Ben Ortize’s rise at Calvary Spokane sparks staff firings, resignations

By Rebecca Hopkins | The Roys Report

(Editor’s note. This is part 2 in a series. Read part 1 here.)

She was just a longtime church volunteer. But Rebecca Barbieri had questions about the fitness of the pastor’s son to preach and teach.

But when Barbieri began asking why someone with a checkered history was being rehired at one of the largest churches in eastern Washington state, retribution was swift.

Barbieri had learned not to trust pastor Ben Ortize the first time he worked at Calvary Spokane, a Calvary Chapel church, from approximately 1997 to 2009. Then she heard of his poor leadership at Grace Sandpoint in Idaho from 2009 to 2025. She believed his erratic behavior, anger issues and failing marriage were real problems.

So, when the lead pastor, Ken Ortize, announced last summer he’d rehired Ben, the eldest of his three sons, Barbieri told friends in the church about her concerns.

She wasn’t alone in dreading the younger Ortize’s “second coming.” The Roys Report (TRR) interviewed 18 former church members, elders and staff about Ben’s troubled 27-year history of heading up ministries in three states. TRR also reported on allegations by his ex-wife that he sexually abused her and is living rent-free in a $1.4 million parsonage.

Weeks ago, TRR reached out to both Ben and Ken Ortize with a list of allegations, seeking comment, but they didn’t respond. After TRR published Part 1 on Thursday, the Ortizes denied all allegations from the pulpit at Calvary Spokane Sunday morning.

Fourteen minutes into the service, Ben took to the pulpit to challenge the portions of the article that dealt with his 2025 divorce.

“The claims being made are not true,” he said, flanked by Calvary’s leaders. “Many of those central accusations have been addressed and challenged in a court of law.”

Ben pointed to a recording of Judge James Combo of Kootenai County District Court in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, which he posted on his ministry Facebook page.

In it, the judge explained why he dissolved the marriage based on irreconcilable differences rather than either the ex-wife’s allegations of Ben’s abuse and his allegations of her affairs. The judge said neither person showed enough credibility or evidence for him to rule fault in the divorce.

On Sunday, the older Ortize said the judge’s recorded summary addressed “every single point” in TRR’s part 1 and “rejected it.” However, the judge’s statements only dealt with particular aspects of the divorce proceedings.

Ken also claimed to have informed TRR of the recording. TRR’s reporter received no phone call, text, email or any other communication from the church.

On Sunday, Ken likened himself and his staff to biblical figures who were falsely accused, then told his congregation they had a choice to make.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “if you don’t trust the leaders of a church, then you should leave.”

But trust, according former Calvary Spokane volunteer Rebecca Barbieri, should be a two-way street. Why couldn’t the lead pastor simply level with the congregation about some obvious problems?

“If the congregation were to actually sit there and have somebody from the pulpit say, ‘Look, we lost our way. We did this. We did that,’ I don’t think that there would be too many people who would leave,” she said. “Because that kind of honesty would be refreshing.”

But honesty, Barbieri said, is not what she got.

Kicked out

At first, Ben pastored at Calvary Spokane alongside his dad, its pastor since 1983. As TRR previously reported, Ben escaped being fired by Calvary Spokane elders in 2009 by nabbing an opportune lead pastor opening at Grace Sandpoint in Idaho. Elders at the Eastern Washington church forbade the younger Ortize from returning to work at Calvary Spokane.

Ben also started a Bible school in 2013 in rural Montana that closed in 2018 amid spiritual abuse allegations. He continued to pastor the Sandpoint congregation until that church building changed hands and names in 2025.

His father then brought him back to Calvary Spokane, as if the 2009 prohibition against returning didn’t exist. A new crop of elders may not have known the history, according to former church members who spoke to the TRR. Or they may have believed the younger Ortize had been through a restoration process.

But, according to Bill Dyer, a Calvary Spokane elder from 1994 to 2024, Ben Ortize has never gone through a repentance or restoration process.

Barbieri, former worship leader, thought her private conversations with friends about her concerns would stay private. Somehow, word got out. She got a curt Oct. 21 email from Calvary Spokane’s executive pastor, Drew Johnson, chastising her for concocting “an accusation” against the returning pastor.

Punishment, Johnson informed her, was on its way. Not only was she kicked out of her slot as a worship leader because of her “divisive” talk, she was also barred from church property.

