story 9

submitted anonymously

My story doesn't involve Reggie directly. But I believe what happened to me was a result of how Orange leadership dealt with the 2024 abuse revelations. 

In 2022 I attended The Orange Conference as a brand new female youth pastor. I attended alone. Everything was fine. I learned a lot. Then I went home and implemented a lot of changes that helped my youth group and eventually our children's program grow. 

For the next two years I was groomed by my lead pastor. I didn't see it at the time, but there were all kinds of inappropriate things happening that I chalked up to "we're just really good friends."

You see, the lead pastor and I were the only two full time staff members. There were three part-time staff pastors, but they were constantly not included in staff meetings or staff lunches. It was frequently just the lead pastor and I. I was told that in order to keep our working relationship strong we needed to share iPhone locations, that I needed to be available for phone calls at all hours, that I needed to join the gym he worked at where he became my unofficial personal coach.

Those things eventually lead to moments where I thought I was imagining him brushing up against me, or grabbing my hand for a half second when he asked me to pass him something. I was truly, thoroughly, slowly groomed. There's so much I can't even begin to explain it all. 

Fast forward to 2024. I was allowed by the church board to attend The Orange Conference again. I was signed up, registered, and excited.

Two months before the conference the lead pastor decided he wanted to go too. For five days and four nights it was just the two of us with different hotel rooms.

He made jokes about trying to get me in the hot tub. He wanted to watch a TV show in his room. When I didn't want to, he found a private conference room and we watched on his small iPad screen sitting very close together.

And still I didn't see it for what it was.

And when we were at Orange Conference and the Reggie situation was briefly explained my lead pastor made remarks like, "Gotta be smarter than that if you don't want to get caught. Most people will always get caught. But most pastors won't get punished for what happens." 

You see, that's the point at which I think my lead pastor decided to continue to push boundaries, continue grooming, and eventually sexually abuse me.

He saw what happened to Reggie. Nothing. Nothing happened.

There were no consequences, just a blip of something mentioned and then nothing. 

A few short months after returning from the conference is when he proclaimed his "uncontrollable love" for me. He was (still is) married. But promised his was a broken marriage and that he was going to leave her for me. I was so deeply groomed I didn't see it for what it was. A lie.

My boss, my mentor, my pastor groomed me and then had a sexual relationship with me. While at the conference he would have vertigo and heart palpitations that he later told me were a result of his un-proclaimed feelings. That just my presence had such a strong physical effect on him. He told me that I had saved him from a porn addiction. And so, so much more. 

But none of it was true. And there was no way out. 

If I tried to end the relationship, I'd have to leave my job. 

If I were to tell what was happening to me, I'd get fired. 

I was stuck. So I went all in and hoped he really did love me. He didn't. 

We did get caught. But he was right about one thing. 

Do you know what happened? Exactly what he said would happen. 

"Most pastors won't get punished for what happened." 

While we both got fired, he "refined the message" (aka: controlled the narrative) and told the entire congregation that I was to blame. That I was manipulating everything behind the scenes and it wasn't his fault. He took a page out of Reggie's book and did everything he could to silence me. 

And it worked. Because the church allowed it to work.

Because it was the easier story to believe. It was the easier version of the story to sweep under the rug. 

He got to make an apology video that was played to the church.

I was silenced. I was told I was a sinner,  I needed to disappear quietly, and I should never speak to anyone from the church again.

The church is still friends with him and supports him and his wife. They paid him thousands of dollars as a severance. He was publicly and privately supported. In a document I received through a subpoena one board member wrote, "He's a friend of mine and I'm just trying to get him as much money as we can." 

I received a pittance. And hate mail. So much hate mail. I had to block numbers, social media profiles, and more. 

I still have to live in the same small town. And it's literal hell. I have to shop 30 miles away because church members will be overtly and publicly rude to me and my three children. 

They don't want to hear me. They don't want to believe me. They want to see their former pastor as a good man who was led astray by an immoral woman.

Until the church learns how to listen to victims and how to have trauma-informed conversations and responses to what Reggie did and what my lead pastor did, abuse will continue. My lead pastor was set up to repeat this cycle. Without accountability there is no change. He will become one of thousands who will perpetuate this cycle of abuse. 

Without accountability the church will continue to allow this to happen. 

Without accountability victims will always be asked to carry the blame and the shame. 

Without accountability this will only get worse. 

I'm only one story. But if enough of us rise up and share our stories, maybe the church will be forced to listen. To hear. To see the problem. And finally care enough to act. 

You see, I share my story for the girls in my youth group. The ones who could be me in 10 years. I want them to have a safe place to work. I want them to be treated the way Jesus treated women. 

Jesus spoke to the woman at the well. 

Jesus didn't condemn the woman caught in adultery.  

And God heard Hagar. 

It's time the church heard too. 

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If you may have experienced clergy sexual abuse, there are safe places you can turn to. 

HagarsVoice.com

RestoredVoicesCollective.com