Full Interview: Reagan Waggoner

[00:00:01] This is Spoiled Fruit, Faith and Power, Uncut. In this extended interview, you'll hear directly from Pastor Reagan Waggoner, former leader within the Vineyard Movement and one of the few willing to speak openly about his experience confronting spiritual abuse, broken systems, and the cost of telling the truth.

[00:00:21] Reagan was once seen as a rising voice in Vineyard leadership, thoughtful, principled, and deeply invested in the future of the movement. But when he asked hard questions about power, accountability, and Vineyard USA's direction under Jay Pathak, he found himself isolated, investigated, and ultimately pushed out.

[00:00:44] In this conversation, Reagan recounts what it was like inside those closed-door meetings. He shares how leaders deflected concerns, the emotional and spiritual toll it took on his family, and the moment he realized the values he believed the movement stood for had been quietly replaced. His story is not just a personal one. It's a mirror reflecting what happens when institutions prioritize image over integrity.

[00:01:12] This is the full, unedited conversation with Reagan Waggoner. Listener discretion is advised. All right. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for spending some time with me this evening. Man, so glad to talk to you. Absolutely. You have a very recognizable last name. For people who don't know, who might you be related to?

[00:01:38] So my dad served as national director, Burt Waggoner, for, man, I think it was at least 10 years, maybe a little bit longer than that. So it was John Wimber and then Todd Hunter for a little bit. And then my dad was national director until he retired. And then it was Phil Strout and then Jay Pathak.

[00:01:57] So that was sort of the order that he was in and that whole thing. Yeah. So I grew up, I became senior pastor of the Sugarland Vineyard after he, well, part of the way through him being national director. And yeah. So like a super pastor's kid in a way. I was a pastor's kid, but my dad was not like bishop of anything, you know? So yeah, you have a very, I mean, you have a very unique vantage point.

[00:02:21] Having kind of seen things through the eyes of obviously, you know, I'm sure your dad had conversations with you about sort of the struggles and some of the things, the challenges that he encountered as the national director, as well as being a pastor of a successful church. Yeah, I did. You know, I knew the pain and challenges of being national director in an unwieldy movement like the vineyard.

[00:02:43] I know that decisions that he made, that the national office made, he would receive some of the most horrific emails and threats from not just within the vineyard, but outside the vineyard. It was like herding cats. I think one of the most influential documents I think he wrote was one on diversity in the vineyard. And if nobody's read that, for a while you couldn't find it, right? It was pulled.

[00:03:08] When I talk about diversity, I'm not talking specifically about like cultural or ethnic diversity, although that was included. He made a—I think it was structured really well. He talked about all of the different elements that were under this big tent in the vineyard, right? We had, you know, we had Calvinists, we had, you know, Wesleyan-Armenian and everywhere in between.

[00:03:33] We had every form of eschatology, you know, some who believe that women should be pastoring and others who didn't believe that women should be pastoring. And like he named all of these things and concluded that those weren't actually problematic, that that was actually part of the strength of who vineyard is, that we have diverse voices that are brought together by the common thread of seeking out—never putting a stake in the ground,

[00:04:00] but continually seeking out what does it mean to live under this theology and practice of the kingdom of God, which is what vineyard was all about. And so that was his banner. Like, how do we—how do we do this? And it was hard. His solution was not to narrow the definition but widen the tent so that there's a place for us all. And hey, it's a mess and, you know, where there are no oxen, the stables are clean, but there's strength in the oxen, right?

[00:04:28] You know, drawing from the Proverbs, like, let's—we'll live with the mess because there's strength in the mess. And I think because of that, he's my hero. I mean, that shaped me as a pastor. I saw what it did in our region and the freedom it gave pastors to be curious and inquisitive in their theology and how we reach people and how we care for people and, you know, all of the full expressions of the kingdom of God.

[00:04:54] Like, there's no limits. Like, let's push this. Yeah, that was not an easy path for him to take. So, yeah, I was pretty close to the action in all of those conversations. I probably only know, you know, a small piece of it in reality. But what I saw, he's my hero, right? That's—I think what he was trying to do was a Herculean task. Yeah. Yeah, and a lot of the current and former pastors who I've spoken with throughout this project have—

[00:05:20] all the consistency theme seems to be that they've spoken very fondly about the years under your dad's leadership. So, that should feel—that should feel— Yeah. Yeah, it does, for sure. So, talk a little bit about—because I think you are in a unique position to kind of remember many regimes, including being under John Wimber himself, who, again, I think the expression, the big tent, comes from him, if I remember correctly. So, talk about when you started to feel that things started to shift within the organization

[00:05:48] in terms of sort of the big tent maybe not being so big anymore. Yeah, I mean, John Wimber, you know, famously talked about bounded set and centered set, and the vineyard was a centered set movement, right? There's a few tenets. But even for John, those were a little bit of a moving target. If you followed his theology and writing, he, you know, he changed a lot. And so, by the time that Todd Hunter was the national director, these were the stories I heard from my dad, who was serving on the national board at the time,

[00:06:18] was Todd's proposal at one point, whether this was a serious proposal or in the heat of frustration throwing it out. But, hey, we need to just divide this movement into three. Like, we have some irreconcilable parts here. We don't know what to do. And, you know, we've got to find a way forward. And so he, you know, let's just split it up. You know, give everybody, you know, their ability to do whatever. It's a relational movement anyway. You know, maybe that's what we need to do. And the vineyard legend is that John Wimber, you know,

[00:06:48] never thought this would last past, you know, his lifetime anyway. So let's not try to protect something here. When my dad became national director, I think I began to hear— I could hear the voices of dissent who were calling for more homogeneity in who we were. Some felt like that he didn't sort of hold down the evangelical flag enough.

