John Lambert

Ray is the husband of Kim, who we maintain was groomed into a verbal and erotic relationship with Mike Brown when he was her pastor. Kim's daughter is Jordan. Both of them sent me letters this week asking me to read them online and publish them. The Bible says that we are to be a voice for those without a voice (Prov 31:8). Mike Brown said that he and Kim were peers. The truth is, when he began to groom her in earnest, he was her senior pastor and her husband's employer. Yes, this was SA from her pastor. However, in his first comments, Mike Brown described his relationship with Kim as her being the guilty one. Neither Ray nor Jordan has anything close to the reach that Dr Brown has. And they don't have a friend like Heather Schott, willing to give them an opportunity to respond. We will do our best here. We will later publish the full text of their letters.

Dr. Robert Gladstone shares poignant thoughts on the Firefly report and the actions of Dr. Michael Brown as they relate to the body of believers. Bob was a key leader with Mike Brown at Brownsville Revival School of Ministry (BRSM), FIRE School of Ministry, and Fire Church for many years. ===== Some thoughts about the Firefly report on Michael Brown: 1. It falls short, but it also makes some important statements that should prove fruitful for the church’s response to Michael Brown’s sins and apparent cover-up. Hopefully his accountability team will discern the truth and take a truly righteous approach for the sake of the survivors and their families, for the larger church, and for Michael Brown himself. 2. Contrary to some complaints, no one is dredging up things resolved in the past. That is a false representation of the facts and misses the entire point. These situations were not resolved at all, let alone resolved the right way. We know this for at least two reasons. First, the Firefly report, thankfully, concluded with accurate terminology in describing Michael Brown’s misconduct toward Sarah: “sexually abusive.” The allegations against him now have a professionally-assessed definition from a former chief of police they did not have before. This explicit statement contradicts the ones Michael Brown has used to assess his own situation from the beginning: “father-daughter,” “nothing sexual or romantic,” “what appeared to some to be inappropriate showing of affection,” “lapse in judgement,” and “idiotic but innocent physical contact between us… initiated by her totally.” The investigator also called the relationship with Kim “inappropriate,” and Michael Brown himself called it “adultery of the heart.” The church now has accurate definitions that prove the original misconduct was not resolved the right way, making this a live issue. Keep in mind that this terminology was not just a professional conclusion in a report; it is an emotional reality for the people affected by Michael Brown’s actions. They have been hurt and forced to wrestle with his misconduct for decades, while he continued unabated in high-profile ministry. No matter how he may have tried to settle this in the past, it was never settled for what it was: abuse—deep and traumatic experiences inflicted on vulnerable people and their families by an influential, Christian leader who later called himself our voice for moral sanity. Second, we know the situations were never resolved for reasons the report did not seem to emphasize with enough clarity—the sheer lies, half-truths, minimizations, and shifting stories Michael Brown told for years, during and after the episodes under question, to this day. I certainly never knew about them, and I was one of his co-leaders during that time. If he had been transparent and followed biblical due process, there would have been no need for a third-party investigation 23 years later. These episodes were never resolved. They were badly mishandled and swept under the rug long ago through very selective secrecy and outright lies. Readers can see this if they read the report carefully. There are several witnesses who testify to Michael Brown’s fabrications and changing stories from a number of meetings with him over time. This is documented. 