Our Experience at Petra Bible Church

By Elijah and Hananiah Haugen

2021 – 2026

Our Families and the Church

I, Elijah (23 at the time), my wife Hananiah (21 at the time), and our 6-month-old son started attending Petra Bible Church in Four Corners, Montana in 2021.

Some backstory: I came from a prosperity and messianic religious background. Hananiah grew up as a Christian, and later her parents converted to messianic beliefs and joined a “doomsday” type cult in Montana during her teenage years. Both of her parents remain in that cult to this day. Both of our fathers were extremely abusive, controlling, self-righteous, and isolating to their families in their own ways.

I am the second oldest in a family of 13 and was expected by my dad to carry the load of the entire family roofing business. When I wanted to leave, marry Hananiah, and start our own family in 2019, we received pushback from both sides. Her parents made snide remarks throughout our engagement and after our marriage and the birth of our first child. One example: after our son was born, her parents came to Bozeman while I was at work and demanded $37,000 from Hananiah in addition to start putting aside for their retirement, weaponizing the scripture from 1 Timothy 3:8 “take care of those of your household or you are worse than an unbeliever.”

On my side, my father won a settlement from a car accident and instead of caring for my 7 siblings still at home who needed a new roof, a functioning bathroom, and basic necessities, he spent it all on personal trips and new Harley Davidsons. This was alongside countless incidents of domestic and drunken violence.

This treatment followed us into Petra Bible Church. Neither set of parents approved of us attending because both of our fathers wanted to lead “home church” and to be the spiritual authorities over us. They saw Pastor Jared as a threat to their control. We never felt free to simply be our own family unit.

In 2022, we made the decision to take a break from our families in order to heal. We had confronted both sets of parents about child labor, physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional abuse, as well as neglect of basic needs, inadequate education, placing children in dangerous situations (chainsaw work in the mountains and roofing labor as children), and financial exploitation of us as a married couple. They interpreted this as us “cutting ties” and refused to address any of it.

Today, Hananiah is no longer in contact with her parents, and I have no relationship with my father. My mother has since divorced him and has custody of my 7 remaining siblings, whom I speak with weekly. For clarity, we have forgiven them all however we desire acknowledgment, true repentance, and change before we can safely bring our children around them, given the anger and aggression they have shown when these issues have been raised.

We also want to be clear, Pastor Jared did not influence us to separate from our families. He did not even know the full extent of what happened to us as children until we confided in him in personal counseling much later. There have been rumors in our extended family that Pastor Jared caused us to cut ties. This is false. The decision was entirely ours, made well before we fully opened up to him about our pasts.

Why We Stayed

Both of us came from cult-like environments and did not recognize many of the red flags at Petra Bible Church early on. We were looking for a genuine community of believers following the true Jesus Christ, and we did feel welcomed by the church members. Having been raised to be submissive and never question authority, and having never had a truly godly pastor, we trusted Pastor Jared deeply. We stayed for five years.

I served as one of the elders, oversaw the worship ministry, led small groups for new members, and accompanied PWI (Petra Wilderness International) trips for future church planting. We gave this community our whole hearts up until the point of where we were excommunicated from PBC in April of 2026.

When We First Noticed Something Was Wrong

The first serious sign came through close friends and core church members, Justin and Jamie Fuller. Jamie left Justin unexpectedly and returned to her parents, refusing to reconcile. The church’s handling was a little strange, they read a formal excommunication letter to the congregation with very little explanation. Jamie later reached out to at least 300 people-members, donors, family, and business contacts, stating that Pastor Jared Cox had been abusive and controlling of her marriage and was the cause of her divorce from Justin.

Pastor Jared’s response to the congregation was that Jamie was “crazy,” “mentally ill,” and “probably abused by her dad,” and that everyone should block her. She was discussed in prayer meetings as “attacking the church’s donors for contacting them,” and we were told to pray that God would “remove her off the face of the earth.” This was around year 2022.

Growth, Then Fracture

The years 2023 and 2024 brought a wave of new families from other churches in the Bozeman valley. Petra was growing. PWI was expanding. But things were disrupted when a single female intern in her mid-20s was placed on church discipline for “gossiping about Pastor Jared.”

