Registered sex offender says he leads PA church ‘by God’s grace’ | #childpredator | #kidsaftey | #childsaftey

A registered sex offender leading a church: Edward Heard knows how it looks.

“Obviously a red flag,” he told Roys Report (RR) on Tuesday.

Heard, 48, is classified by the state of Pennsylvania as a violent sexual predator. He pleaded guilty in June 2001 to aggravated indecent assault, statutory rape, indecent assault without consent and corruption of a minor. Twenty-five years later, Heard is, according to Pennsylvania, “likely to engage in future predatory sexually violent offenses.”

And he’s also a pastor.

Heard leads a micro church with about a dozen people every Sunday in Monroeville, in the east Pittsburgh suburbs. He named it Center Cross Church and tells people to focus on Jesus, who died on a cross between two criminals.

It’s a church, according to Heard, for people who have been hurt by church and don’t trust institutions. He preaches about leaving the past behind and believing in yourself as much as God believes in you.

Center Cross also is one of the more than 300 plants that Converge, formerly known as the Baptist General Conference, has started since 2020. The denomination, whose most famous pastor is the now-retired John Piper, wants each of these congregations to grow to about 200, so they can impact “at least 62,000” people.

When Converge tells the story of Center Cross and raises money for the church plant, there is no mention of the pastor’s criminal record.

The Pennsylvania church offers no information online about Heard’s history either. Search the pastor’s name on the internet and you might find he went to seminary in Minnesota — or that many people bear the same name, including a truck driver, a lawyer and a deceased mechanic. The pastor is not listed on ProtestantAccountability.org.

Heard insists his criminal history is not a secret, however.

“I talk about it open and freely,” he told RR. “I’m talking to you. I don’t have anything to hide.”

The details available in public records are thin. Allegheny County police arrested Heard in March 1999 about a week after his 21st birthday. They charged him with four misdemeanors and five felonies, including two counts of aggravated indecent assault.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported at the time that the victim was a 13-year-old girl who lived in Turtle Creek, a town of about 6,000, just southeast of Pittsburgh. Her identity is concealed in state records. She could not be contacted by RR.

According to the Post-Gazette, the girl told police in 1999 that Heard “forced her to have sex with him” multiple times over a six-month period.

A 13-year-old cannot legally consent to sex with an adult. Sex without consent is the definition of rape.

A Pennsylvania lawyer challenged the state’s age-of-consent law in 2000. Robert E. Stewart, representing a 43-year-old man serving a 10-year sentence, argued that the seriousness of a crime should not depend on the perpetrator’s age. The statutory rape law punished his client more than it would a younger man, Stewart argued, violating the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania put Heard’s case on hold while it considered Stewart’s legal challenge. The court rejected the “equal protection” argument in September 2000 and sent Heard’s case back to the Allegheny County Court in January 2001.

County prosecutors pushed to put Heard in prison. They told the court they would ask a jury to incarcerate Heard until 2021.

At that point, Heard told RR, he “panicked and took a plea deal.”

Heard served four years of a five-year sentence. He was released from state prison in 2005 — the year his victim turned 20, the age that he was when he forced himself on her.

Heard told RR he did not have a major religious experience in prison: no conversion, no dramatic turn to God. He was baptized at 9, grew up in church and always considered himself a Christian.

After he was released from prison and returned home to the Pittsburgh area, he decided to become a minister.

“I was called,” Heard said. “I was hesitant about it — ‘Me? Preach’ — but I was called by God’s grace.”

He does not believe his criminal conviction disqualifies him from a pastoral role. Nor does he think the fact that the state lists him as a sexually violent predator is disqualifying.

It did take him a while to find organizations that would support his claim he was called to ministry. Heard said multiple seminaries refused to enroll him after he disclosed his criminal record. Churches, likewise, had concerns.

Converge was the exception.

“They were very gracious,” he told RR. “I was pleasantly surprised by their grace.”

The Baptist conference’s communications department did not respond to RR emails with questions about background checks, vetting and the process for approving Heard. Converge, which is roughly the same size as the Anglican Church in North America and the Christian Reformed Church, with under 1,000 congregations, describes itself as “a movement of uniquely independent churches.” They collaborate on evangelism and church planting.

Since the group changed its name to Converge in 2008, it has put special emphasis on starting new churches. The group’s website tells prospective church planters that Converge will provide everything they will need — and allow plenty of flexibility and freedom.

“Get support planting the church you want to see in the world,” the site says. “We don’t insist on a single model or expression of church, so you can plant a uniquely independent congregation.”

Converge has a policy about restoring ministers “who have experienced moral failure.” The policy, written in 1992 and republished in 2010, outlines a process for returning ministers to the pulpit.

“We listen for: sense of responsibility, repentance, defensiveness, minimization, denial, empathy for victim and larger group around them, insight into self,” the document says. “We listen for signs of misuse of power, being manipulative, narcissism, entitlement, boundary crossing, and present state of the marriage.”

It does not say anything about would-be ministers with “moral failure” in the past. Nor does it say whether some sins or crimes are permanently disqualifying.

Converge leaders also have another resource they turn to when ministers mess up. Great Lakes regional president Ken Nabi wrote “Leading Through (and preparing for) Pastoral Failure.” The book acknowledges that some ministers will need to be terminated, but it focuses more on restoration.

“The church will grow over time into a grace-giving community,” Nabi writes. “And where there is grace, trust can begin to flourish.”

Heard has not been through a denominational restoration process. He told RR he builds trust at Center Cross by never working with children and being transparent with his congregation. Longtime members know that he is required, multiple times per year, to check in with state authorities and have his picture updated for the sex-offender registry.

And when new people come, Heard said, he tells them about himself.

“I make everybody aware,” he said. “I will say, ‘This is my background. We can continue, but I understand if you don’t want to.’ Or I will mention it in a sermon example.”

RR could not confirm that Heard talks about his criminal record with church members. There is no mention of his crimes in any of the recent sermons or Bible studies streamed on social media.

He did not mention it in a message this past summer about accountability. Instead, Heard focused his 42-minute talk on throwing off the “yoke” of judgment.

“Stop selling yourself short. Stop speaking negativity over yourself,” he preached. “God’s waiting on you to get the flipping yoke off yourself, stand up with your chest up, head up, and prayed up — and get going.”

The pastor’s next sex-offender registry check-in is scheduled for next month.

Correction: A previous version of the article said that Heard implied the 13-year-old girl was okay with what happened. He clarified that he denies anything happened, despite his confession.

Daniel Silliman is senior reporter/editor at The Roys Report. He began his two decades in journalism covering crime in Atlanta and has since led major investigations into abuse and misconduct in Christian contexts. Daniel and his wife live in Johnson City, Tennessee.