3. The report “strongly” concludes these incidents of inappropriate behavior were “isolated occurrences,” confined to 2001 and 2002. Perhaps so. But as mentioned above, their effects were not isolated for those afflicted with the abuse. That has continued till now. Nor were the effects isolated for those of us trying to explain to our children how a public church leader they respected could do such horrible things and then lie about them for decades. Nor were the effects isolated for those hurt in other church discipline situations where Michael Brown came to help with counsel based on his own need for secrecy, rather than the church’s need for biblical truth. So it behooves the reader to keep these things in mind when the report sounds like it is minimizing the time frame of significantly bad behavior. All things considered, in my view, while the inappropriate relationships may have been confined to two years, the deceit, pain, and compromise lasted 24. Further, in my opinion, Sarah and Ray both testify to an extent of unethical actions that was enough to disqualify Michael Brown from ministry permanently—particularly in view of the coverup that followed. Yet he continued for many years. Those who see those events as isolated in time, and thus resolved, do not seem to understand the full story, nor the biblical qualifications for leadership. I would also encourage those people to have more compassion on the abused. Your unkind (and unbiblical) response is part of the problem. The accumulated effect of the past, “isolated” misconduct, along with the ensuing secrecy, amount to an irrevocable failure. The assertion that there is no evidence of further impropriety is not exactly an accomplishment for a man who refers to himself as an “elder” in the body. Mercy and restoration are available to all who truly repent of their sins. But some sins disqualify leaders. I believe the church needs to face this fact with more mettle. 4. There are other, credible allegations of spiritual abuse that were outside the scope of the Firefly investigation. 5. This whole issue represents a larger sickness in the church—especially the charismatic church—that must be addressed. That sickness is multi-faceted, surrounding the very nature of true leadership in the body of Jesus Christ, not merely the qualifications for leaders. And frankly, it raises issues about the nature of the body of Christ itself—issues to which we must attend urgently. Our systems should not be for the elite; they should be designed by the Spirit and Word for the people—the ordinary, the weak, and the vulnerable. “On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.”

Smoking Gun This situation with Dr. Michael Brown is so sad because all he needed to do was confess to his elders and submit to discipline 23 years ago. He could’ve even done that in October 2024. It was not a career-ending sin—but the two inappropriate relationships were things you couldn’t move on from without elder involvement. In October, I pleaded with Mike via email—and the investigator has those emails—to deal with the issue forthrightly. The tone of those back-and-forth emails was one of love and compassion. You will see it in the investigator report. Anyone who thinks I have a grudge or vendetta needs to read those emails. (Just a few months ago, I hosted Mike and Ryan, his son-in-law, in Israel, and we had a wonderful time. I took them to Southern Israel, and we filmed at the scene of the tragic attacks at the Supernova Concert on October 7, and then I treated them both to lunch. When he was accused in 2018 by another Israeli leader of being a false prophet, I forcefully defended him publicly and privately. So, no, this has nothing to do with a vendetta. It’s about righteousness and victims.) As a younger brother, I offered in October 2024 to walk with him through a healing process. “I would gladly help you process this,” I wrote. But he had no interest. Then it turned ugly. He told my peer leaders in Tikkun that I was trying to destroy his life and ministry and that I was being used by Satan to keep him from his efforts to bring revival and cultural reformation. In addition to confessing to me and two others to much of the accusations—he sent a text message to a mutual pastor friend, who then forwarded it to me. There are at least five lies in this text, and maybe more. But the most important part is that Mike says his version of what happened in these relationships “mirrors” what Sarah shared with Kris Bennett in a series of texts in 2020. (see attached) Lie #1: “[Sarah’s] story changed dramatically from 4 1/2 years ago when she shared everything with a grad.” Truth #1: Sarah had Kris send me those texts in early November after she shared her story with me. I sought her out after Dr. Brown rejected efforts to help him deal with these allegations properly. Her account of today matches her account of 2020 100%, except for one detail. The one detail is that in the texts (the first time she shared the truth with anyone after 18 years), she says Mike kissed her on the forehead and cheek. It is very common for abuse victims to leave out some of the more egregious details the first time they disclose, but Sarah only left out one—that, in addition to kissing on the forehead and cheek, Mike began to ask for a kiss on the lips at the end of each workday. Other than that, her narrative to me and the Roys Report (TRR) completely matches the 2020 texts. Why else would TRR link to those texts if they told a different story? In