Hananiah was directly involved. The intern had learned that Pastor Jared was breaking pastoral confidentiality by sharing her personal confessions and struggles with other members, including Hananiah. When the intern confronted Pastor Jared, he turned it back on Hananiah, accusing her of starting the gossip. When Hananiah clarified that she believed the information was general knowledge, Pastor Jared redirected blame to the intern, claiming she had fabricated lies, and placed her on one month of church discipline.

She was told to repent publicly or not return. All members, including Pastor Jared himself blocked her during this period, meaning she had no pastoral counseling whatsoever during her discipline. She eventually created a WhatsApp account to beg to be allowed back. He agreed, but only if she read a public confession before the church. She complied. For years afterward, Pastor Jared’s eldest son stated openly that he still did not trust her.

Karl & Kate & False Accusations

A young woman in her late 20s, a friend of Karl and Kate's, moved to Montana after leaving an abusive situation. She began attending Petra and women’s Bible study. When her work schedule prevented her from attending Bible study, Pastor Jared began privately messaging her without the knowledge of anyone using language describing himself as her “spiritual father,” saying he expected her to transfer anger toward her biological father onto him because he loved her as her father never had. He also meddled in her dating life and advised her to find a new job.

When she tried to reach out to Hananiah and other women from the church, they had all been instructed to block her because she was “making up lies against Pastor Jared.” She then brought the messages to Karl who presented printed transcripts at an elder meeting consisting of Pastor Jared, four men, and myself.

When Karl presented the transcripts, elder Nick immediately said “If that has anything in it to put Pastor Jared in a bad light, I don’t need to look at it.” He set the tone for the room. No one else examined the evidence and Karl left without resolution.

Shortly after, Pastor Jared invented with no evidence a story that Karl must have been upset at the elder meeting because he was having an affair with the young woman. A letter was read to the church excommunicating Karl and Kate, citing Karl’s alleged affair. The congregation was told Karl “has demons,” that he is “truly evil,” and that Kate was covering for his sin. No one was to contact either of them. Regarding the young woman whose messages started the situation, P. Jared told the congregation she “has the spirit of a prostitute.”

The contents of this meeting were later leaked to a 16-year-old girl in the church, who told Karl’s daughter at school. Karl was furious. He reached out to the board of Petra International, received little response, and then contacted the church’s donors directly. Many dropped their financial support after hearing his concerns. Karl and Kate went on to start the Petra Bible Church Cult website, where former members of both the Bozeman and Nicaragua churches have shared their experiences. The accounts are consistent with what we witnessed firsthand.

November 2025: The Beginning of the End

During Missions Month of Nov 2025, Petra observed and prayed for persecuted Christians suffering and dying for the gospel worldwide. What deeply disturbed Hananiah and I was Pastor Jared’s verbiage in these sermons to compare Petra Bible Church’s “suffering” meaning the criticism on the cult website, to the suffering of Christians being beheaded and tortured in third-world countries. That we are fellow believers and part-take in the persecution. This comparison was deeply disrespectful to genuine martyrs of the faith. All the sermons are uploaded on the church’s YouTube channel.

With the new building on 7th Avenue and donors pulling out, the church turned to evangelism as a solution. For a few months the body was healthy. Focused outward on the community. Then, around March, outreach interest evaporated.

Hananiah and I continued putting in the work. We invited a very sweet family of nine to visit the church and were met with the response by a core member “Are they the type of family we want at the church?”

Evangelism did become discouraging for the church as we were running into the “bad reputation” PBC has in the valley. Pastor Jared and the lead tech decided the solution to this problem was to create a website worse than the Petra Cult website in hopes that people will read the website they created and readers would discredit the cult website made by Karl and Kate (It has since been taken down.) A church group chat was created where only certain members were in it and had knowledge of the new fake website launch. In the meantime, elder Nick and the tech said we needed to “raid a man’s Facebook post” who was “attacking the church.” We were told to make new fb accounts if we need to and exploit this man and expose him for his lies against the church and Pastor Jared. I will admit my wife and I did engage but waking up to how unhinged it was to post over 200 comments as a collective church on someone’s personal Facebook page is absolutely insane. We have since then pulled our comments although most of them defended Christ and not Pastor Jared but still being partakers we apologized to the man for our behavior and on behalf of PBC for it’s conduct. We noticed too that P. Jared was no where to be found. We are were all doing the dirty work and taking hits on his behalf. 

