With all of the recent news of Jerry & Becki Falwell’s strange proclivities and now Carl Lentz getting the boot from Hillsong Church because of his infidelity, I’m convinced these stories come out in threes. You know the old myth that celebrities die in threes, or something to that effect? Well in the case of church sex scandals, this third one is a doozy.
I was recently contacted by someone who informed me that VERY BAD things have gone on over at Citizens Church Plano (formerly The Village Church-Plano Campus) which involved the campus pastor, Hunter Hall, and the worship pastor, Isaac Wimberley.
It all goes back to 2016, when Hunter committed adultery with a woman in the church…but the story only began there.
Who is Hunter Hall?
Hunter Hall was a longtime staff member at The Village Church, most recently as the Campus Pastor of the Plano location (until August 2019). He was also a member of the band Folk Angel, with worship pastor Isaac Wimberley, who is quite famous in his own right. Hall was immensely popular as the Plano campus pastor, and was slated to lead Citizens Church, after it’s roll off as an autonomous campus in late summer 2019.
Isaac Wimberley
Wimberley was the worship pastor at the Dallas Northway campus before joining Hall at the Plano campus. He, along with Hunter Hall, were members of the band Folk Angel, and Wimberley has gained notoriety for his spoken word presentations, most notably on the album ‘Tell Us of the Night’ (Christmas album.) In 2013, The Village Church released a rap album featuring Wimberley with a duet of Wimberley & popular Christian rapper Tedashii. He is featured throughout The Village Church’s music on several platforms (iTunes, Amazon music, etc.)
Matt & Lauren Chandler are friends with the Hall’s – they are not just obscure staff members. According to this sermon dated April 7, 2019, Chandler says he’s known Hall since he was 16 years old.
“The reason I’m talking about that is because today is the last day Plano is going to be on our stream. Over the last several years they have been with us. They are us. They have become Christians at The Village Church. They have matured in their faith at The Village Church. The Holy Spirit has done significant breakthrough in their lives at The Village Church. They’re off stream as of this sermon, once this is over, and then they are going to be Citizens Church over there in Plano. So I am feeling yet again a gospel goodbye. I’ve known Hunter Hall since he was 16 years old. He’s going to be one of the pastors over there. Jamin Roller is still 16 years old. Then you have Taryn and Adam and Andres. Those are our people. We are their people. They are our family, and God has raised them up and established them in Plano to do ministry in Plano for the people of Plano.”
What we had here were two long term staff members of the The Village Church who were highly regarded, very popular and ready to be launched into an autonomous church body as leaders. What could go wrong?
August 4, 2019 - Launch Day
That day was supposed to be an exciting day for the newly minted Citizens Church in Plano. Unfortunately the congregation was met with the heavy words of teaching pastor Jamin Roller and the noticeable absence of their lead pastor, Hunter Hall.
https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-puvst-ba4f1e
“I have really difficult news that I need to share with you, and it’s heavy, and it’s heartbreaking…”
“I’m going to read a statement: As Christians, we are called to make war with our sin and through grace to lead lives marked by holiness. Specifically, elders and pastors are called to be above reproach. On Tuesday (7/30/19) we learned of a PATTERN of serious and grievous sexual sin that has required both the elders of Citizens Church and The Village Church to make a sober and serious decision. It came to light Tuesday that in 2016, Hunter Hall committed infidelity with another adult member of our church, which disqualifies him as an elder and staff member and he has therefore been removed from both of those positions. A person involved brought to light what happened, and when Hunter was confronted, he admitted to the sin. (I need to keep reading, but I am so sorry, I am so sorry) You probably have a myriad of questions, and we will be creating space for that, today and in the coming days. Before moving on I need to say again what I just shared, as it is difficult to process – on Tuesday of this past week, the elders of Citizens Church were informed that Hunter Hall committed infidelity with an adult member of our church, resulting in him being disqualified as an elder and being removed as both an elder and staff member. This disqualifying sin happened in 2016, but came to light this week. The sin was not confessed, but was discovered by someone involved, and when confronted, Hunter admitted to the sin. Know this – we are committed to caring for all involved in this situation, including those sinned against – the Hall family, Hunter, anyone else directly affected, and you. We are committed to caring for you. Though there are serious and difficult consequences involved, we are charged with ministering to the brokenhearted and giving the grace Jesus has given each of us. We will do everything we can to walk with ever person impacted by this, not just now, but in the months to come.”
In the aftermath of these revelations, it was discovered that the other adult member that Hunter Hall had committed infidelity with was the wife of worship pastor Isaac Wimberley.
