Prestonwood Baptist in Plano, Texas is one of the larger megachurches in the Southern Baptist Convention and is home to Pastors Jack Graham and Jeremiah Johnston. This past Sunday, the church announced the departure of its Executive Pastor Mike Buster, who has been on staff for 35 years. During the sermon, Jack Graham said the following:
Mike Buster has offered his resignation after serving our church for 35 years, and we love Mike and Joanie, and we’re going to be honoring them next Sunday, but we wanted to put the information in the worship guide today…We love Mike and again, we’ll have an opportunity to honor them next week in a very special time in our service, so that’s that.
With only a week’s notice, the decision comes across as abrupt. Moreover, the use of the term “resignation” implies something behind the scenes, which is not helped by the brief delivery of this news by Jack Graham. If it was a retirement, which would be unsurprising after 35 years, then that would be the word used, but resignation implies that either he voluntarily resigned or was pressured to by the church, and this allows them to peacefully break up without harming the church body.
The church sent out this statement, which includes comments from Buster which conveys that this is a retirement, rather than a resignation.
Now, Amy Smith, a liberal who runs a blog called WatchKeep, reported on this story and expounded upon a deeper scandal. The main priority of Smith was to dreg up instances of sex abuse to attack the church rather than edify the church, very similar to Wartburg Watch, the outlet that broke the Robert Morris story. Her tweet out of the story garnered widespread traction and is heightened by all the scandal surrounding megachurches in the Dallas Fort Worth area.
She makes the following allegations regarding Mike Buster’s departure from Prestonwood:
My source has shed light on the alleged reason for his departure according to conversations with several church deacons:
1. Mike was forced to resign.
2. It has to do with financial impropriety
3. Mike made some personal investments with a church member (I believe the last name is Adams or something like that) who is now in prison for his fraud. Mike invested some of (now deceased) minister Joe Perry’s money in the deal. Something improper happened and the FBI has been in and around the church investigating Mike and several people.
4. Mike also tried to get his grandkids into PCA (Prestonwood Christian Academy) for free. The written policy states that grandchildren of employees get a 50% discount but Mike played the head of the school and Jack Graham against each other to try to get free tuition and he got caught.
5. All of this combined got Mike ousted. This is clear b/c there was no retirement celebration. Usually when people depart Prestonwood after far less time than Mike has been there, then there’s some big celebration about it. Mike just quietly was shoved out last week.
It is worth noting that she neither provides the exact source nor any substantiating details regarding any claims of financial impropriety. Everything is anonymous and hearsay. The circumstantial evidence behind an abrupt departure lends credence to claim #1. Claim #5 has some merit given that Buster worked 35 years at Prestonwood and the one week notice between his honoring and the announcement of his resignation/retirement. Claim #4 is petty drama that while he allegedly sought special treatment is not tantamount to financial impropriety alleged in Claim #2. It is also not substantiated as to when he sought his grandchildren’s free education.
This third claim is the most serious in which she asserts the FBI’s involvement. Texas AG Ken Paxton is a member of Prestonwood Baptist Church and has conducted business transactions with Mike Buster. Perhaps the FBI’s involvement is because their primary target is a politically prominent AG, not Mike Buster. Paxton is currently being investigated by the FBI for securities fraud from 2011. As for the unidentified man incarcerated for fraud in which she alleges Buster’s participation, she does not do the due diligence to discover who that man even was. People are running with her claims that she does not do any legwork to substantiate.
Per Prestonwood’s website, their biography of Buster includes the following:
He has also served as an adjunct professor for Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and has served on the board of trustees for GuideStone Funds, the financial resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. Mike has also served on the boards of H.I.S. BridgeBuilders, Ouachita Baptist University and Amazon Outreach, as well as on the panel of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. He often serves as a consultant regarding church growth, church relocation and building programs.
Needless to say, Buster is an experienced financial steward who has served on various nonprofit boards. In the comment sections of Smith’s tweet, there was a link to Open Corporate where there are 27 Michael Buster’s listed as an officer over corporations.
This does include four entities which pertain to Prestonwood Baptist, but the naming convention of the others, which share addresses near to Plano, TX, located at a mansion, suggest that they are all the same Michael Buster. Several can be eliminated due to proximity leaving about 18 suspected listings (discounting those associated with Prestonwood). On several, he is listed as both a manager and agent, which means there are duplicate entities. This is further reduced to 9 since he is an agent and manager of the same entity.
These LLCs could be shell corporations created for whatever reason. According to Investopedia, a shell corporation is “a corporation without active business operations or significant assets. These types of corporations are not all necessarily illegal, but they are sometimes used illegitimately, such as to disguise business ownership from law enforcement or the public.” They can also be used to avert taxes (typically offshore) or for startups, the latter of which might make sense for Buster with his prior participation in mineral rights deals that were the subject of lawsuits. This could explain the use of lot numbers in the naming conventions for the LLCs.
Rather than do journalism, Amy Smith relitigates the 1989 sexual abuse scandal at Prestonwood which was addressed in the SBC’s Guidepost Report, despite being publicly known prior to 2022. In fact, most of her article is a non sequitur about the Jack Langworthy scandal because it is easier to rehash than to research. Both Jack Graham and Mike Buster joined Prestonwood in 1989, near proximity to the abuse committed by Jack Langworthy, but the sheer fact that both men were hired in 1989 when Langworthy departed does not in itself prove their involvement.
