Former Leader at Josh Howerton’s Church Speaks Out

Julie Roys: According to the Houston Chronicle, hundreds have recently left Lakepointe Church, Josh Howerton’s prominent mega church in the Dallas Fort Worth area. One of those who have left, a longtime volunteer leader at the church, joins me today to tell her story.

Julie Roys: Welcome to The Roy’s Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and today I’ll be speaking with Amanda Cunningham, a former model and actress who became a Christian at Lakepointe Church. That was more than a decade ago when Steve Stroop pastored the church. But in 2019, Stroop retired, and young pastor Josh Howerton was hired to replace him. According to Amanda, that’s when a major transformation occurred.

Julie Roys: Ministries were cancelled as the church sought to become more centralized and on brand. Emails from Amanda to those in her ministry were cancelled, and they were replaced by communications from central leadership. Then outsiders began posting about Howerton’s plagiarized sermons. His behavior online and in sermons led to allegations of misogyny.

Julie Roys: And then Howerton told a joke that some online said promoted marital rape. Howerton apologized for the joke, but as The Roy’s Report reported, he apparently plagiarized his apology. Lastly, the church, in an effort to gain city approval for a traffic light, urged people in the church to sign up to repeatedly drive through an intersection to manipulate the findings.

Julie Roys: All these events, plus interactions Amanda witnessed personally, caused her family to leave the church. And now, she’s speaking out to warn others. We’ll hear Amanda’s eye-opening account in just a minute, but first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Talbot Seminary and Marquardt of Barrington.

Julie Roys: Are you passionate about impacting the world so it reflects biblical ideals of justice? The Talbot School of Theology Doctor of Ministry program is launching a new track exploring the theological, social, and practical dimensions of biblical justice today. The program equips students with the knowledge, skills, and spiritual foundation needed to address social issues with wisdom and compassion.

Julie Roys: Justice has become a key issue in our culture, but more importantly, it’s an issue that’s close to God’s heart. While it’s clear the Bible calls God’s people to pursue justice, we must be guided by His Word within that pursuit. Talbot has created this track to do just that. As part of this program, you’ll examine issues such as trafficking, race, immigration, and poverty. And I’ll be teaching a session as well, focusing on the right use of power in our churches so we can protect the vulnerable. So join me in a community of like-minded scholars committed to social change and ethical leadership. Apply now at TALBOT.EDU/DMIN.

Julie Roys: Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and confidence. That’s because the owners there, Dan and Kurt Marquart, are men of integrity. To check them out just go to BUYACAR123.COM

Julie Roys:  Again, joining me is Amanda Cunningham, a former model and actress who about 11 years ago became a Christian at a church in the Dallas Fort Worth area called Lakepointe. But over the years, it’s changed dramatically under its new leader, Josh Howerton. So Amanda joins me now to talk about, sort of from an insider’s view, what’s been happening at that church and also her family’s painful decision to decide to leave that church. So Amanda, thank you so much for joining me and being willing to talk about something that I know has been really difficult for you.

Amanda Cunningham: Thank you for the opportunity to work it out with other people who will listen and Christians who understand a heart for wanting a reconciled, peaceful, loving church to be a great witness to the world. So thank you so much for having me.

Julie Roys: And I know your story is unique to you. And yet at the same time, there are a lot of people listening who have had to leave their church for one reason or another. And they know what that process is like. There’s some who I’m guessing are listening right now and trying to figure out, is the stuff that I’m seeing at my church, is it serious enough to leave? Is it not? And so I think this is going to be a really beneficial podcast for a lot of folks.

Julie Roys: But before we talk about that, let’s talk about sort of your background and why you even came to this church. My understanding is 11 years ago, you weren’t a believer, and you really weren’t looking to go to church. Why did you end up showing up at Lakepointe?

Amanda Cunningham: It’s a very long story, but what ended up happening, I had visited church when I was younger. It never really stuck. I didn’t fall in love with the Lord. I didn’t understand it. And when I became a mom, just seeing the miracle of life through my daughter’s birth. And as they grew, I thought there’s something to this God. And we ended up moving to a new town when they were one in three. My husband’s a firefighter and a lot of his firefighter friends invited us to Lakepointe.

Amanda Cunningham: And immediately I thought I don’t want to go to a mega church, televangelist; I had all these outside opinions. And it took me a little while to even wrap my mind around visiting a church like that, and I really started to feel convicted with this thought before I even knew what that meant, that if my husband wants to try a church, I should try whatever church it is.

Amanda Cunningham: So we started going. And I am his third wife. He’s my second husband. We were obviously terrible at marriage because we didn’t know God’s design for it. We weren’t living by it. But as soon as we started attending, we were completely consumers, grateful to have child-care, grateful for the coffee and the music and the movie seats.

Amanda Cunningham: We were soaking it all up. But they started preaching a marriage series on fixing your marriage. And my husband and I kind of looked at each other I think God’s talking to us? Is that a thing? And the reason why they were doing a marriage series was to launch a marriage ministry.

Amanda Cunningham: So my husband and I just felt seeing okay, we really do need to figure out how to make our marriage better. We were in a really tough place and ended up attending the marriage ministry that Lakepointe launched called Re-Engage.

Amanda Cunningham: And it was founded by Watermark, and he didn’t want to go .He ended up going and week four, we have this huge forgiveness lesson. And I realized how much I needed forgiveness for. just all my sin. And I really just gave it up to the Lord. I had no idea what I was doing. I just started telling people what happened in this conversation that my husband said he believed again. And that I said, just God, take my whole life. I’m making a mess of it. People were like, Oh, you gave your life to Christ? What does that mean? Okay. I’m just learning all this language and I had heard you need to get baptized right away. So I got baptized.

Amanda Cunningham: And as I come out of the baptistry, our church is obviously very large. And so the baptisms are put on the big screen. And so I was baptized during service, and I come out of the baptistry and all my friends who I made in Re-Engage were like, why didn’t you invite us to your baptism? I can’t believe this! It’s so exciting. And I thought, is that what people do? You invite people?

Amanda Cunningham: So just very clueless coming in. And as soon as we graduated from Re-Engage, we were tapped for leadership. And so it was just this crash course of learning what church was about, what ministry was about, and how to serve well, like how to be a Christian leader. Obviously, we were vetted, even though we were very new to this. So we weren’t just thrown in willy-nilly, but it was a very interesting experience to learn all that so quickly.

Julie Roys: And at that time, the pastor was Steve Stroop, correct? And so it had a little different culture at that point than maybe it does now, and we’ll get into that, but you also started serving in the women’s ministry as well. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Amanda Cunningham: So my husband and I served side by side for about four years in marriage ministry, and that’s a very intense, you’re in the depths of people’s broken marriages, holding on by a thread. And as our girls got a little older and we’re engaged in sports and after school activities, we really needed a relief to our schedule.

Amanda Cunningham: Then we ended up starting a life group and we’ve served all over. In that life group, I was trying to get women who are new to the church to get all the resources they could. So I was like, Hey, there’s a women’s ministry, we should go. And the first time I attended they really needed hands on deck.

Amanda Cunningham: And since I was an elected leader they were like, will you help? And I said, yes. And I ended up helping out. So there were several branches of women’s ministry, several groups that met regularly underneath the larger umbrella of women’s ministry, I ended up becoming the women’s ministry quarterly event. So we meet four times a year and have a time of fellowship and a meal and worship and a teaching and prayer. And so I did that for about three years.

Julie Roys: And during this time, you saw some differences between maybe the way the women’s ministry was treated, the resources allocated to it, as opposed to the men’s ministry. I doubt this is a unique thing in a lot of churches. I’d like to think it is. But describe what some of the things that you saw were.

