Chapel Family - it is with a posture of lament and a grieved heart that we share with you some difficult news that some may have been made aware of through a podcast hosted by Kait Gannon and Laurie Krull. This podcast unpacks Kait’s tragic story of sexual abuse and alleges that her abusers were involved in her sexual trafficking. In addition, she shares frustrations and disappointments related to how the leadership of The Chapel responded to receiving this information. These women are sisters in Christ, not adversaries, and we are grieved that the actions we took were not received by them as helpful. We better understand why that is so, and a member of our pastoral staff has offered a personal apology to Kait for his contribution to her hurt along with his commitment to make changes that will serve victims more carefully and caringly in the future.
Although there have been some mischaracterizations of leaders at The Chapel made on the podcast that are hurtful, we have no desire to be either defensive or combative. That simply won’t serve Kait well, nor will it heal any wounds - and healing is the true desire of church leadership (Luke 4:18).
That said, we do want to clarify some potential misconceptions:
- There are no allegations of sexual abuse related to any current or former staff member of The Chapel.
- There are no allegations of sexual abuse having taken place at The Chapel.
- There are no allegations of sexual abuse connected to our children and student ministries (we have the highest standards of procedure in place for child protection, and you can read about those here.
The concern expressed on the podcast related to The Chapel is how we handled and acted on the information we were given. We humbly acknowledge that some of the criticisms are warranted, and we are actively learning better ways to care for and support victims dealing with the trauma of sexual abuse.
Upon receiving the allegations in April of 2021 via email, we made the decision to suspend the accused parties (who were part of our church) from any volunteer ministry service. Only one of the two individuals was in a volunteer role at that time, and it was a lay-counseling role. Neither party had any connection to our children or student ministries. We felt strongly that we must act on the victim’s behalf, and though there were firm denials of any wrongdoing by the accused when we confronted them, we still suspended them indefinitely from any volunteer ministry activity of any kind. They remain indefinitely suspended and are not currently attending The Chapel.
We have not been afforded the opportunity to personally meet with Kait at any point in this process, and that has been difficult. We better understand some of Kait’s reluctance to do so and are grieved by our contribution to that. She is our sister in Christ, and she has been through tragic circumstances.
Our leadership team met with some other area pastors for discussion and accountability, and we are acting on some proposals that came out of that meeting to move toward healing. Our Board is also endeavoring to act in ways that promote dialogue and healing. We want to understand the best ways to help right now, and stand ready to do so. We have stood with victims in the past, and our intention is the same in this scenario. We are grieved that some of our actions have caused distrust on Kait’s part, yet we sincerely desire to be an agent of healing and not hurt.
Our prayer is that truth, justice, and healing can all be experienced and that we grow in our ability to care well for those dealing with such tragic circumstances.
As always, should you have any questions or concerns, we are more than willing to address them. Feel free to contact us (send a message).