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True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews

Greater Grace Church: Decades of Alleged Abuse Finally Exposed

True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews

Tony Brueski

News, True Crime, News Commentary

4.2 β€’ 612 Ratings

πŸ—“οΈ 7 May 2026

⏱️ 66 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It took a campfire conversation between former members to crack open decades of alleged abuse inside Greater Grace World Outreach. Once those stories started flowing, they didn't stop.

Greater Grace was founded by Carl Stevens in rural Maine in the early 1970s and grew into an evangelical network spanning more than seventy countries. Churches, schools, a Bible college, radio programs, missionary operations β€” a massive institutional footprint built on one man's teachings and sustained by a culture that, according to an independent investigation, systematically disempowered the people inside it through fear-based messaging and theological manipulation.

The investigation β€” commissioned by Greater Grace itself β€” ran for fourteen months and produced a 172-page report. The findings named four senior leaders who should be removed. They documented alleged abuse spanning decades and patterns of institutional silencing consistent with what the investigators described as a cover-up.

Elita Galvin grew up inside this organization from infancy. Her father was violent and church leaders knew β€” their response was pastoral shuffling and weaponized scripture. She now hosts the Looking for Grace podcast and has spent years building the investigative record. Oscar, joining under a pseudonym, entered as an adult and spent years inside before the system's grip loosened enough for him to leave in 2004. He still carries the trauma.

This conversation covers everything β€” the recruitment tactics, the control mechanisms, the doctrine designed to silence victims, the investigation's findings, the church's inadequate response, and the parallels to IBLP and the Duggar family. It's the kind of story that makes you rethink every institution you've ever trusted.

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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

#GreaterGrace #GGWO #TrueCrime #ChurchScandal #ReligiousAbuse #GRACEReport #CultExposed #InstitutionalAbuse #CarlStevens #BaltimoreBanner

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Colts, Hidden Killers Investigates. Here now, Tony Bruske.

0:06.0

A guy in a small main town says, God spoke to him at a pond. That's the origin story.

0:14.0

From that, he builds a network of churches, schools, and missions in over 70 countries.

0:20.0

Greater Grace World Outreach ran for decades without most

0:25.1

people ever hearing about it. Still does. Then in late 2025, a 172-page independent investigation

0:33.0

blew the doors off. And what's inside that document says it's bad.

0:41.0

Alleged abuse spanning decades' leadership that allegedly looked the other way, a system designed to keep people quiet allegedly.

0:49.2

But before we get into what happened, we need to understand what this place actually is. Elita Galvin was raised

0:57.0

inside Greater Grace from the time she was four months old, born into the original location

1:03.1

in Southern Maine, where it all started. She hosts the podcast looking for Grace and has spent

1:08.2

years investigating this organization. Our other guests today,

1:12.1

you're not going to see on camera if you are watching us, but if you're listening to us, you will hear

1:16.3

him. So you won't really notice anything different there, but he's not going to be on camera just

1:20.4

so you know. Our other guest, he's going by the name Oscar. He walked into Greater Grace as an

1:25.3

adult, spent years inside, left in 2004, and still lives

1:29.5

with the trauma.

1:30.5

He's using that pseudonym because even 20 years later, the stuff follows you.

1:36.8

One was born into it.

1:38.2

One shows it.

1:39.3

Both got consumed by it.

1:42.0

Welcome you guys to the program. Thank you so much for coming on and in sharing

1:47.8

your stories here. I want to preface before we get into everything. These are your opinions.

...

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