Jeffreys discovered the mortgages for all of the churches they had planted and became deeply concerned about the financial situation of the denomination. Jeffreys and Phillips viewed these mortgages differently. Jeffreys, coming from a working-class background, saw them as a burden of dangerous debt obligations, while Phillips, coming from a middle-class business background, viewed them as proper business agreements. Jeffreys shared his concerns with all of the Elim congregations through the church magazine Elim Evangel, an act that publicly made Phillips appear to be a poor administrator. Jeffreys introduced a Jubilee Fund and asked readers to give money and help alleviate the debt on many of the Elim church buildings. After several months, the congregations had given what amounted to a small percentage of what Jeffreys had hoped to raise.
Roberts Liardon tells us that one unforeseen outcome of Jeffreys’ concern over the finances was Phillips’s strong personal reaction to it. Phillips felt that his abilities and judgments were being publicly questioned by Jeffreys. Because the church assets were worth more than the debt liabilities, and because all of the mortgage payments were being met, Phillips was certain that they were not in the midst of a financial crisis. He suggested that Jeffreys concentrate on raising money in his evangelistic efforts and leave the accounting work to the administrative staff. This argument put an additional strain on the relationship between Jeffreys and Phillips.
Early in 1937, Jeffreys wrote a number of letters to Phillips voicing his concerns about church government reform in the Elim movement. “God had spoken to me in no uncertain sound, ‘Set your house in order.’”60 This was the same command that the prophet Isaiah brought to King Hezekiah in the Old Testament. (See 2 Kings 20:1.) To Jeffreys, it meant two things: He was to continue in his efforts to pay off the debts of the denomination, and he was to work diligently to reform Elim from being a church governed by centralized control to one with more power delegated to the local assemblies.
