Pastor Chris Reed accused of addiction to kratom by former church members

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Friday, January 30, 2026

Former MorningStar Ministries leader Chris Reed, who now leads the Friends of the Bridegroom Church in Lancaster, South Carolina, has downplayed allegations from former members that he is an out-of-control, manipulative drug addict who shouldn't be in ministry.

As the massive Winter Storm Fern walloped large swathes of the country and shut down in-person services on Sunday, Reed confirmed that his former church members, Eric and Loretta Rote, had shared his battle with addiction in a video statement on Facebook last week after swearing to never make it public last June.

“When this all came to a head at the end of June 2025, all four families [at church] that were present made an oath that because I was accountable and open, that it would never leave the room,” Reed said in a video response defending himself from the allegations last Sunday.

“Have you ever had somebody betray you? Have you ever had somebody make you a promise or an oath, especially when your reputation hinges on it? Yeah, well, Eric did the video, and he made fun of me even getting emotional. If I get emotional, I'm sorry,” he added.

The Rotes said in their Facebook broadcast that they are original members of Reed’s new church who have been trying to hold him accountable for his behavior for almost as long as they have been in the church, but claimed that he has refused all efforts of accountability. They said members of the church’s leadership team approached them in June 2024 “and said they believe Chris Reed has a drug problem.”  

“As the leaders, we all assembled and talked about it and then … they confronted Chris. All these things happened. It started on June 20, 2024,” Eric Rote explained.

The couple said it was agreed that Reed would follow an accountability plan, but he never meaningfully submitted to the plan, blowing off leaders like Pastor Joe Sweet of Shekinah Worship Center in Lancaster, California, who had pledged to help him.

Following the Rotes’ allegations, Reed said he was left “shocked” by the unveiling of his substance abuse struggle.

“I was shocked that Eric put out that video,” he said.

Reed admitted to developing a dependence on a drug called kratom, which the Drug Enforcement Administration has listed as a “concern.”

The drug, which comes from the leaves of a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia, “produces both stimulant effects (in low doses) and sedative effects (in high doses), and can lead to psychotic symptoms, and psychological and physiological dependence,” according to the DEA. The two main psychoactive ingredients are mitragynine and 7-hydroxymytragynine.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved kratom for any medical use, and last September, the South Carolina Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities described it as “a highly addictive and potentially dangerous opioid-like substance.”

“Too often, kratom and 7-OH are marketed as safe or natural remedies, when in reality they carry very real risks,” Sara Goldsby, the office director of OSUS said in a press release. “These products are unregulated, unpredictable, and potentially addictive. Our priority is to make sure South Carolinians have the facts they need to protect themselves and their families.”

The state passed a law in May 2025 called the South Carolina Kratom Consumer Protection Act, which makes it illegal for a retailer to sell any kratom product to an individual under 21 years old. The law also requires every kratom product to have a clear label that describes how to use it properly.

In response to the addiction allegations on Sunday, Reed suggested his dependence on kratom is a thing of the past without fully explaining how he was introduced to the drug. He also insists he was being accountable.

“They knew I reported to Jack [church elder] every month and that I provided evidence from my doctor, that my urine screen was clean. Not just of this herbal capsule called kratom, which is dangerous, people. I didn't know when I was introduced to it, the dangers of it,” Reed said, noting that it helped him with pain from an unnamed degenerative disease that has caused his height to fall from 6’8” to 6’7.”

“It helps with body pain. You know, I used to be 6'8, now, I'm 6'7. I have [a] degenerative disease. Ten years ago, I had an MRI, and I was seen by a doctor, and they tried to get me on prescription medication, and I went and basically got help to get off of it. I saw a doctor, got off of any painkillers whatsoever. It's a shame that I have to even share this publicly,” Reed explained in the video.

In another video broadcast on YouTube on Jan. 23, Reed also stated that he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, “from the mounting events over the last year plus.”

“There have been days I've even prayed for you [God] to take me home,” Reed said in the video in which he addressed a statement from Joe Sweet from Jan. 21 explaining why he would not be invited back to preach at Shekinah Worship Center.

“Chris Reed has ministered here several times between November of 2021 and March 2024. Without a doubt we have witnessed genuine prophetic gifting that was both encouraging and edifying to many people,” Sweet wrote about Reed.

“When I first met Chris he seemed sincere and genuine and seemed to love God and the people of God. However as time went on, specifically shortly before Chris left MorningStar Ministries in August 2024, I began to observe, and experience in my interactions with Chris, a lack of basic Christian character and a serious lack of the fear of God.”

Reed did not respond to further questions from The Christian Post regarding his degenerative disease, his PTSD, and his kratom use.

Shortly before starting his new church, Reed resigned from MorningStar Ministries in Fort Mill, South Carolina, amid allegations of sexual abuse of minors by a former volunteer and a confession that he had an inappropriate relationship with an adult ex-student.

Sweet painted Reed in his statement as money-hungry. It’s an allegation which was also echoed by the Rotes, who accuse the married father of six of pressuring congregants in his new church for money.

Reed denied the allegation by the Rotes and explained in his video in response to Sweet’s statement that he cut ties with Sweet because he reneged on a promise to support him financially with $14,000 per month for a year after he resigned from MorningStar Ministries. He said that after the news about his inappropriate relationship with the adult ex-student was made public, Sweet told him that he could not risk losing support from his own followers for continuing to platform him.

Reed said he struggled financially after leaving MorningStar Ministries.

“There were two people I asked for help when I was resigning my job,” Reed said. “I did not know where my next dime would come from to feed my wife and my six children and a $6,000 house payment, because it's expensive to live in Fort Mill, South Carolina.”