Amanda Cunningham: That whole thing was very interesting. Just women and leadership in general, and definitely within in ministry and women’s ministry. But I came from a background a very female-dominated family. And I had worked for 10 years as a model and actress. And as a model, especially that is a very female-dominated industry. I would have no idea that women were looked down on in the church as they can be. So when I came into leadership serving beside my husband, it was very interesting trying to figure out where can I speak? Where can I not? I’m allowed to lead leadership meetings, but women are not allowed to speak in the pulpit. It was just a lot of gray area, a lot of research, a lot of my own bible study trying to figure out where I fit in. And then when I ended up serving in the women’s ministry, immediately people were sharing with me, okay, you’re the new leader, we can tell our ideas and complaints to. But at Lakepointe, they funneled a lot of their men’s ministry resources into one section of it is called man church. And as women,  as wives, we would encourage them to go whatever it took. The whole house is falling apart. Everyone has . . .  Fine. It’s man church, right? Please go. And there was no child-care. So I’m with the kids and the husbands would get like burgers and chips and have NFL stars or major league baseball stars. Really great speakers come, and we were so encouraged because our husbands would come home pumped up, ready to serve the Lord and dig in..

Amanda Cunningham: So we were really supportive of that. On the flip side, we would look at our women’s events that were similar to that, and, we’d be up in this larger room, but much smaller than the main sanctuary. And we’d have popcorn and little pig bites, and we’d have childcare. It was just much more cumbersome experience for us to try and attend.

Amanda Cunningham: And so as I came in as leader, I thought, okay, how can we remove barriers for women to attend? We want, we changed the imagery. So it wasn’t just a young blonde mom on the image. It was all ethnicities. It was for all ages. It was for all income levels, everything we could to let women know that this is a new vision, and we want everyone to feel welcome.

Amanda Cunningham: And I immediately realized, if we were going to turn the volume up and make women feel seen and respected in the same way, we could look at man church and say, Hey, they get all these cool things. How come we don’t? But okay, let’s prove ourselves. Do we really want biblical teaching? Do we really want community?

Amanda Cunningham: So we had to really come together and form a new volunteer group and just really earn the respect I felt and earn our place in the church. And our funds didn’t change, but we went from a hundred women at each event to five hundred and then four hundred and so we were able to meet in sanctuary and I cannot even tell you what that felt like as women’s church. Wow! We’re worthy of the big room.

Amanda Cunningham: And it’s sad to think that those things are important, but it is. If we’re looking at Genesis and how God created us equally in his image. Then, as women, we were thinking it should be equal in how we’re served and how we meet as a church. Now, obviously, women’s ministry have many different sections. So maybe that’s why the funds are so low. We don’t  know.

Amanda Cunningham: Turn the volume up. And a huge mission that we did together, and we served like 600 women with 10 free items of clothes the 1st year and 1000 women, 10 free items of clothes the next year. So our events were growing. Women were really, we had theologically trained teachers. We had food trucks. It was beautiful. And I find out that was an executive meeting close to before Covid shut us down,  where they explained that was the largest growing ministry of the church. And so we weren’t obviously trying to compete. We were just glad that we had grown and that women knew they had a place to come.

Amanda Cunningham: Women who husbands don’t follow Christ. Women who are single, women who are widows, like everyone was welcome. And so we were so excited and grateful that we could find community there.

Julie Roys: Sounds incredible. And I will say, I remember my husband and I, this is many years ago, but we attended Willow Creek and I remember Bill Hybel saying this out loud, which nowadays I think, wow, I don’t think he could get away with saying this out loud, but he actually said, We have found that if you target the men, the women will come anyway.

Julie Roys: So just target the men and the women are thrown in as a bonus. And even I remember thinking back, why was I not offended by that? I think I was so used to hearing that women are second class citizens in the church that I was like, okay, yeah, okay, we’ll do that. I look back now and kind of shocked at how I just went, okay.

Julie Roys: But it is something that needs to be addressed in church. I’m glad you did, but here you have this thriving ministry now, 2019 hits and Steve Stroop announces that he’s going to be resigning. He’s getting up in the years, and he announces that this new guy, Josh Howerton, is going to take over. When you first heard that, what did you think of Josh?

Amanda Cunningham: It was a shock. He had guest taught at our church twice. Pastor Steve had been very open that this was a long process. He was really being intentional about searching for his successor and it took years and other preachers would come in and we could tell he was trying them on and then that would end. For it to be announced like, Hey, this is the guy. And we knew we hadn’t had a long period to try it on, was kind of shocking, but we were all excited. We’re like, we trust Steve immensely. Obviously, the church is not perfect, and everyone always has their complaints. But overall, it was the vision of the church was solid and everyone was locked in and so many of us could find a place easily to serve and find a smaller community in such a large church. It was amazing.

Amanda Cunningham: And so when Josh came, we just thought, okay. And every time they would preach together or talk together or vision cast, they were very intentional to say, Hey, we’re on the same page, we’re on the same page. And so that was very comforting in the beginning.

Julie Roys: And then, what a time to be brought in as a pastor, though. I have to say, 2019 had no idea what was on the horizon, but then 2020 hits. COVID hits. Your church, like every other church, is thrown into just a whole litany of changes. And I’m guessing you guys, And I know you’re in Texas and Texas kind of bucked a lot of the restrictions, but was there a time where you weren’t meeting, and you had to do online church kind of thing?

Amanda Cunningham: Oh, absolutely. Immediately went online. The Rockwall campus, especially is so large they knew they had a great responsibility to protect everyone’s health, no matter what everyone’s different beliefs were on the precautions that we should be taking. And it was like, Hey, the bare minimum, we’re going to shut down, and we’ll let you know when we can reopen. And so we all shifted. We all shifted to meeting online and we put all the ministries on pause. All our communities are on pause. Everything was. I wasn’t serving and never been a staff member at church. I’ve served in high capacity for a long time, but pastors and staff members and leaders in the faith absolutely just took the brunt of so many hits and I think everybody’s faith was greatly affected by that period. But when you’re in leadership, they’re like, I just have the greatest respect for people who held on and kept serving through all that. It was insane.

Julie Roys:. So then after COVID subsides, we know that was quite a process too. But I’m guessing you’re pretty excited thinking, yes! Let’s hit the ground running. We’ve been waiting all this time. Women’s ministry, we’re excited. And it didn’t really turn out that way. So what happened when you came back to meeting after COVID?

Amanda Cunningham: Well, I could have had a little hint that things might be changing before that. When any new leader comes in, they have their own vision, they have their own fires, they have their own things that they want to do. And one of our last events it was when we served a thousand women with 10 free items of clothing. And we were trained by Passion City church, like in a large way and everything was running great.

Amanda Cunningham: I was in charge of writing follow up emails from our ministry events to invite women to the next one, to give them news. And so we were so excited to have a thousand women, new friends to draw in to our church. And so I drafted this email, like I always did, thank you so much. But the main thing was that every leadership meeting, every volunteering meeting we had for the last two years, I started every meeting with writing them.

Amanda Cunningham: This is not about the clothes, this event, we may be asking the community to donate their best extras and we’re going to set up a beautiful store, but this is not about the clothes. Yes, we’re meeting tangible needs. Absolutely. We want to offer our excess to those who are in need. This is about loving your community.

Amanda Cunningham: This is about letting women feel seen and known in their pain. The stories that came out of these nights were incredible, but my first inkling that things were going to change was actually before COVID our last event, I went to draft an email and I was corrected and there was a new email given to me that said, Hey, this is what we’re going to send out.

