PALM BEACH GARDENS — Preacher Tullian Tchividjian told his congregation on a recent Sunday that he sees himself in a story from the Gospel of John.

In the passage, Nathanael questions whether anything good can come out of Nazareth, the hometown of Jesus Christ that may have had an immoral reputation in biblical times. Likening it to asking if light can come out of darkness, Tchividjian said he knows from personal experience that the answer is yes.

"I am standing here today because in my darkest moments, God never stopped holding onto me," Tchividjian said. A few cries of "Amen“ answered him from the congregation of roughly 60-80 people at the Hilton Garden Inn, which is serving as a spot for worship before they can find a permanent home in the area.

Tchividjian, the 47-year-old grandson of famed pastor Billy Graham and a Christian celebrity in his own right, is leading a church for the first time since his June 2015 resignation as senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in northern Fort Lauderdale.

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Tchividjian was forced to resign because he violated a morality contract by having an extramarital affair, according to a filing in his divorce case. But the woman who said she was involved in the affair and an advocacy organization led by his brother call it pastoral abuse and sexual misconduct.

Tchividjian, who said there was no element of sex abuse or emotional manipulation, was also defrocked by the South Florida Presbytery. Now the new Jupiter resident is among those starting The Sanctuary, an unaffiliated church that's meeting each Sunday at the Hilton Garden Inn Palm Beach Gardens ahead of a planned formal launch next month.

It's the culmination of a path, Tchividjian said, that largely began in 2015 when his marriage cratered and he resigned as senior pastor at Coral Ridge, a position he described as a dream job, over his infidelity.

He says now that he took part in two affairs, one of which was with a congregant of the influential church. That happened while Tchividjian was on a leave of absence from Coral Ridge and after he separated from his wife, he said.

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Rachel Steele, then a member of Coral Ridge, said her affair with Tchividjian, the one that prompted his resignation, lasted between roughly May and June 2015. They had sex a few times, she said.

Steele said she wanted to have sex with him, but added that there was an element of surrendering “to what he wanted.” She doesn't consider it consensual, because she said Tchividjian groomed her and abused his position of power over her.

Months earlier, Tchividjian baptized her children, Steele said. And that spring, Tchividjian was offering her and her then-husband marriage advice.

She considered it counseling, while Tchividjian said he had no such role in her life.

“He was my spiritual leader. You know, he was my go-to. He was my teacher. ... He definitely had a place of authority in my life,“ Steele said. ”You trust a man like that a lot more.“

Coral Ridge's executive director Andrew Nichols declined to comment on the circumstances surrounding Tchividjian's resignation. Matthew Dubocq, of the South Florida Presbytery, also declined to comment.

In December 2016, the board of directors at GRACE, which stands for Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, issued a statement saying they were "deeply disturbed about the revelations of sexual misconduct by Tullian Tchividjian."

Tchividjian's brother and GRACE's executive director, Boz Tchividjian, did not respond to two emails and a phone message from The Post seeking comment. GRACE's website linked to testimony by Steele posted on SpiritualSoundingBoard.com.

Some states, such as Texas and Minnesota, have laws specifically criminalizing sexual contact between clergy and certain parishioners. The chapter of the Florida statutes on sexual battery does not include a similar provision.

Across Christian denominations, it's generally the professional and moral standard that clergy refrain from sexual contact with parishioners, said Nancy Duff, the Stephen Colwell Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary.

“Typically one really would need to abide by, 'You don't have sexual relations with members of your congregation,'” Duff said. “It's not wise. It's not professional. There's a difference in authority between the pastor and the parishioner.”

Those relationships can too often destroy churches and lead to abuse, Duff said, though she added the propriety of the relationships can depend on a variety of factors, such as age and marital status.

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Through a spokesperson, Tchividjian said his “infidelity in 2015 was completely wrong, morally and ethically.” But, he said, there was no element of abuse in that or the other affair.

"I don't care what role a person has, a consensual relationship between two adults is not abuse. And some of these people will try to make the case that, 'Well, because you're in a position of authority, it is abuse,'" Tchividjian said. "And I'll go, 'OK I can see how that has been and can be used by people in those positions.' ... (But) that just was not true for me. I was not abusing my authoritative role to try and find women."

Vickie Diamond, a Sanctuary regular, said she isn't bothered by the situation that led to Tchividjian's resignation at Coral Ridge.

"I trust that God has done amazing work in his life," Diamond said, singling out current wife Stacie Tchividjian "as the evidence of the changes in his life."