[00:07:15] And so, you know, we—or probably more importantly, didn't support sort of the brand of Holy Spirit ministry that Vineyard was known for. He was saying, hey, let's work this out and see where it goes. But there was a lot of voices of, let's go back. Let's go back. Let's go back. And in fact, part of kind of the campaigning of Phil Strout—and you can get this if you go back and listen to his messages he gave when he became national director, which is, let's make Vineyard great again. Let's go back.

[00:07:44] There was a lot of this back language of, you know, a particular kind of thing that Vineyard is that we need to return to. So it was that language of let's go back, let's return that began to show signs that there was some real strong divisions and that the new regime was going to sort of control making that happen. And that was the end group. And if you weren't in that group, you weren't truly Vineyard.

[00:08:08] I think those kinds of things began to telegraph where Vineyard was going. But I think probably the most polarizing was the LGBTQ issue. And, you know, my place on that as a young pastor was, you know, I've gone to seminary. I've, you know, I've wrestled with this issue. But I felt like there were people who believed the same I believed about Scripture and the

[00:08:34] authority of Scripture and how we interpret Scripture who were interpreting it very different than me. And I thought, well, let's have a conversation about it. And since we're a big tent, let's talk about it. That began to, you know, as I was, I became area pastor and I was attending more national leadership events. And I would hear from the leadership team, we don't talk about that. If you, there was a lot of anger around it, not just around their position, but about the fact that you want to talk about it.

[00:09:01] And I felt like the sort of locus of control in the Vineyard began to center around people who supported a particular pneumatology, you know, how we view the work, person and work of the Holy Spirit, a particular ecclesiology about who's in and who's out and how this structure could work. And if you played within that system, there was a seat at the table for you. And if you didn't, there wasn't.

[00:09:26] And what I began to see because of the intolerance of the ability to ask questions is that that became about consolidation of power and about control. And very good friends of mine who were asking very sincere questions faced very harsh rebukes from the movement for asking those questions. And that was my experience too, not just around that, but other things. So yeah, I think it was progressive, but you can definitely see the trend over time. Yeah, yeah.

[00:09:54] You've, you mentioned some stories before we started recording that, you know, sort of really sort of highlight some of those changes, you know, and, and we also kind of highlighted, you know, a point that I intended to bring up later and examining a little bit more closely, which is just sort of the structure of the national office. So you mentioned something that, you know, it was kind of funny to me at the time, because you're not funny in the way that like, you're not the only one who said this to me, but you mentioned the fact that, you know, there was some mystery around who was even in the national,

[00:10:23] you know, sort of the, on the national team, so to speak, like the executive board, for example, and oftentimes even today, even locally, it's not super clear. And so talk about that a little bit, you know, the fact that, you know, as we start to experience some of these, we'll call them scandals in the case of Duluth and some of these, some of these fractures, just, you know, sort of why that is, because, you know, there is some

[00:10:47] confusion in terms of, I think a lot of things, not just like who's on which board and that sort of thing, but like how they even get there. I think a lot of people from the outside would assume that you guys vote on that sort of thing. No, in fact, it's fairly arbitrary, especially in the reorg process. So without jumping too far ahead of the story, I did meet with a vineyard leader who said that a vineyard wouldn't last longer than a year unless we took these emergency actions and

[00:11:14] emergency actions were used as a license for just arbitrarily controlling, you know, our infrastructure because we had to, right? It was a crisis, so we have to do something. And I, what year was that, that you were told this, that it wouldn't last another year? Let me get my timeline right. It was probably, oh, it was right around COVID. So 2019, 2020, right in there. Yeah.

[00:11:41] And I meant to ask you, did they ever, because my first reaction is like, well, what precisely is going wrong in the movement that you're making this, you've come up with this timeline of a year? Like, did they ever indicate to you why they felt like that was the case? Well, the same person who told me that was the one who at the national leadership team meeting that I was at when they introduced the reorg presented a paper that they gave everybody and then was more or less read called Facts Are Our Friends.

[00:12:10] And it was documenting a decline in the movement, right? It was in those, that decline was around aging out of pastors that I don't remember the exact percentage numbers. Finding out how many vineyards there are and that's a dark art, right? Nobody really knows, or at least nobody honestly talks about it. But the vast majority of vineyard churches, I think it was like 90% or something, were under 100.

[00:12:39] These pastors were aging out. As their pastors retired, those churches were just going to go away. We have that. We had disciplinary problems in the vineyard that the national office felt like they weren't allowed to bring discipline into. You know, there were all these issues that pointed to the fact that vineyard is not a healthy, thriving movement. And so we have to do something. Now, the problem was, is they threw some assumptions in that document that were not facts. They were assumptions.

