hopebaptistspringfield

Controversy: Was it ever really True Repentance?

Posted on by Sydney Sjorlund

As some might have seen, Hope Baptist has posted a statement letter called Controversy regarding the contents of our blog! To show how full of lies that statement letter is, I need to explain what happened when Kevin got caught!

In January of 2016, Stephen saw my phone in the bathroom and he had had suspensions about his dad (he will explain more about that later), so he looked at my messages to Kevin. Well Kevin had been texting me earlier that day to set up a secret meeting behind a gas station in town. Which was a very regular thing he would do but he always reminded me to delete the messages and he had forgotten this time. So he brought it to his mom and then dad, Kevin tried to deny it and proceeded to show that he didn’t have any messages on his phone! But they had mine and could obviously prove they existed. They called Brandon and I very quickly went down to the basement to my room sobbing, I was so scared of what was about to happen. Teri was always so mean and horrible to me before so now what was she going to do to me! What was the church going to do to me? I could hear some yelling upstairs off and on for a long time. In the morning I was asked to come upstairs and talk with Brandon and Jonathan, the other two elders of the church at that time. As I walked upstairs Kevin was in the dining room which I had to pass to go into the study. He smiled at me and said “Good Morning Sydney” I was confused, why was he talking to me? Why was he smiling? What was about to happen?

I went into the study with Brandon Dodd, Jonathan Betancourt, and Brittanie Dodd, they wanted Brittanie present for accountability they said. They informed me that they had spoken with Kevin and wanted to ask me three yes or no questions as they knew this would be hard to talk about. Brandon asked if there was inappropriate texting and talking, to which I said yes. He asked if there was inappropriate touching, I said yes. Then he asked if we had intercourse, meaning penis in vagina, which I said no. Brandon said well good, it looks like your stories line up. I was crying and Jonathan immediately told me that it was okay, everyone has their own personal sin struggles and they would help me through mine. I was devastated! They are blaming me. I was terrified knowing that people found out about what was going on but also relieved knowing it was over. But now so confused, why are they blaming me? Why aren’t they asking me what happened?

They had my phone and they told me for my safety they were going to keep my keys. I was also going to be staying with Zack and Savannah Stargell. A little later that day I was taken over to their house. Savannah sat with me and we talked some and she sobbed with me, holding me. She told me how angry she was at her dad saying, “I don’t understand how he could do this to you! He knows how much you’ve struggled with trusting men and he destroyed that! I am so angry at him and angry for you!” It’s like somehow she knew the truth. I didn’t feel like I deserved her kindness. We sobbed a lot that afternoon together. Brandon came over though that evening and talked to Zack and Savannah alone for a while and then all of us and they explained how we were not to talk about any of this stuff at all together. Jonathan would be handling my counseling and Christie, his wife would be present but that I should only talk to them about this stuff.

I was then told that the next day in church I had to confess before the church and give an apology to everyone. Brandon explained that he knew it would likely be almost impossible for me to stand up at the pulpit and do it. So they would write and read both and I would just have to say that I agreed into a mic at church.

The next day at church before service Kevin went before the church and read his confession of adultery and apology to the church, his family, and wife and he stepped down as head Elder. Then my confession and apology was read and I had to agree to it. I just so desperately wanted to hurry up and get it over with. I just wanted it all to end. Then the church was told from the pulpit that Brandon would be handling (his father) Kevin’s church discipline and counseling and Jonathan Betancourt would be handling mine. Then all the members were told no one was to be talking to one another about this matter. If anyone was caught talking about it they would be under even more severe church discipline than what kevin and I were under.

After service I was told by the elders that they were keeping my keys for my safety and they were keeping my phone until they could figure out a way to put something on it to read all my messages, for accountability. After a week they finally gave me my phone and keys back, they had put something on my phone that let them read all my text messages. 

Later that week I met with Jonathan and Christie. I poured out my heart recounting what happened, I was finally able to talk to someone about what actually happened to me. Finally someone will know the truth and not blame me for everything. Or so I thought, right after our sessions Jonathan would meet with Brandon to talk through everything. I was continually told and counseled for this “specific sin struggle”. I also wrote out things that happened because they wanted to know everytime a new boundary was crossed and who initiated it. I was told that Brandon and Jonathan would be looking over it and making sure Kevin and I’s stories matched up.

After several weeks of being counseled for my sins. I was told that I had to write a very detailed apology to Kevin and one to Teri. And that they would do the same for me. Jonathan then gave me several key things that I needed to include in this said apology. He really emphasized that it needed to be very detailed and not at all vague because that wouldn’t show true repentance. I was honestly so ready for this to all be over, I just wanted to get this part over with. So I took his notes and things he said I had to include and wrote one for each of them. I had to then give it to Jonathan so he and Brandon could look it over to make sure they were adequate. I did write both of them on paper so I don’t have copies of them. But I received my apology letter from Kevin and was honestly so confused, it was so vague and didn’t really admit or say much of anything. I also never got one from Teri.


