On July 3, Lexington was rocked by news that a pastor at LexCity Church had been arrested for allegedly having sex with a minor for nearly a year before.
Zachary King, 47, is facing charges of first-degree rape, third-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, third-degree sodomy, first-degree sexual abuse and procuring or promoting the use of a minor by electronic means, according to court records. Shortly after that LexCity announced it was closing its doors.
One of the strongest voices to come out of the ensuing melee was a non-profit called The Way Home.
“This is a devastating and grievous abuse of power, position, and authority—and in this case, a criminal act, as well,” The Way Home said in a statement on Facebook. “Clergy sexual abuse, especially of a minor, is deeply wounding for victims, churches, and the community at large.”
They listed support times for Zoom support groups and dates, as well as free online resources and prayers.
“We know that the path ahead is a difficult one. Processing and healing will take time,” The Way Home said in the statement.
What only a few people already knew is that the ties between the Way Home and LexCity were tight, borne out of trauma suffered a decade ago at the very same church.
The Way Home founders Sharon Clements and Connie Sanders —and a board of directors — had formed the group of the wreckage of the former Quest Community Church, which “rebranded” to LexCity Church after another pastor scandal there in 2014.
Back then, neither woman had the vocabulary or understanding of spiritual abuse to truly understand what had happened.
“Abuse is so horrible, but our story is about hope, about beauty coming out of ashes.” Clements told me. “I wish I weren’t as educated as I am but I’m so glad to have the eyes to see and help others walk through this.”
The Herald-Leader does not usually use the names of abuse survivors, but Clements gave permission for this column on The Way Home.
Unhealthy relationships
Clements and Sanders were both deeply involved with the founding and rapid growth of Quest Church and the Questapalooza Christian music festival.
In 2014, the church had grown to about 5,000 members. Clements was a worship pastor and Sanders was on the ministry team. In 2014, lead pastor Pete Hise announced he and Clements were stepping back from their ministries because of “an unhealthy emotional attachment.”
At the time, Clements did not contest the statement that the relationship was consensual. But in the aftermath — the pain of their families and hundreds of parishioners — she eventually realized it definitely was not.
“I didn’t have any framework,” Clements said. “None of the definitions made any sense to me. My loyalty had been so played to protect my pastor — to say anything else would be turning on him. There was so much dissonance.”
Time, prayer and counseling brought new wisdom about the truth of the matter: It was abuse.
“It made me sad, but all the pieces went click, click, click,” Clements said.
The sisters realized that Clements was a survivor, but that Sanders was, as well — a system of abuse that manipulated volunteers and staff into unhealthy levels of service to the church. These systems, which are so prevalent in organizations like churches, are often surrounding a charismatic leader who seems to have all the answers about church and everything else.
“We all bear a responsibility for that, we’re all part of a celebrity culture that yearns to elevate people,” Sanders said. “I propped up a pastor, but the bigger problem is that I propped up anyone at all.”
Pete Hise is now a pastor at a church in Henderson, across the Ohio River from Evansville. He did not respond to a call for comment on this story.
Spiritual abuse can often lead people to lose their faith. After all, if bad things can happen in the Lord’s House, then what’s the point? Clements and Sanders, though, wanted to keep their faith and help others through what they had been through.
So a couple of years ago, they started thinking about The Way Home, what it could look like and who it could help.
“We had the understanding that God wouldn’t waste what we were walking through,” Sander said.
The Way Home is based on three tenets: Awareness, care and training for survivors of abuse from any congregation. They are Christian-based but are happy to work with survivors of other religions as well.
First, there are so many people who may not understand spiritual abuse systems, or the wide spectrum upon which they operate. Emotional and psychological abuse can take place completely separate from sexual abuse, although all three are frequently tied together.
Hearing about a case at another church can trigger survivors to finally get help. Decades after the Catholic Church sex abuse scandals, more Protestant church are being exposed, particularly within the Southern Baptist Church.
The Way Home is open to all. Every Wednesday, there is a Zoom support group at 7 p.m. There’s also one on one peer support and lots of other resources.
The group is also dedicated to helping churches prevent these kinds of problems with training that makes leaders and parishioners more aware of how abusive systems set into organizations.
Back to faith
The work of The Way Home can apply to denominations and congregations anywhere and everywhere. But it was also birthed out of the dysfunction of Quest Community Church and LexCity Church, which were both heralded as an exciting, innovative space that allowed young people a place to worship.
Jacque Adkins now serves on The Way Home board of directors. She and her husband were part of the launch team for Quest, “but over time, the pastor built a system that ended up being spiritually abusive.”
Basically, Adkins said, she was volunteering more than 60 hours a week with three small children, and it was never enough.
“The expectation was you were all in all the time,” she said.
Since then, she’s recognized the same signs of toxicity in other troubled churches:
“You have the market on doing it right. You give your all. There’s a lack of boundaries,” she said. “There can be a caste system, where you the pastor is surrounded by an inner circle, and the control happens in those inner circles. The numbers matter more than anything.”
The Adkins left the church in 2008. She was not surprised to see the latest news about LexCity, saying the organization had rebranded without actually healing from its toxic past.
Jacque Adkins reconciled with Clements and Sanders, agreeing to serve on the board of The Way Home.
“When people are involved in spiritually abusive systems, they can want to turn away from faith, many will turn away from God,” Adkins said. “The hope for The Way Home is that we can help people heal, they are not alone, there is hope, that God grieves about what happened and they can find their way back to faith.”
The organization’s title is taken from Jeremiah 31:21 : “Set up your signposts and road markers to find your way home.”
“Light is good, but it can be so painful,” Clements said. “It’s the light that’s healing.”
To reach The Way Home, go to https://www.theway-home.org/.