MorningStar Founder Rick Joyner Condemns Chris Reed's Resignation as ‘Disrespectful’

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MorningStar Ministries Founder Rick Joyner alleged Sunday that the ministry has sufficient evidence that its former leader, Chris Reed, lied about being in a physical relationship with a student to be elevated to leadership, even though he should have been disqualified.

"I don't believe in getting into the details; you get what I'm saying? I'm not going to go there. I don't want to go there. I don't want to slime people, but …I feel like things were done that should have disqualified Chris from being made the leader of this ministry," Joyner said in an address to MorningStar Fellowship Church. "We were fooled."

Reed, who has worked with the ministry since 2021, abruptly resigned as CEO and president of MorningStar Ministries last week. He said he would focus more on what God called him to do, which is "to prophesy, pastor, teach, preach, and write."

According to The Christian Post, He also addressed the 2023 arrest of former church volunteer and police officer Erickson Douglas Lee, who is accused of sexually abusing multiple male minors connected to a youth group at MorningStar Fellowship Church. Reed admitted that he and his wife, Missy, had "experienced the evils of sexual abuse" as children.

"I did not want to be leading the ministry that would be in a case against four victims who were abused as children by a former volunteer of the ministry who is a policeman as well. This happened before I came to MorningStar, and I could not [defend the lawsuit] because I know the families," Reed said in a video statement he shared on YouTube alongside his wife last Thursday. "I know the victims. Many of them we've got to know them. I made a tough, painful, painful choice, and I just didn't care."

Lee, 25, turned himself into detectives on May 2, 2023, and was charged with dissemination of obscene material to a person younger than 18, assault and battery first degree, and criminal sexual conduct with a minor second and third degree, according to a release from the York County Sheriff's Office in South Carolina.

During Sunday's address, Joyner described Reed as a disloyal, self-centered liar who disqualified himself from leadership.

"What alarmed me even more was that in this [resignation] letter, there was almost no regard for the church, no regard for the ministry, no regard for a lot of people. It was all about him and his future and what he needed to do," Joyner said.

"I want him to have the brightest future he could have, but I did not feel that that there was a shepherd's heart revealed. A shepherd lays down their life for the sheep and certainly has regard for them. I didn't feel like there was regard for me, for our board, any of this stuff. We had entrusted a lot to him. I don't think to just quit like that is what we ever need to do with anyone with no notice," he added.

Joyner shared that before Reed was promoted as MorningStar's leader and CEO over a year ago, he was restored to ministry after it was revealed that he was involved in an inappropriate relationship with a former student. 

Although Reed and the student assured Joyner that their relationship was just based on texts, it was later discovered it was physical. Reed told The Roys Report that he sexually pursued that woman in 2021, kissed her, and sent her "terrible" sexual texts when he was senior pastor of MorningStar Fellowship church. At the same time, however, he denied claims of sexual touching. 

"We had to take their word that they cut it off, drawn a line, nothing physical had happened. Well, now I can say with a lot of confidence that's not true. Neither one of them were telling us the truth then. It appears, and I say there's a lot of evidence, and it's mounting, that yes, there was physical stuff that happened," Joyner told the church Sunday.

"Maybe not intercourse. Maybe it was not sex like one of our former presidents defined that he 'did not have sex with this woman.'  I say he did …that's me. I would say that's sex, but …what I'm saying, read between the lines," Joyner explained.

"The evidence is mounting, and I don't know where it's going to lead, but we're gonna not cover up anything. ... We were lied to. And I would have never turned this ministry over to them if I had known what I know right now," Joyner added.

WATCH: Rick Joyner Addresses Chris Reed’s Departure and Shares Hopeful Insights

Photo Credit: ©YouTube/Rick Joyner Official

Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.