According to recent reports, the founder of MorningStar Ministries, Rick Joyner, slammed the resignation of the church’s former leader, Chris Reed, after he allegedly lied about being engaged in a physical relationship with a student in the ministry.
“I don’t believe in getting into the details; you get what I’m saying? I’m not going to go there. I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to slime people, but …I feel like things were done that should have disqualified Chris from being made the leader of this ministry,” Joyner said. “We were fooled.”
For context, Reed resigned as the CEO and president of MorningStar last week, claiming he did not want to lead a ministry that was actively embroiled in substantial controversy. According to Reed, he wanted to focus on what God was calling him to do, such as “to prophesy, pastor, teach, preach, and write.”
“I did not want to be leading the ministry that would be in a case against four victims who were abused as children by a former volunteer of the ministry who is a policeman as well. This happened before I came to MorningStar, and I could not [defend the lawsuit] because I know the families,” Reed noted in a recent video statement uploaded to YouTube. “I know the victims. Many of them we’ve got to know them. I made a tough, painful, painful choice, and I just didn’t care.”
Joyner criticized the statement as being dismissive of the ministry while only looking out for his self interest. “What alarmed me even more was that in this [resignation] letter, there was almost no regard for the church, no regard for the ministry, no regard for a lot of people. It was all about him and his future and what he needed to do,” Joyner stated.
“I want him to have the brightest future he could have, but I did not feel that that there was a shepherd’s heart revealed. A shepherd lays down their life for the sheep and certainly has regard for them. I didn’t feel like there was regard for me, for our board, any of this stuff. We had entrusted a lot to him. I don’t think to just quit like that is what we ever need to do with anyone with no notice,” he continued.
The Christian Tribune reported on the ensuing controversy with MorningStar, where a lawsuit was filed against the ministry, accusing Joyner and several others of gross negligence for their handling of the alleged coverup of sexual abuse in the ministry.
“The negligent, grossly negligent, reckless, willful, or wanton acts, omissions, and liability of Defendants includes that of their agents, principals, employees, and/or servants, both directly and vicariously, pursuant to principals of non-delegable duty, corporate liability, apparent authority, agency, ostensible agency, and/or respondent superior,” according to the lawsuit/
Featured image credit: MorningStar Ministries, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rick_Joyner_speaking_from_the_Podium_at_MorningStar_Ministries_in_Fort_Mill,_South_Carolina_in_2013..jpg