Brookwood Church Allowed Convicted Sex Offender Jerry Sidell to Serve as a Mentor
Originally reported by Beneath The Collar. The original reporting is transcribed in full below, along with Brookwood Church’s promotional materials and video documentation.
A Brookwood Church promotional video for its mentoring ministry features convicted child sex offender Jerry Sidell discussing mentoring with a man identified by Beneath The Collar as Mark Taylor, Brookwood’s Discipleship Pastor.
The discovery, highlighted in reporting by Beneath The Collar, raises additional questions about Sidell’s involvement in Brookwood’s Adult Discipleship ministry and what church leadership knew about his criminal history.
Sidell was convicted of child sex crimes in Georgia in 1983. An October 5, 2026, FOX Carolina investigation also reported that Sidell served as a men’s mentor at Brookwood, citing a former congregant.
Brookwood Church’s Mentoring Program
On August 22, 2021, Brookwood Church published a Facebook post promoting opportunities for spiritual growth through its Adult Discipleship ministry.
The post included information about the church’s Essentials program and its mentoring initiative.
Under the heading “MENTORING,” Brookwood encouraged individuals who felt called to help others grow spiritually to consider serving as mentors.
Brookwood’s Adult Discipleship materials also communicate a broad message of spiritual acceptance and restoration:
“No matter where you’ve been, what you’ve done, or what’s happened to you, you have a place in God’s story…”
The question is not whether individuals with criminal histories can experience spiritual restoration. It is whether Brookwood established and enforced appropriate safeguards when involving a registered sex offender with convictions involving children in ministries built around personal relationships, trust and mentoring.
Watch the Brookwood Church Mentoring Video
The following promotional video includes the conversation highlighted in Beneath The Collar’s reporting. The embedded video is set to begin at approximately 2 minutes and 27 seconds.
Watch the video directly on Vimeo.
During the conversation, the subtitles include statements about qualifications for mentoring and sharing personal life experiences.
Beneath The Collar: Original Facebook Reporting
The following is a transcription of the original Facebook post published by Beneath The Collar. Statements concerning individual mentoring assignments, leadership knowledge and access have not all been independently established by the promotional video alone.
A new revelation has come to me concerning Jerry Sidell and Brookwood Church, and after digging into it more, I need to lead with how absolutely abhorrent and disturbing I find what I am about to share.
Just when you think the negligence at Brookwood Church couldn’t get any deeper, it does. This was never just about putting a convicted offender on a stage to play the keyboard, or granting him access to youth-adjacent programs like The Landing, Worship Leader Round Tables, and The Table.
The most chilling part isn’t just the sheer scope of this access—it’s how the church actively took it even further. If you want to understand how a convicted child predator was allowed to cross from a stage into intimate, one-on-one ministry, look at how Brookwood justifies it in black and white. This is the official philosophy straight from their Adult Discipleship page:
“No matter where you’ve been, what you’ve done, or what’s happened to you, you have a place in God’s story…”
Leadership took “no matter what you’ve done” to a terrifying extreme. They didn’t just offer spiritual redemption; they handed a convicted child predator the keys to one-on-one relationships under the guise of “discipleship.”
Think about what a church mentorship actually requires. It requires a “mentee” to be entirely vulnerable. It requires young men—some as young as 18—to open up about their deepest personal struggles, temptations, and private lives behind closed doors. Now ask yourself: what kind of “accountability” or “life advice” was a convicted sex offender—a man whose history is rooted in profound sexual deviance—offering to unsuspecting church members in these private sessions?
In August 2021, Brookwood released a promotional video featuring several members to promote this very Mentoring initiative. And who was one of the people they chose to highlight on camera to represent this program? That’s right– Jerry Sidell.
Look at the closed captions in these screenshots capturing their exact conversation. You have a registered sex offender sitting comfortably on a church couch, looking a pastor in the eye, and discussing how “life experiences make us qualified” to mentor others, and how mentoring is about “sharing life on life.” It is horrifying to realize the level of authority, trust, and unrestricted access this man was handed by church leadership.
The man conducting the interview and validating him on that couch is Mark Taylor. As his official staff photo confirms, his title is “Discipleship Pastor”—meaning he is the specific leader overseeing this very department.
Mark Taylor, https://www.facebook.com/markingitup, I have a direct question for you. When you sat on that couch to film this promotional video, did you know you were interviewing a convicted child molester and registered sex offender?
Source: Beneath The Collar — Original Facebook Post
Who Was Responsible for the Mentoring Program?
Beneath The Collar identifies the man conducting the interview as Mark Taylor, whose Brookwood Church staff profile lists his role as Discipleship Pastor.
The promotional video raises a question that Brookwood leadership should address directly: Did the individuals responsible for the mentoring ministry know about Jerry Sidell’s convictions and registered sex offender status when he was featured in this video?
The video establishes his participation in the church’s promotional material, but it does not independently establish what Taylor knew at the time or document the identities and circumstances of any individual mentees assigned to Sidell.
Questions Brookwood Church Should Answer
The mentoring promotional video adds another important dimension to the ongoing questions surrounding Jerry Sidell’s involvement at Brookwood Church.
Brookwood leadership should publicly address the following:
- Who were his mentees? How many individuals was he assigned to mentor, and what were their ages at the time?
- Were mentees informed? Were individuals assigned to Sidell told about his convictions and registered sex offender status before entering a mentoring relationship?
- What did Mark Taylor know? Did Brookwood’s Discipleship Pastor know about Sidell’s criminal history when the promotional video was recorded?
- What safeguards existed? What screening, supervision, disclosure requirements and restrictions applied to registered sex offenders participating in Brookwood’s mentoring ministry?
- Who approved Sidell’s participation? Which church leaders reviewed or authorized his mentoring involvement and his appearance in promotional material?
Another Ministry, More Unanswered Questions
Brookwood Church has faced questions about Sidell’s involvement in multiple ministries and activities, including The Table, Celebrate Recovery, The Landing, Worship Leader Round Tables, and the Rusty Bucket music ministry.
The mentoring video adds further documentary evidence of how Sidell was presented within the church’s ministry environment.
Unlike a public musical performance, mentoring can involve personal conversations, individual relationships and significant trust between participants. Understanding the extent of Sidell’s actual mentoring role, any supervision provided and whether participants knew his history is therefore especially important.
Brookwood’s leadership should provide a clear, documented account of his participation rather than leave current and former church members to piece together the history from archived videos, promotional materials and firsthand accounts.
Sources and Documentation
- Original reporting: Beneath The Collar — Facebook Post
- Video documentation: Brookwood Church Mentoring Promotional Video — Vimeo
- Brookwood Church materials: August 22, 2021 Facebook post promoting mentoring, Adult Discipleship materials and Mark Taylor’s staff profile, reproduced in screenshots above.
- Independent investigation: FOX Carolina Investigates — October 5, 2026
SurvivingBrookwood.com is an independent documentation and accountability resource and is not affiliated with Brookwood Church. Additional firsthand accounts or documentation regarding the church’s mentoring program may help clarify the questions raised in this article.
