When The Chapel, a multi-site non-denominational megachurch with campuses clustered near the Illinois-Wisconsin state line, fired its associate pastor, Steven Ostrander, it didn’t tell church members why. At the time of Ostrander’s firing in October 2022, most congregants didn’t even know that he’d been let go, numerous former congregants and staff told The Roys Report (TRR).

The church certainly didn’t reveal that Ostrander, then 30, had reportedly admitted that he had a sexual interaction with a 19-year-old man who had previously been in Ostrander’s youth ministry. The church also didn’t mention allegations that Ostrander had made unwanted sexual advances toward several 20-something men under his pastoral care.

Not until 18 months had passed did church leaders – via a March 20, 2024, email – let the 4,500-member congregation know what was up. The missive described the allegations against Ostrander as “misuse of power to manipulate personal and professional relationships and/or unsolicited or unwelcome physical advances, some of which were sexual in nature.”

Several people closely tied to the situation – including alleged victims and former campus pastors – are accusing The Chapel leadership of continuing to minimize and cover up the extent of the allegations. They said previous concerns raised about Ostrander’s interactions with minors were not taken seriously and that elders and staff were told a misleading and incomplete narrative.

Church leaders never communicated, they added, that former members of the youth group were among Ostrander’s alleged victims.

The Chapel declined to allow TRR to speak with The Chapel Senior Pastor Scott Chapman. The Chapel Executive Pastor Ryan Chevrier and Elder Jeff One, the designated spokespeople regarding this matter, declined to discuss specific allegations against Ostrander, citing “pastoral confidentiality.” However, One said The Chapel didn’t find any evidence back in 2022 of incidents involving minors that would have triggered a report to law enforcement or parents. And One stood behind the church’s decision to keep details private.

“We’ve been asked (by victims) not to make that public,” One said. “So, if (victims) want to tell their parents, they can tell their parents. Believe me, we would love to be able to talk to some of them, but we really want to honor the person’s wishes. We’ve been accused of trying to hide that, but we’re trying to honor their decision.”

But at least one victim says he wants allegations made public. Caleb Brockmann, who said he experienced “sexual manipulation” by Ostrander at The Chapel’s campus in Whitewater, Wisconsin, believes The Chapel should have been more transparent from the beginning.

He described the March 20 churchwide email as “cowardly” and “too little, too late,” adding he felt revictimized by The Chapel’s handling of the situation.

“They’re banking on the fact that men are uncomfortable being vulnerable about sexual encounters with other men,” he said, “and it is weird and uncomfortable (to talk about). But what The Chapel is doing is worse than what Steven Ostrander was doing.”

Ostrander’s alleged abuse

Brockmann, now 27, recounts how during a young adult retreat in September 2022, Ostrander texted him at 3 a.m. asking him to come to his room. Brockmann was still awake at the time, hanging out and chatting with friends in the young adult ministry.

Brockmann said he went to Ostrander’s room, where Ostrander was alone in his bed. Brockmann remained there and slept in a separate bed, but he said he felt “really uncomfortable” about the situation.

Still, as a “people pleaser,” he felt he needed to accommodate any request by his pastor, no matter how uncomfortable he felt about it.

“It’s this guy I look up to, I trust, and I want to make him happy or make him proud of me,” Brockmann said. “So, I’m going to do pretty much whatever he hints at. I’ll try to get that done.”

Brockmann said nothing physical occurred the night of the retreat, but on another occasion at Ostrander’s home, there was “cuddling.” He described his experiences with Ostrander as “emotional abuse.”

Two other men who knew Ostrander through the young adult ministry also told TRR that they felt uncomfortable around the pastor. They and Brockmann claimed that Ostrander asked for detailed accounts of their sexual history because it was Ostrander’s pastoral duty to know such things.

All three men met Ostrander through The Chapel’s young adult ministry (ages 18 to 30), which Ostrander oversaw as part of his duties on staff. Ostrander also volunteered in The Chapel’s youth ministry, where he led a small group.

TRR also spoke with the mother of a boy in Ostrander’s small group who had raised concerns about his interactions with her son more than a year before his termination. (We are not naming the mother to protect the identity of her son.)

She first became alarmed when she noticed that Ostrander was constantly texting her son, often telling the boy to join him for events. She said Ostrander even urged her son to skip out on Thanksgiving with his family one year to spend time with him.

“(My son) would be panicking, because he has someone harassing him that he respects and is an authority in his life and he looks up to,” she said. “And we’re telling him, ‘No, you’re not leaving the house.’”

She also said that Ostrander seemed to receive a pass when he ignored rules in place to protect students and leaders. For example, she said Ostrander often found opportunities to be alone with her son or other young men, even though leaders were supposed to only meet with students in public or with another person present.

