Apologia Church pastors sue ex-congregants, independent journalist for defamation

Apologia Church in Tempe, Arizona, along with two of its three pastors, Luke Pierson and Jeff Durbin, remain locked in a defamation lawsuit they filed against two former members who allege they leaked private information about their marital struggles.

The former members, Hailey Merris and her husband, Cameron Merris, are named as defendants in the lawsuit, along with independent journalist Sarah Young and her husband, Joe Young, who published the allegations on their blog, Check My Church.

The Youngs, who co-founded Check My Church, describe it as a survivor-led Christian ministry dedicated to exposing spiritual abuse, financial exploitation and other harmful practices in Christian ministries. They are raising funds for their legal defense through a GoFundMe campaign.

“We've committed our lives to amplifying the stories of those who've suffered in silence within high-control and abusive churches and ministries, working to protect fellow believers in Christ,” Sarah Young wrote in the campaign.

“Hailey Merris is a young mother and domestic violence survivor. She and her husband Cameron are former attendees of Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona, where Hailey alleges a breach of confidentiality in the church's leadership regarding her private marital struggles has led to gossip and assassination of character against her in the church,” she continued.

Young maintains that after confronting the Apologia leaders with the allegations — both publicly and privately — Hailey Merris shared her story on TikTok, citing evidence, “including texts, emails, police reports, and recordings, which highlighted patterns of control, gossip, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and other misconduct.”

“Recent allegations from a former regular attendee, Hailey Osborn-Merris, whose TikTok exposés have gone viral, suggest a cultic pattern of dishonesty, spiritual abuse, gossip, slander, breaching confidentiality, and more,” the Aug. 30 Check My Church report notes.

Hailey Merris publicly alleged that months after sharing with the pastors about a fight she had with her husband in which police were called, she received a screenshot of private text messages showing Jeff Durbin’s daughter, Saylor Perez, discussing the couple's fight.

In the lawsuit filed in October 2025 and cited by AZ Central, the pastors deny sharing "privileged, protected, or otherwise untruthful information about Hailey and/or Cameron with anyone outside of Apologia leadership."

The pastors contend that Hailey Merris herself disclosed the information to other churchgoers, forfeiting any expectation of privacy.

Hailey Merris claims in the Check My Church report that the information in question "could only have come from Jeff or another elder."

"Zoe Morgan clearly didn’t know about the incident until Saylor Perez (Durbin) mentioned my marital struggles in the context of sharing ‘tea,'" Merris stated. 

Another pastor, Zachary Morgan, was also listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, but he recently removed himself as a plaintiff, Ministry Watch reports.