[00:13:05] And those assumptions were the parts of things that we've held on to the vineyard that we said were important to us, like we're a non-confessional or non-credal movement, that we are a relational movement, all of these sorts of things. We're the kinds of things that needed to be jettisoned if we were to grow. And those are assumptions that aren't, those aren't facts. And so the problem was, is that largely vineyard pastors have accepted that narrative.

[00:13:30] I think, I think you would find very few people who would make an argument, including myself, that vineyard needed to change, right? We needed to change. Vineyard needed some structure because of all the problems we've talked about. But to say that the answer is a church growth model that says that you need homogeneity within the movement in order to grow, you know, that's an assumption that we could, we should, as a movement, have debated. We should have talked about that.

[00:13:59] There should have been a forum for it. But we never did. We never had any sort of forum for that. And so you created a crisis, thrown out some assumptions. You know, it's a kind of an anchoring bias, you know, that we accept one thing because we've accepted the other. And, and then because it's a crisis, we're going to allow for some arbitrary organizational changes. So when I brought up an issue with Jay, I was sent to the, the, the executive board or executive team.

[00:14:28] I was like, I don't even know who these people are. I've grown up in the vineyard. I don't even know who this is. And I Googled it and I still couldn't find it. And I had to email my RO and say, who are these people? And, and he sent it to me. I'm like, where does this exist in our bylaws? And I sent our bylaws and he said, well, this is provisional because of the reorg. So they asserted control because of the reorg to consolidate a power structure within the vineyard that has run the reorg and that is enforcing everything from discipline to, well,

[00:14:57] I'd say primarily discipline, right? Who's, who's in and who's out. And, and so that, that seems to be convenient for an organization to leverage the crisis, to get people to assume some things that, that benefit a few people who are consolidating their power, their, their belief system, their sense of what it takes to grow this movement into the future. And whether they're right or wrong in their conclusions is inconsequential.

[00:15:25] It was a violation of who we are as a movement that pastors had a voice. And instantly in one meeting, pastors lost their voice. They gave us an email address. That wasn't a voice, right? That's a suggestion box in an organization does not, it does not equal participatory processes. So yeah, it's, it's been a consolidation of power and they've used every crisis since then as a reason to consolidate power.

[00:15:51] Even when the power structures are what contributed to the abuse, they're still twisting that to say, this is why we need more power. Yeah, you're, you're absolutely right. And it's, it's interesting because there's a little more clarity now, I would say on the website, but still large gaping holes of just, I have no idea. So for example, the executive boards, executive team, whatever they call it, it's still not listed who precisely is on that aside from the national director. So we know one of three positions is occupied by the national director, but the other one's

[00:16:21] the chairman of the board, but it doesn't say who that is. And then the other one is a trustee from the board of trustees. And we have no idea who that is. Right. So I made an accusation against Jay that, that went to a body within the vineyard that, that most vineyard pastors did not know existed and had no say, they were appointed by the national director. So what could go wrong to, to have a group, a body appointed by the national director to arbitrate accusations against him? Yeah. Explain.

[00:16:50] I think that's an important story. So if you don't mind, explain why, you know, you, you felt the need to levy some accusations against Jay and then ultimately how the process played out. Cause you did ask, and I thought it was a very fair request is to have a third party, a disinterested party as sort of an arbiter or mediator and, and were rejected. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to, I'm trying to be very careful to hold two things that I have documented. There's parts of the story that I won't share that I just don't have documentation on.

[00:17:20] Right. So, I mean, I think it's important that the season in the vineyard that we, we substantiate the things that we're talking about. I wrote a, a long letter, an open letter to the vineyard. This was right after Anaheim had left and vineyard was using the typical shock and outrage. And then this is why we need more power. That was their narrative. It's the same thing they used after the Gatlins, but it had happened there. And I'd already raised a lot of what I felt like were substantive questions about problems in the reorg.

[00:17:50] I was deemed as problematic. I spent many hours with Joel Seymour on the phone, but wrote this letter. It was 12 page letter documenting numerous problems. And what I asked for at the end of that letter was pause any enforcement boundary marking policies within the vineyard. So statement of faith, bylaws, anything. Pause all of that until you clearly define the participatory processes for pastors to

[00:18:16] have a voice, whether voting or however we structure a national, some sort of symposium using appreciative inquiry or lots of other methods that can be used to allow pastors to have a voice, not just an email address to some, you know, email account somewhere. I wrote that and got reprimanded pretty strongly for putting that out. What was eye-opening for that in the process was the number of people that contacted me and said, this is my story too.

[00:18:44] But what was sad about that was how many of them had left the vineyard. This is my story and this is why I'm out. And so for people within the movement, it seemed like few were willing to question these things and those that did were getting silenced pretty quick. So I get an email from a guy named Jim Harrington saying, your regions, I've been asked to investigate your region because your region has been identified as having an unworkable relationship with the vineyard. And that was news to me.

[00:19:14] You know, conflict does not mean we have an unworkable relationship where we're all in trouble, right? We have conflict and we work it out through relationship. But for vineyard, a dissenting voice, it seemed like meant that there was an unworkable relationship. So they went in to investigate our whole region and had labeled our region a trouble region. So this was down in Texas and Louisiana in that area. And because people had been asking questions and had been challenging some of the assumptions that had been presented.

