The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Luke Cunningham, a student pastor at Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, and former student pastor at Turning Point Church in Lubbock from 2010 to 2016, stands accused of sexually assaulting a church girl while working at Turning Point.
A Granbury youth pastor has been arrested after being accused of sexually assaulting a minor.
The Justice Department confirmed to FOX 4 that 41-year-old Luke Cunningham was arrested on June 19 near Lubbock.
Cunningham was the student minister at Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury.
In a public statement sent to members of the church, Lakeside said that it learned Cunningham was accused of inappropriate conduct with a minor in another church on June 2.
Lakeside Baptist said they immediately suspended Cunningham and conducted an investigation.
The church said within days they found enough evidence to fire Cunningham and reported what was discovered to law enforcement.
Before coming to Granbury, Cunningham served as a student pastor at Turning Point Church in Lubbock from 2010 to 2016.
The church in Lubbock asked anyone who has been a victim or has information about incidents involving Cunningham to contact police.
They say they received no complaints, no allegations, nor any suspicion of wrongdoing.
Details about the abuse have not been released.
Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury says they are taking a closer look at ways to safeguard members.
“We believe that, if the Southern Baptist Convention had a working database for offenders, we would likely have never been exposed to Mr. Cunningham. We plan to do everything possible to encourage national leaders to exercise their spiritual responsibility, identify perpetrators in the churches, and stop this from happening again,” said the church in a statement.
Lakeside Baptist says they plan to institute their own more rigorous process for hiring.
Turning Point released the following statement:
On Monday, June 3, Turning Point was contacted by Senior Pastor Mark Forrest of Lakeside Baptist Church of Granbury, Texas to inform us that a recent staff member at Lakeside, and a former staff member at Turning Point, Luke Cunningham, was being reported to local police and Child Protective Services regarding accusations of inappropriate conduct and alleged sexual abuse with minors. During Lakeside Baptist Church’s own investigation of allegations, they learned of potential victims during Luke’s time of service at Turning Point. They have properly reported those allegations to the Lubbock Police Department. Turning Point has been in contact with the Lubbock Police since Thursday, June 6 and is in full cooperation with their investigation. As requested by LPD, Turning Point has not made any public statements so as not to hinder or disrupt the investigation.
From 2016-2020, Luke Cunningham served as Student Pastor at Turning Point. While Luke served on our staff, we received no complaints, no allegations, nor had any suspicion of wrongdoing. All allegations that are surfacing have been brought to our attention after Luke’s employment, not during or before. Currently, we have no information about these alleged incidents, no names, no descriptions of these events. We are awaiting further details from LPD.
To be clear, Turning Point’s leadership had no awareness of these alleged abuses during Luke’s time of service nor had any knowledge of allegations of previous misconduct in other churches prior to serving at Turning Point. We are devastated by these allegations and feel enormous grief for anyone who is a potential victim. Our hope is to provide any assistance we can offer to any victims of sexual abuse to find the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual peace needed to heal and move forward. We condemn any actions of sexual misconduct and certainly assault of any person, especially those under our care.
If you have been a victim or have any information that would prove help to LPD in their investigation, please contact and report what you know.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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It sounds like the Lakeside Church handled the situation well, even calling out the SBC for not having a list of offenders and informing the other church from which the alleged offender came so that they coukd take appropriate action as well.