“The seriousness of bringing an accusation against a pastor to a non-involved party is egregious,” he wrote.

Nervous about the quick escalation, Barbieri agreed to meet the board of elders Nov. 17. Ben didn’t attend, but Johnson, Ken and the board did. She told TRR that Ken defended his son, saying Barbieri shouldn’t trust Tawni, Ben’s ex-wife.

They also accused Barbieri of saying Ben is manipulative and emotionally abusive — criticisms she claims she never voiced.

Barbieri told TRR she agreed to apologize to Ben for not telling him her concerns directly.

He replied with an email saying she should worship elsewhere.

“The things that were said were not only false, they were deeply damaging,” Ben wrote. “Not just to me personally, but to the church, to the people you influenced, and to the fragile trust that a congregation places in its leaders.”

She tried apologizing with a 1,600-word email.

“I am extraordinarily sorry,” she wrote. “Going forward, I am committed to guarding my speech and ensuring that I don’t engage in gossip, either about you or anyone else. Again, I am truly sorry.”

It wasn’t enough for Ben. In his email reply, he kicked her out of the church, saying the discussion was over.

The news stunned her.

“You have to understand, we had been attending this church for 20 years,” she told TRR. “I served in practically every possible capacity in that church.”

Sexual harassment allegation

Calvary Spokane staffer Melissa Reid remembers the elder Ortize being excited about his son returning to the church as human resources director. Ben had changed for the better since his traumatic divorce, Ken assured church staff.

Reid’s sister, Melanie Munhall, who worked in Calvary’s homeschool program, remembers Ken talking up Ben’s time in ministry at Calvary 16 years before. One thing that stood out to her was Ken’s assertion that the youth group and young adult programs were successful during Ben’s time of pastor because young women wanted to date him.

None of this surprises Beth Thompson, the eldest of Ken’s four children. Now estranged from her family, she said her parents would constantly cycle the kids in or out of favor. That toxicity got passed on. 

“My brother is very arrogant, and he definitely thinks that everyone’s below him, and people are there to serve him,” she said.

Ben began meeting with staff one-on-one to learn more about their responsibilities. Reid told TRR that on Oct. 28, her 21-year-old assistant came to her office looking shocked. The young woman said Ben had asked her about her dating life, told her about his dating life and showed her a woman’s photo on his dating app. At the end of the meeting, she said, Ben asked the assistant if she had any questions, like wanting to know his “shoe” size?

Reid’s two sisters, who also worked at Calvary Spokane, were in her office when the assistant relayed this encounter. All three women, Reid, Munhall and Darcie Campbell, confirmed to TRR what the assistant said.

The women believe that Ben was telling the 21-year-old church employee to ask him about the size of his penis. Reid reported Ben’s comments, without naming the assistant, to Drew Johnson, the executive pastor. She told TRR Johnson was dismissive and failed to follow up on her report. She later documented the allegations in a letter she later read to the church board.

TRR emailed Johnson, but he didn’t respond.

The assistant chose not to speak to TRR, and TRR is keeping her identity private due to her sexual harassment claim.

Weeks later, Reid had her own one-on-one meeting with Ben. She said he talked mostly about his life, including his divorce. When he mentioned a teenage relative, he used his hands to illustrate the size of her breasts. It was lingo appropriate for a locker room perhaps, but not for a church, she said.

A cascade of resignations

Tuesday, Dec. 16, was a turning point at Calvary Spokane. At the staff Christmas party, Ben openly berated Munhall. She decided she could no longer stomach the way Ben treated staff. At a meeting later that day with Ben and Johnson, she told them Ben’s inappropriate behavior was unacceptable.

“I said, ‘It is out of control, and you are so horrible to all of us,’” Munhall recalled. “I looked at Drew (Johnson) and I said, ‘Are you going to stick up for us at some point?’ And he just sat there and stared at me.” 

Clearly, it was time to quit. In her resignation letter, Munhall said the church used “intimidation tactics.”

“A workplace should be based on respectful communication and professional conduct, which has not been my experience, particularly following the addition of Ben Ortize,” she wrote.

That same afternoon, multiple staff were at a meeting to discuss the sexual harassment allegations and hear what the assistant had to say.

Campbell, who was at the meeting, said Ken and his wife, Jamie, defended their son, reminding everyone of his trauma from his failed marriage.