You might be wondering if this is case of clergy sexual abuse, and on the surface it might appear to be. After speaking with my source, who is a member at Citizens, she informed me that the Hall’s & the Wimberley’s were very close friends outside of church, were involved in the band together, and that there did not seem to be an imbalance of power in their relationships. In my opinion this appears to be a case of marital infidelity involving two consenting adults. It was never disclosed how long this ‘pattern of grievous sin’ went on, or when it stopped. These are open ended questions that are yet to be answered.
The church followed through on their promise to support the two families, keeping them on the payroll for a short time. Others in the church provided assistance in the form of monetary gifts, meals, gift cards. They wanted to make sure their kids knew the ‘church’ loved them and didn’t abandon them. That is a noble cause – this is, if everything were as it seemed. I do have questions:
- Did The Village Church make an announcement at their other campuses, since they were involved in the process?
- Why has Matt Chandler been completely silent about ANOTHER one of his campus pastors being involved in ‘serious & grievous sexual sin’?
- Why would these two pastors be kept on the payroll? There is no other profession where misconduct & subsequent firing would result in staying on the payroll for ANY period of time.
- Why were two adulterous pastors shown more care and grace than the victim of a sexual assault & her family?
Fast Forward to February 2020
At this point both couples had stopped attending Citizens Church, and Isaac Wimberley had served a short stint as a worship leader at Lake Pointe Church’s White Rock Campus, where former Village Church Northway Campus Pastor Steve Hardin is now the pastor. (it’s good to have connections, you know). Wimberley has also previously performed at Lake Pointe’s summer youth camp, Journey. I have to wonder if Lake Pointe Church is aware of ANY of this.
However, rumors were starting to circulate about what was REALLY going on with the Hall’s & the Wimberley’s. It didn’t take long before the leadership at Citizens Church was made aware that there was more to the issue than they were originally told.
In early 2020 Isaac Wimberley’s wife wanted to return to Citizens Church to be restored as a member. It was during this process that she revealed there was more to the story.
The two couples had been involved in swinging.
Yes you read that right…..a PASTOR (Hunter Hall & his wife), a WORSHIP PASTOR (Isaac & his wife) were swapping spouses & engaging in illicit sexual encounters – and word was getting out. Allegedly, once the innocent spouses were made aware of the infidelity between Hunter Hall & Wimberley’s wife, a decision was made by ALL of them to engage further illicit activity. All of this began in 2016, but so far no one knows how long this arrangement lasted. My source said that a friend of hers who is not even a member of Citizens Church, (or a christian) had heard about it and provided more details.
Leadership at Citizens Church contacted everyone involved and confirmed these allegations were true.
But it gets even worse… After the leadership at Citizens Church discovered these new details and warned others to stop giving to the Hall’s & Wimberley’s, suspicions began to arise that they had been grooming other couples to join them.
THINK ABOUT THIS: A pastor is standing in front of his congregation week after week, teaching and preaching; a worship pastor is leading moving and emotion-filled music services, appearing to be fully immersed in worshiping God and bringing glory to Him – but behind the scenes these two men are exchanging their spouses for sex.
Latest Developments
In August 2020, an announcement was made to the members of Citizens Church that there would be another meeting with an update concerning Hunter Hall. The meeting was cancelled and has yet to be rescheduled.
The Hall’s have reportedly moved to Colorado and are still together. They have limited their online presence on social media and blogs. Isaac Wimberley has all but disappeared online and his whereabouts are unknown.
As tragic as this all is – one thing stands out for me. I was told that a lot of the members of this church expressed very uncaring and un-Christlike attitudes toward the Bragg family when the allegations against Matt Tonne were made public. On the flip side, they bent over backwards to help out admitted adulterers. This does not compute with me.
The Apostle Paul personally wrote a letter to the Corinthian church when he heard what was going on with the sexual sin that had infected it. He very sternly called them out – for tolerating the sin – a sin so awful that even secular society would recoil, and went on to instruct the church to cast out the wicked person from among them.
“ What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.” I Corinthians 5:12,13
Let’s call this what it is – wickedness. What these two ‘pastors’ engaged in was pure wickedness. There are no slaps on the wrist for these grievous sins. There is no time-out & then a return to ministry. They are done. They need to repent, then find another line of work.
Furthermore, when elders sin, they should be rebuked BEFORE ALL. Why?
