Just over a year after publishing a book on spiritual abuse in which she claims she engaged in a 13-year extramarital affair with her pastor, identified only as “Apostle Fred,” Stephanie D. Prescott, a graduate of Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, has claimed that the man’s true identity is megachurch leader Bryan Meadows, and she aborted a pregnancy during their troubled romance.
“I don’t mind confirming it was him — Bryan Meadows,” Prescott recently told The Roys Report.
The confirmation from Prescott, 34, comes days after the married Meadows, who is the founding pastor of Embassy Church International in Atlanta, Georgia, publicly admitted to Jessica Laine McDonald on the “Hardly Initiated” podcast that he was engaged in a 12-year affair with a co-pastor, whom he did not name.
Meadows did not respond to a request for comment from The Christian Post, but in his interview with McDonald, he framed his affair as a youthful but tortured relationship that got the best of him.
“I had an affair. I stepped out on my wife, but there is complexity and nuance. This started when I was in my 20s, early 20s, when I first got married, alright. And it was something that I knew was wrong and I stopped trying to do it. Just like anybody that’s addicted to something, you have days where you do it, you have days where you don’t. You have weeks where you go without it. You have years where you go without it,” Meadows, 40, revealed.
“My problem was that I kept the relationship close after the initial infraction. I should have, with wisdom, guidance, counseling, I should have separated myself. I should have removed myself. I should have ended the relationship.”
In her book, 95 Theses to The American Church: The Confrontation of Spiritual Abuse, Idolatry, and Mass Deception, Prescott details how she lost herself in the last half of the relationship, allegedly with Meadows, that led to the abortion of their child.
“Fred and I had now graduated into becoming participants in the wicked system of sacrifice through the act of abortion. Of all the mistakes I have made in my life, this one decision knocked the wind out of me,” Prescott wrote.
“I cared too much about what people would say and made the terrible decision to sacrifice our child. Instead, I should have carried the consequences of our actions and faced whatever ridicule came with that choice. There can never be an opinion or judgment that is worth making such a treacherous decision,” she wrote in regret.
“To watch yourself erode from the inside out is a feeling that is unexplainable. I had already been in shambles, but now I was the walking dead. My body was present, but my soul and emotions were gone. I was full of grief and would cry every single day for two weeks straight. I had given my idols every part of me, including the shedding of innocent blood.”
She shared how she had moved from Detroit, Michigan, to Atlanta, Georgia, in her senior year of high school and met her high school sweetheart before they both joined Meadows’ Kingdom Campus Ministries in college. She said they were there when Meadows founded Embassy City Church in 2011, and she would eventually become a co-pastor there.
Prescott also states in her book that when she began her relationship with Meadows, she had just gotten engaged to her high school sweetheart, whom she gave the moniker “John.” Meadows encouraged her to get married while continuing the relationship with her.
“At the start of this inappropriate relationship, I had just become newly engaged to be married to John, but I desired to backtrack on our engagement — for obvious reasons. However, with Apostle Fred and his wife as our marriage counselors, Fred advised that my fiancé and I continue with the wedding, despite my reservations,” Prescott states in the book.
“In hindsight, this was the time to run. This was the opportunity to tell my fiancé all that had transpired; but the idolatry within my heart put more fear in me than God. The fear of losing everything I loved; another father figure, my attachment to the vision of the church, and the destiny I foolishly believed was irrevocably connected to Apostle Fred, kept me spinning deeper into a web of deception and lies,” she wrote. “Somehow, I had theologized that this suffering was a part of God’s greater plan for me… that if I could just get myself out of this entanglement, everything would be fine again, and I could hold on to all the things I loved— but I was wrong.”
In his interview with McDonald, Meadows said he was confronted about the affair by his church’s “head prophet” during Father’s Day weekend in 2024. He later made an internal confession at the church, which he called a “blessing.”
Last June, Prescott claimed in an interview on the “Bishop Demetrius J. Sinegal Ministries” podcast that she was groomed in the relationship without naming Meadows. She maintained the same position with The Roys Report.
“Now I understand it was grooming, abuse of power, and clergy sexual abuse,” she told TRR.
In the opening of her book, Prescott apologizes to the Church and her ex-husband, with whom she shares a son, for her role in the affair and says she wants to be a part of the repair process.
“On this road to mass healing and restoration, I, Stephanie Prescott, want to first offer a public apology and repentance to the body of Christ for being an active part of the harm caused to Christ’s precious bride. My involvement in the source of people’s pain is one that has scattered many vulnerable sheep and formed a distrust for religious institutions,” she notes.
“Finally, to my ex-husband. You stood with me and prayed over me even when you were oblivious to the depths of my sin and pain. In all, you have experienced the greatest betrayal from leadership and your own former bride. Even so, you were the first to forgive me and minister to me when everyone left,” she adds.
“You were the reason I could get out of bed and keep living for our precious son. I will forever love you and remain grateful for our supernatural friendship as amazing parents to our boy.”
.
Contact: [email protected] Follow Leonardo Blair on Twitter: @leoblair Follow Leonardo Blair on Facebook: LeoBlairChristianPost
