Cameron McWhirter

And for many, many decades, the church was really thriving down there in the heart of Nashville.

The church over time dwindled.

Ultimately, by the late 2010s, it had maybe 30 people going to it.

It had a lot of assets, but it didn't have a lot of people.

They knew it was declining.

They knew there were issues.

So when Sean showed up, at first they were very excited.

He was very interested in talking about reviving the church and bringing in more members and expanding its mission to the whole world via the internet.

He had big plans.

The accusation that has been leveled against the people who took over this church is that their goals were primarily financial and that they were trying to basically use the assets of an older church with an older congregation, take it over and use it for their own benefit.

So he sets up a church in downtown Nashville, which at the time had a lot of poor people from the country moving into the city, to help people, to help young families, to give out food, and to bring them to Christ.

That was his idea.

First, there was the building, which Nashville, as many people know, has been absolutely booming in recent years.

There's all kinds of restaurants and new stores and museums.

So that property became hot.

Secondly, the church had obtained two parking lots that it had used back in the day for people to come and park and go to the church.

Then they had started to rent out those parking lots.

So those parking lots were worth a lot of money.

And then there were people who had left, particularly one person had left a large amount of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars, into an endowment fund for missionary work, for the church to sponsor missionaries to go in the United States and abroad to spread the word.

He gets on the board that controls the church and he quickly takes over as a leader of the committee that runs the church.