Women’s Bible Study Conflicts

Hananiah began experiencing friction in the women’s Bible study leadership. Pastor Jared had told the women to cut expenses, no more birthday gifts, just cards and to use every other Thursday for evangelism. Hananiah noticed those outreach Thursdays were consistently redirected toward serving core members and on one occasion making gift baskets for Pastor Jared’s children.

When Hananiah raised the need to actually evangelize, referencing Pastor Jared’s own instruction, she was told she could take the women out herself, but the lead women made excuses to not attend. Every outreach Thursday became a conflict. She still has the text messages documenting each one.

During one disagreement over a birthday celebration, Hananiah said she didn’t feel comfortable attending a coffee shop party for a woman who wasn’t as actively involved with the church, especially since Pastor Jared had openly stated in prayer meetings for years that he didn’t like this particular woman and that we needed to make the cut-backs. Elder Nick became involved and had his wife called mine, telling her the conflict is due to “something going on in her heart and she probably hasn’t forgiven her dad.” When she said she had forgiven her parents and this had nothing to do with that, she was told she “lacked spiritual maturity.”

Despite the tension, Hananiah chose to attend the coffee birthday party anyway, connected one-on-one with the woman, and they prayed together. The woman shared openly why she had grown distant from the church. When Hananiah shared this breakthrough with the lead overseer of Bible study, the response was “Yes, I knew it had something to do with your dad and your past.” Hananiah felt misunderstood, but let it go.

I want to point out this is not the first time my wife has been cornered and confronted by elder Nick. Mid year of 2024 I walked into the kitchen after worship rehearsal Sunday morning to find elder Nick and another male elder confronting my wife. She was crying with the look of confusion on her face. I decided to take over and take her outside to pray with her when I went to exit the kitchen I found that the main door to the kitchen was locked. Looking back on this, it was extremely inappropriate to lock another man’s wife in a room with two male elders and confront her without her husband present. I asked my wife what they were saying to her and it was about an issue that she thought was resolved 4 days prior.

The Homeless Man, My Brothers, and the Fallout

One Sunday, my brother Ezra invited a homeless man inside who showed up at the church doors. Our brother Dominic also showed up (he had been in and out of the church over the course of a couple of years.) I spoke with the homeless man and he posed no threat. Dominic arrived late and I didn’t see him until after the service began.

While I was in the sanctuary for worship, elder Nick barreled down the hallway and harshly confronted Ezra in front of Hananiah, his wife, and two other women. He was told to escort the homeless man out because “he had a knife.” Hananiah was confused, the man was drinking coffee in the church lobby. The reasonable response would have been, in my opinion, to ask security to take the knife and assign someone to sit with the man. But the decision was to remove him entirely.

After the service, Ezra and I took Dominic out to lunch and discussed next steps for him to move to Bozeman and become part of the church community. When we went to the mall afterward as families, we were bombarded with texts from Pastor Jared and Nick in a group chat and individually. Upset about the homeless man and Dominic being at church that morning causing “distractions for Pastor Jared.”

Ezra was called into an emergency meeting with elder Nick that ended in a public confession to the church sent from Pastor Jared’s phone (I have the screenshot.)

Later that evening, Pastor Jared called Hananiah while she was on her way to a children’s ministry meeting and falsely told her I had been ignoring him all day. This was not true, I was responding to his texts but had not answered his calls. He told her I was “in deep sin” and that she needed to turn around, go home, and have me call him. She did. When she arrived home, I called P. Jared back but he declined my call and instead called Hananiah again.

