Pastors Accuse Greg Locke Of Spiritual Abuse And Financial Mismanagement
Two married pastors at Greg Locke’s central Tennessee church have resigned, claiming the founding pastor created a spiritually abusive and manipulative culture.
They are Justin and Kasey Greenwell, formerly the online pastors at Locke’s Global Vision Bible Church in Lebanon, due east of Nashville. The pastors are also accusing Locke of engaging in financial mismanagement and a lack of accountability, and have a tell-all book coming out soon.
The Greenwells voiced their claims last Tuesday in a resignation letter to Locke and a post on Facebook. Most of the 87 comments posted on the latter by Thursday afternoon were in favor of the Greenwells’ decision to leave.
Locke has continually made headlines for his controversial actions at his church. He’s known for burning books, hunting witches, and creating viral videos about COVID-19 and election conspiracies. His church has also received a deluge of noise complaints.
The Greenwells told The Roys Report (TRR) that Locke’s church has no functioning board and isolates and manipulates staff.
“This has become about people as assets, not as children of God,” Kasey said. “The people have become assets to move the machine. And as long as people are in the seats, then they’re happy.”
The Greenwells said they are publicly sharing their story not out of anger, but to help the church find repentance and restoration.
“I don’t want to see this ministry crushed under bad decision-making,” Justin said. “I am not here to try to bury this ministry. I want this ministry to be revived. I want to see unity come to this house, and I want to see restoration come to this house.”
TRR repeatedly reached out to Locke and Global Vision Bible Church for comment but did not hear back prior to publication.
They still believe in Locke
In 2020, the Greenwells started attending Global Vision Bible Church online. They loved Locke’s teaching so much that a year later, they sold their house in Indiana to move to the Tennessee church to sit under Locke’s leadership. They started working as pastors at the church around the same time.
They said they ran into repeated issues with Locke and his wife, especially concerning the church’s financials and the lead pastor’s lack of accountability.
They first confronted Locke about this a year ago, and the lead pastor allegedly promised to address their concerns in the next year.
He has since failed to do so, the couple says, so they decided to resign, even if they must give up their current source of income to do so.
“I do not write this to dishonor you, nor do I write it to betray you. I write it because I genuinely love you,” Justin said in the letter. “I have believed in you, I still believe in you, and I want you to be a great pastor, because you were, and I truly believe you still can be.”
Because Locke has not responded to their confrontations in private, they said they wanted to share their story publicly, following Matthew 18 guidelines.
According to Matthew 18:15-17, if a brother sins against you, you should first confront him privately. If he doesn’t listen, take another person with you. If he still doesn’t listen, tell it to the church.
(Some argue Matthew 18 is a guide for handling personal offenses. For sinning pastors/elders, the applicable passage is 1 Tim. 5:20, which encourages publicly exposing the pastor’s sin.)
The Greenwells say they want to enable congregants to be aware of what’s going on behind the scenes.
“We simply can no longer remain silent about things that have deeply affected people, including us,” Justin wrote. “Those who only see the public moments: stage lights, livestreams, and curated interactions—cannot fully understand the weight of what takes place in staff meetings, in conversations, and in the culture that forms behind closed doors.”
The Lockes made all the decisions
The couple said they’ve witnessed three glaring issues behind closed doors. The first is a lack of accountability for Locke.
Locke claims to have several friends outside the church who serve as his accountability, Justin said, but within the church, there is no functioning board or council of elders.
Instead, the Greenwells allege that Locke and his wife, Taisha “Tai,” carry the full weight of decision-making. No one but the Lockes reportedly has access to the financials, and no one was allowed to question this.
This established an “atmosphere where correction was impossible, disagreement felt dangerous, and accountability simply did not exist,” their letter said. “This lack of covering left staff spiritually exposed, emotionally vulnerable, and without a safe or biblical structure to process concerns or conflicts.”
Questionable finances
Because of the lack of oversight, the Lockes have allegedly made a number of concerning financial decisions. One of the decisions Kasey cites is Locke’s purchase of a $1.6 million house a year ago.
Some have claimed Locke used money from the church’s building fund to buy the home. This allegedly caused a deal for the church to buy a new building to fall through due to a lack of funds.
Speaking to his congregation in November of last year, Locke vehemently denied the allegations and claimed that he bought the house with proceeds from selling his books. At the same time, he also said that “me and five businessmen, under the grace of God, in four days, came up with the money and bought it.”
But according to Wilson County property records, the home is not owned by Lock but by Global Vision Bible Church.
Locke also challenged reports that the house was worth $1.6 million. Locke said the house was worth only $625,000, but he had spent another $1 million to buy 28 acres.
The Roys Report (TRR) has confirmed the address of Locke’s home, which Zillow describes as a “family compound at it’s (sic) best.” The 4,540-square-foot, four-bedroom, four-bath home sits on 28 acres and was acquired Oct. 4, 2024, for $1,625,000.
While the church now meets in a 32,000-square-foot warehouse, Kasey says they rent and don’t own it. She added that the church has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into this space to make it into a church, with no board overseeing the process.
Kasey also alleged that the church has received loans from individuals, but that Locke handled all the details. When she or other staff asked to look at the books for more transparency, they were told it’s none of their business, she said.
A cutthroat culture
The Greenwells described in their letter that the church was run with a “culture of hierarchy and emotional manipulation” by Locke and his wife, Taisha (Tai) Locke.
Kasey told TRR that the spiritual abuse especially stemmed from Tai, who oversees the church’s staff. Kasey alleged that Tai chooses favorites in the staff and pits individuals against each other, creating a cutthroat environment.
Tai would declare some individuals or ministries within the church her “children” and would personally disciple them and more readily give them funds from the church, Kasey said. But others, she reportedly left alone to navigate ministry by themselves.
Kasey said Tai would invite all women staff out to get their nails done but exclude her. She added that she and another woman were barred from attending a women’s staff retreat led by Tai.
Additionally, Tai would tell staff that she had been to the throne of heaven and seen what everyone was struggling with, Kasey said.
“It caused people to feel very uncomfortable,” the Greenwells wrote in their letter. “Staff were moved, corrected, or overlooked based on her emotional state or personal preferences rather than a unified pastoral strategy. The partiality created by this dynamic was profoundly painful.”
Nonprofit registration questions
The Greenwells also contend that Locke says the church is registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. However, searches using the IRS’s Tax Exempt Organization Search tool returned no results using either the church’s name or tax identification number.
Phil Hackney, a religious tax law expert and professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, told TRR that churches have no obligation to apply with the IRS to be a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
Hackney added that states generally stay out of church governance and often only require churches to register as a corporation.
Locke’s church is incorporated as a nonprofit, according to the state of Tennessee, but it is not listed as a registered charity
A spokesperson for the Secretary of State said churches are not required to register under the state’s charities filings.
The Greenwells admitted in their letter that they should have voiced their concerns sooner, but they never felt safe to speak out.
Last month, Justin said he felt God calling him to record their story in a book: “Pulpit of Leaves.” It is due to release in the coming weeks.
“There was (sic) things that we’ve seen that we kept quiet about,” Justin said. “There’s a lot of repentance in this book … where we allowed the comfort of a paycheck and the comfortability of knowing that we had a job, we allowed it to skew our convictions. We would push back convictions. We were silent all in the name of unity.”
This article was originally published by The Roys Report.
Liz Lykins is a correspondent covering religion news for The Roys Report, WORLD Magazine, and other publications.