Mother told to ‘repent’ for reporting concerns

This mother told TRR she confronted Ostrander about how he was interacting with her son, but his behavior didn’t change. She then raised concerns about Ostrander during a youth volunteer meeting in mid-2021.

“I (said), ‘I want to be gracious toward Steven, but I’m not OK with what he’s doing to my son,’” she said. “And I was basically told (by Director of Chapel Students Reed Paul) that I should spend time praying to repent before God, because (Ostrander) is on staff and he should be trusted. He’s the one in the right. And if I have an issue, I’m the one that needs to change and repent.”

Paul denied making these comments.

“I am confident I did not have any conversations during those trainings or in individual meetings around a volunteer’s concerns about Steven’s interactions with their son or asking a volunteer to repent for those concerns,” he stated in an email to TRR. “I am also confident that I have never responded by asking someone to repent in response to their sharing of relational concerns.”

The woman’s concerns intensified in January 2023 – three months after Ostrander’s termination. She said Chevrier told her The Chapel leaders would like to speak with her son and encourage him to go to counseling because of information they discovered regarding his connection to Ostrander. Chevrier wouldn’t share any additional details with her, because her son had since turned 18 years old and was legally an adult, she said.

Chevrier did not respond to a request for comment about this incident.

When the woman addressed the matter with her son, he initially didn’t want to talk about it, she said. Later, he reportedly revealed more details to her about his history with Ostrander, though he still declined to answer all of her questions and did not speak with TRR.

“(My son) talked about extensive grooming starting at age 16, going to breakfast and Steven saying things along the lines of, ‘You know, in order to have a good relationship and mentorship, we can’t have any secrets. So, I’m not going to keep any secrets from you, and you can’t keep any secrets from me. But to respect each other, we are going to have secrets from everyone else,’” the woman said.

Church fires Ostrander, but informs few

In October 2022, one month after the 3 a.m. incident, Brockmann reported his concerns to The Chapel. He met with then-Whitewater campus pastor Kevin Tranel and brought along a friend from the young adult ministry who also had concerns about Ostrander.

After speaking with the two men, Tranel said he immediately reported their concerns to Chevrier and Associate Senior Pastor Freddy Villarreal, who said they would handle the situation from there.

Ostrander was fired within 48 hours. The following week, Chapman and Chevrier wrote in an email to staff that they had fired Ostrander for “a pattern of a lack of wisdom and inappropriate boundaries that have fostered unhealthy relational dynamics – some of which resulted in inappropriate physical interactions.” However, the church did not inform the congregation at this time.

Several weeks later, Tranel said he contacted Chevrier for an update to the email.

Tranel said Chevrier told him that when confronted about Brockmann’s allegations, Ostrander admitted to an incident, involving undressing and touching a 19-year-old man who attended the church. Chevrier said, or clearly implied, that the interaction was consensual, Tranel said.

But according to experts, those under the care of a pastor cannot consent to sexual contact because of the power differential. Such contact qualifies as adult clergy sexual abuse, which is illegal in more than a dozen states.

When asked by TRR about the incident with the 19-year-old, One said The Chapel leaders “elected not to talk about specifics.” But Chevrier and One denied to TRR that the relationship was described as “consensual.” When asked by TRR if they believed the situation qualified as adult clergy sexual abuse, One said, “I think the person involved would have to answer that question. I can’t speak for (him) in that regard.”

Tranel said he considers Ostrander’s alleged actions to be adult clergy sexual abuse and that he is dismayed The Chapel has not defined it that way.

The alleged victim did not respond to a request for comment from TRR. But Tranel and multiple other people with knowledge of the situation said the man had been a student in the ministry for junior high and high school students during Ostrander’s time there.

In February 2024, the mother of the boy who was repeatedly texted by Ostrander said that during a meeting with Paul and another youth pastor, she learned they believed Ostrander had been fired for a single “consensual” interaction with an adult.

She said they didn’t realize that the relationship had begun when the alleged victim was a minor in their youth group and that she informed them of this detail. She said the pastors also didn’t know that there were potentially other victims.

“They had no idea that it was boys under the leadership of Steven Ostrander who were being abused under their care, under their noses, while they were present in the room,” she said. 

When asked his perspective, Paul confirmed that before this meeting, he “had not received any reports of sexual manipulation from a minor or anyone with respect to (Ostrander).” He added, “The Chapel has consistently stated that the incidents that led to Steven’s termination were not consensual, and I agree with that statement.”

Elder says he was kept in the dark

Nearly a year after Brockmann reported the initial allegations to him, Tranel said he became significantly more concerned about how the matter was handled after speaking with John Toner, a former elder at The Chapel. Tranel said Toner was unaware of the allegations against Ostrander reported by Brockmann and his friend. (Toner confirmed Tranel’s account with TRR.)