Amanda Cunningham: And instead of two paragraphs and what we normally do, it was two sentences, and it was, I hope you enjoyed the clothes. See you this weekend at services, here in the service times. And I had never pushed back on leadership. Now that’s not to say that leaders in line did not disagree and had needed conversations, but I’d never pushed back and said no.

Amanda Cunningham: And this is the first time I said, no, what do you mean? Every single leadership and volunteer meeting, I start out by saying, because I was trained by Passion City, this is what their team said is this is not about the clothes. So how can the first sentence be, I hope you enjoyed the clothes? So that to me thought, okay, I need to settle myself in thinking that things are about to change.

Amanda Cunningham: And we all knew that. Josh is young and Steve was older. And so very big difference in generational science. So we reopened and there was all this anticipation. We’ve been meeting online.

Julie Roys: Let me ask you one thing about that. So when that came, was this a centralization sort of a controlling of the narrative from above? Do you feel like that came from Josh when it was like, no, this is the email, and this is the way it has to go out?

Amanda Cunningham: I didn’t know Josh. All of my friends that I’d served with and employees I’d worked with and all their personalities. I knew them very well. And so this stood out to me as very different, very cold, and very just, come the weekend services.

Amanda Cunningham: The whole reason we had, Steve’s vision that we bought into was we’re a church on global mission and we are a large church of many small churches. And so Re-Engage to me was a backdoor into the church. Maybe I didn’t feel comfortable on the weekends at first, but I met people on this ministry on Tuesday nights and then I would come to the weekend once I found people to sit with, the people I knew, and women’s ministry was just like that.

Amanda Cunningham: Women came to what is initially like, Oh, I am comfortable and welcome in the church. Okay. I can come to the weekend service. So those are all back doors to the church. So it felt like the back door was going to be closed, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Who am I? I’m a volunteer. This is really none of my business, right? I’m just a member here.

Amanda Cunningham: And then when we reopened, there was a lot of anticipation. We’ve been meeting online. We really got to know Josh and Janet through Instagram lives during COVID because he hadn’t taught every weekend. Then we reopened and the first weekend, there was so much energy, like I cannot wait to go, and it was almost when you’re a teenager, you can first get your car and you turn the speakers up real loud and blow your speakers?

Amanda Cunningham: That’s what it felt like, and we always have high energy. We’d always have high volume. There’s always a big, giant screen there, but it felt different. It felt very different. And I remember leaning into my husband and saying, it feels like pastor C’s out of town and the kids are throwing a kid party, but we’re coming out of months of isolation and maybe it’s just me.

Amanda Cunningham: And so we just roll with it and we’re like, okay. And so I’m looking at my girls who were tweens at the time. And I just thought. Maybe this isn’t what we’re going to do to reach Gen Z. Maybe this isn’t it. I don’t know. I’m not the boss.

Julie Roys: So you come out, change to the big service, but then major, major change to the women’s ministry.

Amanda Cunningham: Yes. So there was a blog post that came out initially and folded in there was the particular ministry I served in. Met at every campus and different people led it and they had different needs and different demographics and different styles. So they all look different. And what came down from the top was, we want to have a Lakepointe campus within 25 miles of everyone at DFW.

Amanda Cunningham: So the general feeling was everything needs to be easily multiplied, easy to copy and unveil, which was the name of the ministry. Looks different at every campus. And so the basic narrative that came down was, we can’t have stuff like that. We’re eliminating that and we try to handle it with grace. So okay, what are we going to do now?

Julie Roys: So your ministry is essentially wiped out like that.

Amanda Cunningham: Yes. And at that point, I had raised other women up to lead. And so I was just like, at the very end of 2019, my husband’s job changed. And I had raised other women up; it’s not my ministry at all. We’re just submitting to the church and to our pastors and they know what’s best and they know what our finances are.

Amanda Cunningham: And we understand that the economy is completely different. And so if you need to cut things, fine, we’re still going to find a way to meet. We still have our Bible studies, there’s lots of things, lots of ways we could still connect. And we were told that they would have two women’s events each year. And they were the same at every campus. And so we were happy with that for two years. There was a mom’s conference and then there was an IF gathering and women loved it. They came and people were still connecting. But as for my position, I’m watching, and it was like dwindling. Like when this connection was dwindling, like our small groups, our intimate groups were getting thrown into bigger groups in the bigger room and met twice a year.

Amanda Cunningham: And then I noticed, one by one, each women’s ministry was being shut down.

Julie Roys: And the children’s ministry began to change similarly. This kind of centralization as well. So I understand your kids were involved in small groups. And at this point, what are they? They’re like teenagers at this point? I think they were like, So

Amanda Cunningham: ? I think they were like, tween/teens. They’re two years apart. So we straddled that line for years and years. And the small groups would graduate from elementary to fourth and fifth graders, and then up to junior high and high. And a lot of the leaders tried to stay with the group and graduate with the kids. So it was very close knit. And of course, COVID changed all of that because a lot of people are staying home.

Amanda Cunningham: It doesn’t matter if the church is open, we’re not letting any kids go. And so you had less leaders and initially the option that I feel like the church decided to take was we’re gonna take all these small groups we’re not gonna have lay leaders, and we’re gonna have two leaders and have two large groups of 80 kids.

Amanda Cunningham: So our girls come back to it, what feels like a different church. And half their friends aren’t there, and now they’re in this group of 80 kids. Now my daughter is saying I don’t wanna share my inner most thoughts with 80 people. So then they just started coming to large church with us and didn’t go back.

Amanda Cunningham: They haven’t been back to small group since, which is good because then we really got a close look and we got to really discuss things with them from big church, but I know that they were lacking from not having a peer community in their faith.

Julie Roys: Was the youth church going on at the same time that the adults were meeting in big church?

Amanda Cunningham: It kind of swaps. It depends on the age, but yeah, usually at that age, the middle and high schoolers could come to large church with parents and then go to their small group while the parents went to their small group.

Julie Roys: That seems like a special thing, and they have been in those groups, like, how many years?

Amanda Cunningham: Yeah. Oh, I didn’t even know, maybe seven.,

Julie Roys: Which is a long time in a kid’s life.

Amanda Cunningham: Yeah, it was rough, but we just tried to make the best of it. And, all these changes that are coming, we’re like, you got to expect change. As long as, and we just kept saying, as long as God is still glorified, the Word is still being taught, we’re here for it.

Julie Roys: So then something happens in 2022, and this is when I would say Josh got on my radar, probably a lot of people’s radar. And that’s when Sheila Wray Gregiore called him out for what she recognized as plagiarism. And as I understand, Andy Stanley had written a book and then done a sermon series based on that book. And there were some very key phrases that he coined that were a part of that. And Sheila was shocked when she heard, because I guess she had received a pre-release copy of Andy’s book, had read the whole thing, and now she’s watching Josh’s sermon and she’s Oh my word, this is Andy Stanley’s material, but none of its getting attributed to Andy Stanley. So I actually pulled a clip from a podcast that Sheila did with her daughter talking about this. So I’m going to play that. So we’ll get an opportunity to hear them. Sheila will introduce the clip real briefly and then you’ll hear both Andy Stanley and then you’ll hear Josh and a little bit of the discussion about that.

Sheila Gregiore & Rebecca Lindenbach: I have a minute long, a bit more of a minute long clip where Andy says it better than me in a sermon that he gave.

Andy Stanley: And on about this guy I had met at this party, and he was incredible in his job, and he was good looking and she said, I was telling her that he was a Christian and that he was like mom, he’s your kind of Christian mom.

Andy Stanley: He’s the real deal Christian. He doesn’t just talk, but he was talking about Jesus at this party, and I could tell his faith is real. And she was going on and on about this guy. He was just incredible. And she said, her mom stopped ironing and set the iron on the ironing board and looked at her.