“ But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning” I Timothy 5:20
What happens now? The number ONE thing that must happen is people need to know what really went on with the Hall’s & the Wimberley’s so that they don’t try to pop up in ministry somewhere else. Before you clutch your pearls, don’t think for a second that they wouldn’t try. (remember Dustin Boles? He has a Change.org petition against him returning to ministry!) A move to Colorado might put enough distance between what happened in Plano, TX & a new church opportunity for the Hall’s. I’m convinced that most churches have yet to figure out how to use Google when hiring new staff. If Hunter Hall or Isaac Wimberley try to weasel back into ministry again, lets hope some folks will do a Google search and find this blog post.
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO THINK THESE STORIES SHOULDN’T BE AIRED OUT IN A PUBLIC FORUM
Pastors and other ministry leaders have a HUGE responsibility to maintain the highest standard of moral conduct. When they fail to do that, they must be held to account – publicly. I provided the scripture above as the reason why. If there is no transparency in the church, it gives non-believers every right to call Christians hypocrites. There is no restoration for immoral pastors. You can’t go back and erase a bad reputation with outsiders and a failure to live above reproach (I Timothy 3:1-7). If a church finance employee embezzled thousands of dollars from their church, do you think the next church they tried to apply for a similar position at would hire them, knowing of their misconduct? Absolutely not? Why then, would we regard money with so much more reverence and importance than the souls of women and men?
Secondly, it is a form of justice. Everyone who trusted in Hunter Hall & Isaac Wimberley as religious leaders and representatives of Christ have been betrayed. They deserve to know the truth about what happened so that they can heal, and become wiser.
Third, the SBC (of which The Village Church IS a part of) has a faulty system for holding bad pastors accountable. They operate according to the ‘autonomous church’ system which does not require them to inform other churches of the bad actions of other pastors. A common term that is used is, ‘passing the trash‘. A pastor can easily move from church to church after doing all sorts of bad things, and the next church he lands at is none the wiser. Because of that faulty system, the responsibility has now fallen on those of us who are willing to expose these misbehaving pastors so that there is a record for others to find.
“Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.”
Ephesians 5:11
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So, what we have here is one adult couple participating in consensual sexual relations with another adult couple. Keywords: consensual and adult. Now, I get if the church has standards it expects just like any place of business, and I get if these men lost their jobs because because they violated those standards. I don’t get why it is okay to publicly gossip and humiliate them. If there was an actual sexual crime involved with actual victims, that would be a completely different story, but literally no one was hurt. I mean, the feelings of some people might be hurt,… Read more »
Pastors have a sacred duty to maintain moral standards & a good reputation with outsiders (i.e.; the world; I Timothy 3:1-7). When they fail to do so, it is the church’s responsibility to expose them publicly as a warning to others. This ensures that the PUBLIC knows about the reputation (good or bad) of the pastor and whether or not he is qualified to be an elder in the church. Like I stated in the post, there is no way for the next church they seek employment at to know about what happened with these pastors because the SBC does… Read more »
Wow. The fact that you got your story from someone who wasn’t a member and doesn’t even know them personally shows that this is slander and gossip, You should have spoken and heard both sides before reporting anything. This is hurtful and ugly and you don’t even know the entire story and are making assumptions about people’s lives and telling it as truth.
The information I received IS from a member of Citizens Church, who contacted me to write the post. This was because the church is taking a ‘don’t ask/don’t tell’ approach to the situation. The information in this post was confirmed to the member BY LEADERSHIP at Citizens Church. There would be no reason to expose this evil had these pastors not engaged in this immoral conduct. The responsibility for any pain or fall out rests firmly on the shoulders of Hunter Hall & Isaac Wimberley.
Don’t ask, don’t tell? That’s strange because we (the church body) didn’t ask and they told, and then we didn’t ask again and they told more and more. And even told us, anyone who wanted more information/details to help process, their doors were open. While I misread who your source was, it doesn’t change the fact that a lot of this article is assuming things and not whole truths, some even absolutely untrue. But you would know the full story if you asked those directly involved. They didn’t need an article to expose them, they had been exposed, and didn’t… Read more »
You coward. You hide behind anonymity and don’t even know the truth. You disgust me.
Thanks for sharing! I truly hope those in Colorado do not fall for the reboot with these folks. Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction!
Thank-you for leaving this record. At my former church I came to see that our pastor was a liar. He lied to me personally multiple times, and from the pulpit. He came to despise me for addressing false teaching of Beth Moore in women’s ministry and fir questioning things he himself said from the pulpit. One day I searched for the church he’d formerly pastored in Canada, which he’d said from the pulpit became a mega church while he was there. I found that the church kept a yearly record online of significant happenings. As I read I could see… Read more »