On that second call, Pastor Jared told her that because I “let my brother Dominic in the church” I had a “sexual connection” with my siblings. He spoke in apocalyptic terms, saying “tomorrow would be too late for me.” Hananiah, wanting to resolve things, offered for him to come to our home that evening at 7:30 PM. He hesitated but came.

The meeting felt unsettling but wasn’t terrible. He did use language I now recognize as an attempt to turn Hananiah against me and made a demand that I separate from my siblings in the church for six months. I agreed, thinking the time apart would be good for our family. I also agreed to have a conversation with my dad the following day. I was nervous to talk to him, but I felt free afterward.

Escalation

That same week, Hananiah reached out to elder Nick and his wife (the overseer of women’s Bible study) ahead of a leadership dinner, hoping to resolve the tension over the birthday party incident and a couple other things. It was not received well. She agreed to disagree with them.

Two days later, after Bible study, P. Jared called Hananiah privately and was inappropriately aggressive with her. He told her she was the reason I was in sin, that our two-year-old son was aggressive because she “hated her parents,” that it is “never a woman’s place to confront an elder, that she had crossed a line by talking to Nick and Meileen without P. Jared’s knowledge and that line should never be crossed.” He said that if she did not call Nick and his wife to apologize, I would be disqualified as an elder. She called me crying.

We were instructed to write confessions from the week and read them aloud at the elder dinner. It felt exploitative and unnecessary.

Weeks later, when I signed our 5-year-old up for basketball there were no coaches and I volunteered. When we got the schedule we realized it conflicted with worship practice. I coordinated with my co-overseer of worship to move the practice night for six weeks. She said it shouldn’t be a problem. When she announced it, elder Nick erupted in the group chat. He called me at work to discuss my “hatred toward my dad as the reason I signed my son up for basketball.” He declared in the worship group chat that the schedule would not change, that it was not in God’s order and that we must pull our son from basketball entirely because Hananiah was also in worship and there would be “no one to take him to the games.”

That same day, Pastor Jared texted Hananiah privately claiming the Holy Spirit had “burdened him” about her and I during his trip, and that he was checking to make sure she wasn’t carrying the weight of my sins alone. When she responded neutrally and not as openly as usual he told her she seemed like “a totally different woman.” He claimed my signing our son up for sports was really just my attempt to be the father I never had and that if she allowed me to continue down this path, God’s judgment would fall on our family and our son would “turn out sexually confused.” He told her to submit not to me but to the elders because I was “in sin,” and that “God’s patience was running out with us.” He then attacked her for not asking him for parenting advice often enough to which she apologized to him.

Broken Confidentiality & the Fundraiser

Hananiah was working in the church office one day when she overheard Amber, the missions admin sharing detailed, private information about a deacon’s marriage struggles, information the deacon had confessed in a small group setting to Pastor Jared and one of his sons. They did not know she was there. When P. Jared noticed her in the hallway, he shifted his demeanor entirely. He later told me that Hananiah had “shrunk away from him” but I knew why. We noticed that church gossip was encouraged.

During the Petra Wilderness International fundraiser which my wife missed due to illness, I bid on auction items to drive up prices for the organization’s benefit, as there were many new guests in the room. Afterward I was told I was “trying to show off my money.” I gave several of the items I won to other people, and all proceeds went to PWI so I am unsure where the issue lies.

That evening, Pastor Jared gave an impassioned speech about his heart for teens and young adults. This did not sit right with me. Weeks earlier, in an elder meeting, he had refused to allow the church and my wife help a troubled teenage girl who had been part of the church for four years, claiming she was “possessed with demons.” He told us plainly that if she committed suicide or went to jail, it was not on her parents or on the church. To then stand on stage and speak of his heart for youth felt deeply hypocritical.

The Breaking Point: April 2026

I was scheduled to preach on Hebrews 10:26-39. I had a preparatory call with Pastor Jared and was working from the position that the passage was a warning to those who abandon faith (which I found to be the standard scholarly reading.) Pastor Jared disagreed and pushed heavily to influence the sermon in a different direction. He wanted a dangerous image on the screens, like someone on the edge of a cliff or a desert photo. He told me to warn the congregation that leaving Petra Bible Church was equivalent to leaving the faith, and that I needed to “put the fear of God” into them.

