An Important Letter from Bill, Kris, and Dann on Behalf of Bethel Leadership

Dear Church,

We’re writing to you today to share about some of our mistakes and failures in the way we navigated our responsibilities to the global Body of Christ. We ask for you to cover us with grace as we seek the Lord for forgiveness in the face of some grievous mistakes. These actions were taken by us (Bill Johnson, Kris Vallotton, and Dann Farrelly) along with Danny Silk. We would like to clarify that our other leaders and staff members, including Brian and Jenn, and the Bethel Music team, were not updated on the allegations or the details of the process. We take responsibility for the fact that we did not properly and fully bring discipline, closure, or clear and timely communication regarding the gravity of our concerns with Shawn Bolz. This was someone we platformed to preach and prophesy in our house and with our teams on many occasions up until 2019. 

We are clear that we are not responsible for Shawn’s sin, he is. But we are equally clear that we are responsible for our sins, actions, and inactions after the fact. James 4:17 states, “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”

The truth is, we have hurt and scared people because we did not tell the truth enough, early enough, long enough, or loud enough, and this is a just criticism. Our hearts are grieved, and embarrassed. When we sin or mess up publicly as we have, it’s important to take responsibility publicly, to listen as people share their frustration, sadness, fears, and corrections. We have been hearing a lot of this, and expect to hear more in the season ahead, as sometimes it takes a while for the frustration to land, and for people to really trust you’ve heard them. We are not rushing past this. 

We want to especially thank our alumni, by God’s grace, there are 18,000 of them all over the earth, and many right here in our church. Frankly, it was their communication and agitation 18 months ago, and since, that drew our attention back, and subsequently other national voices, to the necessity of finally and appropriately addressing this. They were calling us to live up to what we taught them: calling out the gold in us.

We recognize this letter is not the end of this process, nor are we putting a bow on things and moving on. We have had a lot of key conversations this year and expect to continue to have many more. But this is the beginning of making things right as we move to increased accountability and transformation. As you all know, it is not our mistakes or sins that define us, but what our Savior does and how we respond to His amazing grace.
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A Message from Kris Vallotton

Firstly, I want to say that I have had a change of perspective since my message last Sunday evening, and I’m writing with a repentant heart today. Prior to 2019, Shawn Bolz had been a friend who had been to Bethel many times, and had ministered to me even during my own nervous breakdown in 2014. In 2019, allegations of sexual harassment came to us through a former member on Shawn’s team. Danny confronted Shawn on this, and he denied any wrongdoing. After further investigation, which included speaking to three of Shawn’s former team members, the accusations were corroborated and showed that this was a culture within Shawn’s team.

Shortly after the sexual allegations, some European church leaders came forward with evidence that Shawn was using social media to get information for false words of knowledge. Danny and I then began reviewing those allegations, along with the 14 pieces of evidence given to us regarding the integrity of Shawn’s prophetic ministry.

As Bill navigated Beni’s cancer diagnosis, Danny and I began a series of additional confrontations. I also flew down to Los Angeles to confront Shawn with my findings. He denied the allegations in what became a four-hour meeting, the heart of which was, Galatians 6:1—confrontation to a friend who had sinned. Again, he denied the allegations, and at that time, I warned him that if someone else must confess his sin, it would be far worse than repenting and doing the right thing. We felt we should give him time to choose repentance, until Shawn stopped engaging with us on the accusations entirely.

In the midst of Covid, Beni’s illness, Eric and Candace’s departure, and other personal stresses, our team began to meet to determine what we should do. We decided to remove him from our platforms, take down his resources from our store, remove his sermons from our network, and to communicate to ministry friends that we knew had him on their platforms as well. But here is the challenge and my mistake: I did not realize until just a few days ago that my approach was merely that of helping a friend, because he was not on our staff or our teams, and we had confronted his board with our findings on several occasions. We did not feel taking things further was our responsibility, and felt that we had done what we could. However, this was a major mistake. We should have told our church and wider community in 2020. We did not. That was wrong.

