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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWVNVNJg4n0

Normally, people think of grooming as the manipulative process a sexual predator uses to lure his unsuspecting prey. But these same grooming tactics are rife in cult-like churches.

So says Mike Donahue, a child sexual abuse survivor who spent many adult years serving under popular author and youth leader, Jeanne Mayo.

On this edition of The Roys Report, Mike joins host Julie Roys to tell his tragic but riveting story, revealing shocking truths about megachurch culture.

During his childhood, Mike was abused and neglected, making him easy prey for sexual predators. These predators exploited his need for love and attention to fulfill their perverse sexual desires.

After escaping these predators, Mike found hope in Jesus and became a Christian.

Yet, instead of finding safety in the church, Mike says he found another predator: well-known author and youth leader Jeanne Mayo. Mike says Mayo exploited his same need for love and belonging—not to satisfy sexual appetites, but her craving for success and growth.

In this eye-opening discussion, Mike reveals the predatory recruitment tactics he observed in Mayo’s ministry and others, and then was coached and trained to imitate. But he also talks about his journey of discovery, and how he changed after being convicted that the way he was ministering was wrong.

Guests

Mike Donahue

Mike Donahue is a highly sought-after speaker and author on the subjects of respect, bullying, and resiliency. Over the past three decades, he has addressed more than a million students and adults in-person including across the U.S., Asia, South America, and Europe. He has written five books including Hidden Scars and his latest book, Groomed. Mike and his wife, Rachel, who are parents of five children, live in Omaha, Nebraska. Learn more at his website. 

Show Transcript

SPEAKERSJULIE ROYS, MIKE DONAHUE

JULIE ROYS  00:04 We normally think of grooming as the manipulative process a sexual predator uses to lure his unsuspecting prey. But these same grooming tactics are rife in cult like churches, so says Mike Donahue, a child sex abuse survivor who spent many adult years serving under a cult-like church leader, and today, Mike joins me to tell his story.

 

JULIE ROYS  00:25

Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and I’m so looking forward to sharing Mike Donahue’s heart wrenching yet critically important message based on his own life experience. In his childhood, Mike was abused and neglected, making him easy prey for sexual predators, and in his new book, Groomed, Mike talks about the tactics these predators used to exploit his need for love and attention to fulfill their perverse sexual desires. But after escaping these predators, Mike found hope in Jesus and became a Christian. Yet instead of finding safety in the church, Mike says he found another predator – well known author, youth pastor and conference speaker Jeanne Mayo. Mike says Mayo exploited his same need for love and belonging, not to satisfy sexual appetites, but her need for success and growth. In this eye-opening discussion, Mike reveals the predatory recruitment tactics he learned in Mayo’s ministry but was coached and trained to imitate. And he talks about how you can safeguard yourself and loved ones against those who would use religion to prey on people to build their own empires.

 

JULIE ROYS  01:34

I’m so excited to share this really important podcast with you, but first I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, the Restore Conference and Marquardt of Barrington. If you’re someone who’s experienced church hurt or abuse, there are few places you can go to pursue healing. Similarly, if you’re an advocate, counselor or pastor, there are few conferences designed to equip you to minister to people traumatized in the church. But the Restore Conference, this February 7 and 8, in Phoenix, Arizona is designed to do just that. Joining us will be leading abuse survivor advocates like Mary Demuth and Dr David Pooler, an expert in adult clergy sexual abuse. Also joining us will be Scott McKnight, author of A Church Called Tov, Diane Langberg, a psychologist and trauma expert, yours truly and more. For more information, just go to RESTORE2025.COM. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there, Dan and Kurt Marquart, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM.

 

JULIE ROYS  02:55

Well, again, joining me is Mike Donahue, a survivor of child sexual abuse and then of spiritual abuse in the church. Mike now speaks around the country on bullying, respect, and resiliency, and he’s also written five books, including his latest Groomed, which is a riveting memoir. So Mike, welcome, and I’m just so glad to have you join me. Yeah. Thank

 

MIKE DONAHUE  03:18

 Yeah. Thank you so much. It’s my pleasure to be here today,

 

JULIE ROYS  03:20

I have to say, Mike, when I first got your book, it’s a self-published book. And when I get self-published books, often the writing isn’t so good, the editing isn’t so good. And so I didn’t have really high expectations as I went to read this, and man was I surprised. This is a page turner from beginning to end. Just a really, really well written book. But your story, your life story,  it’s stunning all that you’ve been through. And so just such a great book, and I think it will be so helpful for so many folks, but it must have been hard. I mean, some of this is incredibly personal, talking about, abuse that you received, and yet, you talk about it quite openly, that must have been tough for you. It was a tough

 

MIKE DONAHUE  04:08

It was a tough summer last summer when I wrote it, to be honest with you, going through the Boston stuff where I was sexually abused by men in my life. I was involved with the sex trafficking ring from basically a newspaper in Boston. I’m not gonna say which one, but I worked for a newspaper, and we were selling subscriptions to the Globe down on Cape Cod. And the guys that were hired by the Globe, they’re the ones that hired these guys, and they didn’t know, but they were part of a sex trafficking ring, and so they preyed on my vulnerabilities. My dad had left, my mom was really overwhelmed, raising kids by herself, and my dad didn’t pay child support. We were pretty poor, and so I was looking for a job because I needed money, even just to buy clothes. And they knew who they were targeting, and they targeted me. And did all the love bombing, and all the techniques they used to pull you into their web and then did some things that were illegal.

 

JULIE ROYS  05:10

And we’re going to unpack all of that today, and I’m looking forward to doing that, because I think there’s going to be a lot that’s going to be very eye opening for folks that are listening. I think when I first read the idea of a sex trafficking ring using the same tactics as an Evangelical Church, that’s shocking, absolutely shocking, when you think about it. But as I read your book, I was like, yeah, yeah, it’s the same sort of thing. It’s manipulation, it’s exploitation. I should mention your book, you were able to make that available to us so that we can make it available to donors. So anybody who gives $30 or more to this ministry this month will get a copy of your book. So I’m pretty glad about being able to offer that. So if you’re interested in that, you just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. For a gift of $30 or more, you’ll be supporting what we do here, and you’ll get this incredible resource. So really glad to make that available to folks. So you already referenced this, but your family growing up, had some major dysfunctions, some major deficits, and that set you up for predators to come into your life. Would you unpack that a little bit about what it was about your family that left you with a void that then other people sought to exploit?

 

06:43

When I speak in high schools, that’s what I do for a living, I always tell the kids that we’re all part of a genetic lottery, right? You get what you get. And I was born in South Boston, Massachusetts, and my dad was an alcoholic, and his history, I’m not going to get into all that, and my mom’s history, you could really get into that. And I did in the book, it’s pretty devastating. So when I landed on the planet in 1962, I was already walking into, or being born into, a really dysfunctional situation. My mom was an alcoholic, but her dad was, and he was a sexual predator. What I always say in schools, is that, you know, my mom came from a long line of abuse. So my great grandmother abused my grandfather, my grandfather abused my mom, and so when my mom had children, she  just wasn’t functional, she wasn’t emotionally functional. So she was triggered a lot by things, and I triggered her because I really miss my dad and wanted my dad around. I wanted a male figure, and she was pretty bitter at him for doing what he did to her and all that stu