He specifically named my brother Ezra as “falling away,” citing a private confession Ezra had made to Pastor Jared about doubting his call to become a pastor himself. He also named elder Erik Silva as “falling away and insecure.” These were private confessions that had no business being shared with me. I ended the call respectfully to make my next meeting.

Approximately three hours later, Pastor Jared sent a four-screenshot-long text to all four elders claiming that our church’s financial struggles were entirely due to our collective insecurity. He claimed we could be millionaires like certain [named] businessmen who had left in 2024, that we were all “sevens” on an insecurity scale while he and the Nicaraguan pastors were “ones.” He excluded himself saying he did not believe he had anything to do with the church’s struggles and called for an emergency meeting for us elders to come with a list of sins we needed to repent of and stated he would not be present at the meeting.

This was my final straw.

I called Hananiah. We agreed that I needed to speak honestly as an elder. I took time to write it carefully and sent the text the following morning. I told Pastor Jared that he, not the elders, not the congregation was the reason the church was struggling. I referenced scripture on pride and self-righteousness. I named the pattern of slandering people who left the church and inside the church at our elder meetings, how he supposedly repented before us weeks prior but just now used the same verbiage. I called out how him using private confessions of other people to influence my sermon was gossip and weaponizing confessions. I stood up for my fellow elders, whom I described as faithful men serving the Lord to the best of their ability with their time and skills and sacrifice. I gave a side by side comparison of after Pastor Jared rebuked women in the Resurrection Sunday sermon, I saw brother Joaquin knelt down praying for a crying woman across the room and I saw at the same time Pastor Jared venting to Justin F about a situation where these two women hurt him in Nicaragua. Among other issues I noticed that were concerning. I set a clear boundary that unless these concerns were taken seriously, I would remove my family from the church until I saw evidence of genuine repentance and change. I was not attempting to leave PBC. That was not in my message.

The Response

Within minutes, Hananiah’s phone was ringing with calls and texts from both Pastor Jared and elder Nick. She declined them and told them to contact me. Nick responded in the elder group chat calling my message “wrong and demonic” and declaring he was “handing me over to the Lord for discipline.” Seven minutes later, he texted that we should meet immediately at our home. Pastor Jared compared me to Satan using scripture in the desert to tempt Jesus.

Pastor Jared then moved to a private group chat with Hananiah and me. He pressed repeatedly for an in-person meeting. Hananiah pointed out and asked why we had been removed from all church WhatsApp group chats. Pastor Jared said it was for the “safety of the church.” I responded with “having just been called demonic and compared to Satan, how were we supposed to trust that this meeting has good intentions?” I told them to stay away from our home.

Pastor Jared pressed two more times to meet, then said he would respect our wishes. He sent a vague apology, that he “humbly asks forgiveness if he has any sins.” We forgave him but made clear the issues I raised still stood. I told him I was removing our family until I saw real change.

Pastor Jared then sent another long message claiming I had violated Matthew 18 by not following proper confrontation protocol. He stated he had wanted us to leave in peace, though he acknowledged “we are already gone.”

I sent some of the message thread to my brother Ezra before P. Jared could reach him and have him block me. I wanted him to hear it from me first. Ezra told P. Jared immediately. Then P. Jared asked why I had told Ezra. I told him the truth that he had been naming Ezra and his private confessions to me and he deserved to see the evidence and make his own decision for his family.

The Sermon & What Followed

That following Sunday, P. Jared preached on the exact passage I had been scheduled to preach (Hebrews 10:26–39) and delivered it precisely the way he had been trying to pressure me to deliver it.

Watch the sermon online: https://youtu.be/QBxvY3Ccs20?si=WTGV1KwJtApCNVi4 (“The Danger of Leaving the Faith”)

Note at the 29:44 mark: Pastor Cox states, “Petra Bible Church is not about helping homeless people.” He goes on to say that perhaps someday they can be a church for homeless teenagers, but the focus should be on “the persecuted pastor.”

