JUSTIN PERRY PUBLIC RESPONSE | Julie Roys Article: MorningStar Ministries & Chris Reed Resignation

hey everyone this is Justin Perry recording a video in response to an article that was released August 29th from the Roy report it was an article about Morning Star Ministries and the resignation of Chris Reed and some of the controversy over the past couple years uh I did not have an opportunity to speak to the article before it was released uh to my knowledge I was not contacted by the Roy report uh so I thought it would be best to put something out just kind of recounting the facts as I remember them uh over a several year period that actually led to our departure from Morning Star I will say that my family and I had been involved in Morning Star for about 20 years and uh if I had it my way we would still be there and we would be in the middle of Revival with Jesus being glorified and uh it was a place where we hoped that we could serve the Lord and his people for many years to come and I will say that when we left Morning Star my heart was clear I was not bitter nor am I now uh I do not have an axe to grind as a matter of fact I love the people there and even the leadership team there and so I am communicating the things I'm communicating both because uh I feel it's important to share my recounting of what happened and also because some of the statements that I've seen about that time that have been released do not match with the reality that I lived during these years and so I'll begin with 2020 postco of course a lot of churches were impacted by the uh the shutdown and by the economic crisis resulting from that uh as was Morning Star and it was during that time we shut down for a few weeks uh we came back from the shutdown and we were probably one of the only churches in the area that was open and people came back enthu enthusiastic and ready to encounter God and the Lord really began to move in a pretty remarkable way for the first several months that we were back it was during that time that Tom Hardman who was the director of The Fellowship of Ministries who was also mentioned in the article uh he felt that it would be best for him to take over the lead of the church uh up until that time I'd been the lead pastor of the church for for about six and a half years uh and so he presented the idea to Rick that he would like to take over the church uh and that was the shift that was made he stepped into to a lead role I believe his uh title changed at that time to vice president of spiritual services and I shifted more into a behind the scenes role mostly still doing the same kinds of things as far as uh managing the church leading the staff uh but under Tom's leadership uh my kind of public facing role public speaking role that kind of thing did uh begin to shift at that time as well if you fast forward maybe a year or so uh Chris Reed was going to be moving to South Carolina to become a part of Morning Star and eventually take over Morning Star uh from Rick Joiner as president and CEO and whenever he came in since my uh title had not officially shifted prior to Chris's arrival he became the lead pastor of the church I became the executive pastor of the church and I also at that time took the lead in Morning Star University MSU and so now I was running a significant uh you know leading a significant part of the church as well as leading uh the school and Chris had been at Morning Star for I think a period of maybe three months or so whenever the events began that were written about in the article the inappropriate relationship with the student named Catherine uh and this didn't come to my attention until around four months later I think it was in late February of 2022 I was in a meeting uh with Katherine and her mother and Tom Hardman uh and we were meeting with Katherine about marijuana that was found in her room in her vehicle if I remember correctly uh to basically decide if she was going to be able to remain in the school and see what happened where she was at and it was in that meeting that it came out that she had been involved in this inappropriate relationship with Chris uh of course Tom and I were devastated I was physically ill it was one of the most it was definitely one of if not the most disturbing moment of my life uh I was heartbroken not only for Katherine which I expressed to her and her mother and just told them that we would do whatever we could to help her find restoration and help her find next steps at that point the relationship I think had ended already by a couple months uh and I was also thinking about the potential impact on the rest of the students you know finding something like this out about a leader would have hurt them immensely and so uh of course as soon soon as this meeting was over we called Rick Joiner let him know what happened uh he told Tom and I to call Chris which we did and Chris admitted to everything that Katherine had shared to us uh he did say you know this was a a terrible mistake uh it was stupid and I never should have done this uh and then we began a series of meetings with Catherine and her mom as well as uh with Chris and then later with Chris and his wife to talk through Where Do We Go From Here what is the appropriate response uh we did offer to Katherine to pay for counseling and uh let her know whatever we could do to help we wanted to do that uh we of course did not ask her to leave or anything like that we just said what do you feel you need to do and how can we support you in that uh but needless to say it was a very difficult and very heartbreaking situation uh I can also say that at that time Rick Joiner was saying to Tom and I we are going to do what the Lord shows us to do in this matter uh we're not going to hide anything or sweep anything under the rug we're going to do exactly what we feel the Lord is giving us to do so we prayed uh fervently about this for around a week and we made a decision to present everything that had happened in all of the the details to the Morning Star board and basically let them decide what was the path forward including the plan for Chris's transition uh as the president of Morning Star and so that's what happened um of course the the level of just tragedy across the board in this it's hard to even explain of course I felt horrible for Chris's wife and his family uh and you know it was it was just a really awful situation however they did meet with the board I wasn't in that meeting I'm not a part of the board uh and what I was told is they did share what had happened uh and a decision was made uh and a plan was going to be put in place for Chris to step back from his leadership responsibilities which were both in the local church Morning Star Fellowship Church as well as in the school of the prophets uh and uh Tom and I were going to kind of step in and kind of co-lead those parts of the ministry uh and sort of work with Chris in those Realms and uh at the time I thought you know this uh this has been brought before uh leaders uh from what I understand the discussion was had that this relationship had ended months before and there was ownership on the part of Chris and there seemed to be genuine repentance and so that was why the decision was made uh rather than to go public immediately