Andy Stanley: And she said, honey, the problem is, a guy like that is not looking for a girl like you. And she said, I literally fell to the floor and began to weep. This was years ago. And that was the defining, turning moment in her life. When she realized, that’s right. My whole approach to relationships has been, I’m going to find someone.

Andy Stanley: It never crossed my mind I needed to become someone. Then my whole approach, every message I’ve gotten from culture is, if I can find the right person, everything will become, everything will be alright. It never dawned on me that I need to become the kind of person that the person I’m dreaming of, hoping for, is actually looking for.

Andy Stanley: Which brings us to this question for all of us. Married, single, students, graduates, whatever season of life you’re in. Are you the person, are you the person you’re looking for is looking for?

Sheila Gregiore & Rebecca Lindenbach: Okay, so that is the thesis, and you need to understand that last question,

Sheila Gregiore & Rebecca Lindenbach: Yeah, are you the kind of person the person you’re looking for is looking for?

Sheila Gregiore & Rebecca Lindenbach: That is his phrase. Yeah, it appears 23 times in his book. It is on the back cover. It’s on the back cover of his book. It’s in every chapter of his book pretty much. It’s always italicized like this. This is big. And I’ve seen all over the Internet. People be like, like Andy Stanley says, become the kind of person, the kind of person you’re looking for is looking for.

Sheila Gregiore & Rebecca Lindenbach: So I’m getting ready. And I hear Josh saying all of this, and he never mentions Andy Stanley. And so we’re going to just listen in to Josh’s part of the sermon.

Josh Howerton: Can y’all describe for me the woman that you want to marry? And they would start like describing something. And guys, it was like a creature out of Greek mythology.

Josh Howerton: It was like, they would start talking about Man, I want somebody accepting and compassionate With the beauty of Selena Gomez and the godliness of Mother Teresa And a sense of humor of Zooey Deschanel And, they’d keep going, all that stuff And they would finish their list And I’d just look out of the room, And I would say, Bro, the girl you just described would never marry you. For real!

Josh Howerton: And here’s my point, I’d be going, hey man You have no job, you’re addicted to porn, and you play Xbox for six hours a day. That girl is never, the girl you just described on that board is never gonna marry you. Now listen here’s what I’m driving at. The Bible says nothing, think about this, nothing about how to find a good spouse.

Josh Howerton: Nothing. It says tons about becoming the right type of person and spouse. The assumption of the Bible is if you become the right type of person, you will attract the right type of person. So here, let me just say it really quick. You need to shift your focus from finding to becoming if you’re single and wanting to find and attract a good spouse.

Josh Howerton: So let me just say it like this and this a mouthful; become the person you’re looking for is looking for. But I know that’s tough. Just take a second. Become the person the person  you’re looking for is looking for. You guys remember, let me land a point on this spot like this.

Sheila Gregiore & Rebecca Lindenbach: Awfully similar, don’t you think? Quite similar. Quite similar. He even has the same thing on the screen that Andy did before. So very similar. And he never mentioned Andy Stanley.

Julie Roys: At this point, you’re engaged online and you’re seeing some of this stuff; what’s your thought and feeling when you hear this?

Amanda Cunningham: I think when you are really plugged into a faith community, your first reaction is to defend who you love. And I love pastor Steve. He was a spiritual father for me in ways he’ll never understand. And I love Pastor Josh and his family, like immediately accepted and locked in.

Amanda Cunningham: Now, previously I was a model. And come into ministry, figure out how women are supposed to fit into this, even though we fit into the picture of God and his Bible so clearly and beautifully. But I’m also a writer and so over time, I became a Christian nonfiction writer and just learning all the ins and outs and how we’re held responsible and watching people like Christine Caine have to really confess plagiarism and there’s a lot of issues in the church of plagiarism, especially big names, and celebrities, and coming from the acting and the modeling world, I am detested by celebrity culture. Not that I detest celebrities. I think people are very talented and they should be praised and paid for their work.

Amanda Cunningham: But in the church, Jesus came for the lowly. He is humble in spirit. He didn’t come as a star, he didn’t come for political power, none of that. And so I knew that initially we can’t allow celebrity culture in the church. It’s just something personally that I am so against, and my radar is like up and sharp about it because of where I came from.

Amanda Cunningham: So when I heard this, I was frustrated and sad. I think. He defends himself and his dad had written an article about this at their last church defending this. This has been a pattern. But as a writer and as a woman and as a female Christian there’s so many things working against me. There aren’t places in leadership. There aren’t positions and staff. So a lot of us go and start online ministries because we just have these gifts, and you can’t hold it in. It’s just who I am. And I haven’t made a career out of this. I just keep pouring out. And knowing how hard it is to wrestle with the Lord and meet with the spirit and pray and read the Bible to come out with these original words, it grieved me. To me, it makes me think of a thief.

Amanda Cunningham: I read the blog posts he shared in defense and immediately disagreed with two points. Number one, he says, I’m not doing this to earn money. I’m not doing this to make a fortune. First of all, you’re paid very well. I know that it’s a number. And I think when we first started, it was over $400,000, more than the president of the United States.

Julie Roys: Over 400, how do you know that?

Amanda Cunningham: I haven’t seen the paystub. I think that’s just something that’s well known and talked about, but no one really wants to verify. Even if it’s 150 or $200,000, like that’s a lot of money to wrestle over your words, study the Bible and teach. Preachers are called to teach the word

Amanda Cunningham:. So for me, it was very disheartening and grievous, but it’s actually not true that you’re not trying to make money. Like the church tithes, members invest in the church and that’s how you make an income. And if you have better sermons, better sounding sermons, we’re going to think the Spirit is alive in you and invest more and volunteer more and just offer more of our lives.

Amanda Cunningham: And so I disagree with that. And then one of the other points he said to defend it was that a sermon is not an academic work. And I disagree; people who have been to seminary and I know Josh didn’t complete it, but people who have invested their lives to be educated and turned in paper after paper to all their professors in seminary would disagree.

Amanda Cunningham: Like everything that they created was an academic work. And so I disagree with those points, and I took personal offense just as a writer not someone who’s published, but you can’t take other people’s words. And here’s the other thing. I haven’t seen any other pastors in my personal world that has struggled with this.

Amanda Cunningham: Everyone just says right before they’re about to quote someone, Hey, I love what Tim Keller said. Hey, I love at the time, Bill Hybel is/was a big deal. His name was thrown around a lot. It wasn’t hard to throw the source out at all.

Julie Roys: Attribution is not that difficult.

Amanda Cunningham: And we’re all part of the same church. We’re all led by the same Holy Spirit. Like we’re all in this together. It shows humility and hey, I didn’t come up with this, but it’s a great point.

Julie Roys: And then it’s my understanding that a lot of women started commenting because of course Sheila has a huge following among women and they started getting blocked. A lot of women got blocked and people didn’t respond too kindly to this and started complaining about, Hey, this is kind of misogynistic. Why are you like blocking all the women? What’s going on? How did you respond to that?

Amanda Cunningham: Part of me wishes I hadn’t, but when Josh first came on, I realized he was on Twitter and I was barely on Twitter X, whatever, but Twitter then X now.

Amanda Cunningham: He’s my pastor. I want to know what he’s learning. I want to know what he’s talking about. So I followed him there just like I did on Instagram and Facebook. When this happened and there was a lot of talk on Twitter about Josh being a misogynist. I prayed about it, and I was like, you know what? I’m probably one of the only women and people from our church on Twitter regularly. I feel like I have a responsibility. I know what it’s like to be a leader and be criticized and have no one underneath you like stand up for you and say, that’s not who she is. So I decided to say something and stand up for him.

