The pastor shared that he would be using his time away from ministry to submit to a “healing and restoration process established by the elders. This will afford me a needed time of spiritual recovery and healing.”
On Oct. 5, 2025, Evans was restored to ministry during an OCBF Sunday morning worship service, but the church shared that Evans would no longer serve as the church’s pastor—a position he held for 48 years.
“We are pleased to report that Dr. Evans has fully submitted to the church’s discipline and restoration process,” Pastor Chris Wheel told the congregation. “This restoration process has included individual counseling with outside non-staff professionals and pastoral mentoring, evidence of genuine repentance and godly sorrow.” Wheel expressed that Evans “demonstrated humility and a renewed desire to honor God, [and] a public stepping away from all formal ministry roles at OCBF.”
“In alignment with biblical principles and unanimous affirmation of the elder board, Dr. Evans has successfully completed this restoration journey,” Wheel said.
Evans told OCBF, “I’m sorry for any inconvenience or hurt that I brought to you in this process, but I’m thankful that you have followed the teaching that the church is not about a man. It’s about Jesus Christ.”
Dr. Tony Evans Reflects on His Time of Restoration
ChurchLeaders asked Evans to share what God had taught him during his time of restoration.
“The church has to be the church, no matter who it applies to, whether pastor or parishioner,” Evans said. “And our church was the church of healing and restoration, going through a tough time in my own life.” When Evans was going through that “tough season,” he said that OCBF “leaders rallied around me.”
“We were already working on the transition of my son into this role—so that was already in place. This disturbance expedited that process,” Evans continued. “I experienced scripturally, Hebrews 12, when God shakes things is because he’s doing something new. It’s to reveal his unshakable kingdom. So I learned how disturbances moves God in accomplishing his plan on his timetable, not the one you planned.”
“So it was experiencing God and then taking that time to go deeper with God and with new scenarios in my life that God was showing me a deeper side of himself,” said Evans.
Following Evans’ public confession, people on social media speculated as to what the OCBF senior pastor’s undisclosed sin was. ChurchLeaders asked Evans what he learned through that experience that might help other church leaders who might deal with similar circumstances in the future.