Glenn Paraday, a North Lauderdale resident who began attended The Sanctuary this summer with wife Diane, said he feels the same. The Paradays previously attended Coral Ridge when Tchividjian was its senior pastor.

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"We've all been somewhere where we need forgiveness," Paraday said. "God's restored him."

Lessons from Tchividjian, also a published Christian author who has about 99,000 Twitter followers, are a focal point for The Sanctuary. His Aug. 4 sermon clocked in at just under 40 minutes while the rest of the stripped-down service included a welcome, opening and closing prayers, a short meet and greet time, an offering and a few songs.

By his own description, Tchividjian's journey back to leading a congregation has been winding.

After leaving Coral Ridge, a sabbatical funded by donors to Willow Creek Church in Central Florida ended abruptly in spring 2016 around the time that details of one of Tchividjian's extramarital relationships were made public, Tchividjian said.

Willow Creek's leadership later condemned him in a December 2016 statement.

“We would also like to state in the clearest possible terms that we do not believe that Mr. Tchividjian should be in any form of public or vocational ministry,” the statement said. The statement has since been taken offline, but Senior Pastor Kevin Labby told The Palm Beach Post that the church's leaders stand by the 2016 statement and declined to comment further.

Tchividjian married Stacie in August 2016. They spent more than a year living about 60-70 miles north of Houston, he said.

Tchividjian calls his time in Texas "my year of spiritual, mental and emotional detox and rehab," when he says God was "deconstructing me to the core." It was a "very, very, very painful, but necessary" time in his life, Tchividjian said.

The couple moved to Fort Myers in late August 2017. It was at about that time when, Tchividjian said, he began writing again and posting those thoughts online. A year and a half of speaking engagements throughout the U.S. followed, when he was often asked to share reflections on his own life.

Reactions to his writings and speeches made it clear to Tchividjian that there was a spiritual appetite for a different kind of church, one that is a "safe place for broken people to break down and for fallen people to fall down." He said he heard from many others about "crash and burn stories" of their own.

"The church ought to be a sanctuary," Tchividjian said. "It ought to be a place of refuge and safety. It ought to be a place where people come and feel freedom to tell the truth about themselves without fear of rejection."

As he shared his beliefs, Tchividjian increasingly thought he and Stacie should create a church in that image. That came to fruition after a longtime acquaintance approached the Tchividjians last November about starting a church in northern Palm Beach County.

This year, Tchividjian said he preached twice to sizable crowds at hotels in Jupiter and Palm Beach Gardens. "It was after that second gathering, large gathering, that we concluded this is exactly what we need to do," he said.

The Sanctuary has been in the works since then. Tchividjian said he's cultivated an environment that is informed by his own experiences and struggles, as well as the testimonies he's heard on the road.

"Because I was born into Christian royalty and then lived (a) majority of my adult life as a Christian leader in the evangelical world and then everything happening and sort of being cast out as an outsider, it gave me a unique perspective," Tchividjian said. His mother, Gigi Graham, was one of Billy Graham's three daughters.

The continuation of his career, while Steele said she was ostracized and her life floundered after their affair, was hard on her and her faith.

“The loss of my faith hurts and you can't get that back,” she said.

Steele said she is sickened and angered at the thought of Tchividjian leading another church.

The turnout at The Sanctuary is rising, Diamond said. She suspects a mission of the church — to be a judgment-free congregation centered on God — is attractive locally. Around 500 people had signed on to a master list of church supporters as of late July, Stacie Tchividjian said.

"So instead of being a church that's exclusive where you're looking for people that are just like you … The Sanctuary is a church that welcomes and embraces and wants diversity and we celebrate that," Diamond said. "And we don't weigh and measure our sins against each other."

Tchividjian acknowledges some may be uneasy about his return to preaching. But he said he and The Sanctuary are offering an experience that others will seek out and appreciate.

"Some people think that I should just shut up and crawl in a cave and never come out because I'm not qualified to be leading spiritually in any way because of everything that I went through and everything that I did," he said. "Other people champion it because they go, 'It's about time that churches are led by people who know what it feels like to, you know, fall on their face and be in the gutter.'"

Steele said she's still waiting on a genuine apology from Tchividjian. There's no remorse or repentance, as far as she can see.

“Repentance, the biblical word, means to turn around, to change direction,“ Steele said. ”He's been going in one direction.“

showard@pbpost.com

@SamuelHHoward