[00:19:43] And without going too far into that story, it led to some pastors in our area having met with—this was the story relayed to me. They had met with Jay. They had played golf with him on the golf course. And Jay had told them, hey, if I need you to be ears on the ground for me here, if there's things going on that you don't tell me about, we're going to get sideways. Things aren't going to go well. And one of them, I just confirmed with him not long ago, said, yeah, that's exactly what happened.

[00:20:13] And it was very sort of mob boss kind of thing. Like, we're trying to get control of this region. And you guys are going to be in trouble, whatever that meant, with him. And so I brought that up. I raised the flag and brought it to Joel Seymour and said, this is what I heard. This is what's being said. One of those guys recanted. A couple have stood behind their stories. I pushed it all the way to Jay.

[00:20:37] I got a meeting with Jay and Jim Harrington and my executive pastor and Joel Seymour were in the room together. And we had a long conversation about things. Some of it I thought was progress. I thought there was some things that, you know, maybe there's hope here after all. I wasn't, you know, still skeptical, but there seemed to be... Jay is a really nice guy. Anybody who's been around Jay, super nice guy. And he's a winsome personality.

[00:21:05] And he was every bit of that in our meeting. He was never mean. He was none of that. But he did at one point, as I'm continuing to push and ask questions, he said, well, I need to be very frank about something. There are a lot of pastors in your region that have issues with you, that have problems with you, and you don't have trust from these pastors in your region, and laid into me and sort of lectured me for, you know, it felt like 30 minutes. Maybe it was 10 minutes.

[00:21:35] I don't know. But it was very clear the point he was making is that nobody likes me. Pastors have an issue with you. This is a problem. And I was... I was... The wind was taken out of me. I don't know that I heard a whole lot more that happened in that conversation after that, because I was on my way out as senior pastor. I was going into academics. I was on my home stretch. Home stretch, these relationships were really important to me. And, you know, here's somebody saying, yeah, all the people that you think like you, they don't like you.

[00:22:04] And so after the meeting was done, I met with my executive pastor who was in the meeting. I said, did you... Did I hear this right? I just need to make sure, because it seemed like he was really clear. Tell me. And they said, yeah, that's absolutely what he said. And I just couldn't believe it. So I sent three emails out that evening, one to Jay Pathak, one to Joel Seymour, and one to Jim Harrington, asking for clarification about that statement. And what I asked Jim, because he had done all of the interviews in our region, was, hey,

[00:22:33] did you hear something that I haven't heard? Is there something that came through these interviews? Like, what's going on? And he replied back pretty quickly, same night or the next morning. None of that came from me. I never heard that from anybody I interviewed in all of the interviews I did in your region. Okay. Joel. Joel, did that come from you? Joel said, I don't know what that's about, right? I've got these emails, by the way. Their response is like, I don't know what that was about. Jay never replied until a week later. During that week, I got on the phone.

[00:23:00] I called every pastor that I had had as much as an email encounter with in our region. Some of these people I've known for 20 plus years. You know, some I drove out of town to go visit with them, to hang out with them. And, you know, in 20 years, yeah, you do have conflicts with some pastors and you work it out. That's what relationships are. But I wanted to make sure, like, is there anything out there? And to a person, everyone that I met with said, absolutely, there is nothing. In fact, just the opposite.

[00:23:27] You know, I just have so much respect and I value our relationship and et cetera, et cetera. It's what I had hoped for and what I thought was the case. And, but it turned out to be absolutely not true, not validated by anybody. Now, this isn't abuse at the level that we've seen from Duluth, right, and the Gatlins. This is not that level. I make no claim towards that. In the moment, it was deeply painful and hard. And Jay didn't reply.

[00:23:55] And so I finally sent a second email to him a week later after I'd spent the entire week calling, visiting, everything I could with pastors and said, this is abuse of power, what you did. And the reply I got back to him was, this was being pushed. Something like, I'm a man of authority and so are you. And this is going to go to the executive whatever team, right? The big giant head.

[00:24:23] So I get a letter from Tom Campion and Michael Gatlin saying that they're going to investigate this. And by the way, I had no idea this existed. I couldn't find it anywhere, but, you know, finally found out and I get this email. And I said, yes, I would like to tell my story. Here's my conditions. I would like to have a disinterested third party in our conversations because I don't want anything misrepresented about what's going on because there's a lot of that going on. So I don't want anything. And they sort of mocked me on it a little bit. Like, what do you mean?

[00:24:52] And Tom volunteered to be the disinterested third party. What part of... So they said no, they wouldn't do it. And I said, okay, I will come your way a little bit. Here's my second offer. Have each party present their full account of what happened. I'll submit mine along with the emails that I got in return and that those be included in the report.

[00:25:22] I'll do it if we do that. I never heard back until I got their final report saying that they had found that Jay was not in any error because they had talked to Jim and they had talked to Joel. That was enough. My executive pastor, they had asked to talk to as well. My executive pastor said, I won't do it without a disinterested third party. And they sort of mocked us in that email. And in that email, let me see, there were several names they called me in that email. They said I was emotional. They said I was lacking self-awareness.

