MorningStar Ministries leader Chris Reed resigned from all his leadership roles with the organization effective Monday, including his job as senior pastor of MorningStar Fellowship Church in Fort Mill, South Carolina, citing, among other things, the sexual abuse of minors by a former volunteer and police officer.
In a letter to MorningStar staff shared on X, Reed explained he was returning leadership of the ministry to founder Rick Joyner to focus more on what God called him to do, which is to “to prophesy, pastor, teach, preach, and write.”
He also pointed to the 2023 arrest of former church volunteer and police officer, Erickson Douglas Lee, who is accused of sexually abusing multiple minors connected to a youth group of MorningStar Fellowship Church while revealing that both he and his wife, Missy, were sexually abused as children.
“After MUCH prayer, thought, and consideration, along with Missy and trusted friends, I have decided to fully and immediately step down from all leadership responsibilities at MorningStar Ministries.
This includes my roles as CEO, President, and Senior Pastor of the Fort Mill church, turning the ministry back over to Rick Joyner, the founder of MorningStar,” Reed wrote. “I submitted my letter of resignation on Monday, August 26, 2024, and it was graciously accepted.”
Reed, who took over leadership of the ministry in 2021, says though he is “heartbroken” he had to resign, he plans to do what God has called him to do through the creation of “an online model of house churches led by regional elders, based on the Acts 2:42 model” that God shared with him.
He also plans to invest in an online school of the prophetic and “at some point … relocate and start a new church in another part of South Carolina even though right now I have NO money and will be unemployed.”
The former megachurch leader then pointed to the 25-year-old Lee’s arrest in 2023. A release from the York County Sheriff’s Office in South Carolina said they arrested Lee after he turned himself in to detectives on May 2, 2023.
He was charged with dissemination of obscene material to a person under the age of 18, assault and battery 1st degree, criminal sexual conduct with a minor 2nd, and 3rd degree.