addition, in a letter to Tikkun leaders complaining about me in November, Dr. Brown referred to Sarah as a "demonstrably false ... witness ... whose testimony changed dramatically over the years." Yet he now admits that his story matches hers in the 2020 texts (see below). And we know that her story did not change at all, except she added details. There is a huge difference between adding details showing that the relationship was more severe than changing the story. She did not change the story at all. This is a lie. One leader (who has spoken to the investigator) said that Dr. Brown told him that Sarah saw someone who planted memories in her mind. Not true. He wrote in a follow-up letter to Tikkun about "how much others have gotten into her ears in recent years or to what extent her memories have changed." Also not true. Her memories did not change, she merely disclosed more in the past year. One detail—about kiss, kissing on the lips. Lie #2: Sarah was the aggressor. Truth #2: In addition to saying that the victims are agents of Satan, Mike is trying to blame both victims. He already told TRR: “Brown reportedly claimed that [Kim] had said something inappropriate that caught him off guard, so he wrote it down.” First, that does not describe what Sarah found in his nightstand. Secondly, it conveniently puts all the blame on a deceased woman, and third, he was forced to admit in light of Ray’s confession that it was far more than that in his vague video “confession.” Here, he says that he merely responded to Sarah’s affection. In fact, it was Sarah who testified that she was surprised by Mike’s affection for her when he grabbed her hand and held it for several minutes (between 5 and 15?) in a jeep with other students inside. Because her relationship with her dad was so bad, she wondered, “Is this how Fathers treat daughters?” Furthermore, when Mike touched her read end, that was not her (and when her parents found out about it, they went and directly confronted Mike in 2002). When he (by his own admission) put his arm around her late at night (around 2 AM) at Walmart, that was him. How convenient to blame Sarah in a private email to a pastor who probably would not check the facts. And, according to Sarah’s testimony, as she shared with a friend, Mike was physical with her in “trying to kiss me on the lips and pulling me close when I was standing near him. Meaning, wrapping me around my waist area in an inappropriate manner.” (March 24, 2024) Lie #3: In the text, he says that his wife is furious at all these “new accounts” (again, there’s only one new detail). Truth #3: Actually, I don’t know which one is the truth, but in his statement, he spoke about him and Nancy wanting to reach out to Sarah in the spirit of Matthew 5:23-26 (which talks about leaving your gift at the altar if someone is offended at you and making things right). The exact words were, “[A]nd my highest priority, as well as Nancy’s, is to have the opportunity to meet together in a setting acceptable to her and bring healing, where I can take full responsibility for the things which apparently hurt her so deeply, things which I thought we addressed 23 years ago.” Privately, he says that Nancy is furious at Sarah’s allegations, but publicly, they say they want to show her love. Lie #4: Nancy and I met with her, just as I said in my video and statement. Truth #4: in those texts, which Mike says mirrors his narrative, the only meeting between Mike, Nancy, and Sarah was after she found the erotic notes in his nightstand. After she confronted him, he brought in Nancy, and they told her that she could forgive Mike on behalf of the entire student body (which seems like an effort to keep her from telling anyone else about it— what she did not do for 18 years). This is spiritual abuse. Sarah has maintained that there was no meeting where she said she was uncomfortable with her relationship with Mike, and Mike and Nancy had a good conversation with her. Mike told me that after that conversation, Sarah stayed eight more months and was good. In reality, she left soon after that, and when people asked why and to where Sarah disappeared, Mike and Nancy said she went to Texas to be with her boyfriend… except she had no boyfriend. Lie #5: “I wanted to make this video since September 13th,” when he found out TRR was investigating him. Truth #5: Mike told me and two other leaders that we would not talk about his erotic relationship with “Kim.” He was very clear in his emails to us that he had no intention of discussing that relationship. According to his board, he did not even disclose that relationship to them until he was forced to later that day. Initially, he left it out but had to call each board member later and disclose the relationship with “Kim.” He told us, “And [Sarah’s situation] the only situation – please trust me