[00:25:52] They said I was defensive, hypersensitive, and exaggerating. And they said without self-awareness, it's unlikely that the defensiveness will dissolve as Reagan continues to look outwardly as a victim and less inwardly to what changes he can make better to better a situation. This was their official report. So they had refused to investigate this matter with reasonable protections in place to ensure any kind of fairness. They refused.

[00:26:19] They never addressed the actual charge that I presented regarding what Jay had done, except just in generalities. And they impugned me and attacked my character. Those were the three things we did. And I wrote this in a document that I put out publicly for a short time because I think those three things are the vineyard system. And we wonder how a Gatlin kind of situation can happen. It's because Gatlin on the executive team writing a report representing the national director,

[00:26:50] how they handle situations that were brought up. That's what they do, right? They don't investigate the matter with reasonable protections in place. They don't address the issue that's being charged. And they impugn and attack the character of the person who brought it up. My issue was small, but that is the system. That's the bed we've made as a vineyard. That structure, that organization is what's asking for more power right now. And that is toxic and deeply problematic. Yeah. And it's one of those things where, you know, when you're looking into a situation, you know,

[00:27:20] I think I told you that I've been in management for a really long time. It makes me think of a scenario that I had where, you know, I had multiple reports of the same behavior that came to me. You know, as a manager, you have to, sometimes it's a kind of he said, she said thing, you know, and, or someone misconstruing, you know, what someone's intentions or whatever. So you kind of look at like the weight of the allegations being levied.

[00:27:47] And I remember having a conversation where I said, look, you know, if I had been provided this information one time, if one person had come to me, then, you know, there's a little grace that we can have here. But when I have multiple instances, multiple instances where people are coming to me with the exact same report over a period of time, I have to take that seriously. You know, I have no reason to believe that all of those people are lying. And you just explained your situation and kind of told the story.

[00:28:12] And I can't help but think back to Ryan Bowers and, you know, him, you know, in his, his letter to the national team back in 2014 about Brenda and Michael Gatlin where the exact same thing happened. He was demonized. He was told, I think Jay was quoted saying that he was dissociated from reality and a bad guy and all this stuff. And boy, is that aging well now, but, you know, but it's just kind of the same thing, which,

[00:28:40] which kind of makes me think back to years ago for, for one of the other podcasts I do. I, I got, had the pleasure of interviewing this guy who, Dr. Steve Hassan, who wrote this amazing book on, on cults and cult activity. And one of the things that cults do is they demonize anyone who's not in inside, you know, not in the in group. That's, that is a very cult-like maneuver or reaction. Yeah. Yeah. That's the trend. That was the first thing I wrote about with the vineyard was the strong in group and that

[00:29:10] out groups, outside voices, dissenting voices were being marginalized. And I'll say this, John, what's, what's the most troubling part about this is it's well-documented. It's the experience of, of a lot of people. How many, you know, this, this incredibly toxic system that is asking you to sign a blank check to give them control, right? Sign over your bylaws. The things that, that I was asking for consistently were not my own way. I don't need my own way.

[00:29:36] Let's collectively as a movement, let's have a voice to talk about what power structures look like within our movement. Let's, let's, let's figure out a way to do this in some sort of a meaningful way. How many pastors are just okay with those checks not being in place and are willing to write a blank check to the movement to say, we're going to give you our churches. We're going to give you a full control over, you know, if we go, if we go sideways with

[00:30:01] you on any doctrinal issue or, or anything like if you, for us, it wasn't, we weren't pushing a doctrinal issue. This wasn't about LGBT. This wasn't about that. This was about process and we got attacked. And so vineyard pastors ask questions. You're given, you're signing a blank check to somebody who will have the ability to enforce discipline in a arbitrary way without checks and balances and protections in the process. It is not there.

[00:30:31] It is not in the system at all. Do your homework. Look for it. It's not there. And so we are feeding the abusive system when we don't ask questions. We are, we are every bit as complicit in what happens if we don't ask questions. And I would say that with, you know, as egregious as everything that's happened in Duluth is. We have given a pass to our movement to allow this kind of system to continue to work.

[00:30:59] And now we're signing over our bylaws to this movement. I don't understand why vineyard pastors will go for that. I don't. Yeah, it's, it's, it's confounding. I mean, I, you know, you and I were talking about this before we started recording. I'm no legal expert. I'm not a lawyer, but I have written a good many legal documents for my, for my day job. And just reading through these proposed documents, there is a whole, I think they call it the policy packet. It's right there on the website. So you can download the documents, read through them yourselves.

[00:31:28] And I encourage people to do that. Go look at them. Especially, and I know there are vineyard pastors who are currently still in the movement who are listening. I really encourage you guys to go look at if you have, I mean, hopefully you have already since the hard date was, I think, May 1st. But if I was you, I would be scratching my head asking a lot of questions. And I even reached out to the vineyard national office and said, Hey, I've got questions about this. And I would love to sit down and have a conversation with somebody from the national office to answer

[00:31:54] these questions, because there's whole sections in these documents that are essentially placeholders that are like, well, we'll get to this in 2026. And then the rest of the areas are incredibly vague and could be interpreted in a number of different ways. And one of the examples I was giving a friend of mine last night, he's currently on staff at a vineyard church. I said, you know, I would be very concerned. I said, let's just look at the process for ordination.