We platformed him because we believed in him, and when he failed, and failed to repent, it was our responsibility to tell people that we no longer trusted him in order to protect them. That was my decision to not communicate more widely, and my error in judgement. 

It grieves me that someone would need to put out a video to prompt us to action. It’s an indictment against my leadership. I should have known better in this situation, and if I didn’t, I should have sought counsel on what to do. I didn’t do that, and I’m very sorry. I take full responsibility for that, but I know that sorry is not enough. People took prophetic words from Shawn, and I did not step in to support their journey of how to process them in light of these revelations. And regrettably, when one of the victims of Shawn’s sexual allegations reached out to me for help in this crisis, after several conversations and phone calls, I made a decision to remove his access to me without compassion due to my personal overwhelm. I am grieved by my actions.

And so now, I specifically want to apologize to victims of Shawn: those who experienced Shawn’s inappropriate and sexually harassing culture, and those who struggled to process or made life decisions as a result of prophetic words that they’d received. I am very sorry. 

During my message on Sunday evening, January 18, I was in a different place with all of this, still not realizing that we had placed Shawn on a global platform and the responsibility we had in that. Adversity introduces a man to himself, and I did not like what I saw in myself by Monday morning. I thank those who pushed back. On Sunday night, I was externally processing and shared a one-sided message that lacked compassion and awareness, and incorporated Scripture in a way that was incomplete and inaccurate. As a result of my conviction from the Lord and challenge from others, I came to realize the truth: Shawn’s sin isn’t our fault, but protecting people from those we platform is definitely our responsibility.

Repentance means taking ownership of your failure. So right now, I am taking ownership of my failure to our Body, our students, and everyone who trusts us. But repentance also requires bringing forth fruit, so we need to shift our cultural values. We need to focus on creating safety and security for our global community. We must do our best to accomplish this, and we didn’t. We must realize that we need to care more about character than we do about gifting in the leaders who grace our podium and are promoted by us. We need to take steps to have greater accountability within our own leadership teams and ensure that together, we live out our core values and call one another to account when we fall short. We are committed to doing this better moving forward. 

We want to remain a place of restoration for leaders, but not at the expense of protecting the flock. We cannot let predators and the unrepentant have our podiums and be among our people. I am sorry that I failed you in this as well. Sunday night’s message communicated that I cared more about the leader than the victim. I have great compassion for those who are broken, but I did not extend compassion to these victims in my message, and I am deeply sorry for this. I hold my leadership team to never again allow me to not honor the responsibility that we have to the Body.

We have spent a lot of time as a team ensuring that we don’t just say we’re sorry without action. Going forward, how we navigate a global movement in these moments and in this hour must be far better than we have done. We pray that others learn from our mistakes, and that the Body of Christ becomes a safe and godly place for victims to be healed and for people to get well. Please forgive me. I know that healing the trust that has been broken will take time, but I give you my word that we will move to maturity in this. 

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A Message from Bill Johnson

I have many things that I want to take ownership of and apologize for in this situation to our church, our students, and to our global family. I firstly want to apologize for the position I took on the initial accusations brought to our team. Kris and Danny were both willing to bring correction in this, and I was the one who slowed things down. My great strength, and in this instance weakness, is that I believe in people when they don’t deserve it. But in this situation, it became unsanctified mercy. In my commitment to wanting to see Shawn in a place of health, I didn’t see what I needed to. I didn’t want to believe the accusations against Shawn were true, and it blinded me to reality in my loyalty to a friend, neglecting that there was a real issue that needed to be addressed. I could’ve chosen to see through the eyes of my team and access their discernment, but chose not to. As a result of my inaction, which slowed this process down, more people were affected, and additional injuries in the prophetic and trauma in Shawn’s own team took place. 

