Megachurch pastor John Gray publicly apologized to his wife on a podcast last week for the multiple inappropriate relationships that almost ended their marriage, blaming it on childhood trauma.
On April 27, in a nearly three-hour long podcast episodio on the show “Dear Future Wifey,” Gray and his wife, Aventer, said their once-troubled marriage is in a better place thanks to God and therapy. They were on the brink of divorce en 2018.
Gray serves as the senior pastor at Love Story Church (formerly Relentless Church), a non-denominational megachurch in Greenville, South Carolina.
Gray, who also works as a guest speaker at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston, has repeatedly made headlines for múltiple cheating and financiero scandals over the last decade.
In 2020, a woman accused Gray of allegedly paying her for explicit photos, as previously reportado por The Roys Report (TRR). His church was also at the center of a legal controversy with another megachurch, TRR reportado.
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Gray previously served as a member of the lead team for the Association of Related Churches (ARC), an embattled church planting organization in North America. His name was listed as recently as April 2022, according to an archived webpage.
Gray and his wife said they wanted to share their story on the podcast to encourage others who may be struggling.
“I want to say to Aventer, ‘I want to thank you for showing me what the love of Christ looks like because you loved a very unlovable man,’ ” Gray said. “ ‘And I want to tell you how very sorry I am for the pain I caused.’ ”
Aventer said that she stayed with her husband to provide an example for other struggling marriages.
“I asked (God) for permission to leave,” Aventer said. “And He told me not to leave because He was going to do something that would save other marriages through what He’s doing here.”
John Gray explained his dysfunction in his marriage stemmed from sexual repression and childhood sexual abuse, stemming from an incident with two men who abused him when he was four years old.
“I was thrown away. I was spit on. I was maligned for the brokenness that was given to me on a grassy front yard at 4 years old when two men took my innocence,” Gray said. “And that demon that entered me when they took my innocence sat dormant for years, waiting for me to get married to show up so I could fail.”
Only later did he realize he needed therapy for the sexual abuse — alongside Jesus — to fix this trauma. Raised as an only child by a Christian mother, he said he was taught to be sexually repressed.
“I had a wet dream, and I ran into my mother’s room crying because I didn’t know what had happened,” Gray detailed. “She said, ‘Go take a bath. Ask the Lord to forgive you and go back to sleep.’”
Gray continued, “I’m not angry at my mother. She is only who she is because that’s what she was raised and taught. But what that tells me is that I didn’t do a bad thing. I am bad. So now I’m sexually repressed.”
Gray said he was a virgin when he got married to Aventar at age 37. However, he said because of his childhood experiences he struggled with other various sexual sins.
When he got married those struggles came out in other ways.
“It was never sex that I wanted. I wanted understanding, I wanted intimacy,” Gray said. “But when I realized that I felt unworthy to be married to her and I felt like a complete failure, I started having conversations with people who made me feel that way.”
Gray said that though he has never slept with another woman besides his wife, he cheated on her in other ways. (Gray’s alleged mistress has said otherwise).
“Infidelity is infidelity, I don’t care if I was inside of a woman or not, wrong is wrong,” Gray said. “I did wrong. I sinned against the marriage. . .And I became the thing I hated.”
Gray said this led to him contemplate suicide because he thought his wife’s life would be better without him.
Gray also said that while he now has accepted his failures, he has struggled with a lack of grace from the church community. He noted that many Christians celebrate David from the Bible even though he was a “terrible husband and a terrible father.”
Having remained the lead pastor at his church through his various controversies, Gray said that he received little help from “brothers in ministry” while he went through his struggles.
“Do know what it’s like to wait for your brothers in the ministry to come to your aid when you’re hurting and nobody shows up because their stuff is actually worse than the stuff you’re dealing with, but they don’t want anybody looking at them, so they won’t come near you?” Gray asked.
Gray did not specify who he was alluding to with these remarks.
“I ain’t a preacher, I’m a son,” Gray continued. “But it wasn’t enough for church folk because the truth is, church folk hate their own lives, and they like to see a train wreck and so they love to see their favorites fall and they want to really secretly rejoice in it.”
Gray apologized to the audience and to listeners for “the pain” he has caused. He said he is not only sorry for his actions, but also for not seeking counseling and therapy earlier.
He said he and his wife now go to counseling where every week so they can enable their children to be better than them. Gray did not specify when they started counseling.
“My son will be a better man than me,” Gray said. “He will be whole. He will be free. He will be a faithful husband that will not be unfaithful in his marriage verbally or sexually.”
Este artículo ha sido actualizado.
Liz Lykins is a correspondent covering religion news for The Roys Report, WORLD Magazine, and other publications.
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13 Responses
We are to restore and love one another when we’ve confessed our sin. We are to be examples of Christ who restored us. We’ve all sinned and come short, stop expecting perfection from our brothers and sisters,especially those in leadership positions. We are to extend grace.
You do realize, don’t you, that in the oft-quoted Romans 3 verse, it says “All HAVE sinned” (past tense).
Since I was saved, I have always wondered why there are certain verses that most church goers learn by heart and others that they not only never quote but they don’t even seem to know: for example, Matthew 1:21, John 8:34-36, all of Romans chapter 6, 1st John chapter 3 (and chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5!), 2 Timothy 2:19, Colossians 1:13, Titus 2:11-12 etc.
[Apparently 1st John chapter 3 and Galatians 519-24 used to be used in the old days as “litmus tests” for people seeking assurance that they were saved!].
You must admit at the very least that it’s odd.
When I read the New Testament for the first time 12 years ago, I saw so many passages about VICTORY (over sin, death and Satan).
It’s the GOOD News, after all!
But when I began attending churches, the men on the platform spoke of defeat.