[00:32:20] You know, there's a list of criteria that you have to meet in order to be considered for ministry in the vineyard. One of them literally says that you have to be able to show a substantial understanding of the Bible slash theology that comes either internally or externally. I said, who is defining substantial? And who's the arbiter of when you've met that level of substantial? And then how are they defining internal versus external?

[00:32:47] Because right now, I think they're working on something, but they used to have VLI, Vineyard Leadership Institute, which is a form of sort of form of training, a seminary does not exist anymore. And so what sort of internal trainings do they have by which you could meet that level substantially? It's just not defined anywhere in there. And then, you know, one of them is living a biblical life. How are we defining that exactly? Exactly. It's just very broad, sweeping generalizations.

[00:33:15] And again, you know, to your point, it all comes back to the top of the hierarchy, you know, to make that determination, which, by the way, is all sort of like this cyclical mechanism. You know, the national director is the one who essentially it's the national director, the board of director and one of the trustees are the ones who ultimately make the final decision on new trustees on the board. Yeah. You know, so... It's a self-serving system. And in any...

[00:33:44] And I mean, we would never allow this in any other arena, right? And again, I don't understand why Vineyard pastors aren't asking more in-depth questions. I'm not asking everybody to agree with my perception on it. But why aren't we asking questions? Why aren't there public forums? Which is one of the things that I had asked for is, hey, you will only deal with people one-on-one. You're not allowing us together to have a conversation and hear what other people are saying.

[00:34:13] Like, I want to hear other people's point of view on this. And we weren't allowed to do that. And if you did that, you were considered problematic, right? You're being divisive if you talk to other people about these issues. So, yeah, terribly, terribly controlling. The bylaws enforcement is exactly what they telegraphed. John, at that first national leadership team meeting when they presented the facts are our friends. As they outlined where they were going to go, but they were going to receive broad consultation

[00:34:41] was the word they used, which was consultative theater, right? It was never broad consultation. It was theater around it. If you were in a particular in-group, you were consulted. Otherwise, your email was noted. But as they laid out this plan, right, of where this is going, we're going to get consultation from people. Everything that they laid out there is exactly what they had executed. Nothing changed due to broad consultation, right?

[00:35:10] They knew where they were going. It was a plan they were working. They needed to shut down outside voices who were dissenting or inside voices that were dissenting. My take, this is purely speculative, right? I'll just throw it out there. Purely speculative take. We will give you some participatory processes that give pastors a voice once we weed out all of the voices we don't like. That was a theory that I had a couple years ago, and it turns out in recent days to actually

[00:35:39] have some teeth to it. If you push too hard, if you critique too publicly, you are uninvited to the table. So let's uninvite everybody. As was said by Caleb Maskell, it's okay if we lose a big chunk of our churches as long as it's the right churches. That statement has turned out to be true. And if you're the wrong church, you're in trouble. That's just, that's Vineyard. Why would we stand for this? We can do better. Let's go back and challenge the assumptions in that first document.

[00:36:07] Do we have to give up being a relational movement? Do we have to give up being a non-confessional movement in order to bring better health and structure? Maybe, but maybe not. We'll never know collectively what the Spirit is saying to our churches, right? Which is a value of ours. What is the Spirit saying to us all? What it's turned into? What is the Spirit saying to a few people? Let's leverage a few prophetic words around that. And any dissenting voices? Well, those are not the Spirit.

[00:36:34] Has the Spirit ever been known to prompt a dissenting voice? I would say if we believe that He hasn't, we're undermining history of how the church handled slavery and other issues, right? Where people prompted by the Spirit, empowered by the Spirit, went and challenged the systems and stood against the status quo. Following the Holy Spirit is not about compliance. It never has been. The Spirit is the wild goose, right?

[00:37:01] It's the wild child of the Holy Trinity, as one of my professors once said, right? That's our legacy as a movement, not compliance to a hierarchical structure, right, that has equated spirituality with subordination to a few people at the top who, frankly, do not give serious consideration to any outside voices. That's been my experience. I could be wrong, by the way. I wish I could have seen you preach back in the day. I bet you were really good. That was good.

[00:37:31] Sorry, I did kind of go into preacher mode there. Sorry. No, that, you know, it really sums up. It's interesting how, like, things that I've, dots that I've sort of connected along the way have slowly but surely starting or starting to be confirmed by folks who are continuing to come out of the woodwork to talk about their experiences and just confirm the things that I've found. And, you know, I'm not happy. I'd rather be wrong, you know, when it comes to a lot of stuff.

[00:37:58] But, you know, one of the things, and we can kind of wrap it up after this, but one of the things I thought was interesting, I think I told you before we hit record, was, you know, that document from back in, I think it was 2020 or 2022. One of the two, the list, sort of the list of things that they saw that somebody drafted that they saw as issues to the long-term vitality of the movement. And I think there's 10 different things listed in there, I believe, if I remember correctly.

