4 Things Toxic Leaders Count On Whistleblowers Doing
Next Level Church (NLC) in New England was once the fifth fastest growing church in the United States, attracting attention in Outreach magazine and other media. But its end came even faster.
Last February, The Roys Report (TRR) published an investigation alleging that lead pastor Josh Gagnon had bullied staff, including initiating a stripping competition in a staff meeting and allegedly shoving and ripping the shirt of an immigrant staff member. One day after the article ran, Josh and all his executive team resigned. A week later, the remaining pastors resigned and announced the church would be closing its doors, leaving congregations throughout New England reeling.
We weren’t witnessing the rise and fall, but rather the rise and crash of a church.
And yet, behind closed church doors, pastors and staff had been requesting healthy change for years—to no avail. Whistleblowers told me that NLC’s responses to internal whistleblower reports had not just been slow, but misleading, confusing, and retaliatory.
I invited whistleblower Marty Holman, a former NLC pastor, to share with me how he wrestled with the choice to eventually speak to a journalist. He affirmed something I’ve seen time and time again. Toxic leaders seem to count on whistleblowers to do certain things.
Specifically, they count of you to:
Say nothing.
Much of what Josh Gagnon did was in front of multiple witnesses in meetings or preparing for services. Many whistleblowers made individual attempts to share their concerns directly with NLC leaders. And yet, they didn’t make their concerns public for years. In many cases, they didn’t even tell their own co-workers the full extent of what they’d endured. Why?
Staff were sold out to Josh’s vision to create a relevant, exciting church in New England, whistleblowers told me. The staff handbook says staff should report unethical conduct. But it also requires staff to “protect the house” in the face of criticism and avoid talking to “overzealous investigative reporters.” And Josh wasn’t clear how accountability worked at NLC. Who were the board members?
But one of the strongest reasons for Marty to stay silent was in Marty’s own head, due to the message his leaders told him. Specifically, they said that Marty wasn’t a good enough pastor, that Marty—not Josh—was the problem.
“They make you feel like you're not good enough and so when you feel like that, you don't want to talk to anybody,” Marty told me.
Take toxic leaders at their word.
Marty started working for Josh when NLC acquired Marty’s smaller church to add to NLC’s multisite structure. As Marty’s church board worked through the merger agreement and stipulations with NLC, they came to the realization that they would either need to choose to trust Josh or not trust him. They chose to trust him.
But Josh reneged on the stipulations, TRR reported. Marty, who is still a pastor but of a different church, now believes the risks for pastors to deceive and manipulate increases when growth and finances are at stake. And the spiritual tools pastors have at their disposal give them an additionally powerful way to obscure the truth, Marty said.
What about those who don’t take the toxic leaders at their word, but rather see the truth, and speak it?
“You're willing to drop people because you want things to get bigger,” Marty said.
Give up.
Toxic systems may have written policies about how to report abuses. Leaders may even be willing to meet with you to hear your concerns. They may give you partial apologies and make promises for certain changes. But Marty and others also experienced broken promises, retaliation, personal attacks, intimidation, their leaders’ ignoring requests for a third-party investigation, and offers of closed-door mediation rather than transparent accountability.
It makes for a bewildering, exhausting, intimidating journey for whistleblowers. Toxic leaders seem to count on you simply giving up rather than persevering in speaking up.
For Marty, the financial cost of losing his job was weighty. His wife had taken a year off from work to spend with their newly adopted children. But also, Marty was worried about losing his community—a major reason why he loved his church.
“Community is super important to the church, and then they excommunicate anyone who walks away,” he said.
But ultimately, for the sake of community, Marty made a choice that worked directly in opposition to the fourth thing toxic leaders count on whistleblowers to do.
Stay isolated.
When Marty first left NLC, he felt mostly alone. While his boss didn’t specifically say he couldn’t stay connected to NLC people, Marty felt too ashamed to reach out, thinking he wasn’t a good enough pastor. But then Marty noticed something. Other staff were leaving in droves.
“By the time I left, not including the top four, there was only one person who had been there longer than me,” he told me.
Then in November 2022, Marty learned of yet another pastor leaving NLC. Marty was at a crossroads.
“When I saw that, I was like, I cannot allow one more person to go through whatever this is,” Marty said.
The first thing Marty did was start a Facebook group for former NLC staff. After hearing the mistreatment many had endured, Marty finally decided to reach out to The Roys Report. Altogether, 25 people decided to go on the record, moving the stories out of silence, shame, and isolation and out into the light.
It wasn’t easy. While he gained connections with other former NLC, Marty has lost a few friends who blame him for the downfall of NLC. And he grieves for the church community people lost.
And yet he told me, “I have never been, for a moment, sorry that I spoke out.”
(Disclaimer: This is my own personal opinion, intended as general information, and not meant to replace legal or psychological advice for your specific situation.)