Teen Mania International setup a conference call for Ron Luce to explain why the ministry is in foreclosure and what their future plans are. The call lasted about an hour and can be heard here:
I will share a couple of the important moments below. Exact quotes in italics.
Ron Luce starts by explaining the causes for Teen Mania’s financial troubles. He takes zero responsibility for these problems accept in the vague “I’m a leader so the buck stops here” kind of way. Instead he lays the blame on external factors he could not control. He begins by blaming Teen Mania’s financial problems on the following:
- Economy since 2008
- Fewer teenagers in this generation
- Local electric co-op rates are too high
- Campus is too expensive, costing $1 million per year to run. He said that the more they built up the campus, the more it costs to run. (One thinks they might have thought of that before and he never states he should have done things differently.)
10:50 – I’m amused when I see the words out there of people think that finances are being used in unscrupulous ways or whatever. I don’t know any ministry that runs any tighter budget than what we do.
18:35 – No, we are not in bankruptcy.
36:00 – Land advisers told us to give the property back to the bank. Appraised value is higher than the note. $15 million
39:07 – The note was 9.5 million.
At one point, Ron said that even if someone paid off the campus, it would still be too expensive to stay (over $1 million per year in operating costs).
The gist of the spin was that Teen Mania doesn’t need a campus and that renting is actually better than owning. I was surprised that Ron actually seemed to talk badly about the campus – like it was a pointless expense. He chalks it up to a “new season” of ministry. I guess God doesn’t have a lot of forethought leading them into debt like that? Or maybe God doesn’t mind leaving the bank with the bill. Ron also tried to justify going into foreclosure because the bank has made a lot of money off them in interest.In addition to renting property in the future, they also plan to rent the equipment for ATFs from now on. Is that because the ATF equipment was part of the collateral for their note? Quite possibly. Ron made a lot of vague promises with very little to back them up. He said that the ministry would do even more ATFs with less resources, but gave no plan outlining how that’s possible. Could that be because there is no actual plan?
In fact, no actual concrete plans were given throughout the call for anything – the move to Dallas, the “new” ministry focus, etc. This shows that Teen Mania move isn’t motivated by actual vision and forethought, but as a reaction to their foreclosure. Otherwise, they would be able to tell us what they are doing in Dallas.
To finish the call, Ron took the last few minutes to share that he called me in August of 2012. I was upset that Ron misrepresented that phone call. Listeners were left with the impression that things between us were rosy and that I quit blogging because of his phone call. Neither of those are true.
Things that Ron said that were true about the phone call:
- It was very polite and cordial
- He did apologize to me and ask to hear my story
- He did admit that things on the website were true and that Teen Mania had changed because of it (though he forgot to say that was basically forced by negative press and that he had employed his former Marketing director in an attempt to quash the truth of this site and that he and Dave scorned everyone in this community).
- He did extend an invitation for others to contact him.
Things that Ron said that were NOT true about our phone call:
- I did not “tell him how I became bitter.” The fact that he would even use that language shows that doesn’t even understand ANYTHING about my position or what the recovering alumni community is all about. It is a complete disregard of the essence of the issue, again pinning the blame on the victims. If I did mention anything about my emotional state, I’m sure it was that I was absolutely heartbroken, devastated and confused.
- I did not tell him that I was permanently quitting the blog. In fact, I remember telling him that I would keep my eye on him and he chuckled at that. By that time, I was already blogging less frequently and considering if it was time to finish.
Things that Ron left out about our phone call:
- He implied that a lot of the problems with the HA were the fault of David Hasz. I.E. According to my notes he said, “I was unaware of – for example – integrity check of walking on the grass.” He also said he didn’t like the constant environment of policing and confrontation.
- When I asked him about the debacle with the Board of Directors, he was stone cold silent. Then he told me that he knew nothing about the promised investigation and threw former Board Member MarkLewandowski under the bus.
Unfortunately, this is the only phone call I’ve had with Teen Mania that was not recorded (as I was caught quite off guard, as you can imagine.) However, I’ve referenced my notes of the phone call to refresh my memory. There was nothing about the phone call that was truly genuine in any way and it did nothing to change my views of Ron Luce or Teen Mania, especially considering that he put the blame on everyone else but himself (Dave Hasz, Board of Directors).
