Jonesboro First Assembly of God Abuse: The History Behind the Refuge Church Lawsuit

If you have been following the civil lawsuit filed against Refuge Church of the Assemblies of God in Jonesboro, Arkansas, you may have come across the church’s former name: First Assemblies of God of Jonesboro. That name change is not just a rebranding detail. It sits at the center of a story that spans more than two decades, involves multiple levels of a major religious denomination, and ended with a children’s pastor serving a life sentence for rape. Understanding what happened at that church, and when, and who knew what, requires going back to the beginning.

This article traces that history. It is written for survivors and families who want context, not just headlines. If you or someone you love was abused at this church under either name, Assemblies of God abuse survivors in Arkansas have legal options that many people do not realize are still available to them, even decades later.

What Was Jonesboro First Assembly of God?

First Assemblies of God of Jonesboro was a Pentecostal church located in Craighead County, Arkansas. It operated as a member congregation of the Arkansas District Council of the Assemblies of God, which is itself governed by the national General Council of the Assemblies of God, headquartered in Springfield, Missouri. The Assemblies of God is the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States, with approximately 13,000 churches across the country. The denomination was founded in Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1914.

Like most Assemblies of God churches, the Jonesboro congregation was not simply a stand-alone institution. It operated within a layered structure of credentialing, oversight, and financial accountability. The Arkansas District Council credentialed its pastors, maintained supervisory control over the church’s leadership, and provided policy guidance on how to run church operations. That is the structure the plaintiffs in the current lawsuit argue gave those entities both the authority and the responsibility to protect the children in their care.

The church was led during the relevant period by senior pastor Charles Michael “Mike” Glover, a credentialed Assemblies of God clergyman. Glover held supervisory control over the church’s staff, including the man at the center of this case.

Tony Waller and the Homeschool Program

Tony Waller served as children’s pastor at First Assemblies of God of Jonesboro from approximately 1999. He also ran a homeschool program on the church campus, a program operated for the children of congregants and overseen by church leadership. According to the complaint, Waller was given this role with the full support and blessing of senior pastor Mike Glover and the broader Assemblies of God structure.

What the complaint also alleges is that prior to Waller being placed in authority over children, leadership at multiple levels of the denomination was already aware of prior allegations of sexual misconduct against him. The church retained him and gave him unsupervised access to children anyway.

The homeschool program gave Waller something a predator looks for: consistent, routine, largely unsupervised access to the same group of children, in an environment built entirely around trust in adult male authority. The complaint describes a church campus where Waller was free to spend time alone with young girls in offices, closets, classrooms, and gymnasium spaces, without interference or oversight from anyone above him.

Plaintiffs Stephanie Davis and Samantha Davis, sisters who are now adults, attended the homeschool program from approximately 2003 to 2005, when they were between 10 and 14 years old.

What the Complaint Alleges Waller Did

According to the complaint, Waller placed hidden cameras in a single-occupancy bathroom used by girls attending the homeschool program. He concealed one camera inside a storage closet that filmed through an opening in the doorknob. He placed at least one additional camera in the attic above the bathroom that filmed downward into the space below.

Each day before gym class, the complaint alleges, Waller required the girls to enter the bathroom one at a time, remove their clothing completely, and perform a series of stretches while he recorded them without their knowledge. This occurred multiple times each week. When Waller was eventually arrested years later, police found hundreds of hidden camera videos in his possession, including a substantial number recorded inside that bathroom at the church.

The complaint also alleges that Waller physically molested the plaintiffs, groping them under the guise of play. He is alleged to have drugged Stephanie Davis by putting something in her drink and then attempted to sexually assault her before she was able to get away.

These are allegations in a civil complaint. They have not been proven in court, and the defendants will deny liability. What is not disputed is that Tony Waller pleaded guilty to rape in April 2016 and has been serving a life sentence since that time.

The 2004 Report and What Leadership Did Next

The plaintiffs discovered the hidden camera in the bathroom’s storage closet in approximately 2004, while playing hide and seek on the church premises. Shortly after, following the drugging and attempted assault of Stephanie Davis, the two sisters and their mother went before senior pastor Mike Glover and reported what had happened. They told Glover specifically that Waller had been using a hidden camera to film the girls undressed during the required stretching sessions.

Glover took the matter to the church board. He also reported it to the Arkansas District Council and to the national General Council of the Assemblies of God. According to the complaint, all of those entities then participated in determining what would happen next.

What happened next was this: Waller was suspended for a period of two to four weeks so that he could undergo what the denomination calls spiritual restoration. The camera in the bathroom’s storage closet was removed, and the custodian filled in the hole it had filmed through. Then Tony Waller was allowed to return to his position running the homeschool program, with full access to the same girls who had just reported him.

Nobody called the police. Nobody contacted the Arkansas Child Abuse Hotline, as required under state law. The recorded footage Waller had accumulated, countless hours of videos of nude children, was never confiscated. The camera hidden in the attic above the bathroom ceiling was never removed. Church officials reportedly told the children never to go into the attic.

According to the complaint, the Assemblies of God’s own written policy guided this response, a handbook for pastor restoration that instructs district and church leaders to handle these situations with tenderness and forgiveness, citing the instruction in Galatians to restore a person caught in sin gently. The complaint argues that the denomination placed its commitment to pastoral forgiveness above its legal and moral obligation to protect children.

The 2007 Report and a Second Failure

The pattern did not end in 2004. In approximately 2007, a 12-year-old girl named Courtney Blackburn caught Tony Waller secretly filming her undress. Her mother, Rhonda Kelly, reported the incident directly to Mike Glover, just as the Davis sisters’ mother had done two years earlier.