Amanda Cunningham: And I said, Hey, I know that y’all are seeing this and you’re feeling a certain way. I just want to tell you as a member of his church, he lets women teach from the pulpit on Mother’s Day only. So it’s a token, but it’s more than we tried before. And it’s very personal to me and I see, from where I’m sitting, I don’t think he’s a misogynist and I just wanted to put my two cents in.

Amanda Cunningham: And so there was a lot of conversation, very respectful. I was not criticized, name-called, belittled by any of these women. We just had a frank conversation, shared our thoughts. At this point, I’d already listened to the Mars Hill podcast and already studied Willow Creek because I’m a leader of the church, I want to know, I want to know where people have gone astray.

Amanda Cunningham: So I don’t. And so there was some talk about that. Are you informed? And I kept saying, yes, I am informed and my eyes open. So from then on, I decided, okay, I’m going to keep my eyes open because maybe they saw something I didn’t.

Julie Roys: So then, some time goes by, and things hopefully are going okay. But I know in January of this year you guys started a Saturday night service and apparently a lot of it was at the Rockwall campus where Josh often preaches. That was really well attended. And they’re just, It’s really full. So they’re trying to entice people then to come on Saturday night and they did something to Attract people to that Saturday night service that didn’t sit too well with you. Would you describe what they did and why that just became a little difficult for you?

Amanda Cunningham: Yeah Obviously, this wasn’t the first thing . We were really struggling with attending at this point, but I will say Saturday night actually has been a thing for a long time. Saturday night service was a thing. That was really when a lot of the leaders and staff members went because they served on Sunday. So Saturday was well established and a great crowd.

Julie Roys: Okay, so I misspoke. It actually had been there for a while. Okay.

Amanda Cunningham: I just wanted to clarify the enticement was that Sunday was so full and really as soon as Josh came on that talk began immediately like our numbers are crazier than they’ve ever been. They’re so big. They paved over a soccer field, LP sports served hundreds of people in the community that didn’t go to church. But their kids always played soccer every year there. And so we had to pave over a soccer field, there was just always talk about traffic and numbers and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Julie Roys: What did that do to the ministry when they paved over a soccer field?

Amanda Cunningham: So I’ve never served in that ministry, but they ended up leaving out of Lakepointe. So they’re no longer associated, very sad. And there were lots of changes. And again, like we just try to submit and understand and respect and keep going.

Amanda Cunningham: For me coming from modeling and acting again, I have such a different perspective on imagery, smoke, mirrors, celebrity, and images in the media. My personal writing ministry is all about breaking free from poor body image, which is such an oppressive thing. And there’s so many strongholds of the enemy out in media culture in the imagery about women, especially.

Amanda Cunningham: And Josh had shared an image of Taylor Swift during Christmas. And they’ve doctored it like, Lakepointe Christmas invites into her hands. It was her Time magazine cover. Josh put it on his Facebook. He’s like, even Taylor Swift wants you to come to Lakepointe, but he put a black, a black rectangle over her lower region of her body.

Amanda Cunningham: She was in a black leotard and tights and said, put on some pants, and that really stood out to a lot of women. A lot of people who are struggling with the new culture about logos and merch and hype and this and that. Now you’re going to shame a woman’s body. What about all these little girls who are ballerinas out in leotards and black tights all the time? We’re not showing up at their recitals saying put on some pants.

Amanda Cunningham: So that had just happened in December. He also made a joke about 50 Shades of Gray in the Christmas service. Also opened Christmas service with the joke about an ugly woman. There’s just so many things that are hitting us wrong and then January.

Amanda Cunningham: So he announces on his Facebook that Sunday so full we need people to come to Saturday So we are launching tailgating on Saturday. And immediately, my husband’s a firefighter, so we talk in that term, lights and sirens are off with a firetruck or an ambulance, it’s not in a big hurry, they’ll just drive. Sometimes they have lights and sirens on because it’s an emergency. All my lights and sirens went off. What do you mean tailgating? My husband and I used to struggle with alcohol. Tailgating culture is completely sucked in alcohol. It’s not a Christian environment. Why are we bringing that in the church?

Amanda Cunningham: I immediately commented so that the announcement was we’ve ordered big screen TVs, and we are going to stream the games before and after service. We want people,  there are going to be burgers and hot dogs. And for the 1st time I couldn’t sit with that and not say anything.

Amanda Cunningham: Now, listen, you’re a mega church pastor. I cannot imagine the amount of emails that you receive each week. I know people left for many reasons, but also the volume level, my daughter’s room and aware. One of them was having to wear earplugs cause the volume was just so loud and they were not apologetic about it. If you don’t like it, you can leave, it was told to some of our friends. Obviously, they didn’t leave over volume. There was lots of other things that was just like, if you can’t even turn the volume down, why are we here?

Amanda Cunningham So they launched tailgating, and I sent an email to Josh and to one of my friends who’s a pastor. Immediately. I said, I have so many things wrong with this. First of all, you’ve eliminated women’s ministry. The infertility ministry, I think is the only thing that really held on after this conversation, but they’re gone now too. So divorce care is gone. Women and women mentoring is gone, the women’s ministry events is gone. All of its gone. And now you’re going to relaunch man church?

Amanda Cunningham: So that was my first thing as a former leader in women’s ministry. Like this is man church. You’re going to have the game on and burgers? Okay. That already bothers me. So I said, okay. How do you plan to serve the women in our church in a way that comforts them in the culture?

Amanda Cunningham: This isn’t men’s Bible study you’re launching on Saturday nights. And so I didn’t get a response from that. I was told that women’s feedback prompted them to do burgers because moms wanted to feed their children a cheap dinner when they got off the baseball fields before they went into church Saturday night.

Amanda Cunningham: So the burgers are for the women and my floor sunk, but even more than that, and I went into detail. I said how can we be censoring Taylor Swift’s crotch on a Christmas invite? Cheerleaders are not famous for wearing pants. Saturday’s gonna be college football. Are we gonna censor every coach’s F-bomb he drops? There’s this particular team that raises a very vulgar symbol with their hands. Do y’all even know what that means? Are you going to let that happen on the big screen? That’s compromising to the world and the irony. They launched tailgating on the weekend that he preaches on we cannot compromise to the world. It was just like, all in my face, like, how can this be happening? You don’t have biblical grounds to invite ESPN into the church. We don’t watch secular programming in children’s ministry. We don’t watch it in Bible study. We don’t turn on the TV in anything except for vetted Bible studies. Why are we watching ESPN before and after service? There is no good answer.

Julie Roys: So then fast forward about a month and in late February, and this one went viral, Josh tells a joke that, honestly, when I heard it, I was just stunned, but rather than describing it, I’m just going to play it. So here’s Josh Howerton speaking right before the sermon on a Sunday morning at Lakepointe church.

Josh Howerton: This is a gold nugget of advice I was given by a mentor. Okay. So this is free. Can y’all handle it? Okay. This is free. This is free. Okay. Now, first, let me do this. So let me talk to the guys first, guys. When it comes to her wedding day, she has been planning this day her entire life. She got her first wedding magazine when she was 14.

Josh Howerton: She draped the blanket around her like it was her wedding dress when she was a teenager. She did the towel over her head. It was a little veil. All the stuff. She’s been planning this day her whole life. So here’s what you need to do, man. When it comes to that day, just stand where she tells you to stand, wear what she tells you to wear, and do what she tells you to do, you’ll make her the happiest woman in the world.

