‘If you leave the church, you will go to hell’: How alleged cult kept grip
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HINESVILLE, Ga. – The House of Prayer Christian Church has long been under scrutiny from federal authorities and former members who describe it as both a scam and a cult.
According to federal indictment from earlier this month, the church was set up to exploit and drain veterans’ benefits, including education money and VA loans.
One former member, a veteran like many the church has recruited through the years, is recalling his experience.
“If you leave the church, you will go to hell,” are words that echo through Gregory Ward’s mind.
He made the decision to leave the church in 2018.
“They closed us out from the world,” Ward said. “We didn’t know anything that was going on.”
In 2008, Ward enlisted in the Army and was stationed at Fort Hood in Texas.
Before his first deployment, he says the House of Prayer location in Texas invited him to service, but it wasn’t until he got back from Iraq that he really got involved.
“I deployed for a year and when I came back, I really got sucked in,” said Ward.
Ward says the church pressured him into leaving the military and getting deeper involved with the ministry, but he says involvement costed him his sanity, his savings and ultimately his veteran benefits.
“It’s tore me up mentally, I am still trying to recover from that,” said Ward.
Ward says the church enrolled him into bogus Bible classes that were non-transferable and not accredited in order to receive funding from his GI bill.
“It was made up of classes by them, so I can’t use them to this day,” said Ward.
The nonprofit group Veterans Education Success has introduced the Student Veteran Benefit Restoration Act of 2025 to help victims like Ward retrieve benefits that were scammed from them.
“Those are earned benefits, they worked for them through service and they should be able to get a productive outcome,” said William Hubbard, Veteran’s Education Success.
As the law stands now, once a service member like Ward uses their GI bill, it’s gone and they can’t get it back— except for rare cases.
Content retrieved from: https://www.wrdw.com/2025/09/19/if-you-leave-church-you-will-go-hell-how-alleged-cult-kept-grip/.