on this – that anyone could even try to construe as abusive. We’ll not discuss the [Kim situation] at all.” He tells the pastor he has been eager to make the video since September 13, but in October, he tells us that we will not discuss it at all. Clearly, he is not being honest with the pastor. He had to make the video because the relationship had become public knowledge. As much as he wanted to keep it secret, he could no longer. To be clear, what he told me and two other people was the exact opposite of what he shared with the pastor and the text message. It is disingenuous to mention the board being involved as they were not even told until six weeks after September 13th—on October 26. Should they not have been alerted on September 13 or 14? Why am I writing this? Sadly and shockingly, he is not being honest. And this is just one text conversation—five lies. I have many other such communications. But the reason I wrote this is because Dr. Brown does say in this text message to an influential pastor of a large congregation that his story mirrored Sarah’s in 2020. So read for yourself those text messages between Sarah and Kris Bennett in 2020. This is the story that Dr. Michael Brown says happened. Aren’t you Mike’s friend? Why are you being disloyal? Actually, I am being extremely loyal to my friend. This began in October when I did what many people reading this might not do. After learning of these two alleged relationships, I reached out to Mike. I gently confronted him and asked him to explain. After he confessed to just about everything with Sarah, except kissing on the lips and what he described as a “sinful soul tie” with “Kim,” I pleaded with him to do the right thing—to go to a team of elders and submit to a process of discipline and restoration. As I said earlier, I offered to walk with him through the process. It would have been my honor to serve my friend and mentor that way. But he became defiant. Once he became defiant, it was no longer about helping my friend deal with a problematic issue but defending two victims of clergy abuse, one being overtly sexual. And to be clear, as someone wrote the other day, “phone ‘intimacy’ is not an emotional affair. It’s an affair, affair.” But in Kim’s case, it was clergy sexual abuse because Mike was her pastor and trusted leader. Once Mike dug in his heels and was clear that he had no intention of dealing with this in any public sort of way, I became responsible for the information that I had. (Within days, his close associate Tobi Peters sought to intimidate Sarah with text messages, warning her not to come against Mike.) I was responsible to Sarah—and “Ray” and his family, once he reached out to me. I simply wish that Mike’s response would have been different in October 2024 and that I could be cheering my friend on as he would be coming to the end of a discipline and restoration process. What a joy that would have been. But to stay silent with the knowledge that I had… and then texts, recordings, and other evidence that people began to send me, for me would have been sin (Rom 14:23). My conscience would not allow it. I still hope that Mike comes out of this stupor and faces reality. There is no “truth” to come out that would exonerate him. But he can come clean and be healed. The Lord loves Mike, not because of his gifts but because he, like all of us, was created in God’s image. But he seems to be hardening his heart. I appeal to him to embrace the truth and begin the process of healing, restoration, and restitution. Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. (Isaiah 55:6-7)

Sarah Monk is "Erin" ... And she is telling her story in her own voice. This is being posted with her encouragement and permission. This would not be necessary if this was dealt with 23 years ago, or the other many times people tried to address it... I am ‘Erin’… This may be lengthy, and I apologize from the start. I have been trying to process everything that is going on lately. I keep thinking about why Michael Brown won't just admit to what he has done or publicly repent and bring healing to SO many who have been hurt by his actions and words. Why is he hiding? Why such a vague statement? Why did he lie in his statement? I know they are lies because I am 'Erin'. My name back then was Sarah ERIN Monk. I held this secret for two decades. I was ashamed and guilty, and I felt I was the one who should have stopped it long before anything more physical happened after HE held my hand in a car with three other students watching. That was the ONLY time we held hands PUBLICLY. There were many times when the hand-holding took place privately. Yes, he lied about making a point about doing it publicly because I was like a daughter. I should have stopped it; I should have spoken out. I did not, so then the next physical touch was him touching my