[00:38:25] And just for the sake of comparison, I thought, I want to compare this directly against the findings in the institutional assessment that they paid for through Guidepost Solutions. And specifically, I wanted to do that because this whole wild goose chase that I'm on started because my ex-wife was the victim of assault here in Columbus 20 years ago and was contacted a few years ago by Vineyard. Surprisingly, she was shocked. And we were kind of excited at first because she said, you know, they're saying that I can

[00:38:54] come tell my story and they promised her all sorts of things, you know, like counseling when it was all said and done. Of course, she got none of that, just got to reopen old wounds and kind of go through that trauma again. Fortunately, we're all in therapy. But she also told me that Vineyard told her that they were basically just throwing the whole report in the trash from Grace and they were going to hire a new group to come in. And that's the question that I had. Why would they do that?

[00:39:21] That doesn't make any sense to me that I'm assuming already paid all this money for this first investigation. Why would they trash this one and move on to this new group? It didn't make any sense to me. And so that's what kind of started my whole investigation, this whole thing. And then, you know, dug up all sorts of things. But one of my suspicions this entire time has been, you know, why would you do that? Well, maybe because you found something you didn't like, or maybe because I found out

[00:39:47] later that there are all sorts of different types of these investigatory groups. And then I learned that Grace is very victim centric, being, you know, the institution has no control over the scope, you know, over the final report. But they do with a group like Guidepost. They can set the parameters of the investigation. They do get some say over the final report. And I thought, hmm, that's interesting. And so I thought if they wanted to leverage something like a report, that would be a really

[00:40:17] good way to sort of say, hey, we've got these major issues we told you and sort of push the agenda. And so when I did the comparison between the Guidepost findings and this older list of perceived problems, almost identical, almost identical. It was trying to think of the words when I ran it, when I ran it through, but it was almost exactly the same, same findings and same proposed solutions for the most part.

[00:40:47] And not to say that some of those things aren't things to be solved. I think there is something to be said for you can't run an organization this large like the Wild West. You know, there's probably, you probably do need some mechanism by which you can discipline pastors if you have Michael Gatlin, you know, in your movement, for example. Probably should have some way to rein that in. But as we said before, you also have to give concessions at the national level because there needs to be accountability on that level too. So there needs to be give and take.

[00:41:15] And so if you're going to give up some of your rights as a local pastor, there also needs to be some accountability at the top. And you need to have some assurances that the national director or somebody, you know, one of the trustees steps out of line that there's also a system of accountability for that. And not only that, but some of the basic things like having a third party reporting line for abuse. They still don't have that. Jay readily admits that on the Vineyard podcast where he says, you know, we've got this reporting line.

[00:41:45] It goes to guideposts, but then admits that it after that, it gets forwarded right back to Vineyard USA and oftentimes back to the local pastor who's being reported on. That's not safe and it's not third party. Yeah. What could go wrong, right? Yeah. And so like just very, very basic things that they could have solved for several years ago just still haven't been done. And it kind of makes you wonder and it should make Vineyard pastors out there ask questions

[00:42:11] like, why are they so heavily focused on things like they do have a conflict of interest policy they rolled out. But you look at it, it has nothing to do with the individuals and everything to do with the finances. So and this is just somebody, an outsider coming in, looking at it. And I have these questions. I can't imagine being a pastor in the movement and not immediately raising a hand and saying, whoa, like we still don't have a reporting mechanism for abuse. Yes, you rolled out some training, which is great. There's a child protection policy in here. That's awesome. Good job.

[00:42:39] But the conflict of interest policy is purely financial. The handbook is vague at best and still has some sections there that are TBD. And you're asking me to sign off on this now. There's no mechanisms for accountability on the national level. We don't even get a say in who gets elected. As far as you know, is there any mechanism within the Vineyard where a Vineyard pastor gets a vote on it? No, none. So I asked Joel Seymour this question when we were in the thick of all of this.

[00:43:09] And I said, listen, we give, you know, 3% of our income. We give a lot of money. We're heavily invested in this movement. We're giving. And now you're moving the goalposts, right? You're changing the boundary markers of what Vineyard is and what isn't. And I don't get a vote. So I give you all my money and I don't give a vote. I just get that what I'm buying is a copyright agreement. Right. So I'm paying you 3% of portion. It's the buy a copyright agreement.

[00:43:37] And the terms of that copyright agreement can change at will without me having any say over it. Now, this was before the bylaws. This was for all of this other stuff. At that point, I could still vote internally myself out of the movement if I wanted to. I could choose to leave. So I said, so why would I want to be part of this if I'm buying into something where I don't have a voice? What are the benefits? Yeah. What am I getting from this other than the good name? I'm using air quotes here, right? The good name of Vineyard.

[00:44:07] I'm buying the rights to that and I get to show up to all your conferences. So tell me, tell me again why I would want to be in the Vineyard. And he said, oh, that's easy. And then he didn't answer the question. And in fact, he used that question because what I said was, well, I think that would give us pause about whether we want to continue this relationship because I don't understand where our voice is in this and why it matters.

[00:44:33] And so he sent a letter to my board, did not include me in that letter. I guess Googled who our board was because he got some random names of people who were just attenders in my church who had never been on my board and the letter went to them. In essence, undermining me as the senior pastor and establishing direct communication with the board and bypassing me. And listen, this was not moral issues.

[00:44:58] This was disagreements that he sought to seize control of my church through my board and turn my board against me, by the way. And so if that kind of power grab is not troubling to pastors, you know, beware. You're going to get what you get. If somebody shows and tells you who they are, believe them. And they have shown us and told us who they are, that power is more important than relationships.