“What was revealed (to the elders in October 2022) was that Steven had had an inappropriate relationship with a man who was barely legal, 19 years old, and that it was consensual and that there was touching (of genitalia) involved,” said Toner. He added that Ostrander was characterized to the elders as “a young guy” who “made a mistake.”

However, One disagreed and said the two young men who brought allegations to Tranel were mentioned at the October 2022 elder meeting.

Toner, who stepped down from the elder board in late 2022 when he moved out of state, said the elders did not know who the young man was or that he had been a student in the youth ministry under Ostrander’s leadership. Toner said he was unaware – until speaking directly with Tranel – of the allegations made by Brockmann and was led to believe the situation only involved Ostrander and one other “consenting” adult. 

Similarly, Joe Reeves, a former campus pastor at The Chapel, said that during a discussion with One in January, One denied that Ostrander had been fired for sexual misconduct.

“Jeff (One) said, ‘Steven Ostrander was fired for misuse of spiritual power and abuse of authority, not sexual misconduct,’” Reeves said. “(I pointed out) the staff email said that he’s crossed the boundaries of a physically inappropriate relationship. And Jeff’s response was, ‘Define the word ‘boundaries.’”

One said that he does not recall denying to Reeves that Ostrander had been fired for sexual misconduct.

“It is possible that this is a source of confusion because we have stated multiple times that even if the knowledge of sexual misconduct were not present, Steven would have been let go for the evidence of misuse of power and authority alone,” One said.

Steven Keller, a then-volunteer and attendee at The Chapel, said he was standing nearby and witnessed the conversation between Reeves and One. Brockmann had previously told Keller about his interactions with Ostrander, so Keller said he was surprised to hear One’s characterization of the matter.

“It was clear that even the elders of our church – if they do know the full story – they’re being dishonest and trying to tell people a different narrative,” Keller said. “If they don’t know the full story, then the elders – our church overseers – are not being given all the information, and it’s causing a breakdown of leadership.”

A better way of dealing with abuse

Ostrander, who’s now working as a manager for a business consulting firm, did not respond to TRR’s request for comment for this story.

One said that church leadership decided to finally inform the congregation of the allegations against Ostrander because people impacted by the situation feared there may be other victims.

“As time has passed, we understand that there are still people that are dealing with this, and there may be others that maybe we weren’t aware of initially when this was announced (in October 2022),” One said. “I have learned that people who have gone through trauma, that when they’re initially asked, they might be embarrassed and not feel comfortable to come forward, but as time passes, they might change their mind.”

Pete Singer, executive director of GRACE, a firm that focuses on abuse prevention and response in faith communities, said he does not have direct knowledge of the situation at The Chapel. But in general, Singer said implementing a robust policy regarding abuse is an important first step and that it should focus on “safety and care” more than “protecting the institution.”

“The policy should clearly lay out behaviors that may be abuse or misconduct, as well as boundaries before abusive behaviors or misconduct,” Singer said. “. . . The policy should not just focus on structured ministry time, as most abuse and misconduct occurs outside of structured ministry time.”

He said it should also include screening practices, specify how congregants can report concerns, and establish accountability for church leaders, staff, volunteers and others.

“When allegations of abuse or misconduct are received, the church must be careful not to enter a self-preservation mode. Their primary role as the church, I believe, is to protect people that God has commended to their care,” Singer said.

Earlier this year, The Chapel began working with MinistrySafe, a Fort Worth-based group of civil trial attorneys who address child sexual abuse, to assess existing child protection protocols in place and make relevant recommendations. The church has also begun working with Cantey Hanger, a Texas-based law firm, to review Ostrander’s actions and The Chapel’s response. One declined to specify whether the findings from either organization will be made public.

“This has been really a heartbreaking situation for everyone involved,” One said. “We’re trying to do the right thing to help our people and show care and offer help. I realize that there are some folks that will never be satisfied by whatever we would do, but we’re trying to do the best we can, and we never want to be a stumbling block to anyone who’s trying to become a follower of Jesus.”

However, John Toner, the former elder, does not believe The Chapel has made a serious effort to fully investigate the allegations against Ostrander.

“There are young men involved from at least three campuses, and one was in seventh grade when he was groomed,” Toner texted One earlier this year. “The long-term grooming and repetitive nature of Steven’s actions indicate a much more serious situation than was communicated to us at the October 2022 elders meeting.”

Toner added, “We’re not going to know how bad it is until we get to the bottom of it, and there’s a subtle and persistent effort to avoid going there.”

Update 8/6/24: This article has been updated to note that One disagreed with Toner’s recollection of what happened at the October 2022 elder meeting. 

Ann Marie Shambaugh has reported as a print journalist in multiple states, including currently in Carmel, Indiana.