Josh Howerton: Okay? Now, I gotta amen. Let’s see if you amen this. Now ladies, when it comes to his wedding night, he has been planning this day his whole life. So just stand where he tells you to stand, wear what he tells you to wear and do what he tells you to do. And you’re going to make him the happiest man in the world. That’s it, man. Okay. That was free. That was free.

Julie Roys: Wow. So you had actually gone online, like you said, and defended him before when women were upset with him. After this joke, how did you respond?

Amanda Cunningham: I was disgusted by this. It wasn’t free. It was very costly for thousands of women, not just in our church, but people looking up to Lakepointe as an example, people who find out about this, the amount of women who were hurt by this and boys and girls who are being groomed to accept this in a marriage that I was disgusted.

Amanda Cunningham: I had no hesitation in speaking out about it. But before I spoke out about it, so I forget. So it happened in February. I didn’t go to marriage night, at this point with tailgating, we’re not attending. I’m watching online afterwards. My husband and I are having lots of conversations. We asked the girls what they thought, and we were really struggling with staying.

Amanda Cunningham: There was other things that happened that we just decided we’re not going to attend. We’re just going to watch them online. And then, so we didn’t, I wasn’t there. We weren’t there marriage night. We didn’t hear this. We didn’t find out about it until Sheila shared about it on her podcast. Thank God. Bring it to light.

Amanda Cunningham: And I think it broke on Good Friday or Maundy Thursday. So good Friday. I’m in my study time in the morning and I’m reading the Bible, and it wasn’t even about like confession. I think it’s just felt convicted. You have to apologize to these women that you defended him to on Twitter, because at the time when I defended him, I wasn’t hateful or rude, but it was hurtful to them.

Amanda Cunningham: They weren’t hurt that I said, that’s not true. Even in the nicest way possible. But I see something and you’re saying I’m wrong. So I knew I hurt them then and I just put a pin in that conversation. So two years later I wake up in the Bible and I just felt convicted to apologize.

Amanda Cunningham: And at this point, I’m not on X a lot, but I went on there and I said, Hey, when I shared Sheila’s podcast and I said, Because this has come to light, I just have to apologize to all the women I defended him to, because this is spiritual abuse. I’ve been in the marriage ministry for four years. Every week we’re being refined about Biblical love, biblical marriage, God created marriage to reflect his relationship with the church. There is not one part of God’s love for us that would make us perform sex against our will.

Julie Roys: It’s crass, but you’re right. It’s just that the allusions to women performing for their husbands against their will. There are so many women now that I’ve been reporting who experience marital rape. And it’s justified in some of these churches and to do that is at best tone deaf, but at worst, just incredibly misogynist.

Julie Roys: And the sad thing is, so Josh gets up and gives an apology the next week, right? So if you listen to the apology, and you’re going to hear a portion of the apology if you haven’t listened to the whole thing, you can go back and listen to it. I think we have it at my website as well. But it’s online too.

Julie Roys: But he gets up and he apologizes, and he doesn’t say, I’m so sorry for what I did. This was so tone deaf. This was, he doesn’t fall on his sword, so to speak. He doesn’t really own it. It’s careless words, which to me, the apology was bad in and of itself.

Julie Roys: But then I find out somebody tips me off and they said,  Julie, do a little digging. This was the same apology that a pastor in Florida by the name of Joby Martin, the same apology he had given two years earlier. And sure enough, I find it and my jaw just drops as I’m listening to it. It’s so close. There’s no way it wasn’t just completely copied.

Julie Roys: And my goodness, who copies an apology? But don’t take my word for it. If you haven’t heard this, you have to hear it. We put it together in a sort of a side by side. So the first voice you’ll hear is Joby Martin, and then you’ll hear Josh Howerton, and it goes back and forth between them. Let me play it so you can hear

Joby: Church. If you got your Bibles, and I hope you do, grab them. We’re going to be in Psalm 34. And as you find your way to Psalm 34, I just need to address a thing.

Josh Howerton: I need to address a thing. I’m gonna address a thing, okay?

Joby: Bible says in Proverbs 12:18, that careless words stab like a sword and wise words lead to healing.

Josh Howerton: It says that careless words can stab like a sword, but that wise words lead to healing.

Joby: And what the Bible means in Proverbs 12, when it says careless words stab like a sword, it means regardless of your intent, if I was careless with a pocketknife and it slipped out of my hand and stabbed you in the face.

Josh Howerton: And what that verse means is that even if somebody had a steak knife and they had the intent to cut their steak and their hand slipped and accidentally stabbed you in the face.

Joby: Church, I need you to hear this, okay? Three things. I love you. I love you. I love this church. I love getting to do this thing together.

Josh Howerton: I need you to hear three things. Number one, I love you. Listen, Lakepointe Church, I love you more than you will ever imagine. I stay awake thinking about you. I pray for you every day. This is the honor of my life.

Joby: And, again, I am sorry. And I want to say thank you. Thank you for the grace that you give me every single week to stand up here and do what I get to do. And I hope by God’s grace, I’ll get to do this for decades and decades to come.

Josh Howerton: I’m sorry for careless words. I’m sorry about that. And number three, thank you for your grace to me. I want to be doing this with you for decades and decades. So that’s awesome, man.

Julie Roys: I know how people responded to the article I wrote. I know how they responded online. But you were actually there, at Lakepointe. You’re in the community. You weren’t necessarily there when he gave that apology. But how did this play out right there in the Dallas Fort Worth area when he gave this apology? And it was shown to be a plagiarized apology.

Amanda Cunningham: There’s so many layers of destruction. First, I want to point out it was a careless word. Thanks to your diligent reporting and Sheila’s, we found out, which of course Josh has received hundreds of emails about his sex jokes. Now he doesn’t frame it as a sex joke. He actually framed this unlike his other things, like the Pentecostal bedroom, as a gold nugget of advice from a mentor. It wasn’t careless because he actually said this exact same phrasing at marriage night in 2021 and received emails from women in our church.

Amanda Cunningham: So people like me who spoke out immediately on Facebook and said, this is spiritual abuse, He said Matthew 18, Matthew 18. You need to go to him in private. He had already been rebuked in private by women in our church in a very biblical, respectful, private way. He did not respond to them initially, and we found out through Sheila and your reporting that he finally acknowledged he had received that, and he would take it into consideration, but we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that.

Amanda Cunningham: So it wasn’t careless words. He chose them in 2021. He chose them again on marriage night 2024, and he chose to repeat that three times in weekend services in front of every child and teenager in the service, grooming them of what a marriage night should look like.

Amanda Cunningham: It wasn’t careless. He knew exactly who he was going to hurt with those words, and he did it on purpose. He wrote them, rehearsed them, and regurgitated them over and over. So initially it was very disheartening that many people in our church were not trauma informed, were not spiritually abuse aware to know what that meant.

Amanda Cunningham: Now, I’m not going to get into my own personal story, it’s not about me, but this drug wells up from my grave. Things that Jesus healed me from that I had gone to intense counseling from, my husband and I have worked so hard so we can have a truly intimate. joyful relationship in all ways that marriage can be beautiful. And this pulled up a dead thing from the grave and Josh held it in front of the church, encouraged everyone to laugh at it and to praise him.

Amanda Cunningham: It was disgusting. So number one, it was not careless. He knew exactly who it was. We have a very close relationship with a foundation, a local foundation called The Woman Foundation. We’ve all served in so many ways to help women be freed from sex trafficking. Do you think those women thought this was funny?

Amanda Cunningham: I know personally, a woman who sat in the audience at marriage night, her husband actively abuses her, and he stood up and cheered for Josh when he said that. It’s completely irresponsible and it is a hundred percent spiritual abuse, but unfortunately most people did not know that that is true, but it is true. Josh knew. He’d already been told.