Is putting faith in the doctrines of man to blame? Is it something more sinister?
He does NOT deserve a leadership position, or ANY kind of respect. He gets NOTHING. He is a wolf in sheep clothing. He has been down this path SO many times. It happened when he was a Promise Keeper speaker. It happened several times before that, too. He is a terrible human being.
An integral part of the GOOD News is regeneration.
It’s a LIE from Satan that says regenerate Christians are “the same as” they were or “the same as or worse than” the lost world.
Peter calls us “peculiar people” (1st Peter 2:9) for a reason. The HOLY SPIRIT indwells! (John 14:16-17, Romans 8:9).
If this man had said he was never born again and should never have taken any senior role or even spoken in church for that reason and that he alone is responsible for his sin, then sure: show him grace. But he’s apparently still in denial and is not born again because he has never come to Godly repentance (2nd Corinthians 7) where one takes FULL and SOLE responsibility, making NO excuses.
Here is a (non exhaustive) list of verses that speak of TRANSFORMATION.
2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 6:17-18, 20, Romans 7:5, 1 Corinthians 6:11, Galatians 5:24, Ephesians 2:1-3, 5a, Ephesians 2:13, Ephesians 5:7-8, Colossians 1:13, Colossians 1:21, Colossians 3:6-7, 1 Timothy 1:13a, Titus 3:3, Colossians 3:7, 1 Timothy 1:13, 1 Peter 1:14, 1 Peter 1:22, 1 Peter 2:25, 1 Peter 2:9-10, 1 Peter 4:3b, 2 Peter 1:4b, 2:20a, 2 Peter 1:9b.
This isn’t about expecting perfection of our pastors. It’s about expecting pastors to be biblically qualified for the office.
There’s ALWAYS an excuse. Also, I think it needs to say “pastor.” I can’t imagine ANYONE recognizing this as his title.
Aren’t we tired of him, why are people still sitting under this “Stuff”
I have no sympathy. Get out of the ministry and go work for Walmart or sell cars! You dirty old men will do anything to gain attention and sympathy=more donations! You don’t have the Spirit of God inside or else you would have a CONSCIENCE before committing immoral acts. Where’s the CONVICTION before you do it? We don’t need to know about your wet dreams. How disgusting this is and the Body of Christ at large is sick and tired of hearing about you men making excusing for your sex sins, and Doug Weiss has a filthy mouth talking about his private parts being blessed by God…on CHRISTIAN TV!! Where did preaching repentance and the Word of God-the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ go? Celebrity preacher predators now reign! Like Ed Young who drove a Cadillac onto the stage, and built a roller coaster and road around in it on stage. What happened to the “sacred desk” or pulpit? It’s taken off stage so you guys can ENTERTAIN instead of falling on your knees on the platform and repenting and calling on the Spirit of God to fall in your churches and cleanse the Body of Christ and prepare for His coming! Today is the day of salvation! We don’t need entertainment, but HOLINESS!
Saying “I’m sorry” isn’t the only step specifically if you are a repeat offender. In cases like this it’s necessary to step down specifically if one is to be a moral example to others.
No one is perfect that’s why we ask God for his Grace and Mercy and forgiveness I love my Pastors John and Aventar Gray and The Love Story Church Family we are a growing Family that stands Together threw it all ❤️❤️❤️🙏
If God can’t restore a repeat offender, then we’re all in trouble. Gray obviously experienced some severe sexual trauma as a child, so the body of Christ should extend grace for him as a fellow believer.
BUT… for the love of all that is holy, let’s stop propping up ministers who are caught in a cycle of habitual sin, however sympathetic we might be to the cause. The fact that Gray was leading a church and on the board of directors for a church planting organization while habitually cheating on his wife and abusing others with his spiritual authority is egregious. Ministers should, at the very least, have the same qualifications as church elders. They must be faithful to their wives. They must be above reproach. (Titus 1:6)
We can extend sympathy and grace to a struggling believer while holding our ministers and Christian leaders to God’s standard. Gray needs to stop shepherding so He can be healed by the Shepherd. If not, he will never truly be healed, and he will continue to harm the sheep.
I’m sure it is just me, but it seems as if all of Pastor Gray’s justifications for his infidelity were due to things other people did to him. I have no reason to doubt those traumatic things he describes as having contributed to his wayward ways. I believe him. But among all the lascivious stories of his traumas, he comes across as a victim. “The devil made me do it.”
What I’d love to hear is something like: “Regardless of what happened in my past, in my childhood, in my teen years, I am solely responsible for my actions and my behavior toward God, the church, my affair partners, my wife, and my family. It’s not the fault of my perpetrators when I was 4 years old; not my mom when I was a confused teen; and not the women who I cheated with. It is me. I am responsible. I accept the blame. All of it. Period.”
Then he should step down from his public ministries, and submit himself to a small group of men who are trained in psychology and trauma healing who will meet with him weekly and oversee his restoration. He should say nothing publicly for at least a year; maybe longer if his accountability group thinks he isn’t ready. When those men think Pastor Gray is ready to be let loose in public to minister to men, women, and children again, then that accountability group should make a public report on his behalf to tell the church why they believe he is ready to be restored to ministry.
No icky or cringey stories necessary.
What I really don’t get it is how this guy has been platformed in one of the biggest and influential churches in the country and they didn’t correct him and prevent him from preaching.
Preachers need to be put to pasture immediately. When they have a ton of other preachers covering up for them what we have is a much major problem and the consequences much worse.
When everything surfaces hundreds if not thousands of people are so disappointed that they feel betrayed, lied to because all that time sin has been covered up.
That’s exactly why people leave churches and sometimes don’t want to have anything to do with things related to God. It’s because this sea of immorality, lack of fear of God and flippant attitude about God, His Word and His people.