The following week, a young man from Zambia who had been living with the Fuller family was escorted out of the church and removed from the Fuller home to the street that night for warning my younger brother to be cautious of leadership that encourages hatred toward one’s own brother. He reached out to us for help the next day. This reminded me of a situation of where I witnessed the aftermath of P. Jared doing something similar. In 2022 I took a missions trip with the church to visit the Nicaraguan churches and while I was there I met Pastor Edgar and his wife and these very sweet people who were deaf. Pastor Edgar had a deaf ministry for them to learn sign language and learn the gospel. When I shared this with Pastor Jared as a highlight of the trip he said he had to do away with the deaf ministry because it was a distraction for Pastor Edgar and if I knew his past I would understand.. These incidents, more than almost anything else, reveals the true heart of this ministry.

I have since also been informed that in less than a year’s time, one couple alone transferred approximately $450,000 to Pastor Jared. Another couple showed me transfers of over 50,000 plus the other donations Pastor Jared was receiving from family and donors totaled to around a million a year in donations but all I ever heard from him was how these people don’t give enough. I have witnessed people from the church making renovations to his house, no charge because of the kindness in their hearts and love towards Christ. I always assumed Pastor Jared’s family was struggling by the manner in which he spoke until I found later after talking to previous donors how much he was actually receiving with no gratitude. 

Threats, CPS, and Certified Letters

In the days that followed, Hananiah and I received hateful messages from Ezra. He told us he had sent a message to the entire church body saying I hate my dad, love money, and produce nothing but bad fruit. He said he had told everyone to block us including two of my younger siblings, ages 19 and 21, who were also members of the church. Over the following month, Ezra was threatening me to stand “man to man” with him and that we need to stay away from Pastor Jared and the church.

When I offered employment to an individual, P. Jared, Elder Nick, Ezra, and Elder Erik found out and told that person not to work for me. They told him that I am evil and would corrupt him. I documented this as potential tortious interference of employment for my company attorney.

I then followed Matthew 18 to the best of my ability. I compiled a document using Claude AI and uploaded sermons, my notes as an elder, and relevant text messages and sent it via certified mail to Pastor Cox and the elders ONLY.

The same day one letter was marked received, Ezra emailed me accusing me of “attacking the church.” He called me a liar and a wolf, said wolves don’t receive repentance, and told Hananiah and I that God “can wipe us out in a second” for coming against “the church of God.” He told Hananiah that she wouldn’t have a marriage without Pastor Jared, and suggested that I must be jealous of how much Hananiah looked up to P. Jared. He wrote “I know you have wondered, Hananiah, why your pastor loves you more than your own husband.” This was disturbing to read.

He ended the email threatening to go after my company, post fraudulent Google reviews, and expose private confessions. He claimed to have enough evidence to have me put in jail. This was sent over Memorial Day weekend. Unable to reach my attorney immediately but facing a stated deadline, I wrote and sent a demand and notice letter to to Pastor Cox and Ezra’s emails.

Ezra responded he would stop coming after the company but informed us he had filed a CPS report for child neglect and endangerment. The incidents he referenced are years old; the most recent was from last year. Our son Abel, pushed through a screen window and fell 3 feet down on the patio. We took him the emergency room and wrote the church asking for prayer. Everyone responded they would pray, except Pastor Jared who made jokes about it and clearly it was not serious enough for anyone to report CPS on us then. Another incident is when our older son (age 5) slipped and fell in the shower before church and had a little bit of a bloody nose at Sunday school. When P. Jared asked what happened my wife told him and asked for prayer as “boys are boys.” The other incident we were being accused of is when we were putting a new roof on our previous home, Abel (age 2) was playing outside and wanted to be with me and following me up the latter. When I noticed him I took him back down and brought him inside to my wife. Apparently this was a big deal to the church. The final incident happened 3 years ago when we lived near Big Sky. Our son, 3 at the time got away from us at our baby shower and ran towards the road. Someone saw him and brought him back and we very extremely upset but recognized it was The Lord God who protected our son. The church viewed this as negligence. My wife made Ezra aware that filing a CPS report in bad faith is a felony in he state of Montana.

