MorningStar founder Rick Joyner slams Chris Reed for disrespecting ministry with resignation
Founder of MorningStar Ministries in Fort Mill, South Carolina, Rick Joyner, alleged Sunday that the ministry has mounting evidence that the ministry's former leader, Chris Reed, lied about a physical relationship with a former student, which enabled him to be elevated in leadership when he should have been "disqualified."
"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 in an address to MorningStar Fellowship Church. "We were fooled."
Joyner's address to the church follows Reed's abrupt resignation as president and CEO of the ministry last week, citing, among other things, the sexual abuse of minors by a former volunteer and police officer.
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A lawsuit filed against MorningStar Ministries last month accuses Joyner, several top officials of the organization, and multiple other staff members of gross negligence for allegedly engaging in the cover-up of multiple incidences of sexual abuse in the ministry.
A copy of the 40-page lawsuit names as defendants: Joyner, MorningStar Fellowship Church, Joyner's second in command David Yarns; the former volunteer, Erickson Douglas Lee; the volunteer's father and MorningStar Fellowship Church's head of security, Douglas Lee; Erickson Douglas Lee's assistant, Chase Portello; along with unidentified defendants James Smith 1-10 (any other agents and/or employees of the ministry associated with the complaint).
Last Monday, Reed, who took over leadership of the ministry over a year before his resignation but had worked with the ministry since 2021, announced that he was returning leadership of the ministry to Joyner to focus more on what God called him to do, which is "to prophesy, pastor, teach, preach and write."
Reed also pointed to the 2023 arrest of former church volunteer and police officer Erickson Douglas Lee, who is accused of sexually abusing multiple male minors connected to a youth group of MorningStar Fellowship Church. Reed revealed that both he and his wife, Missy, had "experienced the evils of sexual abuse" as children.
"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 said in a video statement he shared on YouTube with his wife by his side last Thursday. "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."
In his Sunday address, Joyner painted Reed as a disloyal, self-centered liar who disqualified himself from leadership.
"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 said.
"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 added.
Joyner stated that before Reed was promoted to president and CEO of MorningStar Ministries over a year ago, he was restored to ministry after they learned of an inappropriate relationship between him and a former MorningStar University student.
Joyner said both Reed — who is married with six kids — and the student had assured him and the organization's board that the relationship was just based on texts, but they later discovered it was physical. Reed has stated to The Roys Report that he sexually pursued the woman in 2021, kissed her and sent her "terrible" sexual texts while he was the senior pastor of MorningStar Fellowship Church. He denied claims of sexual touching.
"We had to take their word that they cut it off, drawn a line, nothing physical had happened. Well, now I can say with a lot of confidence that's not true. Neither one of them were telling us the truth then. It appears and I say there's a lot of evidence and it's mounting, that yes there was physical stuff that happened," Joyner told the church Sunday.
"Maybe not intercourse. Maybe it was not sex like one of our former presidents defined that he 'did not have sex with this woman.' I say he did … that's me. I would say that's sex, but … what I'm saying, read between the lines," Joyner explained.
"The evidence is mounting, and I don't know where it's going to lead, but we're gonna not cover up anything. ... We were lied to. And I would have never turned this ministry over to them if I had known what I know right now," Joyner added.
A release from the York County Sheriff's Office in South Carolina said they arrested 25-year-old Erickson Douglas Lee after he turned himself in to detectives on May 2, 2023. He was charged with dissemination of obscene material to a person younger than 18, assault and battery first degree, and criminal sexual conduct with a minor second and third degree.
Warrants connected to Lee's arrest cited by WSOC-TV said between December 2020 and June 2022, Lee allegedly committed a sex act with a victim younger than 16 as many as 30 times over 1.5 years.
Investigators allege that around July 22, 2022, Lee, who served as a 17-year-old victim's youth leader, hurt him through "nonconsensual touching" while the victim was intoxicated at his home. Lee also allegedly played a pornographic video for the teenager.
Warrants show that Lee did the same thing to at least three other victims younger than 18 at his home from August 2021 through January 2023.
In the lawsuit filed on behalf of John Doe #1, who is now an adult, his attorneys argue that he will likely need psychological care for the rest of his life because of the abuse he suffered.
"Plaintiff John Doe #1 has suffered immeasurable harm and will likely have to undergo psychiatric/psychological care for the remainder of his life due to actions or inactions of the Defendants. Defendants acted in dereliction of their duties to Plaintiffs by failing to prevent the foreseeable harm perpetrated by Erickson Lee onto Plaintiff John Doe #1," the lawsuit argues.
The lawsuit alleges a pattern of coverup by MorningStar Fellowship Church leaders, citing the sexual assault of two women by a MorningStar employee sometime in the 2000s.
"Both of these incidents of sexual abuse and assault were covered up by the church. In both instances, the victims were encouraged not to report these instances to law enforcement," the lawsuit alleges, pointing to a separate alleged sexual assault of a minor by a MorningStar University volunteer.
"Upon information and belief, Joyner, Yarns, and Doug Lee knew of these assaults and helped orchestrate the victims not reporting the criminal incidents to law enforcement. The actions by MorningStar, Joyner, Yarns and Doug Lee in the investigation and actions of them after each assault incident involved neutral principles of law," the lawsuit argues.
The lawsuit alleges that before Erickson Douglas Lee's sexual assault of John Doe #1 and the other minor boys, MorningStar Fellowship Church swept other sexual abuse and exploitation cases under the rug and never reported them to law enforcement.
Still, the leaders allowed Erickson Douglas Lee to lead a program called "Young Special Forces" that allowed him to spend significant time alone with "young minor males with no oversight," which allowed him to carry out his abuse.
Joyner insisted on Sunday, however, that the claims in the lawsuit have not yet been proven to be true and said the reason they are going to court is that "the accusations in the lawsuit were wildly untrue."
"I believe it was one of the most atrocious, terrible things that we've ever had happened, but the accusations in the lawsuit were wildly untrue. I mean, way out of the box untrue," Joyner said, noting that he had the case reviewed independently.
"We want the truth. We're looking at this from [the point of view that] we need the truth. We're not going to, if we go to court, we're not going to be against these victims. We're not going to be on one side and them [another], we're on the same side. We want the truth," he insisted.
Joyner suggested that keeping sexual abuse from happening is "almost impossible" today with the ubiquity of pornography in society.
"We're looking at we got to protect our people. We got to keep this kind of thing from happening, and I'll be frank with you, in this day and time, that's almost impossible," Joyner said. "You can do the best you can; stuff is going to happen. It is an onslaught of sexual, in my opinion, sexual perversion and sexual promiscuity and everything else that surrounds you almost continually."
He argued, however, that he is a big believer in restoration and forgiveness, and if Reed were to come back to the ministry, he would be welcomed back with Christian grace.
"If Chris asked to come back here, I would say, 'absolutely, we welcome you back, but you're not going to be in leadership.' I mean, you've disqualified yourself from that,'" Joyner said.
"You can qualify yourself with your good behavior and really submitting to the process and where we really know you're telling us the truth about everything. ... Anybody we will take back and work with and be happy to, and we would love to help Chris in that way. He needs help right now," he continued. "Chris was the closest thing I had to a spiritual son. I just thought the world of Chris, and in some ways, I still think he had some of the best qualities for leadership that I'd seen in a young person."
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