Minister on leave from IHOP in KC dropped from sexual abuse claim in California case

By Judy L. Thomas
Kansas City Star
December 20, 2018

https://bit.ly/2QLMZND

Brad Tebbutt, who in recent years has been running a ministry at the International House of Prayer for people in their 50s, is on leave following allegations that he abused a woman in California three decades ago when he was a youth pastor.

Jennifer Roach outside CrossPoint Community Church in Modesto, Calif., Thursday, May 31, 2018. Roach was sexually abused by a youth pastor many years ago as a teenager at the church which was formerly First Baptist. Photo by Andy Alfaro

A former California youth pastor now on leave from the International House of Prayer in Kansas City has been dropped as a defendant in a sexual abuse claim against his former church.

Jennifer Roach says Brad Tebbutt, who in recent years had been running a ministry at IHOP for people in their 50s, is cooperating in her lawsuit against CrossPoint Community Church, formerly First Baptist Church of Modesto, Calif. Tebbutt was youth pastor at First Baptist in the 1980s when the abuse occurred, the lawsuit alleges.

Roach, now 47, filed the lawsuit in May against CrossPoint, First Baptist and Tebbutt, alleging that Tebbutt sexually abused her for 2½ years in the 1980s, starting when she was 15.

Roach, an ordained Anglican minister and therapist in Washington state whose clients include sexual abuse victims, also alleged in the lawsuit that church officials at First Baptist Church of Modesto covered up the abuse.

“I always knew First Baptist/CrossPoint mishandled my situation,” Roach told The Star on Thursday. “What I didn’t know was how many other adult men were also preying on teenagers at that church. They knew about the situation, did nothing, and sent those men off to do the same thing at other churches.

“This is much bigger than one guy who did something wrong 30 years ago. It’s about a church that has produced predators over and over again.”

Tebbutt, now 59, could not be reached for comment. An IHOPKC spokesman declined comment, saying the case was still under investigation. IHOPKC placed Tebbutt on administrative leave in February while it investigated Roach’s allegations.

First Baptist Church of Modesto became CrossPoint Community Church in 2010. In its response to the lawsuit, filed in September, the Modesto church denied all of Roach’s allegations, arguing that if any negligence or wrongful conduct is attributable to individuals employed by the church, “such individuals were acting outside the scope of their employment.” The church also argued that the civil statute of limitations had expired because Roach waited too long to file her lawsuit.

Filed in San Francisco Superior Court against Tebbutt, First Baptist and CrossPoint, the lawsuit alleges sexual battery, negligence, negligent supervision and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It seeks unspecified damages. The case will proceed against First Baptist and CrossPoint.

The lawsuit alleges that the abuse began around 1986 when Roach, distraught over her father’s death, welcomed the attention from Tebbutt, then 27. The abuse occurred in Tebbutt’s office, in his car and out of town when he traveled with her, according to the lawsuit.

When Roach reported the abuse in late 1988, the lawsuit alleges, church officials at first didn’t believe her and asked if she was making the claims “for attention,” then later advised her to “forgive and forget” and never speak about it again “because such verbalizations would cause damage to the reputation of the church and would sully the reputation of Jesus himself.”

Tebbutt eventually confessed to the sexual abuse, the lawsuit says.

“The childhood sexual abuse was never reported to authorities,” the suit says, “and Defendant Pastor went on to a 30-year career in youth ministry elsewhere before taking a job directing a seniors mentoring program at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.”

The allegations surfaced in February, when Roach — emboldened by the #MeToo movement — told her story to The Modesto Bee. At the time, Tebbutt was leading the Simeon Company Internship at IHOPKC. The program is described as “a training experience and mentoring community for those 50 and older” who “desire to give their lives more fully to prayer, worship, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, outreach, and works of justice.”

Founded in 1999, the International House of Prayer is a 24/7 mission with its world headquarters on Red Bridge Road in Kansas City.

In April, IHOPKC said it was working with a Virginia non-profit to investigate the allegations against Tebbutt. The nonprofit, called GRACE ­— which stands for Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment — was founded by Boz Tchividjian, a former child abuse chief prosecutor and grandson of Billy Graham, the nation’s most well-known Christian evangelist who died in February at age 99.

Tchividjian did not respond to an inquiry about the status of the investigation.