[00:45:21] It's even more important than victims, which we've seen in the whole Duluth thing. I want to add one more thing, and this is slightly a tangent. Feel free to edit this out if you want. No, no, you're good. Go for it. My dad is my hero, former national director of the Vineyard. Several years ago, he did not attend the national conference. The official word that was put out by Jay at the national conference was that my dad was sick and couldn't come.

[00:45:49] The questions began to arise when pictures of my dad fishing on Facebook the week of the national conference seemed to challenge that suggestion. This was post-COVID. That is not the reason my dad did not attend the national conference. That is, a former national director. He has had serious concerns about what is going on with this whole transition, what's been going on with, you know, Duluth, what's been going on in the consolidation of power through the reorg.

[00:46:18] And he has been put out the pasture in the vineyard. And so he didn't have a voice. Very few people contacting. Lots of people say they respect him. But when he became a voice, even a former national director became a casualty of this power grab. And that hurts me tremendously. But I think it speaks volumes about the leadership of this movement right now.

[00:46:45] And all I'm asking is for vineyard pastors to ask questions and make decisions for yourself that, trust me, is not an answer. Trust me is a deflection, right? Trust me should cause significant—it should cause you to question even further, is what I would say. So anyway, that's a little tangent. But I wanted to have a chance to say that because that narrative has been out there. And I don't think people understand the full story about my dad's disappearance from the movement.

[00:47:15] And he's been very quiet about it. Yeah, I think—I'm glad. Thank you, first of all, for sharing that story. I'd heard that as well. And one of the things I'm learning quickly is that a lot of the folks who have agreed to come on this podcast, and I realize, like, putting yourself out there publicly, this is not a comfortable thing. I've had people who I've had conversations with who were not comfortable enough to go on record, and I completely understand. You know, it's, you know, based on everything we just said, you know, there's good reasons for folks to just say, I'm staying out of the—you know, staying out of it.

[00:47:45] But one of the things I have noticed, though, is that a lot of the folks who have come on, you know, whether it was Vineyard USA or whoever, kind of got to control the narrative behind their story. And so if nothing else, you know, I've wanted to be able to use my platform, whatever it is, to provide an opportunity for folks to be able to share their version of events. And we could all be wrong. I mean, I've been pretty open-handed about that.

[00:48:11] Listen, this is—use a Brene Brown quote, you know, the story I'm making up in my mind is this, right? This is the way I've connected the dots, and I've tried to push for dialogue to give the opportunity to dismantle this narrative that I've made up. Prove me wrong. You know, I want the Vineyard to succeed. I want the Vineyard to do well. You know, the pastor, the church that I gave my life to, I want to do well in the Vineyard. That's my hope. So prove me wrong. Like, I want to be wrong about this.

[00:48:40] And it was as simple as saying, oh, no, here's what we're doing. But consistently throughout this whole process, I get manipulation. I get dishonesty. And so further grabs for power. So when that happens, more Duluth incidents are inevitable, right? The system doesn't fix it when the system is what caused it. And I hope that's the takeaway from my story. Like, I could be wrong. I'll speak passionately about my perspective, but with an open hand, hey, let's put the facts on the table. Let's get a third party.

[00:49:09] Let's whatever it takes. But at every point, every attempt at that, that has not been allowed in the conversation. Well, it's funny. What you just said is literally has been the case for every single former Vineyard pastor I've spoken with. Not a single one of them has said, you know what? I hope the Vineyard completely implodes. Not a single one. Every single one has said, I love the movement for a reason. I want it to do better and wish it well and hope that change happens. Every single one.

[00:49:39] And so I think that speaks volumes, at least to me. Yeah. Yeah. We want it to do well. My biggest passion has been to keep the Vineyard in pastor's hands. Let's not give it away to a few people. That's not who we are. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Reagan, thank you so much for coming on. That's all I can say. Very important. And I think, you know, a lot of what you said will connect a lot of dots. Like I said, I'm working on the final episode, at least for now.

[00:50:09] I have a feeling there'll be more than I intended on. But it really does sort of complete the picture that I hope, you know, as you said, my only hope in all of this is that change happens come hell or high water, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that the people that I care about who are still heavily involved in the movement, you know, get the protections that they deserve and that they should have in place. Ask questions. Curiosity is your superpower. It's what you've got in this moment. Use it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for coming on.

[00:50:37] And hang tight because the files have to upload. I always have to mention it. All right. Thanks, John. I really appreciate it. Thanks for the conversation. Thank you. The views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of this podcast or its producers. All individuals mentioned are presumed innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law.

[00:51:07] This content is intended for informational and investigative purposes only. We have taken steps to verify the accuracy of the statements made. But cannot guarantee the complete accuracy of all claims. Listener discretion is advised. Especially for those sensitive to topics involving spiritual abuse, leadership misconduct, or institutional harm.

[00:51:44] Hi, I'm Tara Schmidt, a registered dietitian and host of On Nutrition, a podcast from Mayo Clinic where we dig into the latest nutrition trends and research to help you understand what's health and what's hype. There's a lot of wild stuff out there. So we'll be keeping it science-based, research-informed, and practical. Mayo Clinic's On Nutrition. New episodes every other week, wherever you get your podcasts.