“They were very concerned about the image that a sexual harassment claim could be on the church,” said Reid, who was also in attendance.

After Campbell said Ben owed the assistant an apology, Ken told Ben to give one. Ben then said he was sorry if he made the assistant feel uncomfortable, according to Campbell.

“Which to me is not an apology whatsoever, more like ‘I’m doing what I was told,’” Campbell said.

Meanwhile, Reid said, Ben was clearly angry with the sisters and was taking it out on her 21-year-old son, Cameron, who also worked at Calvary. He found himself being hauled into “disciplinary meetings” with Ben and Johnson.

On Jan. 5, Ken emailed staff, promoting Ben to associate pastor. Ken would still preach but step back from daily management.

“Practically speaking, this means he will be responsible for all leadership and management decisions related to staffing, programs and departments,” Ken wrote.

The bloodbath began the next day.

On Jan. 6, when the rest of the staff was on lunch break, Ben and Johnson fired the assistant. Campbell said the assistant came to where the three sisters were eating lunch that day to report the news.

“She brought an accusation of sexual harassment, and they fired her for it, instead of dealing with it,” Campbell told TRR. “I went back to the office, cleaned out my desk … and handed (my) keys in.”

Reid told TRR she considered quitting that day, too. Since she led staff, teachers and homeschooling families who depended on her, she held back.

But that night, Ben and Johnson asked Reid to meet him the next afternoon. At that meeting, Reid said, Ben chastised Reid for triangulation and insubordination. Then he fired her.

Her son quit the next day. Counting other family members who also quit, the church lost six of its approximately 20 employees in a two-week period.

Dyer, the former Calvary Spokane elder, told TRR he knows the sisters — Reid, Munhall and Campbell — and their families well. When a board member told him that the families were blowing things out of proportion, he contacted them. Having left the board in 2024 because of how badly he sensed the church was mistreating staff, the firings pushed him out of the church entirely.

“It was kind of like the final straw that needed to happen for my wife and I to leave,” he said.

Reid, concerned to safeguard homeschooled kids, emailed parents a few weeks later. She explained she was forced to leave after confronting Calvary Spokane about Ben’s inappropriate comments to her assistant. In response, Johnson emailed parents saying staff changes were made “after careful review.”

One of those parents and long-time volunteer, Lizzy Sartin, then confronted the church about safeguarding and Ben about “alarming issues … about your past. Your mismanagement of Grace Sandpoint and Grace Sandpoint Bible college are at the very least alarming and certainly disqualify you from future ministry.”

Neither Ken nor Ben would meet with her, she said, so she ultimately withdrew her kids from a program they all loved.

“They don’t understand why they had to walk away from everything,” Sartin told TRR.

Aftermath

Sartin also asked the church to reimburse her for a $15,500 donation she gave last year. Two months later, she is still waiting.

Aaron Kuchenski, a former student who told TRR in Part 1 of this series about Ben’s “cultic” Bible school in Montana, has pursued reconciliation with Ben for years.

Ben responded by demanding Kuchenski apologize to him. During one last attempt this year, Calvary Spokane sent Kuchenski a no-trespass order, forbidding him to step foot on church property.

In February on YouTube, Ben addressed his critics, comparing these “evildoers” to Adam’s son Cain who killed Abel. He said he expects similar “resistance” from the enemy.

“Spiritual warfare often looks painfully human,” he said.

Many of the 18 people who talked to TRR said the Ortize pastors nearly destroyed them, their families and their faith.

“More people have left that church broken than healed,” said former member Rebecca Lionberger.

They are starting to find each other and warn others. They’re worried Ken, despite everything, may someday give the church to Ben. Thompson, Ben’s older sister, wishes her family would leave the church and never come back.

“I want it to stop,” she said. “I just want the pain and the hurt and the betrayal and the lies and just all the things that take place under that Christian umbrella, and using Scripture to abuse people and control people and manipulate and gain profit from it. It’s wrong.”

Dan McMahon, who resigned as elder in 2022, has also been praying.

“You don’t want your people to feel like kind of pain from people who are leading a church of all things,” McMahon said. “My prayer has been, ‘Lord, just stop it.’”

FāVS News uses professional journalists and thoughtful commentary to explore faith, values and ethics. Support journalism like this by making a tax-deductible donation. FāVS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. © FāVS News. All rights reserved. Reproduction permitted only to authorized media partners or with written permission.