So I guess I’d ask, is this a true letter of repentance? Was my situation handled correctly? We also have other ex members that are willing to also testify to the fact that they lied too about what all actually happened between Kevin and I. That the Elders did not seek out counsel and when members brought their concerns to the elders about how things were being handled they were basically told to not question it.

Also in regards to the abuse and how the church is stating it happened multiple times, I will explain this point more in another post but this abuse was constant! I did not go a day without this man putting his hands on me in some way! I was also left alone with him in the house at least a couple times a week. (Which is very much unacceptable by the rules they and their church believe in.) On Sunday’s, the rest of the family would leave church and it was just Kevin and I and a young child pretty much every single week. There were too many of us in our home that we couldn’t all fit in one car so I would drive mine. So after church I would have to take them home in my small car. And yes, Kevin would assault me while the child was in the back seat.

Son Finds Proof of His Father’s Abuse

Posted on by Sydney Sjorlund

It’s in January of 2016 that I, Alexander Clemence, son of Kevin Dodd, find to be the best place to begin telling you this story. 

I was 18 years old and still living with my parents. At this time also living here were my parents, Kevin and Teri Dodd, one of my biological sisters, Brittanie Dodd, my cousin Guy, my three adopted siblings and Sydney. 

Sydney had been living with my family for three and a half years. She moved in when Steffanie still lived there, who since then had gotten married and moved out. 

Her decision to move in was one of practical benefit; she wanted to help coach a volleyball team with Brittanie and driving from Joplin as frequently as she would have to wasn’t tenable. Having had the impression that my family was a trustworthy Christian family, neither she nor her parents had any inkling of risk posed to her by any one of the Dodd’s. 

Sydney had forgotten her phone in the bathroom, I was the one who found it and I knew the passcode to unlock it. I chose to look into her messages with my father, and I found a string of texts and replies between them, arranging a secret meeting behind a gas station. 

I brought this to my mother, who, seemingly enraged, called for my father whose first instinct was to lie by trying to show how the messages weren’t present on his phone. Immediately it was obvious he’d deleted them on his end. Within the hour the other two elders of our church got to the house to guide us in this situation. These two elders were Brandon Dodd, my fathers first-born son and Jonathan Betancourt who had been frequently claimed as another son by my parents. There was nothing said of the questionable nature of these two men being the ones to handle this situation – in fact, there were no questions asked except those that were harshly rebuked.

At one point with only Sydney and the young children absent from the room, I asked my father a question about how physical things had been. At the time I remember feeling guilty when my father quietly indicated that it wasn’t just hugging or being handsy. Not guilty because of his response, or because of the fact that my mother seemed angry with him. I was made to feel guilty by my brother, who angrily reminded me that no one was meant to ask questions but he or Jonathan. 

Very little information made its way out at this point. It’s ironic because this was in my opinion the first and last point that my father felt a modicum of guilt. Guilt that I now see for what it was; someone cowering in fear of the consequences about to rain down on them.

I was quickly denied being present in any other conversations, which left me to simply observe the activity. The Elders spoke with only my father to confirm details, neglecting to speak to Sydney at all until initial consequences were being put in place. 

Sydney’s phone and car keys were taken; the line of reasoning being that they didn’t want to risk her communicating further with my father. 

Neither my father’s phone nor his vehicle access were removed. Likewise when the elder’s decided to put an application on Sydney’s phone to monitor her messages, my father refused this as well. 

Kevin faced no consequences while Sydney was banished to live with another young couple in the church, Savannah Stargell and her husband Zack, my sister and her husband. Sydney was also forbidden to speak about the matter with anyone, but absolutely not with Savannah or Zack.

My father was so fully spared anything past a slap on the wrist that my mother – in what was purported as grace but I see as compliance – let him sleep in the same bed as her that same night. 

Kevin deserved – if nothing else – brutal scrutiny, and was instead treated as a man who slightly erred and deserved nothing but compassion. While the church elders shunted a young woman off to an unfamiliar home with no outside contact or means of escape, they spoke to the family of her abuser to implore them to be mindful of his state, fearing he might do something to harm himself.

No such concern was spoken in regards to Sydney.

I had one other conversation with my brother that night before he left. Because in the last year I had made clear intentions that I was fully intent on marrying Sydney; intentions she didn’t have any notion of. 

