Local family shocked to discover their pastor is on sex offenders register

Dana Cummings returned from vacation last month to find a series of cryptic emails from Eternal Church, the Fort Mill church her family attended.

The church wrote about a meeting to discuss senior minister Don Logan’s past.

“I knew there had to be something serious,” she said. “My husband joked, ‘Is he a sex offender?'”

A Google search gave her the answer. Cummings found her senior pastor on the York County Registered Sex Offenders List, with the website listing his offense as a 1997 conviction in Indiana for sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl.

Today, Cory and Dana Cummings and their four children are looking for a new church and warning the public that Eternal Church has not been transparent enough about Pastor Don’s past.

For their part, Church elders said they were aware of his past. They declined to speak publicly in the past five days or make the pastor available, asking for more time to prepare a statement. But in emails to members, they addressed rumors that have circulated online and within the congregation.

An email from the church said Pastor Don had recently shared a message “about how the Lord interrupted his life during a time of sin many years ago and how God used that time to capture his heart and transform him.”

A family meeting was held at the church on June 9 to review the situation and members were warned that the content was intended for mature audiences. In a follow-up email on June 21, members were informed that the revelations about Pastor Don’s past had caused real difficulties.

“Since this time began, our church has been going through a period of discernment that has involved prayer, quiet reflection, Scripture consultation, open dialogue as a church family, individual and group reflections, and discussions among elders, pastors and staff,” the church said in an email. “This discernment is ongoing.”

Last Sunday, Pastor Don remained in the pulpit.

Meanwhile, Pastor Don’s sexual history appears to have been revealed in May by an article published on thewartburgwatch.com. The site published a lengthy article about the Fort Mill church and explained that Pastor Don was a youth pastor at Grace Community Church in Noblesville, Indiana, at the time of his sexual misconduct.

“It is also worth noting that he was a missionary in Guatemala (Mission Frontier) before becoming a youth pastor,” the site says.

The site also cites a letter from Eternal Church elder Mark Sivak, who states: “Since this event 27 years ago, Don has taken careful steps to protect himself, including disclosing his actions to staff elders and pastors and never meeting privately with a woman. Others, including his wife, have also confirmed all of this.”

But it was too much for the Cummings. The Lancaster County family had been members of the church for less than a year, but Pastor Don had led the church for 10 years. Cummings said she had heard the pastor talk about how he found God while in prison. She assumed it was a case of drunk driving or student mischief.

“But it was certainly not sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old,” Cummings said.

She said she was told her pastor had served three years of a six-year sentence.

“Apparently the church elders were aware of this – some more than others and had varying responses such as “he is now beyond reproach”, “he has spoken about his past in sermons”, “we must forgive him as God wants”, “what he did was not so bad”, etc. It is clear that they have no intention of removing him as senior pastor.”

Eternal Church grew from meeting at the Baxter Village YMCA to opening its own new building on O’Henry Road a few years ago. The church began in 2003 as the fourth service of Westminster Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Rock Hill, according to the church’s website. In 2004, Eternal moved to the Fort Mill area and met at the Tega Cay YMCA.

A little over a year later, in November 2005, the church moved into the Fort Mill-Baxter YMCA when it opened. Then, in 2009, Eternal left the PCA denomination and became a nondenominational church. It is led by elected elders and operates as an independent Reformed church. In 2015, Pastor Don Logan was called to lead Eternal Church.

Cummings said the church has expanded its youth program, even offering an overnight camp for teens in the summer.

“I wonder if Don is invited to this? I think about the movie night at church where he invited all the kids to come sit on stage with him,” she said. “That information was withheld by the church.”

The Cummingses had just taken a class to become members of the church. Four weeks into the class, nothing had been said about the pastor being a registered sex offender, they said.

After the sex crime was revealed and began circulating within the church, Ms. Cummings emailed the staff and shared her feelings. She asked if Pastor Don would be allowed to continue making remarks while the church discussed it. She said they did not respond.

“And he resumed his preaching the following Sunday,” she said. “He preaches as if nothing happened and he has no intention of addressing the subject.”

“I feel like people who walk through that door and make the decision to become a member and give their time, their money and their effort need to know who’s preaching to them. He’s a wonderful preacher,” she said. “But it really takes away credibility when I feel like that history is being hidden under the guise that only the right people know about it.”

Mr Cummings said he was preparing to take over and become a youth group leader for students aged eight to 12.^th Things have now changed for him.

“For me, I don’t think it’s the best environment for my family,” Cummings said. “I just like the transparency.”

Instead of hearing the pastor detail what happened in his sermons and how he overcame it, the church refuses to talk about it and hopes no one else will either, Cummings said.

“I met a lot of people who had a past, but they knew it, they talked about it openly, and therefore without being ashamed of it,” he said. “Because we are all human.”

“I think you should have access to the senior pastor of your church. But he preaches on Sundays and then disappears into the mist.”

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