**Names marked with an asterisk (*) have been changed for the privacy of individuals and their families**
As we walked into Pastor Andrew Ray’s office, the room Douglas Stauffer had already overtaken for his video streams, Doug Stauffer sat behind the pastor’s desk with two chairs directly in front of him, set-up like children in the principal’s office. The witness, Grayson Campbell*, stood by the door just behind us to our left.
As we began, Stauffer pulled out a recorder and placed in on the table, instantly setting off the ticking time bomb inside of me, ready to go off at any moment. I demanded that he put the recorder away before we began because he never asked permission to record the meeting. Little did we know that Tennessee only required a one-party consent for recording, and that was likely the reason Pastor Andrew Ray and Douglas Stauffer usually placed a phone on top of the table during a meeting.
For me to say this meeting was a calm, cake-walk would be a blatant lie because the emotions of both parties involved were explosive, firing off at various points through the meeting. Behind the pastor’s desk sat an imperious man, threatened by a woman who dared to speak out, but that woman, though she struggled to never be silenced again, was being pressured heavily on all sides to make the meeting “productive” through passive submission, lest it affect her husband’s service in ministry even more. Tensions between Stauffer and I were strong to the point of Stauffer and I practically yelling at each other. While I was firmly demanding that Stauffer stop interrupting, Stauffer was purporting, “I can do whatever I want!” Shortly after Stauffer’s statement, Matt finally raised his voice for BOTH of us to calm down and stop. Because I felt the burden of my husband’s desire to serve and to attend services, I forced myself to calm down enough to have a tense, yet half-way decent conversation with Stauffer.
Doug Stauffer justified his comments on Sunday, claiming his statements dealt with someone who, over the weekend, had said negative things about the church’s pet project, a new hymn book. Stauffer also revealed that they were about to come down on somebody else. He claimed he was thinking about that person when he made the statement during the message on Sunday, but did not want the person to have a heads up.
As for Doug Stauffer admitting his wrong-doing in the harassment and going explicitly around my husband to continue to harass me, Stauffer temporarily threw us off track from the reality of his actions just long enough by stating it was not a more extreme course of action. He exclaimed, “It was not like I made a pass at your wife!” The fact that there was no sexual intent, nor even accusation of sexual intent, does not negate the severity of his actions. Nor does it negate his lack of respect for our family’s boundaries and well-being.
As Doug Stauffer discussed his interactions with those who left in the fall of 2017, he claimed that he went to great lengths to help-out Dennis* and Celine Martin*, only to be stabbed in the back. He boasted of the thousands of dollars he lent to them, but then made it seem as though they never paid him back. Allow me to set the story straight: The Martins paid him back all of the money he loaned them and then some! Stauffer also attempted to claim that Dennis Martin had a poor work ethic, even though Stauffer was paying him well in an attempt to help Dennis’ family out financially. Yes, he lent them a van in a time of need, and yes, Stauffer hired Dennis likely because Dennis needed the work and the money. Last I checked, however, continually standing over a carpenter’s shoulder for all hours of the day, hounding him about how to do his own job, does not equate to compassion and Christian decency. Also bear in mind that Stauffer’s attempts to reconcile after they left (because of conflict with the pastor’s family), consisted of showing up at their doorstep and demanding his money immediately, even if it meant endangering the Martin’s children by pushing to break laws that established the minimum requirements for car seat safety.
Coming back to Doug Stauffer’s actions within the last few days, Stauffer did actually apologize for what he said on Sunday from the pulpit, agreed to meet our demands to edit the sermon videos, and he even apologized for what he said in his Facebook messages to me. Prior to meeting, however, Stauffer’s apologies merely covered if we considered his comments “ill-advised,” making it no surprise that Stauffer repeatedly backtracked and defended his actions as defending the pastor on multiple occasions within the same meeting.
I feel Doug Stauffer shifted the focus off of his own actions through emotional manipulation by magnifying the burden I supposedly placed on the pastor, a man Matt and I both cared about deeply. Stauffer claimed that Pastor Ray’s blood pressure was up because of the results of my original Facebook post, and that Pastor Ray had said, “You better deal with this or I will.”
I feel Stauffer may have taken advantage of Pastor Andrew Ray’s statement to deal with the situation as a license to act in the position and power of the pastor. On the other hand, Stauffer appeared especially concerned about any of this situation, particularly lack of reconciliation from the present meeting, coming back and adding more stress on our Pastor. Looking back, we feel bringing Doug Stauffer’s actions to light threatened Stauffer’s reputation and standing with the pastor.
As things eventually calmed down, my husband Matt personally needed to ask Stauffer about his deceitfulness in a meeting two years prior, just before our family’s mission trip to Africa. It turns out, from the beginning, Stauffer doubted the authenticity of my husband’s desire to go to Africa for his missions internship because Matt was doubling as using it as a survey trip to the country we believed God had called us to. There will be more on this later, but it helped to finally hear him admit his hand in the meeting, revealing he was, in fact, purposefully working against us and our efforts to get to the field. He believed that if he would have been able to discourage us then, how would we have handle discouragement in the future. Keep in mind that this is coming from the same man that said a pastor’s job in the United States is more difficult than the job of a missionary on a foreign field, even though, he personally, would never go to Africa.
Unfortunately, for both me and my husband, neither one of us possessed the necessary skills to process the intricacies of a meeting like this until after we were out of the situation and had an opportunity to truly look back and analyze the reality of what was said and done. We left the meeting believing we had all made some progress going forward and made some form of reconciliation. We actually thought we could let some of our defenses down toward Stauffer and I had finally conceded to apologize to him for my initial post on Facebook, again.
One of several blaring red flags should have been when Doug Stauffer said that he believes in going into meetings like this with “a heavy hand.” That is certainly the biblical precedent, correct? Instead, we took things in and kept a tunnel vision towards the goal of reconciliation, believing we could start moving forward. I even remember calling my father after the meeting to tell him that while we were still in a bit of a daze and fog, that it all went well in that end.
Because we missed how Doug Stauffer shifted any subject away from the consequences of HIS own actions, and blamed any negative effects on my actions, it was not until after Matt met with Pastor Andrew Ray the same evening that we realized the meeting was not truly about reconciliation at all.
In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: Reduced to Being the Pastor’s Cheerleader” or click on the link below.
For a list of the complete series, click here.
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