LUBBOCK (TX)
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal [Lubbock, TX]
September 9, 2025
By Gabriel Monte
More charges have been filed against a former Lubbock youth pastor accused of sexually abusing two girls then telling them that if they told anyone about the crime the people they told would face eternal damnation.
A Lubbock County Grand Jury on Aug. 26 returned an indictment against Luke Cunningham charging him with 16 counts of sexual assault of a child.
Cunningham has been held at the Lubbock County Detention Center since June 20, 2024 after a warrant for his arrest was issued the day before.
Two weeks later, a grand jury returned indictments against him charging him with one count of aggravated sexual assault and three counts of sexual assault of a child.
He is accused of sexually assaulting a teenager about Jan. 8, 2017. The second charge accuses him of raping a different teenager on Oct. 17, 2018 during which he used his hands as deadly weapons. The second count of indecency with a child by sexual contact for touching the girl’s genitals on Jan. 1, 2016.
New allegations of sexual abuse
The new indictment alleges more acts of sexual assault with the same girls from September 2018 to April 2019.
A trial is set in the 140th District Court for December.
Lubbock prosecutors reveal new potential victim of youth minister accused of sexual abuse
Det. Justin Ryan Wood with the Lubbock Police Department’s Crimes Against Children Unit told the court during a July 2024 bond reduction hearing that the investigation into Cunningham, who also works as a realtor, began in 2021 after one of the girls reported the abuse to police.
Wood said the girl’s parents learned of the abuse in 2019 when Cunningham worked at Turning Point Community Church as a youth pastor. He said the girl’s parents confronted Cunningham and agreed not to report him to the police if he left ministry.
Soon after the police investigation began, Cunningham and his family moved to Granbury where he worked as a youth pastor at Lakeside Baptist Church.
A probable cause affidavit states that one of the girls told investigators that Cunningham was her youth pastor at Turning Point Community Church when they began a sexual relationship when she was a juvenile.
Lubbock judge slightly reduces bond of former youth pastor charged with sexual abuse
She told investigators she engaged in sexual activities many times with Cunningham, who was married at the time. She said he promised to leave his wife and marry her when she was old enough.
During the 2024 bond reduction hearing, prosecutor Cassie Graham provided the court with statements from the girls that detailed Cunningham’s abuse.
She told the court that one of the girls said Cunningham slapped and choked her to near unconsciousness while he raped her.
Graham provided the court pictures from those mission trips that showed Cunningham posing with the girls “where his hand placement is close to the breast of both of the victims like he’s in a (romantic) relationship.”
Prosecutors describe former Lubbock youth pastor as sexually violent predator
Graham also provided the court with screenshots of messages Cunningham sent the girls asking them to minimize the inappropriate conduct. The messages reportedly shows Cunningham instructing them to tell anyone who discovered their relationship that it only involved inappropriate texts, that they “made out a couple of times,” and that he touched their breasts once.
She said Cunningham told both girls not to screenshot any of their conversations. However, one of the girls can be seen saving the conversation as Cunningham deleted them.
The court was also provided a statement that reportedly comes from a church worker who said Cunningham was told during a trip in New Mexico that it was inappropriate “to have 16 year old girls sleeping in his lap.”
Meanwhile, recent court filings show that the girls told investigators that Cunningham reportedly told them to keep the abuse secret and if they didn’t the people they told would face eternal damnation.
They said he also reportedly told them that sex was legal between them in foreign countries while on mission trips.
The evidence presented to the court also included statements from a third teenager, who said Cunningham reportedly pushed her against a vending machine and pinned her to the floor because she didn’t give him the attention he wanted.