions of dollars. The News viewed a video of the meeting.

Frisby said he and a partner had just lost $130,000 in an investment in the early 2000s when an acquaintance invited him to a meeting. Their host “pulled out some certificates,” Frisby said. “And I put one in my hands and it was $857 billion. Not millions – billions.”

Frisby said his partners asked him to authenticate the certificates. “So I know this guy that works for the FBI, and he knows the CIA, and he knows the banking (business),” Frisby told the Fort Worth audience. Three days later, Frisby said, this source confirmed the certificate was real.

At this point, Frisby said, God told him, “I’m going to give you more money than this and you have to give it out to all the people.”

In recent interviews with The News, Frisby and his associates have explained their funding in various ways. In one conversation, he referred financial questions to an associate, Anthony Benton, who said the money was coming from the “international foundation department” of the U.N. but that “red tape” had delayed its release.

A spokesman for the U.N. in New York said it does not have an international foundation department. As for Ambassador for Christ Convention Churches, “We have no knowledge of this group,” said spokesman Brenden Varma.

In a subsequent conversation, Frisby repeated his assertion that he had certificates backed by billions of dollars in gold bullion. Church officials said they had hired a Sacramento-based financial facilitator to convert the certificates into cash.

In a conference call arranged by church officials, this individual, Ingrid Jeffrey, said she had confirmed the authenticity of the certificates backed by gold bullion in Swiss banks.

“Our due diligence shows us that this particular asset was actually accumulated by governments in World War II,” she said.

Jeffrey said it might take years for her to convert the bullion into dollars because of the complexity of the transaction. She wouldn’t reveal the name of the firm that employs her but said her credentials include a 164 IQ and a Ph.D. in finance from California State University at Fullerton.

Cal State-Fullerton has never offered such a degree, said spokesman Chris Bugbee. The university has never awarded any degree, graduate or undergraduate, to a student named Ingrid Jeffrey or Ingrid Jones, Jeffrey’s maiden name, he said. He couldn’t confirm whether she had ever taken classes.

Jeffrey didn’t respond to an e-mail. Through a church official, she declined to speak to The News.

“From the information she’s given me and what I checked out on her, she’s as good as they come,” said Elder Judd, a church official who would only give his title and last name.

Judd said recently that the church has severed its relationship with Jeffrey because “we did find some discrepancies” regarding her access to the highest levels of banking.

“She didn’t have the credibility to go at a higher level where I had to be at,” said Judd. “She couldn’t facilitate what I needed, so I dropped her.”

Within the church, Frisby has staunch defenders.

“A lot of people – the FBI, the CIA – everyone has done research on (Frisby), and they cannot find anything in his background, nothing wrong with him,” said Tamara Guy, Frisby’s North Texas ambassador. She cited Frisby as her source for this claim.

At a December gathering in Orlando, billed as one of the group’s frequent “national” meetings, Frisby made yet another dramatic announcement: Money destined for church members had reached a New York City bank.

“He let it be known that we’re going to have a good Christmas,” said Judd.

In mid-January, members were still waiting.

“They’ve got the funds in the bank, but they’re just waiting for the bank to release them,” Judd said. “So we’re just waiting on that.”