Author: Lois

We have another instance of a registered sex offender being used in a leadership position at a United Pentecostal Church.

It should come as no surprise to the readers of this website that we believe it to be very unwise for churches to use registered sex offenders in any position. We have seen time and again in the news where such people reoffend.

When someone is used in an official position in a church, it can be seen by members as giving them a sense of legitimacy. People may assume they are trustworthy and safe and that background checks have been made and they have been cleared.

Bradford “Brad” William Spacek, born October 6, 1966, was convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 and the 2014 charge involved one victim and was due to at least three incidents between 1999 and 2002 according to a news report. At the time of his charges, Brad Spacek was a freshman teacher at Chavez High School in California.

It has been shared that he used to attend Christian Life Center years back, but presently is involved at another United Pentecostal Church, Lighthouse of the Valley, also in Stockton, where Michael Delgado is pastor. There may be many attending this church who are unaware of his past criminal record.

According to the church’s website, Brad Spacek is part of the single adult leadership team and has spoken at their annual single adult conferences, the last being held in August 2025. He has also preached at the church at least once, on October 30, 2024. Attached are screenshots showing some of his involvement.

It is always concerning when any church uses a convicted sex offender in any type of leadership role or preaching capacity. A pastor is unwise to allow this. Has Spacek been permitted to be around children at the church? Have members and visitors been made aware of him being on the registry? If you are a parent of a minor and are a member, or are visiting the Lighthouse of the Valley church in Stockton, you should be aware of this situation.

Article: Chavez High School Teacher Accused of Inappropriately Touching Child– March 18, 2014

Do Sex Offenders Belong in Church With Your Kids? 7 Myths Every Church Leader Needs to Know by Sarah McDugal

I originally posted about this on February 22, 2026 on our Facebook Page.

You will find a complete list of articles in this series by clicking here.

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

This is only open to those with a USA mailing address. There is absolutely no cost to enter. (Be sure to read to the bottom of this post to discover five other books we are giving away this year.)

This is your chance to receive a new copy of Speaking in Tongues: A Critical Historical Examination, Volume 2: Tongues through Church History by Philip E. Blosser & Charles A. Sullivan.

“This second volume tracks the perception and practice of tongues back through the first eighteen hundred years of church history, demonstrating that ‘tongue-speaking’ was always active but puzzlingly different from today’s glossolalia. From Pope Benedict XIV’s detailed treatise in the 1700s, it works back through long-forgotten scholastic and patristic debates to the earliest Christian writers such as Irenaeus. No other resource on the subject approaches the depth and scope of the present volume.”

One of the authors, Charles Sullivan, has a website where much information about speaking in tongues is posted. I am unsure how much is included in the book.

This giveaway is a drawing. To enter, just leave a comment to show you wish to be included. The drawing will close on March 3, 2026 at 6pm eastern time, after which I will draw a winner.

Be sure to check back to see if you have won as in the past some people have not responded after winning and so a new winner had to be drawn. You will then need to email me your mailing address if I do not already have it, so be sure to watch your email and check the spam folder. If I know your Facebook profile, I will message you there.

Don’t be alarmed if your comment does not immediately show as it may require approval.

You may want to subscribe to the email notifications of new blog posts in order to not miss these. While we try to share about our giveaways on social media, those platforms often do not show the posts to many people.

Watch for our April 1 post where you will have a chance to win a copy of Unveiling Paul’s Women: Making Sense of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 by Lucy Peppiatt and on May 1 you will have a chance to win a copy of Women and Worship at Corinth: Paul’s Rhetorical Arguments in 1 Corinthians by Lucy Peppiatt.

In 2026, we’ll be giving away one copy of each of Thomas Fudge’s books on the UPCI/Oneness Pentecostalism (Christianity without the Cross: A History of Salvation in Oneness Pentecostalism, Heretics & Politics: Theology, Power, and Perception in the Last Days of CBC and C.H. Yadon and the Vanishing Theological Past in Oneness Pentecostalism).

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

This is only open to those with a USA mailing address. There is absolutely no cost to enter. (Be sure to read to the bottom of this post to discover five other books we are giving away this year.)

This is your chance to receive a new copy of Speaking in Tongues: A Critical Historical Examination Volume 1: The Modern Redefinition of Tongues by Philip E. Blosser & Charles A. Sullivan. In March we will be giving away Speaking in Tongues: A Critical Historical Examination Volume 2: Tongues through Church History by these authors.

“In three carefully researched volumes, this ground-breaking study examines the gift of tongues through 2,000 years of church history. Starting in the present and working back in time, these volumes consider (1) the modern redefinition of ‘tongues’ as a private prayer language…

“In the first volume, the authors establish that modern glossolalia, far from being a supernatural gift enjoyed by certain believers since the time of Pentecost and undergoing a resurgence in modern times, has no precedent in church life prior to the nineteenth century. They discuss why German theologians, responding to the Irvingite revival, coined the term ‘glossolalia’ in the 1830s; why Pentecostals between 1906–8 quietly began redefining ‘tongues’ to mean a heavenly language unintelligible to human beings but pleasing to God, instead of foreign languages useful for evangelism; why Protestant cessationists believed miraculous tongues had ceased; and why interpolated idioms like ‘unknown tongues’ in Protestant Bibles were aimed originally at Rome’s use of Latin.”