So I simply asked my brother and church elder how I handled those feelings and that intention in lieu of what I now knew had happened. 

I’m sharing his response with you because I feel it is telling of the wicked perspective of my brother, a purported man of God. 

“Everyone has dirt, you just have to ask yourself if she’s going to be too dirty to you now.” 


Click here for the next blog post “Constant”

Next Boundary Crossed: Part 3

Posted on by Sydney Sjorlund

In the weeks to follow the first “Counseling sessions” many others followed with similar results. Kevin would repeatedly say things about my dreams not just being dreams but traumatic events that actually happened to me playing out in my dreams. (I was not sexually abused before Kevin Dodd and I will explain more about that in another post.) He would often ask leading questions, in example, when I mentioned someone drinking beer in one of my dreams. Kevin recounted that my family didn’t drink, so who was I around that did? I only had one friend who’s dad drank in front of me on occasion, so I mentioned him. Kevin immediately told me, well then what did he do to you then? Was it actually him in your dream but is it not actually a dream but a memory? Kevin would grope and grind on my body for a while while counseling me then ask a question like the previous one toward the end and tell me to come find him sometime when I figured out the answer or needed help working through things again.

I would stress over the questions, questioning my entire life and existence and all that I knew. Inevitably I would go to him and talk about things he had said before. He would come up with reasons to walk over to me or have something on his computer he would want to show me so I would have to go around his desk in his study and stand by him. He would start running his hands all over my butt and grind on me anytime he was standing.

One day, I came home from my once a week daycare job I had at the time to find that Kevin was home with just a little child asleep in their room for naptime. He was in the living room in a swivel chair. I walked in the door and he asked how my day went as I walked into the house. We talked for a minute about some random chit chat. He turned the chair to fully face me and kind of tapped his leg. Well at this point, I knew what that meant, I knew what he was asking for. I was starting to really feel like my job was to give him access to my body, after all, it was my fault for not saying no the first time!

As I walked over to his chair he quickly put his hands on my thighs and started rubbing up and down my legs. He started rubbing his fingers on the top of my pants, running his finger along the top of them. Then he told me to sit down and gently tugged on my waistline until I was sitting in front of him, my back against the chair positioned in between his legs. He started with his hands on my shoulder and creeped up to the collar of my shirt, Then suddenly plunged one hand down my shirt. While the other hand worked down my torso and he grabbed my pants and started unbuttoning my pants.

It all happened so fast, I was a virgin, I had never even been kissed, let alone a grown man putting his hands underneath my clothes touching me like this. What was happening and why was he doing this? He told me it was my job to tell his wandering hands no, this was happening because I was failing him, why couldn’t I just say no. Yet why was I starting to feel like this was my job, like I was told to submit myself to him. Was this what everyone was meaning?

While he starts trying to unbutton my pants, I am panicking! What’s going to happen? What was he going to do when he did get the unbuttoned? Well moments later my mind is snapped back to reality when he gets my pants undone and plunges his hand down my pants and underwear. As his fingers touch me and after a moment of holding my breath. Then he leaned his upper body down till his head was resting right beside mine, and while he bends over he started penetrating me. 

After several minutes went by he asked if that felt okay? And did I want him to stop? That became his theme, he was asking those questions after he had done something for several seconds or minutes. I said it was fine and he just kept going. I felt so ashamed, so dirty, what was happening? Why was he doing this? What was wrong with me that this was happening?

He finally stopped after what felt like forever. He asked if I was okay, to which I responded I was fine like always. He then said that Brittanie was going to be home soon. So he got up saying he needed to go do some things and went to his bedroom. I went downstairs to the basement to my room and cried for a while trying to figure out what just happened and why I couldn’t just do what he asked me to and say no! What was wrong with me?

Instances like this happened frequently over the course of a month or so until he escalated things. Which I will talk about in the next post.

Click Here for Locked in a Room: Part 4

Introduction: Part 1

Posted on by Sydney Sjorlund

This blog contains the story of what happened to Sydney Sjorlund at Hope Baptist Church in Springfield Missouri. Sydney was living with the Kevin Dodd family and Kevin’s son Stephen discovered evidence that his dad was engaged in a totally inappropriate relationship with Sydney. The cat was out of the bag and the leadership of Hope Baptist Church had to do something about it. If they had fears that Kevin’s actions were criminal in nature they were well justified. So they went into damage control mode, concocting a plan to share blame equally between the perpetrator Pastor Kevin Dodd and Sydney.  Pastor Kevin Dodd stood before the members of Hope Baptist Church and confessed his sin of “adultery.” He then announced he was stepping down as head pastor. Sydney was then forced to stand before the congregation and read a short prepared statement (which had to be pre-approved by the elders) and confess her “sin of adultery.” The entire event was a sham and many members were outraged by it. Over half the church removed their memberships, some doing so only after confronting the elders over what we could plainly see was a cover up. Some of us have, from time to time, continued calling our former elders to repentance. All efforts have fallen on deaf ears. We’ve waited far longer than we probably should have to bring this matter public. 

