Families Share Stories of Severed Relationships with Children in Network Churches
Several churches have recently announced they are leaving the Network started by Steve Morgan.
“I haven’t heard my daughter’s voice in two years,” Melanie said. Her eldest daughter cut off contact with her on November 29, 2022 after Melanie expressed concerns about her daughter’s church and its practices. She sent her daughter a link to a website with stories of heartbreak from people affiliated with The Network.
Lori H. shares the story of being cut off from her son, who is in a Network church / Video screenshot
It wasn’t the first strain in their relationship since her daughter joined Foundation Church, a Network church led by Justin Major, while she was a junior at Illinois State University.
Foundation Church is part of The Network of churches started by Steve Morgan, a pastor who began his career as part of the Vineyard USA association of churches, but left that group to start his network of churches in 2006.
Until recently, the network had 26 member churches. Morgan is the lead pastor of Joshua Church in Austin, Texas.
Melanie, who raised her children in a Christian home, was happy her daughter was getting involved in church while at college. But then she noticed their conversations change; her daughter seemed disconnected.
Not long after her 21st birthday in 2017, Melanie’s daughter announced she would be getting married to a young man she had just met. They were married within 10 days of meeting.
Six months later, Melanie received a text that her daughter and new son-in-law would need time to themselves and would have no contact with Melanie and her family for a year.
Melanie and her husband agreed to respect their daughter’s wishes and after about a year, they got together and things started to improve, Melanie said.
In January 2020, Melanie helped after the arrival of her first grandbaby. While she loved spending time with her daughter and her family, Melanie was soon told not to send any text messages to her daughter without including her son-in-law also.
When she was in the area, Melanie asked to have lunch with her daughter but that was “not allowed.”
Despite the continued inexplicable boundaries and family strain, Melanie again helped when the second grandbaby arrived in May 2022. During the visit, Melanie said the two had good conversations, and she was optimistic that healing was occurring.
Then in October 2022, when Melanie was on her way to visit her father for his birthday, she offered to drop by so her eldest grandchild could sign the card to his great-grandfather.
Her daughter’s response was “upsetting” and “bizarre.” “I respectfully decline your request,” her daughter wrote in a text response, claiming the child didn’t know Melanie’s father.
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Her daughter didn’t join the family Thanksgiving celebration that year and a few days later, Melanie shared her concerns about The Network of churches to which her daughter’s church belonged. Her texts were blocked and communication ceased.
“I feel like if you have a close family, they will try to put a wedge there,” Melanie said of the leadership at Foundation Church. “They want to eliminate the family as a threat. The pastor becomes the father figure.”
Melanie began searching online and found similar stories. She wanted to warn others, so Families Against Cults on Campus (FACC) was born and began creating content, including testimonials.
The YouTube channel has gotten tens of thousands of views, and Melanie believes they are starting to have an impact.
The leadership structure of Network churches and the alleged emphasis of the principle of “obeying your leaders in all things” is a red flag for the several dozen families who have joined FACC. They hope to stop the inflow of new recruits into Network churches, which are often planted near college campuses where they recruit members.
The FACC members have all been negatively impacted by connections to Network churches. In many cases, family members have cut off contact with them without explanation.
Lori Hallatt is still hoping for a restored relationship with her son. She hasn’t had a conversation with him since May 2023 when he texted that he “needed distance” and would “reach out when ready.”
“I have come to discover in talking with others who have left the Network, this type of family division is not unique to my family; in fact it is quite prevalent. I have spent hours on the phone in recent weeks talking with other parents who have also been cut off from their family members who attend Network churches,” Hallatt wrote in her testimonial.
Now her son has reached out and asked his parents to come visit for a conversation on October 7. Hallatt will drive 10 hours in hopes that she can have a relationship with her son again.
Hallatt and her husband joined ClearView Church along with their son in 2010 when it was planted by Jeff Miller, before it was renamed Foundation Church. In 2015, they left to seek a church with different pastoral care.
Their son stayed, however, and is a small group leader and part of the music team, Hallatt said.
In 2019, Hallatt said she tried to talk to her son about the reasons former pastor (Miller) stepped down from leading a Network church, a group Miller now considers a cult.
“[T]he conversation was met with pretty significant resistance to even hear there could be a different side to what they were being told by Justin [Major] and the other leadership at Foundation,” Hallatt said.
After that conversation, Hallatt said her relationship with her son became increasingly strained and shallow—eventually he cut her and her husband off.
“If I knew then what I know now, I never would have been a part of it. If you never contradict the leadership or rock the boat, then you will be just fine,” Hallatt said.
In 2019, Andrew Lumpe, who had been involved in three different Network churches since its inception, including serving on boards of elders, says he raised concerns to leaders in The Network about Morgan’s arrest for aggravated criminal sodomy in 1987 while serving as a youth leader for the Reformed Latter-Day Saints. The case against Morgan was ultimately diverted.
Lumpe said Network leadership declined to conduct an investigation, so he and his wife left. They were shunned by many previous friends.
Since leaving, Lumpe says he has learned of hundreds and even thousands of individuals who have been negatively impacted by The Network.
An online forum, Leaving the Network, was created to “platform the stories of those who have left Steve Morgan’s Network of Churches and to create a public record of the inner workings and history of The Network.”
The Leave the Network group has heard from many families who noticed rapid changes in loved ones who became involved in a Network church. Examples include drastic personality changes, loss of interest in hobbies, significant financial commitment to the church, abrupt priority shifts, Network gatherings prioritized over family celebrations, and increased control of their lives by Network leaders.
During the process of raising awareness about alleged problems in The Network, four churches have announced their departure from the Network of churches.
On August 31, Isaiah Church in Madison, Wisconsin, posted a statement saying it was formally disassociating from The Network because of an inability to resolve concerns about “leadership theology, church governance, and past decisions with network leadership.”
“It has come to the point that we believe we have exhausted all avenues and withdrawing from the network is the appropriate action for Isaiah Church due to our biblical convictions,” the statement continued.
On September 8, Vine Church in Carbondale, Illinois—a church founded by Morgan—posted a statement saying it would now be an independent, local church and no longer part of The Network.
The same day, North Pines Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan posted a similar statement that its board of overseers had “unanimously decided to end our affiliation with our prior church network.”
About a week later, Hosea Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, announced it had “lovingly ended [its] official association with that network due to differing theological positions regarding leadership and local church governance.”
The Leaving the Network website said none of these churches addressed the “call to action” by former leaders from Network churches, which calls for an investigation into Morgan’s arrest, any potential victims of abuse, concealment, abusive systems, and leader behaviors.
MinistryWatch reached out to Joshua Church in Austin where Steve Morgan is lead pastor to ask for comment, but we did not receive a reply before time of publication.
Editor’s Note: It is generally the practice of MinistryWatch to only used named sources. In this instance, because Melanie is trying to strike a balance between warning others and maintaining the possibility of reconciliation with her daughter, we agreed to only use her first name.
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