uh to deal with it behind the scenes in order to uh care for Chris's family and see if we could handle this as best as possible in that way uh it seemed to me that this was a plan that I could agree to and uh that could potentially work and my understanding was that Tom and I would be able to oversee and give feedback and give counsel as to what are we supposed to do as we move forward um and so it seemed like a plan that I could agree with uh it was a matter of in by my recol recollection only a couple months you know uh maybe two months maybe three months at most I don't think it was that long I haven't been able to verify the dates but within a couple months for sure uh there was a public announcement made that Chris was going to become the acting president of Morning Star and our staff was told don't go to Rick for anything everything goes through Chris and only if it's not able to be solved or resolved with Chris does it go to Rick and so essentially before the process even began we uh were now Tom and I were under uh Chris's leadership and uh that made it very difficult to address the things that were a concern to me uh moving forward and I I did make a number of efforts to address things that I was concerned with over about the next six months and that's just a fact um I will say that by this time so now we're into maybe the summer of uh 2022 maybe headed towards uh the fall the fall of 2022 would be more accurate because a new school year had begun uh and things had gotten increasingly difficult in my role uh there were decisions that were being made about the Ministries that I was leading uh and I was not involved in these decisions or these things that were being implemented in although I was going to be responsible uh for making them work and there there did come a time whenever both it became difficult and I would say in some instances impossible for me to succeed in the roles that I had um and it became evident certainly by the fall of 2022 uh that I had no ability at all to address the things that I was concerned with uh regarding the transition uh of Chris and the timeline and things like that uh and and I knew that it was going to be time for my family and I to leave uh so we began asking the Lord when can we leave I would say really ever since the incident was revealed we began praying Lord are we free to leave uh I did have a concern especially in the fall of 2022 that if I were to abruptly leave you know not even to the middle part of a school year uh that it would be very damaging for the students I have seen that happen before and it was fairly devastating for most of the students that were involved in a previous season whenever that happened I wanted to do the best that I could to care for them also didn't want there to be an unnecessary disruption in the church by uh abruptly leaving uh and so I began to put together a plan for a transition period where I could recommend people as my Replacements and have enough time to train them and so these are all things that we are praying into in the fall of 22 uh we had a couple dreams in the fall of 22 where the Lord spoke to us uh that yes we were going to be leaving uh and that there was a specific timing that we were supposed to leave uh and that if we stayed beyond the time that we were supposed to stay then in one dream it would be uh devastating to to one member of our family and then in another dream that it would basically destroy our family uh if we stayed and so we made the decision at that time that we were going to leave and that we were going to finish out the school year in order to give plenty of time for transition and training and so that there wouldn't be an Abrupt departure uh in the uh in the school that I was leading at that time um I will say that one of the main uh drivers behind us sort of Shifting our heart posture from we're going to be here long term and this is where we're going to serve the Lord and his people was the fact that initially the plan was for there to be a process with Chris that was going to take place over an indeterminate amount of time and that time period from what I understood was going to be based on how the process was going but once it was announced without any sort of uh collaboration or discussion that a shift was going to be made where Chris was going to become acting president in the point person for the church and all the ministries of Morning Star uh then that was one of those significant moments where I decided uh this is no longer going to be a good place uh for my family and I longterm and so fast forward again a couple months and I felt like I had uh a um a person in mind who would be a great choice to take over the school i' had already been talking with them for about a year about this uh there was also someone who it was evident would be a great replacement in the church and so in I believe it was early spring of 2023 I met with uh Chris and Rick and I let them know that we were going to be leaving at the end of June after the school year uh and I proposed at that time this plan for people to take my place and a time period of I believe it was about 4 months for me to be able to kind of train them and successfully uh pass the torch uh and that's exactly what we did so we finished our time in June of 2023 it was a very difficult decision lifelong relationships were there uh our spiritual family and culture was there uh but it was the decision we felt like we had to make and uh I felt like the Mandate on my family and I for the past year but even since 2020 whenever things began to shift where uh I you know my role was sort of diminished more and more and for those of you who know me I'm not any sort of a power hungry person I'm not looking for you know uh influence or I don't need to be in charge of things but as things got increasingly um challenging and I was decreasingly able to fix or address the things that were a concern to me uh it it made it evident that it was time to go but I felt like one of the main mandates on us was that uh we left well that we cared for those that we had responsibility for that we loved both the students and the members of the church to the degree that we were able to uh that I was to affect change wherever I could and do the best that I could with the things that I did have responsibility for and I would say even the overarching theme personally was that we were to keep our heart right that we were not to get bitter that we were not to uh leave in uh any sort of unforgiveness or anything like that but that we were to leave free and clear and I believe that we were very much able to do that uh of course I'm giving a 15minute statement on really what was about a three-year period so there's many pieces to the story that I just am not able to share in this kind of a format uh but I did feel that it was important in light of the fact that I have now been associated with these events that are very controversial and very public now uh to share my version of the story especially because it seems that some of the ways that these events are now being portrayed don't seem to be accurate uh in relation to the way that things actually were as I was walking through this time period so that is my statement thank you for watching this is Justin