EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK: Once Burned, Twice Warned
The constant scandals in so-called “prophetic ministries” should be a warning to Christians
OPINION–MorningStar Ministries, based in the Charlotte suburb of Ft. Mill, S.C., has long had an outsized influence on the charismatic/Pentecostal wing of evangelicalism.
Rick Joyner founded the ministry in 1985, and he has long displayed the related gifts of grabbing attention and attracting controversy. At various times in the life of the ministry, it has been part of sometimes quixotic quests. In 1999, along with NFL Hall of Famer Reggie White, he announced plans for a Christian theme park near Charlotte. In the early 2000s, his ministry purchased portions of Jim and Tammy Bakker’s PTL complex and turned it into a church, conference center, and headquarters for a constellation of ministries. The church that meets there attracts as many as a thousand people each week, and prophetic conferences held there attract thousands more from around the country.
Joyner is a mentor to many in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and Apostolic-Prophetic Movements. These movements have been associated with some of the best publicized and – some might say – notorious revivals of the past 30 years, including the Toronto Blessing, that began in 1994 and spread to other locations in the years that followed. The Brownsville Revival in Pensacola, Florida, began in 1995 and lasted for several years. Joyner’s own church held similar meetings in the late 90s and early 2000s that featured “holy laughter,” claims of miraculous healings, and manifestations of gold dust landing on the revivalists.
Many of these revivals dissipated into scandal and acrimony. One of the revivals most closely associated with Joyner was the one led by Todd Bentley in Lakeland, Florida. I wrote about the Lakeland Outpouring for WORLD, and I devoted a chapter to Bentley and the Lakeland Outpouring in my book Faith-Based Fraud, so I will not fully explicate that event here, except to say that I investigated more than a dozen so-called “miracles” from that revival, calling the people who supposedly had been healed. I could not confirm a single case. Two of the people who had been “healed” were dead by the time I tried to talk to them.
The Lakeland Outpouring ended with Bentley confessing to sexual impropriety. He ultimately divorced his wife and married one of his assistants. He resigned from the board of his ministry and Joyner’s mentorship became part of his restoration process. However, when Joyner announced, after just a few months, that Bentley was now fit for ministry, that decision was widely condemned – even by those in the same charismatic circles in which Bentley and Joyner circulated.
Fast forward to 2024, this week in fact, and we see another Joyner-led restoration process gone awry.
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A lawsuit filed in South Carolina state court on August 7 alleges that MorningStar Fellowship Church created a youth program involving overnight events and campouts and allowed Erickson Lee, a relative of one of the church youth program leaders, access to minor males who he allegedly sexually exploited and abused.
Chris Reed, president and CEO of MorningStar Ministries in Fort Mill, S.C., announced that he would resign his role, saying he “didn’t want to be leading the ministry in a case against four victims who were abused as children by a volunteer.”
But it turns out that Reed had problems of his own, problems that should have disqualified him from ministry. A married father of six, he had an inappropriate relationship with a woman in 2021, prior to his elevation to a leadership role at MorningStar Ministries. Joyner knew about it. In fact, it was Joyner who had led Reed’s 18-month “restoration” process.
Joyner now puts the blame fully on Reed. “I now believe Chris lied to us,” Joyner said. “I am not at all pleased with Chris’s continuing behavior.” He said in a statement to the congregation on September 1 that Reed’s resignation came as a shock.
Joyner’s shock is disingenuous. After the Todd Bentley situation, it is clear that he lacks whatever discernment is necessary to participate in such a restoration process. At the risk of being glib: don’t trust a guy who claims prophetic gifts but says, “Wow, I didn’t see that one coming.” Especially when what came to pass should have been obvious.
It is not clear if this situation will diminish Joyner’s or MorningStar’s influence in the NAR movement. The people who follow Joyner and other prophetic preachers have developed complicated coping strategies. They overlook the obvious and defend the indefensible. In my reporting over the years about such situations, I often hear expressions such as “touch not God’s anointed” or “eat the fruit and spit out the seeds.” I have come to see such “defenses” as signs of spiritual abuse. That he might not be anointed, or the fruit itself might be poison, are possibilities they choose not to consider. Or have been conditioned not to consider.
But for the rest of us: beware.