Potter's House Denver Pastor Chris Hill Resigns Over Alleged Affair, Separates From Wife
After a torrid month battling the exposure of their senior pastor's alleged love affair with a married parishioner identified as his goddaughter, The Potter's House Church of Denver announced last weekend that Chris Hill, mentee of megachurch preacher Bishop T. D. Jakes, has resigned.
Hill is also expected to formally separate from his wife Joy who first made the allegations of his infidelity public to members of their congregation in an angry text message.
"The Potter's House Church of Denver announces today that Senior Pastor Chris Hill, has tendered a letter of resignation effective immediately. Further, after several weeks of ministry, counseling and contemplation, Pastor Chris and his wife Joy Hill will be seeking a formal separation," the church noted in a since removed statement on Facebook last Thursday.
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"While they are both saddened on many accounts they feel it is the best decision for both their personal healing and the successful continuation and growth of the Denver Church body. All of us here at the Potter's House Denver are praying for Pastor Hill and his wife as they embark upon this very personal journey. The Church leadership will respect their privacy at this time as any further decisions about the state of their marriage will be a private one between them and their families," the statement continued.
The resignation comes just two weeks after Jake's ministry confirmed with The Christian Post that Hill had been nixed from the International Pastors & Leadership Conference set for April 27-29 at Jakes' The Potter's House of Dallas in Texas.
Hill was originally scheduled to teach a workshop on vision, according to promotions of the conference which were up as recently as March 16. When asked to comment on the situation in earlier reports, Jake's ministry referred all questions to the Denver church. The Denver church was not available for further comment at the time this report was filed.
The Potter's House of Denver is an expansion of The Potter's House of Dallas, which is led by Jakes. Officials at the Potter's House Church of Denver said in their statement that Hill's replacement would not be named until a later date.
"Pastor Craig McMullen will continue to serve in his current role as Executive Pastor while the Corporate Church in Dallas continues to provide oversight and leadership covering. Any future leadership appointments will be evaluated by the board at a later date," the church said.
"The local church office along with the Corporate Board members have assembled a team of speakers well known to the church body to continue to serve during regularly scheduled services. All outreach, ministries and events will continue to operate as normally scheduled," it ended.
Several weeks ago, Joy Hill, Chris Hill's wife of more than 20 years, alleged in a mass text message to church members that she was able to verify that her husband carried on an affair with their young goddaughter, Shirnae McFarlane, who got married to Arthur McFarlane III on September 26, 2014.
"FYI Pastor called the police on me tonight because I yelled at him asking him to leave the house tonight and he wouldn't. I was upset because he won't stop having an affair with Shirnae, and I can't live like this anymore. They've been having an affair for SEVERAL months, and he finally admitted it yesterday (after I hired a private investigator to have them followed over the past 6 weeks)," Joy Hill reportedly said in the text message first cited by the Obnoxious Television blog, which broke the news about the late Bishop Eddie Long's cancer last September.
Shirnae McFarlane's alleged cuckolded husband, Arthur McFarlane III, has since updated his relationship status on Facebook to "Separated" while his wife's status remains "married."
