As allegations of sexual abuse against a former pastor took hold on social media, the Church of the Highlands has cut ties with the accused minister they had agreed to help rehabilitate.
Micahn Carter, former pastor of Together Church in Yakima, Washington, had stepped down in April 2019 from Together Church for undisclosed reasons. Carter joined the staff of the Church of the Highlands in Birmingham later in 2019.
Carter, with nearly 40,000 followers on Instagram, had grown Together Church from 50 members to thousands and drew thousands of viewers to his sermons on YouTube.
The Church of the Highlands released a statement this week announcing that Carter is no longer employed by the church.
“In 2019, Micahn Carter’s Pastoral Overseers from Washington state asked Church of the Highlands to assist them in directing a ministerial restoration process for him,” the statement said. “Highlands agreed to do so, and since then we have been working with Micahn and his family. Recently, Highlands received correspondence raising new allegations about events that occurred over two years ago in Washington state. When we shared this information with the Carters, they resigned from their positions on staff to work through these issues themselves. Highlands is no longer involved in the restoration process.”
Carter’s former assistant at Together Church, Mary Jones, said in a blog post that she was assaulted on April 29, 2019, after he had been sexually inappropriate with her on a number of occasions previously.
“During a leadership event right before leaving for dinner, my pastor raped me in my office while most of our staff, teams and my family stood just outside the door,” she wrote in a blog post.