Nevertheless, this is atypical behavior for a pastor and provides (at best) circumstantial evidence for financial impropriety, whether in his personal life or with church resources. Whether or not it is criminal remains to be proven. This is a megachurch that claims 58K attendees and has a Christian school. There could be something beneath the surface happening at Prestonwood. Or this could be a series of rumors being propagated by sour grapes that are either too lazy to support their claims with actual evidence or go on the record. Best to wait and see.
5 Responses
Amy Smith is a reminder of God’s wisdom in Scripture that women should remain silent in church.
A lot of these so called abuse advocates like Smith seem to relish in this stuff, as if the existence of abuse gives them purpose, which is truly sad and disturbing.
Remeber the good old days when Christians would just burn each other at the stake, it was so much more authentic and transparent.
Timing is of essence if we can look beyond the temporary to the everlasting and get a view of that ‘real’ then pray for all Christians, for judgement has begun at the house of God, and then to the World. We are at foreshadow’s Light on the doorway to depart and they who follow must so do at the behest of the guillotine, this then is the awaking horizon:
America
The Trident Strike- against America:
1: Pacific Coast line, ‘North Korea’ nuclear strikes from California coast (California caught Russian subs- detected their dumping trash off coast) to state of Washington coast;
2: Eleven Ships/Alaskan coast from Russia-China: from upper/mid-America to Tennessee, Texas;;
3: Homeland Base Russia/China to Florida- Cuba…Atlantic coast line to New York!
America Nuked!
Israel
1. Iran, 2. Gaza, 3. Syria;
[Secret Supply Reveal]
Damascus Nuked.
§
America in Prophecy
America- Jeremiah 25:30-33 -USA
[The Evil: Internet -Revelation 13 Mark of the Beast; -Ephesians 2:2; Chip Forehead- Elon Musk-Gates EFT endorsed. Computer, Cell Phone, Digital Currency!]
Society of Culture
(*Enforced Lying)
“*That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a
snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn
aside the just for a thing of nought.”
Isaiah 29:21
[70 Years concluded May 14, 2020: Now the word
“AFTER” is in motion- 70 years = One generation]
§
I send the 58 to all that I can find an email- so as to – Seize The Day & Time – More than likely, it will be a one time communication, I do not forsee another. With the exception of the reader who wants to communicate.
China and Russia preparing to engage America in major war, because of Taiwan and Ukraine..
America- Most likely will not fire a shot.
I. Time is closing by the guillotines of Cancel
Culture (the Fourth Reich),
II. All out Nukes on USA (stopped by the rise of
anti-Christ), or the –
III. Rapture of the Church, believe it or no, most
prefer I § II.
§
58 Things
America in Prophecy
America is Totally Destroyed, America by the Evil that she sends from nation to nation:
[Noise-Power Grid removed full Nukes deployed on USA:
A nuclear electromagnetic pulse (commonly abbreviated as nuclear EMP, or NEMP) is a burst of electromagnetic radiation created by a nuclear explosion.]
America- Jeremiah 25:29-33 -USA
[Internet Revelation 13 Mark of the Beast; Ephesians 2:2; Chip Forehead-Elon Musk-Gates EFT endorsed]
[70 Years concluded May 14, 2020: Now the word “AFTER” is in motion- 70 years = One generation]
“America Prophetic END: “
“Therefore prophesy thou against them all these words, and say unto them, The Lord shall roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation; he shall mightily roar upon his habitation; he shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth.
A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh; he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, *evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth.
And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.”
Jeremiah 25:29-33
[America in Prophecy: The Internet, Computer, Cell Phones, all things evil- came upon and into all nations through and by America, Wars have always been, since Cain slew Able, but the daunting evil was spread the World in these Latter Day via USA, just as the leaders of the World promoted the gospel of Jesus Christ into all nations, and sadly, unfortunately, evil into all nations. The computer, cell phones, are in the hands of parents and children alike, and with these (now) forty plus versions of the Word of God, which One is accurate (only One is refused and despised, like the Son of God was hated and nailed ‘outside’ of the temple and the city). Elon Musk is a desire to place chips in the brain- “church” seems on board.]
Welcome To
Fifty-Eight Things
“Hope you find the following
‘unpleasant’’ but informative”
FredD@ö7271986ô911PM
§
58 *THINGS
[*There are many, many more- I stopped counting at 58 … I am not writing a book, tweaking therefore is not exact.. hope all can overlook errors, if you knew the writer you could understand, the information is from one emailer to another, money is not gathered, nor advantaged, you have full permission to post, email, or otherwise ‘22’, the Words were never mine, they are gleaned from God’s Word- You’re Welcome enterprises.]
§
The 4 Most Important things to have been fulfilled are:
A). Word of God has been ‘PREACHED’ to ‘all’ Nations
B). The BIBLE has been ‘PUBLISHED’ in ‘all’ languages and in all Nations
C). ISRAEL is back in ‘their’ land that God promised ‘unconditionally’ -would be in their possession, after the ‘Time of the Fulfillment of the Gentiles’, May 14, 1948 (Approved by League of Nations in ‘one’ day.
D). The CHURCH is in a regressive regrettable “Falling Away” state and they have been caught in their ‘unawares’ Word of God (Bible, not Christ) has been compromised in ‘fake’ bibles.
E). All the events, prophecies, and time of Jacob’s Trouble, comes ‘upon the “whole” World’ – not to just ‘one’ nation, such as Israel, or surrounding countries, in fact it will cause the Earth itself, to reel back/forth as a drunken person, the entire planet is involved in this ‘one time event’ which will never have an equal, nor ever another time like unto it.
The mental gymnastics it took for the author to defend this disgusting child molester is beyond belief. Why would you want to create a safe haven for criminal activity and perverted behavior?