There are no laws against grooming. Predators are left unfettered to groom even little children, waiting patiently until they reach the age of “consent.” Rarely does clergy sexual abuse occur without prior grooming, and often the grooming has taken place over years, prior to any sexual assault. The goal of grooming is to slowly and progressively break down natural self-protection barriers. It starts seemingly innocent enough with hugging leading to long embraces, progressing to touching and stroking, lap-sitting, etc. This leads to petting over the clothing. Once the actual sexual abuse begins, the victim has been thoroughly conditioned to put up little or no resistance to it.  

Even with all the prior grooming, sexual abuse always results in trauma, confusion and self-doubt. Trauma is amplified where it includes not just sexual abuse but also verbal and emotional abuse and blame. Try as the predator might to convince his victim that “We’ve got a special relationship. But we have to keep it a secret because no one else will understand,” the victim will feel shame. The shame, self-doubt and confusion serves to the benefit of the predator by keeping the victim silent. Then there’s the issue of gaslighting. Some pastors are extraordinarily gifted at gaslighting, especially where they authoritatively quote the Word Of God as justification for their actions. Predatory pastors often gaslight their victims into believing the sex is something the victim wants. That way if the predator is caught he can claim it’s “consensual” and therefore, at worst, “adultery.” Predatory pastors rarely ever accept responsibility fully. At best they “blame-share” thereby making their victims equally responsible. Some even go so far as to victim-blame, i.e. “She seduced me with her feminine wiles.” One of the favorite sermons predatory pastors preach is on David and Bathsheba. Bathsheba gets the blame for “tempting David by indiscreetly bathing on her roof.” 

What happens when victims of clergy sexual abuse do muster up the courage to be a whistle-blower in their church? In many if not most cases elders, deacons, and many of the congregants circle the wagons. It may not be right but it’s a natural tendency to disbelieve a whistle-blower, especially where what’s at stake is the unblemished reputation of a “godly spiritual leader.” Even where there’s overwhelming evidence of clergy sexual abuse, at best it will be spun as “an inappropriate physical relationship,” or perhaps “adultery” with the goal of “restoring the pastor” as quickly as possible. Little if any regard is given to the victim. 

This is Sydney’s story, but she writes it with our support – former members of Hope Baptist Church Springfield. Tragically this isn’t just a case of your ordinary clergy sexual abuse. It’s actually much worse than that. Add to that a daily dose of verbal and emotional abuse. Yeah, not consensual in the least. Gaslight the victim into believing their parents were “evil” and “abusive.” After encouraging Sydney to move into their home the Dodds engaged in a calculated agenda of parental alienation to isolate Sydney from her own family, thereby making her that much more vulnerable. 

To the Matthew 18 Police: Yes, multiple members have confronted the elders, and repeatedly so. Many have brought their concerns to them, pleading for plausible explanations, only to be rebuffed with a blanket, “It’s slander. It’s lies. It’s gossip.” Their refusal to provide any credible justifications left us only to plead with them to repent and step down from leadership. Even as recently as February 2023 some went to them yet once again, only to have them circle the wagons again. Six years have come and gone with no resolution in sight. It is with great regret that we now are compelled to take this catastrophic moral failure public. 

Kevin Dodd stepped down in 2016 as head pastor of Hope Baptist Church (only to be replaced by the very elders who covered up for him), as of this date Kevin Dodd remains Associate Pastor Of Worship at First Baptist Church of Battlefield, MO even though they have removed him from the website. This is a prime example of pastors protecting predators while ignoring their victims. Though Pastor Ray Smith has known about this for years, he’s content to permit a sexual predator “minister” in the midst of the very flock he’s charged with guarding. Other Baptist pastors and leaders in the Springfield area were also long ago made aware but likewise have turned a blind eye. 

Sydney’s story may contain graphic descriptions of sexual abuse. Sydney is apprehensive about going into any graphic detail. But we have encouraged her to be fully disclosing the details, not for shock value but in the interest of uncovering what Hope Baptist Church elders have sought for so long to cover up. The nasty details are the very thing they know to likely constitute criminal acts. It is therefore inappropriate for children to read this blog. Reading this blog could also trigger victims of sexual abuse and should, therefore, be read only after careful reflection of whether or not the reader is emotionally prepared.



Click Here for Moving in: Part 2