Ohio court stops criminal sentence of pastor who runs homeless ministry at church
A state appellate court has stayed a lower court ruling imposing a fine and jail time on a pastor for operating a 24/7 homeless ministry at his church.
In a statement released Thursday, the religious liberty law firm First Liberty Institute announced that the Sixth Appellate District on the Court of Appeals of Ohio has put on hold the criminal sentence levied against Pastor Chris Avell, who leads a Bryan, Ohio-based church called Dad’s Place.
Last month, a Bryan Municipal Court Judge ordered Avell to pay a $200 fine and gave him a 60-day suspended jail sentence for keeping his church open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to care for the homeless.
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“This is the second time that an Ohio appellate court has recognized that Dad’s Place’s case presents a strong likelihood to succeed on appeal,” said First Liberty Institute Senior Counsel Jeremy Dys. “We are grateful to the court for granting this stay and will continue to fight until city officials in Bryan abandon their harassment of Dad’s Place and Pastor Chris.”
First Liberty Institute said the city was “aggressively attacking the church in court.” The church, it said, was accused of committing zoning violations and subjected it to “middle-of-the-night fire inspections” and “police antagonism.” The law firm also maintained that the city engaged in a double standard when enforcing fire codes.
“While city officials demand the church install an expensive fire suppression system, the city does not require all of its motels, most of its apartment complexes, and even a senior living facility to install fire suppression systems in their buildings,” First Liberty stated.
In a video interview, Ryan Gardner of First Liberty Institute remarked, “I have never seen a pastor get criminally charged […] with just doing the work that the church does: caring for the needy, loving those who have no one else to love them, and seeking and saving the lost.”
Gardner added, “The city doesn’t want [Avell] to do that here. To the city, the people here are the problem and these people here need to go somewhere else.”
The legal battle surrounding Dad’s Place dates back to 2023 when Avell first opened the homeless ministry at his church. Several months later, the city of Bryan filed 18 criminal charges against the church. While the city agreed to drop the charges in exchange for Dad’s Place pledging to seek necessary building certifications and zoning permits as well as any “safety measures associated with those permits,” the church faced additional criminal charges after the city conducted a surprise inspection of its facilities in April 2024.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
