News broke earlier this week that The Austin Stone Community Church (The Stone) fired Aaron Ivey, who was their Worship and Creativity Pastor. As the news broke, it became clear that Aaron was fired for

If you want to read more details about Aaron's behavior and subsequent firing here are a list of articles I've found helpful:

Here is also a statement that Church Elders at The Stone released about the firing:

I knew Aaron during my decade on staff at The Stone. For a few years, we lived just a few blocks from each other, though our families were never more than acquaintances. As shocking as the news about his more than decades-long abuse has been, it's not surprising.

In 2009, I was first introduced to The Stone through The Verge Conference. Verge was a missional conference produced by The Stone and focused on bringing together all the best minds in the Missional Church space to grow and learn from each other. Starting in 2011, my family left everything in San Antonio, packed a U-Haul, and drove up I-35 to be a part of The Stone.

At the time, The Stone was a model church balancing biblical teaching, missional focus, and gospel-centered living, mobilizing a church of 8,000 to demonstrate and declare the gospel of Jesus throughout Austin. For my family's first few years in Austin, I worked odd jobs while continuing my seminary education and attending The Stone as a regular "partner" (Stone lingo for church member). In 2012 I was allowed to be a Church Plant Resident and work full-time at the church. After support raising for a then family of 5, I joined the church staff and remained on staff until February 2020.

It became evident early on that what I was exposed to as a church member and the reality I witnessed 'behind the scenes' didn't align. I'll unpack this more in the next section. Still, it's worth noting that Godly living and character expectations for partners are markedly different than expectations for staff members.

Throughout my time at The Stone, my wife and I struggled as some of the few minorities in the church, and even more so as some of the few minorities on staff. Despite ignorant comments, cultural insensitivities, and an overall very white, very privileged, and very affluent church culture, we did our best to help The Stone live up to the identity it communicated about itself publicly. In particular, its value of being a church "For the City."

The Stone is very much For the City if by the city you mean white, affluent, heterosexual, and biblically conservative. For everyone who doesn't fit into this niche, you're not the demographic the church has in mind when it is being for the city.

My family's commitment to stick it out at the church and help to be agents of change was motivated by our genuine belief this church wanted to be the glowing image that it presented itself as publicly. But cracks began to show in 2018.

At the start of 2018, Larry Cotton, who oversaw our residency program, stepped down when it was revealed that he had helped cover up the abuse of a minor by a pastor. You can read more about Larry's story in the articles below.

As staff, what we were told about Larry's situation was broad and vague. We were constantly reassured that leadership was taking the case seriously and that we were not to speak to any media if approached. Finally, when Larry stepped down, it was communicated as a humble and Godly decision that we should applaud. The narrative was Larry had done nothing wrong; he simply didn't take enough action, and because he didn't want to hinder the gospel going forward, he was stepping down.

A leader who knows of a situation that involves a child being abused in any capacity needs to shout that to the rooftops. Anything less is not merely negligent; it's making one complicit in the abuse, and should be criminal.

Yet, as a staff, we had a going away worship meeting, giving thanks to Jesus for getting the church through this, honoring the work of Larry, and reflecting on how humble Larry was to remove himself from a position of power so the gospel can go forward.

In this next example, I can't direct you to any articles because, to the best of my Googling they don't exist. Around 2020, it was brought to light that a Youth Director at The Stone's Downtown Campus (Its largest of 6 campuses) had an inappropriate relationship with at least one high school student.

The fact that this situation is not publicly known and there are no resources I can find about the situation shows a key tactic Evangelicals take in abuse situations. They first distance themselves from the leader, then they erase the leader, and finally, they forget the leader existed or had anything to do with their church. This threefold approach guarantees the church can move past the incident while protecting the 'brand' so the show can go on. For Jesus, of course...

This brings us back to Aaron. He is now, at least, the third ministry leader at The Stone in the last six years who has been involved in inappropriate behavior with a minor. That's one leader every two years who has been caught leveraging their power and position to harm a child.

I have no desire to speculate or share any personal thoughts on what I think about the evidence that has been brought forth so far. I want to highlight a few ways the culture of The Stone enables this type of behavior to take place.

The entire senior leadership of The Stone comprises a combination of friends who went to college together (Texas A&M), relatives of those friends, or someone a senior leader has vouched for. If you are not a 'bro' from college, a relative, or spoken-for friend of a 'bro' you are not allowed within the inner-circle of leadership. Sure, you can be a leader in the church or an elder, but you will never be an "Executive Elder" (the name of the highest-level leadership) without a Good Ole' Boy going to bat for you.

Aaron Ivey was a vital member of this executive-level group. Furthermore, not only is the highest level of leadership a closed circle but the lives and conduct of these men are a mystery, which leads me to my next point.

You'll see people argue this point with me until their faces are blue that The Stone takes the Biblical qualifications of an elder (1 Tim. 3, Titus 1) dead seriously. What is meant by taking these qualifications seriously is that elders are expected to have the church's doctrine and theology down pact. The implicit belief is that if elders have their theology right, their lives and choices should follow.

This isn't the case. If right theology and knowing the Bible automatically leads to right living then Satan should be holiest among us.

In practice, the higher up the church hierarchy you get, the less your personal life is examined. Where congregants are expected to 'live on mission,' confess their sin to each other, and live within the context of a community on mission, this isn't the expectation for staff. It's even less so for elders and executive elders.

Because of this, most congregants don't even know who their elders are, let alone the type of lives these men are living. The only ones who may know are other elders.

Within The Stone's culture is an outspoken anti-LGBTQIA+ conviction. It is the church's conviction that people who experience same-sex attraction (church speak for the LGBTQIA+ community) should suppress their desires and live celibate lives.

In the church's view, it's ok to have homosexual desires so long as you never act on them. Once you do, if you're unwilling to ask Jesus to forgive you, you are acting like an "unbeliever" and choosing your sin over Jesus.

This creates a culture of fear around all things LGBTQIA+. To even begin to go down the path of openly sharing homosexual desires or questioning church dogma on the topic is to become an enemy in leadership's eyes. You are no longer seen as submitting to leadership; you are labeled as denying the authority of scripture, and ultimately, you are deemed in rebellion against God.

With a culture like this, how could Aaron ever be open and honest about his thoughts or desires? Especially when his livelihood is connected to the morality the church decides is 'biblical,' to openly share homosexual behavior is a one-way ticket to being labeled as disobedient to God and unemployment.

What if The Stone had a culture where homosexuality wasn't taboo and something to be feared? What if the culture was open, receptive to people's stories and experiences, and less dogmatic? None of these changes guarantee things with Aaron would have gone differently. However, maybe he wouldn't have needed to be so secretive. Maybe if the decades-plus behavior didn't need to be so hidden, a minor would never have been targeted.

If The Stone was once the gold standard of a healthy, vibrant, God-honoring church, it is now the gold standard example for why evangelicalism needs to be torn down. The rot of "the show must go on and protect the brand at all costs" has penetrated to the roots of the movement. The termites of "celebrity christianity and a culture of do as I say, not as I do" have eaten the foundation. The rise of Religious "Nones" isn't because we don't have enough cool, hip, culturally relevant leaders like Aaron Ivey. It's because we have them, and despite their theology, 'cool' factor, and book deals, their actions reflect very little of Jesus.

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