Nikki Heidenreich felt a swirl of emotions while reading a massive investigative report that examines sexual abuse at her former church, Greater Grace World Outreach: anger, disgust, vindication.

Anger that church leaders had downplayed the allegations of people who were abused as children, including Heidenreich’s sister, according to the report.

Disgust that high-ranking pastors blamed victims, including one who accused Heidenreich’s sister, who was 8 when she said a pastor molested her, of being culpable due to “the way she operated.”

But Heidenreich felt vindicated by the report, which was the culmination of a 14-month investigation by Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, or GRACE, an independent evangelical organization.

“I feel grateful for the fact that this wasn’t a sham investigation,” said Heidenreich. “I think it lays bare what we have known for a long time that these men [church leaders] were callous and malicious rather than simply overwhelmed and incompetent.”

Like Heidenreich, other former members of the evangelical megachurch, which is headquartered in East Baltimore, were reeling Friday after reading descriptions of church leaders ignoring, dismissing and downplaying allegations of child sexual abuse.

The Millstones, a group of ex-church members whose investigation into the abuse led to a 2024 series of articles in The Banner, described investigators’ findings as “heartbreaking and infuriating.”

“We’ve had over six years to process many of the allegations and still felt physically ill reading this,” they wrote in a statement.

Former congregants said they were pleasantly surprised that GRACE, which was paid $100,000 by the church for the investigation, was blunt in its criticism of church leaders and doctrine.

GRACE recommended that four top church leaders, including senior pastor Thomas Schaller, step down. The investigators also urged Greater Grace to distance itself from the church’s controversial founder, Carl Stevens, who was also accused of sexual misconduct.

Greater Grace leaders hired GRACE last year following the publication of The Banner’s series, which followed The Millstones as they tracked down dozens of people who shared allegations of inappropriate behavior by pastors and other prominent church figures.

“We have never felt more anger towards GGWO leadership and more compassion towards victim-survivors and church members,” The Millstones wrote Friday.

The Millstones urged church leaders to follow the recommendation for resignations.

“Show that you recognize the damage you’ve done,” they wrote in a section of their statement directed to senior pastors. The resignation of top pastors would “create space for healthier, more compassionate and trauma-informed leadership.”

In a statement posted to its website Thursday night, church elders said they “find the report sobering and our hearts are heavy as we process the facts that anyone under the spiritual care of influence of GGWO was ever abused. Period.”

“We ask the church to give us some time to fully digest the report and to respond thoroughly and appropriately,” the elders wrote.

The report includes additional allegations against some of the pastors and high-ranking church members accused of inappropriate behavior in The Banner’s investigation.

In several cases, church leaders allowed problematic pastors and volunteers to continue to work with children after accusations surfaced, according to the report. Jesse Anderson, the son of a prominent pastor, was convicted in 2005 of sexually abusing a minor that he had met and groomed through the church. But youth pastor John Love revealed to investigators that parents had relayed concerns about Anderson to church leaders prior to that, according to the report.

Love said he had barred Anderson from volunteering at the church’s summer camp after boys reported that he had asked them to disrobe and shower in front of him, according to the report. However, Anderson was allowed to continue to work at Sunday School and “eventually he molested one of those kids,” Love said, according to the report.

Anderson’s brother and father have also been accused of sexual abuse.

The report alleges that church members also told investigators that they were aware of allegations against another notorious abuser in the church, Ray Fernandez, before he was accused of abuse.

Greater Grace staff members and teachers at the affiliated school noticed that Fernandez acted in an unusual and manipulative way with teens, according to the report. Congregants told investigators that Love and Dan Lewis, a former high-ranking pastor, warned young people or their parents to not get too close to Fernandez.

Fernandez pleaded guilty to child abuse and a third-degree sexual offense in 2014 and was sentenced to 30 years in prison with 16 years suspended.

Investigators detailed accusations about five church officials about whom The Banner had not previously reported. The report says in the mid-2010s, a woman accused pastor Jonathan Stambovsky of molesting her about 15 years earlier, when he was in his mid-teens and she was 8.

Church leaders suspended Stambovsky’s ordination, revoked his youth worker clearance and told him to leave the church campus and seek counseling, according to the report. However, Stambovsky continued to spend time at Greater Grace and leaders did little to stop him, the investigators wrote.

John Hadley, another senior pastor, told GRACE investigators that Stambovsky, “was basically in her face and would show up where she was almost like on purpose.”

Later, Stambovsky’s father-in-law, the pastor of a Greater Grace affiliate in Tennessee, re-ordained him; Greater Grace leaders decided not to reprimand either Stambovsky or his father-in-law for this decision, according to the report.

Heidenreich, who led an organization called The Albatrosses that held vigils outside the church’s sprawling campus, said she gleaned many insights from the report’s section about John Jason, a pastor at a Greater Grace affiliate in Ghana whom her sister said abused her while the family served as missionaries there.

Heidenreich noted that the report said Steven Scibelli, the church’s director of missions, accused her parents, who have been married for more than 30 years, of having marital problems.

Investigators described Scibelli of displaying a “pattern of shifting narratives, self-contradiction, and feigned ignorance.”

Despite knowing Scibelli for decades, Heidenreich said she was shocked by his “hubris.”

“How out of touch he is with any world in which there is accountability for his words and actions,” she said.

In addition to GRACE, church officials hired Rachael Denhollander, who helped take down former USA Gymnastics doctor and prolific sexual abuser Larry Nassar, to help guide their response to the allegations.

Denhollander said she was proud of the brave abuse survivors who told investigators their stories, just as she told hers years ago.

Speaking up requires incredible commitment, she said, because it means the “wounds caused by the abuse may stay open longer.“

“I’m so grateful for their voices and their work,” she said.

The Millstones issued a plea to current Greater Grace members to fight for change within the church, quoting a passage from the GRACE report that urged the congregation “to shift its identity away from a singular, flawed leader and towards the collective strength and character of its people.”

“Harness that strength, raise your collective voices, and do what we cannot: hold Greater Grace accountable from the inside,” they wrote. “We’ve done everything we can. It’s up to you now.”

Baltimore Banner reporter Justin Fenton contributed to this report.