Nathan's Voice

As reported today in the Fauquier Times, one of the victims sexually molested as a child at the “Love Church” in Virginia has refiled her $21 million civil lawsuit against the church. The victim also names the church’s former youth pastor and convicted pedophile Jordan Baird – and his wife Michelle Baird – as defendants.

“Love Church”, previously known as The Life Church, is now run by senior pastor Josh Baird, the brother of Jordan Baird and the son of former senior pastor David Baird.

Josh Baird recently changed the church’s name to “Love Church” in an apparent attempt to obscure and mislead the public about its ongoing history of abuse, deception and intimidation. He also recently relocated the church from Manassas to Gainesville, Virginia (with another “campus” in Winchester, Virginia).

In court filings, Josh Baird deceptively claims through the church’s attorneys that the church didn’t exist when his brother was the youth pastor and molesting children on the church’s property – despite creating and posting a video which boasts (in direct contradiction to his numerous contrary statements in the lawsuit) that the church’s existence goes back to its days when it was known as The Life Church. See We Love Church.

Josh Baird, in other court filings through the church’s attorneys, also has repeatedly demanded (despite the judge’s consistent refusal) to be allowed to identify and name the child victim publicly – all in an apparent attempt to intimidate and further abuse her and her family in the hopes that she will drop her claims.

Josh Baird’s bizarre and abusive demands, though, haven’t worked, as evidenced by the civil suit recently being re-filed against the “Love Chuch”, his former youth pastor and brother Jordan Baird, and his former church ministry supervisor and sister-in-law Michelle Baird.

We applaud the Fauquier Times for publishing this new article by Liam Bowman, an investigative reporter with the Piedmont Journalism Foundation.

~ Nathan’s Voice

On February 21, 2018, a court imposed a nearly five-and-a-half year sentence on Jordan David Baird for six pedophilia felony convictions.

His charges all involved using his position as a worship leader and youth pastor at The Life Church in Manassas, Virginia (now renamed “Love Church” and relocated to Gainesville, Virginia, by Josh Baird, the new senior pastor and brother of Jordan Baird), to sexually solicit and molest a young girl soon after her sixteenth birthday. (See, Sexual Predation and Pedophilia at “Love Church” in Virginia.)

Jordan Baird also is the son of David Baird, the senior pastor when the molestation occurred.

At that sentencing hearing, the victim’s mom took the stand. While looking directly at Jordan Baird and the Baird family – which controls “Love Church” and was sitting in the court room – she gave a very direct and powerful impact statement.

With the mom’s permission, we are posting her statement (her daughter, who is now 19, also gave us permission to post it and keep her name in it) to encourage and embolden other survivors of sexual abuse at “Love Church” – and elsewhere – to likewise find their voice and tell their stories.

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Update: On January 11, 2018, Jordan David Baird was convicted by a jury of his peers on five of seven felony counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor while in a custodial or supervisory position as a youth and worship leader at The Life Church in Manassas, Virginia (now renamed “Love Church” and relocated to Gainesville, Virginia, by Josh Baird, the new senior pastor and brother of Jordan Baird). He was immediately incarcerated and is now a registered sex offender.

On February 21, 2018, he was convicted on an additional felony charge of electronically sexually soliciting a minor. This arose under a plea agreement with the prosecutor, after the jury had hit an impasse and the judge originally declared a mistrial on that charge.

Before sentencing Jordan Baird, the court allowed one of his victims and her mother to directly face him – and his assembled immediate and extended family – to give very powerful statements on how his pedophilia at the church, and the resulting shunning and coverup by his family and “Love Church”, impacted their lives.

With their permission, we have published those statements, in full, on Nathan’s Voice at Silent No More: Morgan’s Brave Statement Against Her Abuser and A Mom Confronts “Love Church” and Her Daughter’s Abuser.

After sentencing Jordan Baird to jail, five years probation, restitution, and a lifetime ban on going within 100 feet of any building housing a school or child care facility, the judge went out of his way to then rebuke The Life Church in very blunt terms for having “re-victimized” the child Jordan Baird had molested and her family.

Addressing Mr. Baird and his family members who run the church and were sitting in the courtroom, the judge noted that the abuse “happened in church”, which “should be a sanctuary where people are protected.” The judge said that the actions of “Love Church” in this case, however, were anything but protective and were “particularly disturbing”.

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