Julie Roys: And it’s the exact opposite of Ephesians 5. This picture of Christ giving himself up for the church in the same way husbands should sacrifice themselves for their wives as their own body they should treat her. What he regurgitated was a cultural, toxic, misogynist message that had absolutely nothing to do with scripture.

Julie Roys: And he should have been, at the very minimum, reproved by his elders and removed for a time so that he can go and get some education on how men are supposed to treat, Christian men are supposed to treat women. But instead, pretty much laughed off. And now a plagiarized apology. And like you said, we found an email, it was sent to us again, people tipped us off and sent us that email that he had been told three years earlier how offensive this was. So he doesn’t care.

Amanda Cunningham: This wasn’t the first time that we’ve had to deal with vulgarity in the pulpit. We’re supposed to be transformed into the image of Christ and put aside our fleshly desires. Obviously in marriage, there’s ways you connect. And you can speak biblically into that all you want in a respectful, tasteful, loving way. This was not that. And when I immediately spoke out about it, immediately people are criticizing me saying I have a good spirit, I’m a liberal, feminist, woke mom.

Julie Roys: I just love these; attack the messenger, but then how conservatives, because anybody who knows me knows I’m conservative. Because I’ve gotten called all these things and it just, it’s laughable. It’s laughable.

Amanda Cunningham: It is. It is laughable, but for people like me who have not overcome a lot of abuse and found a new strength and confidence in Christ is extremely hurtful, harmful, and painful. And so what happened was over a hundred people in the first week or so reached out to me because I was a former women’s ministry leader and there weren’t any really to reach out to and said how painful this was and how wrong it is.

Amanda Cunningham: And for a church to be proclaiming this message and defending it, but there was so much reframing initially. I went from having discernment of the Holy Spirit to being divisive. I went from sharing truth to, Oh that was just an edited clip to make him look bad. It went from being confident in Christ to you’re a feminist.

Amanda Cunningham: Went from, Jesus loves people on the fringes to your woke. Oh, you have friends who just, who agree with you that this is out of line with scripture. You’re a mob. It was all reframing, all gaslighting. And so we were waiting for this apology to find out, first of all, the apology did not even address how harmful it was and who it was harmful to and who he was sorry to, which is what a confession should be.

Amanda Cunningham: Especially when you’re leading it as the senior pastor of a mega church. To find out that he couldn’t search his own heart for an apology was insulting upon insulting. It was egregious behavior, and I can’t believe that anyone is defending it, but they still are. The elders went into hiding. They removed all their contact information for the website.

Amanda Cunningham: An elder email address was thrown out by Lakepointe Facebook account. And then we found out later than an elder didn’t even know that email address existed. And we’re not even sure the elders are getting those emails, and we don’t even know if they care because Josh is still preaching.

Amanda Cunningham: So that next weekend when he gives that apology at the beginning, which is not even his ecology, which is Joby Martins, who also had to apologize for demeaning women’s bodies. How many sermons have we sat through at Lakepointe of who your friends are is so important. Yet we know Josh’s friends with Joby Martin, have said that we know he turns with Mark Driscoll.

Amanda Cunningham: We know how Mark feels about women, like, how is this even happening in the church and people who, so after the full apology, 20 minutes later, he launches into a whole thing about, and basically it’s like this passive aggressive accusation that anyone who’s standing up to him right now is part of a demonic mob.

Julie Roys: Sorry. I know. Oh, man.

Amanda Cunningham: What he is saying with the tens of thousands of people who worship him and believe everything he says, because he’s the boss, he’s the spiritual boss. And so they just copy it and echo it and mirror it. And it’s wrong. It’s absolutely wrong. You cannot defend that advice with scripture. Anyone who’s calling you out for it is speaking the truth of the gospel, actually.

Amanda Cunningham: So it’s been so disheartening. The biggest problem with gaslighting from the pulpit and that narcissistic spirit is what it ultimately does is break down the person hearing it and gets them to question the reality to where you lose trust in that Holy Spirit voice, like still small voice of God, if your preacher is saying things that disagree with the still small voice. And you agree with your preacher, you’re silencing the Holy Spirit within you. And so you break this trustful relationship with the Lord to what? Worship someone who’s speaking things that are out of line with scripture. That’s demonic.

Julie Roys: And then I know also around the same time there was, and we don’t have time to go into everything, but I know there was a video that was put out around Easter that was, I don’t even know what the point was, but just extraordinarily dark

Amanda Cunningham: it was an Easter invitation. It was an imagery of someone holding up a mirror, the image in the mirror and behind the mirror were like dark colors upside down. There was a static filter over it and very eerie music. And lots of us saw it and said, “What is this? This is disturbing.

Amanda Cunningham: And you know what we do now, I used to serve on the social media team too. They’re very intentional about everything they’ve put out, imagery, words, everything. Also, there’s a wide net of people watching social media. Before this marital marriage advice that would have flagged, if you have 10 people who are members of the church saying, what is this? They would take the post down or do something.

Amanda Cunningham: It wasn’t addressed, but it was very dark imagery. And honestly, a lot of us felt like it was similar to witchcraft. There’s this thing called the scrying mirror and that’s exactly what it looked like. So there’s just been so many things that alert us like there is a darkness and deception there, and I don’t understand. We don’t know why it’s not being addressed.

Julie Roys: What was the point of that? I just don’t quite even get it.

Amanda Cunningham:  I don’t know. So that’s what we asked. We’re like, why is there a mirror? Why is it dark? Why is the music dark? And then once people attended Easter, the very first few minutes there was a whole minute long of the same imagery and it was all about our sin.

Amanda Cunningham: And it was just talking about greed and gluttony and all lust and all these things, and it was the same images. Basically, are y’all saying you were trying to lure us in the Easter to hear about it? It was just. It didn’t make any sense, and they ended up taking it down after a week of complaints on the post.

Amanda Cunningham: What was also disturbing is after this all becomes public, right? People like me are accused of being divisive. Which actually, that’s not what happened. We can’t reach the senior pastor of our megachurch. You can’t get a meeting with him. Like he wasn’t shaking hands after service, but he’s very accessible online.

Amanda Cunningham: He’s online all the time. So people started commenting and their comments were deleted within two minutes, three minutes, everyone. People like men in our church who were publicly rebuking him because he wouldn’t respond to emails. Deleted comments over and over. That’s deceptive too.

Amanda Cunningham: But what we’ve also heard is the elders are not, they’re older, most of them, and they’re not online. So they don’t understand the weight of the deception that’s being played out. Tens of thousands of comments deleted questioning the leadership. The elders aren’t seeing it because they’re not online.

Julie Roys: So then the latest thing involves a traffic study. My understanding is Lakepointe wanted to put in a traffic light at the intersection where their parking lot is and the city told them, if you want to do that, you’re going to have to hire an engineering firm and do a traffic study. Lakepointe hires the engineering firm, and then somebody sends out to all the small group leaders an email, and this email basically says, sign up for an hour slot, and during that hour slot, drive by this intersection 10 times.

Julie Roys: So in other words, they’re asking them to purposefully pad the traffic study so that it will get the results they want, and they’ll get a traffic light put. This also gets public. Somebody takes this, and puts it up on, on Facebook, and immediately, I believe it was Chris Berkley, the creative arts director, right? He posts a public statement and says it wasn’t the main pastor, wasn’t Josh, it was an overzealous employee. Okay, couple of reasons why you don’t believe it was an overzealous employee. Why don’t you think that was the correct reason for why this happened?