I specifically spent time with one individual that I know from Shawn’s team, who expressed the pain of his journey and the trauma he had faced while on his staff. But not long after this conversation, I was invited to do an interview on TBN only to discover that it was to promote Shawn and his book. Still, I moved forward with the interview—and this was wrong. Doing the TBN show, after learning of his damaging experience, and then promoting Shawn and his book was a slap in the face to Shawn’s former team member, and to those who suffered from Shawn’s behavior. Soon after the interview, I apologized to the team member who had initially shared with me. He helped me to see how foolish my actions were and the pain they caused him. I know if it affected him in this way, it affected countless others. And for this, I am deeply sorry. 

I live in such a way that I willingly rally to those in trouble. But in this instance, I did this at the expense of the victims. I showed mercy in one area of the situation and not the other, and that seriously affected those who should not have been traumatized any more than they were. It was incredibly careless. I realize now that I contributed to their trauma, and I am deeply grieved by this and am sorry. Sometimes it is your action, and sometimes, your lack of action, that causes harm, and I know that I failed. 

Additionally, I am not good at confrontation, and this is something I am committed to growing in, but I am also inviting our team into this space on a greater level. I can no longer afford to delay in confrontation and conflict. Moreover, when we are pursuing justice, we must place the victim as the first priority, followed by serving the church, and then we work to restore the victimizer. I acknowledge this, and my failure, and I want to convey that I, and our house, will do better. We must do better. 

I pray that with the wisdom of our entire team, we will hear from the Lord and create a new and healthier culture. I also pray that the Lord will bring healing to our hearts, our Church, and the greater Body of Christ. 

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At this time, we would like to clearly state that the evidence we have seen concerning Shawn’s prophetic integrity has produced broken trust with his ministry. We believe that Shawn was not truthful in how he received his words of knowledge and prophetic words. We also acknowledge our belief that he engaged in sexually explicit and harassing behavior towards some members of his staff. We do not condone his actions, or endorse his ministry. We strongly advise you to take our position into account if you choose to interact with his materials.

As a team, we recommit ourselves to responsibility, truth, accountability, and transformation in Christ. Because of this, we’re enacting greater levels of oversight within our staff and leadership. Our senior leadership team has grown to over 25 people, and our eldership is taking a more active role in leading and speaking into how we build. We will also be implementing additional training and equipping in the prophetic to weigh prophetic words. Should something happen that needs to be addressed, we are implementing a confrontation model that will include wider communication when substantiated allegations are brought forth and impact the Body, including those met with unrepentance. We have also created and will continue to make paths to provide help and support to those who experience something that takes place that is not healthy, appropriate, or biblical. 

In February of 2025, we introduced a Safe Church process for our alumni community that invited anyone experiencing abuse of any kind in our environment to report it via phone or form to a secure third-party team outside of the Bethel environment. This was done to ensure that Bethel itself would be held accountable for the information reported and the investigation process. Safe Church information can be found at bethel.com/safechurch, and is now open to our local and online church community as well. 

While we are committed to doing better in the future, we understand that some are in the midst of working through pain, confusion, and consequences to which we contributed. If you were directly impacted by a prophetic word from Shawn within our environment, or as a result of his sexual misconduct, we invite you to reach out to us so we can offer support, pastoral care, or counseling resources. This is intended to specifically support those personally affected. You can connect with us by emailing us at safechurch@bethel.com.

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In Closing
We took time on Sunday, January 25 at all morning services to share with the Church our heart and repentance. Our time of worship was deep and powerful, and we were grateful to speak during that time. We invite you to listen to the full service here with our statement beginning at 01:05:20.

As we continue in this time of sober reflection, we are allowing the Lord to sift our hearts that we might walk in holiness, righteousness, purity, and the fear of the Lord before Him and before those whom He has entrusted us with. 

With Love and Hope,
Bill, Kris, and Dann on Behalf of the Bethel Church Leadership Team