According to the complaint, Glover responded by telling the mother that he and other Assemblies of God leaders had prayed over the matter and received an answer: the whole thing was a misunderstanding, and Courtney was simply overly sensitive.

Waller was not removed. He was not reported. He remained in his position as children’s pastor and continued to run the homeschool program.

The complaint alleges that victims and their mothers were made to feel that questioning Glover’s decision was equivalent to questioning God’s will. That framing, that the leaders of the church were God’s chosen messengers and their decisions were not to be challenged, kept multiple families from going outside the congregation to report what they knew.

A Decade of Continued Abuse

Because no one called law enforcement after the 2004 report, and no one called law enforcement after the 2007 report, Tony Waller continued to have access to children at the church for roughly a decade more. The complaint states directly that his abuse continued because of choices made by the defendants. He was finally arrested only after two other victims bypassed the church entirely and went to police themselves.

When investigators searched Waller’s possession at the time of his arrest, they found hundreds of hidden camera videos containing nude children, including images recorded in that bathroom at the Jonesboro church. He pleaded guilty to rape in April 2016. A judge sentenced him to life in prison.

The criminal case resolved the question of what Tony Waller did. What it did not resolve was the question of what the church, the Arkansas District Council, and the national General Council knew, when they knew it, and what decisions they made in response. Those are exactly the questions the civil lawsuit filed in January 2026 is now asking a court to examine.

For a full account of who Waller was, the details of his criminal conviction, and the civil case that followed, see Anthony Waller’s guilty plea and the civil case.

The Name Change: From First Assemblies to Refuge Church

At some point after the events described above, First Assemblies of God of Jonesboro was renamed Refuge Church of the Assemblies of God, Inc. of Jonesboro, Arkansas. The church remains registered as an Arkansas nonprofit corporation, located at 1404 Stone Street in Jonesboro. It remains under the purview of the Arkansas District Council of the Assemblies of God.

The complaint does not specify the exact date of the name change. What it does make clear is that the institution named as a defendant in the 2026 civil lawsuit is the same legal entity that operated as First Assemblies of God of Jonesboro during the period when the alleged abuse occurred and when the reports were made to leadership and buried.

A name change does not erase institutional history, and it does not shield an organization from civil liability for decisions made under a previous name. The plaintiffs in this case are not suing a different church. They are suing the same organization, with the same legal registration, the same denominational affiliations, and the same institutional responsibility for what happened to them as children.

Why the Denominational Structure Matters

One detail that gets lost when people focus only on the local church is how deeply the Arkansas District Council and the General Council were involved in what the complaint describes. This is not a case where a local pastor acted alone and the denomination was kept in the dark.

According to the complaint, Mike Glover reported the 2004 discovery directly to both the District Council and the General Council. Both bodies were involved in determining how the Waller situation would be handled. The District Council’s own policy manual governed how the church was supposed to operate. Both councils had the power to remove Waller’s ministerial credentials and the power to remove him from his position entirely. Neither body exercised that power.

The 2026 lawsuit names the Arkansas District Council and the General Council as defendants alongside Refuge Church and Mike Glover. The complaint argues that the failures here were not limited to one congregation or one pastor. They were the product of a denominational culture that prioritized protecting its clergy over protecting the children those clergy were given authority over.

That is the institutional history behind this lawsuit, and it is why the case matters beyond Jonesboro.

What This History Means for Other Survivors

If you attended First Assemblies of God of Jonesboro or Refuge Church during any period of Waller’s tenure, which the complaint places from approximately 1999 through 2015, you are not alone. If something happened to you or to someone in your family, and it was reported to church leadership and nothing was done, that institutional failure may itself form the basis of a legal claim.

Arkansas law requires clergy to report suspected child sexual abuse. A mandatory reporter who knowingly fails to make that report can face civil liability for the harm that results from that failure. Understanding how reporting failures enabled ongoing abuse is essential for any survivor trying to make sense of what happened and what their legal rights might be today.

Arkansas law also gives adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse meaningful time to pursue civil claims. The state’s delayed discovery statute recognizes that many survivors do not connect their adult struggles, anxiety, depression, damaged relationships, loss of self-worth, to childhood abuse until years or even decades later. That delayed recognition can restart the clock on the time a survivor has to file.

The two sisters who filed the January 2026 complaint allege they did not fully recognize the connection between their childhood experiences at the church and the harm those experiences caused in their adult lives until at least 2024. That is exactly the kind of situation the delayed discovery statute was written to address.

If You Have Information or Were Harmed

The civil case is active. Discovery has not yet concluded. Other survivors with information about Tony Waller, the homeschool program, or leadership decisions at this church may have information that is relevant, and they may also have their own viable claims.

You do not need a police report to speak with an attorney. You do not need documentation proving the church mishandled what you reported. What you need is someone who understands how these cases work and what the law in Arkansas actually allows.

Gillispie Law Firm represents survivors of Assemblies of God church abuse across Arkansas. Consultations are completely confidential, completely free, and carry no obligation to move forward. If this history sounds familiar, call (501) 244-0700 or reach out through the firm’s website to speak with a member of the legal team.

Everything described in this article regarding the allegations against the defendants is drawn from the complaint filed by Gillispie Law Firm in Pulaski County Circuit Court on January 30, 2026. These are the plaintiffs’ allegations. They have not been proven in court, and the defendants deny liability.