One of the authors, Charles Sullivan, has a website where much information about speaking in tongues is posted. I am unsure how much is included in the book.

This giveaway is a drawing. To enter, just leave a comment to show you wish to be included. The drawing will close on February 3, 2026 at 6pm (eastern time), after which I will draw a winner.

Be sure to check back to see if you have won as in the past some people have not responded after winning and so a new winner had to be drawn. You will then need to email me your mailing address if I do not already have it, so be sure to watch your email and check the spam folder. If I know your Facebook profile, I will message you there.

Don’t be alarmed if your comment does not immediately show as it may require approval.

You may want to subscribe to the email notifications of new blog posts in order to not miss these. While we try to share about our giveaways on social media, those platforms often do not show the posts to many people.

In 2026, we’ll be giving away one copy of each of Thomas Fudge’s books on the UPCI/Oneness Pentecostalism (Christianity without the Cross: A History of Salvation in Oneness Pentecostalism, Heretics & Politics: Theology, Power, and Perception in the Last Days of CBC and C.H. Yadon and the Vanishing Theological Past in Oneness Pentecostalism), plus Women and Worship at Corinth: Paul’s Rhetorical Arguments in 1 Corinthians and Unveiling Paul’s Women: Making Sense of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 by Lucy Peppiatt.

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

This is only open to those with a USA mailing address. There is absolutely no cost to enter. (Be sure to read to the bottom of this post to discover seven other books we are giving away this year.)

This is your chance to receive a new copy of the memoir, The God I Was Given: Looking for Faith After Losing My Religion by former United Pentecostal Church minister Scot Loyd. This copy was donated to us by Scot and is signed by him.

Then, one day you discovered something about these recipes.. something not so wonderful.

You discovered that the recipes you’d spent your entire life learning, preparing, and perfecting were actually recipes that were used to abuse, poison, and, in some instances, kill others. You learned that generations of people grew up in homes where they were force-fed these dishes, the same dishes that were the signature dishes of your family kitchen.

For so long, you and your family believed these dishes to be good, but in reality, so many others suffered because of them. After learning all this overwhelming information, you decided that you no longer wanted to cook these meals, nor eat any of the food that was produced by your traditional family recipes.

So you just stopped.

Your family and friends were, of course, concerned. They protested, insisting that you were turning your back on your calling and talents, and on the traditional recipes that nourished your family for generations. They dismissed the information you obtained as “lies.”

They suggested that those who were hurt by the dishes prepared by your family simply didn’t follow the original recipe, or that they never actually even tasted any of the food. Then, when you presented plenty of evidence showing that many were harmed by eating the food, they’d say, “Nonsense! The food isn’t the problem. There must have been something wrong with how they ate it!”

Or, “They should have tried harder at preparing their palette to be worthy of such delicacies. Obviously, their systems weren’t ready for such delights. There isn’t anything wrong with the food… others have eaten it and haven’t died!”

Now, what if this wasn’t actually about a family of chefs sticking closely to generational recipes? Imagine this was really about religion and a family of well-intentioned people who truly believed they had the equivalent of a recipe that would send people to heaven in the afterlife. That this recipe for religion, if followed closely, would help them avoid the literal burning lake of fire for all of eternity.

These good people were so convinced of their faith in the recipe given to them that they lived every aspect of their lives by this refined recipe. Any deviation from the instructions was frowned upon, with the person who deviated shamed and often ostracized by their community.

This giveaway is a drawing. To enter, just leave a comment to show you wish to be included. The drawing will close on January 9, 2026 at 6pm (eastern time), after which I will draw a winner.

Be sure to check back to see if you have won as in the past some people have not responded after winning and so a new winner had to be drawn. You will then need to email me your mailing address if I do not already have it, so be sure to watch your email and check the spam folder. If I know your Facebook profile, I will message you there.

Don’t be alarmed if your comment does not immediately show as it may require approval.

You may want to subscribe to the email notifications of new blog posts in order to not miss these. While we try to share about our giveaways on social media, those platforms often do not show the posts to many people.

In 2026, we’ll be giving away one copy of each of Thomas Fudge’s books on the UPCI/Oneness Pentecostalism (Christianity without the Cross: A History of Salvation in Oneness Pentecostalism, Heretics & Politics: Theology, Power, and Perception in the Last Days of CBC and C.H. Yadon and the Vanishing Theological Past in Oneness Pentecostalism), plus Women and Worship at Corinth: Paul’s Rhetorical Arguments in 1 Corinthians and Unveiling Paul’s Women: Making Sense of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 by Lucy Peppiatt, as well as Speaking in Tongues: A Critical Historical Examination: Volume 1: The Modern Redefinition of Tongues and Speaking in Tongues: A Critical Historical Examination, Volume 2: Tongues through Church History by Philip E. Blosser & Charles A. Sullivan.

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.