backside. Yes, Dr. MICHAEL L. BROWN put his hand on my butt!! The one who condemned so many for a lustful eye, who screamed from the pulpit, REPENT OF YOUR SINFUL WAYS. The one who taught us to live holier than the day before. The one who preached REVOLUTION. The one who said being alone with the opposite sex was a sin and would get you kicked out of school. Yes, THAT Dr. Michael L. Brown was alone in HIS office with someone from the opposite sex touching MY butt as I would exit his office. This didn't happen just once, and NEVER happened publicly or in front of his wife, Nancy!! NOT ONCE. But it did happen privately. Still, I did nothing; I allowed it to happen. I kept the secret because I felt I had to because it was Michael Brown. Surely, he wouldn't be doing anything against his preaching or the Lord, I thought. I was not okay with what was happening, but I didn't stop it. I allowed it to happen. Many have told me that he groomed me and I was a victim. But still, I have felt guilty. Then the kiss, not just one kiss or two, but many! Once again, he had someone of the opposite sex in his office ALONE! As I told him goodbye, he sat in his chair and leaned up for a kiss. On the lips, not the head as he has told others. Yes, stupid me gave him one. I felt something was off when it happened. Why didn't I stop it? I do not know. Once again, this NEVER happened in front of Nancy or the public eye. Everything happened in secret. Everything happened when no one could see (except the first-hand holding). So yes, he lied about merely having 'poor judgment' in public because they happened in private. Doing it in public seems like it was meant to pave the way for him to do it in private. He was testing the boundaries. I was too young to understand that. The meeting he claimed happened between me, him and Nancy, … this one: “And so Nancy and I met with her immediately in the spirit of Matthew 18, I apologized to her from the heart, we talked things through together, after which, to our knowledge, everything was good between us.” Well, it NEVER happened. The idea that he apologized to me in this meeting is a complete fabrication. The only meeting the three of us had about any inappropriate behavior was when I found the 'confession' he wrote about another woman! I confronted him about this and that is when he asked me to meet with him and Nancy. It had nothing to do with his “foolish and irresponsible” behavior toward me but with his sensual relationship with another woman, who I assumed was groomed as well. Note: what I read was written in his handwriting. There is no reason for me to believe that the things he attributed to the other woman were actually said by her. I believe that she was a victim. That is the only meeting ever to take place between us three!!! He has lied, and I lied for him for two decades, protecting him and his ministry. For that, PLEASE FORGIVE ME. For allowing a physical relationship to happen, PLEASE FORGIVE ME. For not speaking up before I moved, PLEASE FORGIVE ME. PLEASE FORGIVE ME, for all my wrong and sinful ways in this situation. I truly want healing to come from this—not just for me, but for EVERYONE involved, all who have been hurt. Michael Brown wrote in his official statement: "If it’s true that for 23 years she has carried this pain and I am responsible for it, I am beyond mortified and would plead forgiveness and the opportunity to bring healing and restoration. Her wellbeing remains our priority." If my well-being had been your priority 23 years ago, you would've never laid a hand on me. You were thinking about yourself. Instead of hiding behind your creative wordsmithing, simply tell the truth. I am so thankful for Amber, Londa, Rachel, Katherine, Gregg, Kris, and Ron for standing by me through this. Without their support and guidance, I would not have said a word to The Roys Report. I learned to just ignore it, not think about it, and pretend it didn’t happen. It was easy to do back then because when I moved home, no one reached out to me, and I didn’t reach out to anyone. I wanted to forget everything from Pensacola. I did just that! But there is a time for everything (Eccl. 3:1-8). Now is the time to speak out and help those who are hurting find the healing they need. I have read the heartbreaking stories that many of you posted (this was originally posted in a private Facebook group for graduates and former faculty of BRSM/FIRE, were many or sharing their own stories). I am genuinely sorry for all the hurt and shame you all have felt for years. No one should be hurt the way you all were by ANYONE, especially a nationally known spiritual leader, holiness preacher, and revivalist. Your compassionate responses to “Erin” have been life to me. Thank you. Again, please FORGIVE me for my role in the situation and the lies I told to cover it up. Sarah