On May 28th and 29th of 2026, we received 13 certified letters from the church members. All carried nearly identical language. Stating that we are ungrateful for everything Pastor Jared has done for us, that we used the church for our own gain and that we love money like the Williams family. These letters from our friends who once said they loved us wrote words of malicious hatred. Declaring that we hate the church and Pastor Jared, and we are enemies of the cross of Christ. That we are prideful and God’s judgement is coming and our children will suffer for our “choice” to leave PBC. Every letter has been preserved in it’s original form as evidence and is on file with our attorneys and the police department should any of this proceed to litigation. We pray it does not come to that.

My Brothers and Their Fallout

I will be brief in this part as it is not my testimony to share but what I will share is relevant due to the fact of how they treated my siblings after I was no longer there as a protection for them. In short, elder Nick harshly confronted one brother and told him to submit to a strict discipline plan and if he did not he would be required to leave the church and no longer live with the Fuller family. He left, gathered his things from the Fuller house and did not return. My other brother Ezra who was being used by Jared and Nick to do their dirty work and started getting him in trouble with the law, called me scared and urgently wanted to get away from anyone in PBC. He didn’t show up to a church meeting Wednesday night and at 9pm Jared, Nick, elder Erik and Jared’s son showed up at his door trying to find him, even trying his doorknob that he caught on camera. They called the cops on my brother and the deputy showed up, explained to my bother that she was the one who had been taking reports against PBC for years and assured them that she would call Jared and Nick to warn them that they have a temporary protection order and do not come near my brother Ezra and his wife again. He later confided in us what Jared and Nick did to him to pressure him to write us those emails and call cps on us. It is beyond disgusting.. My younger sister was the last to leave. Last minute they had arranged for her to go on a PWI trip and ride in the truck with Jared, Jared’s daughter, the intern and herself. The entire time they slandered my wife and I to her and made demands that she quit her job and get rid of everything my wife has ever given her. At the airbnb that evening, Jared and Nick were wearing her down about “what is really going on in her heart.” She was left crying and stressed by her own words. When she returned home she quit her job and backed out of an opportunity to further her education because the elders said she needed to stay in Bozeman. Shortly after the group’s return form the trip, they required my siblings to hold a funeral for my wife and I and our children after dark. She called us after Ezra had left the church to talk about issues and to tell us she was leaving as well. She saw elder Nick circling her neighborhood in his truck one night and with the demands and control she experienced on the PWI trip she was scared and wanted to separate from them as well. 

Where We Are Now

We have found a new church that has welcomed us warmly and fully knows our background with PBC. Our family is growing in the Lord. We have begun to restore some relationships within our extended families. The Lord is so, so good and gracious. We are so grateful to God that He removed my siblings and we worked everything out with law enforcement to clear up the reports they forced my brother Ezra to make against us.

It is our prayer that the members of Petra Bible Church and Pastor Jared himself will open their eyes before someone is seriously hurt or before legal consequences fall on those engaging in this kind of conduct. All of this, to defend one man.

To: PBC and Pastor Jared,

We deeply love each you and do not intend you any harm but only God’s victories in your lives as He had in ours. You have been our friends for the past five years and we forgive each of you for the malice in your letters. We want you to know we are following nothing but truth and the word of God and feel called to expose this to protect all of you. Jared, we love you and forgive for the grievances and emotional distress you have caused to our family. We are praying that the Lord will open your eyes to the damage you are causing before you seriously hurt yourself and those around you. Jesus Christ loves you and died for you too, accept Him into your heart to heal those pains from your past. We are praying for you continuously.

DISCLOSURE

Everything written here is drawn from the personal experiences that Hananiah and I have recalled together, to the best of our recollection. The purpose of this statement is solely to shed light and truth. This church holds good sound theology, but it does not carry the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This document is not intended to slander Pastor Cox or any member of Petra Bible Church. Everything stated can be substantiated with text messages, emails, or witnesses. Some names have been changed to protect the survivor’s identities. I welcome questions about my time serving as an elder at PBC, about anything in this testimony you would like clarified, or about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Blessings to all who read.

Elijah & Hananiah Haugen  ·  June 2026