Amanda Cunningham: Initially he said the statement on Facebook was top leadership was unaware about this email. And as soon as we find out about it, we took it down. Actually the email went out. The signup was live for 24 hours. And so we could all see that the campus pastor and one of the executive pastors had already signed up along with several other employees. If you’re a new person at Lakepointe, which that’s what they’re saying, they are saving hundreds every week and new people are coming in.

Amanda Cunningham: If you’re new and you get an email from your life group leader that says, Hey, this is what the church is doing. Sign up to run 10 laps. Maybe they don’t even question it. Young Christians, baby Christians, whatever you want to call them. Maybe they aren’t that discernible yet. And so they just sign up.

Amanda Cunningham: What they were signing up for was to manipulate the city to be deceptive, but it feeds this whole narrative. We’re like, the numbers are so big. Oh, we need a stop light. Oh, we need to pave over the soccer field. Oh, we need you to come to Saturday night because it’s just this like a big commercial. And every sermon is started with we have 10, 000 people. We had 3000 more this last weekend than the year before, like it’s just all numbers. So immediately I was just like, Oh, of course they are because of course they need to stop light because traffic is so bad. We’ve had police officers that are paid by Lakepointe off duty to direct traffic there as long as I’ve been a member.

Amanda Cunningham: I’ve never seen a wreck. Everyone knows in town that Lakepointe is busy and don’t go there during VBS week. Or on the weekends when they let out. It’s part of our town’s culture.

Amanda Cunningham: So if people didn’t notice that the marriage night advice was abusive, if they didn’t catch the fact that the apology was copied, if they didn’t hear him accusing people in the church of being a demonic cancel mob, a lot of people noticed that they were manipulating a traffic study. Why on earth would you do that? And what it does, you have a big church with a lot of resources that’s been very effective in our town 40 years from its original vision.

Amanda Cunningham: And now people have always been skeptical of those people in there. Are they even real? Are they a bunch of hypocrites? Are they just greedy? They have a big, fancy church, blah, blah, blah. And this just confirmed a lot of people’s fears about who was in charge. But they will take advantage of resources, that they will deceive people, and it’s just cultish do what we say and don’t ask questions about it.

Julie Roys: So my last question you’ve been very open about how this has impacted you, what you saw, but this is a church where you became a believer. This was your first church family. I’ve heard this from people, back when some of my earliest reporting on Harvest Bible Chapel, people saying, James MacDonald led me to the Lord, and now I know he’s just a fraud. Does that mean my faith is a fraud? Really messes people up and I think that’s probably the most grievous part of everything that’s happening.

Julie Roys: And so I just want to ask you, how have you been able to weather the disillusionment, the bewilderment that happens when you lose this kind of church family. Has there been anything that has been a silver lining or that’s helped you through this? Or you can see God holding you or, are you just confused right now, which is okay too. Just how are you doing?

Amanda Cunningham: So much to say there. First of all, one of the ways it hit me super hard was this idea of complementarianism that I’ve always tried to learn and submit to. Obviously, I’m a very open person, very fiery, and I was not a Christian until I was 30. So old habits really ingrained, but I just thought, how can this marriage night advice come out and demean women, and men in our church are jumping up to defend him? I thought they were our covering. I thought we were protected.

Amanda Cunningham: And so one of the greatest gifts is how my husband has protected and guided and comforted and supported me through this, the way God has just spoken the same words to him and me separately, and we’ve come together and been like, wow, God really sees us right now and it’s just making it stronger.

Amanda Cunningham: It’s absolutely heartbreaking to see things splinter. This has affected every community. It has affected workplaces. Kids, small groups soccer teams, like everyone has been polarized, starting with this marriage night advice of people thinking it’s not a big deal. Get over it, move on. And then there’s other people like, this is so harmful.

Amanda Cunningham: What’s great is when pastor Steve built this church and had this vision ingrained in it, it was a global mission church. We were on mission. We had local, national, and international mission. And so our eyes were open to the global church. And we realize like big picture, we’re all in this together and we are, some of us are going to go astray and we need to pull each other back. And some of us are going to sin really terribly and we all need to love each other through it. But one way we have to love each other is by holding the other accountable. So I don’t regret anything I’ve said because it’s all been in truth. It’s all been out of love for the people. So I’ve invited to this church for the past 13 years.

Amanda Cunningham: I was like a public cheerleader. Like come, I promise you. It’s not bad like you think it is and how the things are bad.

Amanda Cunningham: The beauty of it has been now, I tried to start a ministry years ago to unite women in our community from all different congregations and churches to really rally together and pray for each other. We’re all in this together. And I didn’t know anything about starting a ministry and it didn’t last, but what’s been cool about this and such a gift from the Lord is now I am getting to go visit, my husband and my children are visiting all these churches in town.

Amanda Cunningham: People we knew attended, people that used to go to Lakepointe that are there, and we just seen God multiply and send out faithful, faithful leaders who are being sacrificed at the altar basically. What’s happened is Lakepointe’s messaging is get on board or get out. And the people who founded this church who invested it for 40 years are being discarded to protect the production.

Amanda Cunningham: There’s like a broadcast section out the front of the church that children can’t sit in. It’s widespread, but the greatest gift is to be able to see all these other churches in town and pastors with no hesitation said, Hey, I got this from, Tim Keller. Here we go. There’s a great quote, like just the humility and all the way God is working and God’s still at Lakepointe.

Amanda Cunningham: There’s so many faithful people there. A lot of my friends there. That are completely plugged in, and some people are leaving it doesn’t matter all part of this big church and we’re in this together and I’m just really grateful for the way God has sent out people and kept people in place and just praying for healing and community.

Julie Roys: Our next podcast is going to be with Mary DeMuth, friend of The Roy’s Report and just someone I have so much respect for. And I know this has been her church and her husband served as an elder and they have left and they had invested so many years there. And I know it’s been very painful.

Julie Roys: So she’s going to talk about dealing with recovering from church bewilderment. And I know she’s right in the middle of it. And I said, Mary, would you be willing to talk about it while you’re in the middle of it? Cause I always get a little frustrated when people do it with a bow on top, like we’ve got it all figured out and here’s your three steps to how you’re going to do it too. It’s just going to be real, and ad I’m so glad that we can be real with one another and I’m so glad that there’s this larger community where I can meet people like you, where I’ve met so many people who have been through this and honestly, and I’ve said this before, I feel like I report on the worst of the worst, but I get to meet and the sources I meet are the best of the best and there are people that have often, the reason there’s profound wounding is because they have been in the inner circle and to me, the closer you are to the inner circle, the more profound the wounding because the more you were invested, the more you loved. The more that you really cared about the church.

Julie Roys: Again just really appreciate you sharing, honestly, I think that our next podcast is going to be extremely helpful, but thank you, Amanda. And I look forward to the day when I hopefully get to meet you in person or something that would be really great.

Amanda Cunningham: Thank you so much. And you’re in great hands with Mary when she and Patrick left, it was really just that’s the generation that people like me need. I need to be led and I need to be guided and mentored, even if it’s from afar, in a life group setting. And so when we started all these people like Patrick and Mary, that was our signal to leave. And so I’m so grateful that she’s going to come on. Just a wealth of wisdom about this and thank you so much for having me. You’re a gift to the church.

Julie Roys: Well, thank you. Thanks so much for listening to The Roy’s Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and if you’ve appreciated this podcast, would you please consider donating to The Roy’s Report to support our podcasts and ongoing investigative work? As I’ve often said, we don’t have advertisers or many large donors.

Julie Roys: We mainly have you. the people who care about our mission of reporting the truth and restoring the church. So if you’d like to help us out, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. And just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roy’s report on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. That way you won’t miss any of these episodes. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today.

Julie Roys: Hope you were blessed and encouraged.