Atlanta-area pastor named to lead the ROC
Richmond Times-Dispatch/March 29, 2014
By Louis Llovio
Joe Donahue, a youth pastor and author from the Atlanta area, was named the new senior pastor of the Richmond Outreach Center on Saturday night.
The hiring came 10 months after it became public that Geronimo Aguilar, the church’s founder and former senior pastor, was being investigated in Texas for the alleged aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Jonathan Falwell, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg and a consultant for the ROC, introduced Donahue and his wife, Kristy, at the church’s Saturday evening service.
“This man is the man God has raised up as the leader of the Richmond Outreach Center and he will lead this ministry into the future,” Falwell said Saturday.
Donahue was a teaching and student ministries pastor at First Redeemer Church in the Atlanta area the past six years before coming to the ROC, as the South Richmond megachurch is known.
He is also the author of “Urgent! Igniting a Passion for Jesus,” copies of which were for sale at the ROC’s bookstore Saturday.
Donahue, who did not speak at the service, held a book signing afterward.
Donahue replaces Aguilar, who was arrested in May on charges that he abused an 11-year-old and her 13-year old sister in the 1990s. He resigned in June.
Aguilar has been indicted in two cases — one for each of the sisters — on four counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14, three counts of sexual assault of a child under 17, and five counts of indecency with a child.
The aggravated sexual assault charges are first-degree felonies that carry a maximum term of life in prison. The remaining charges are second-degree felonies with a maximum sentence of 20 years each.
While Aguilar did not appear to be at the church for the announcement and his name was never mentioned, the scrutiny that came after his arrest and a subsequent discovery that he carried on several extramarital affairs while heading the ROC was a big part of Falwell’s sermon.
“The ROC has been sick, but the ROC has been healed,” Falwell said.
He added: “Humanly speaking, there is absolutely no reason why the Richmond Outreach Center is still here today. Let’s be honest. With all this church has gone through, all the challenges, all the problems and all the attacks,” it should not have survived.
He told congregants that because the church has weathered the worst, it now has a responsibility to the community.
But the 30-minute sermon also had a decidedly “us versus them” vibe to it, with Falwell repeatedly talking about how critics had reveled in the church’s troubles.
“People laughed. People joked. People mocked. They said the Richmond Outreach Center … is sick and it’s going to die,” he said.
“I’m telling you tonight, God has heard the prayer of the Richmond Outreach Center … and God has said … ‘I will deliver you from the hands of every single person who mocked this church. And I will deliver you from the hands of every single person who laughed at this church.’ … There is a new day dawning for the Richmond Outreach Center and that day begins right now.”
Since Aguilar’s departure, a pair of interim pastors, P.J. Preston and David Wheeler, had been filling in since August, shortly after the church began a national search for Aguilar’s replacement.
Falwell, who was brought in as an adviser and consultant, said Saturday that he wasn’t responsible for the hiring but credited the church’s staff and board of directors.
A statement released by the board Saturday night said the decision was made “after months of prayer, fasting and seeking the Lord’s will and direction for our church.”
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