Trigger warning. The stories shared on this podcast contain descriptions of varying abusive situations.

Listener discretion is advised. The testimonies shared on this podcast are told from the personal

experience and perspective of the survivors. Not all legal outcomes are known or final. Any suspect is

presumed innocent until proving guilty in the court of law. Hello and welcome to the Preacher Boys podcast. My name is Eric Skorsensky and I am the creator of

the upcoming documentary Preacher Boys. I'm sitting down with brave survivors who are shedding

light on decades of mental, physical, and sexual abuse within the independent, fundamental

Baptist movement. I'm not going to go long with this introduction because I have a long episode ahead,

but it's a very important story that I think everybody needs to listen to.

Now, the reason I'm bumping this interview, this is, I believe, the seventh interview that I conducted,

bumping it to the very front of the release schedule,

and that is because of an event that happened this morning. So the Preacher Boy's Twitter

account is pretty active, about 140 followers, but nothing that's groundbreaking or viral,

so to speak. But I awoke this morning to discover that Pastor Bill Reeves of

North Platte Baptist Church had blocked the Preacher Boys account, both from the church account

and from his own personal account. And I thought this was interesting because I actually sat down two days

ago with a former member of his church who survived abuse at the hands of Pastor Bill Reeves,

North Platte Baptist Church, and a home for troubled boys ran and operated by Pastor Reeves himself.

And so I wanted to bump this episode ahead. Obviously,

this is something that is trying to be swept through the rug. Who knows what else is trying

to be swept from the rug by this ministry and this pastor? I wanted you guys to be able to hear

Paul Johnson's story. He was brave enough to share things that happened to him in several

ministries, but Bill Reeves and

...