Confess Your Sins, One To Another..

"Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed." — James 5:16

"For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad." — Luke 8:17

I am about to say something hard about a church in my own community. I am saying it because protecting children outranks protecting anyone's comfort — including mine. I would rather take the heat for speaking than carry the weight of having stayed silent.

The public record

A woman who attends Oak Grove Baptist Church in Harleton, Texas is a registered sex offender on the Texas public registry. Her convictions, word for word from the record:

• INDECENCY WITH A CHILD BY CONTACT — Texas Penal Code 21.11(a)(1). Conviction date: August 3, 2004. Victim's age: 14.
• SEXUAL ASSAULT OF A CHILD — Texas Penal Code 22.011(a)(2). Conviction date: January 5, 2005. Victim's age: 14.

That is not rumor. That is the State of Texas's own registry, created by law so that families can know. You can search it yourself at the Texas DPS Public Sex Offender Registry.

Let me be just as plain about what I am not saying. Being on the registry is not a crime. Attending church is not a crime — and church may be exactly where a repentant sinner belongs. I am not asking anyone to confront her, contact her, or harass her. Do not. That is not what this is, and it is not what the registry is for.

The registry exists for one reason: so the people responsible for children can make informed decisions. Which brings me to what I saw with my own eyes.

What I witnessed — on video

On Sunday, March 29, 2026, at 12:10 PM, I personally recorded video inside the Oak Grove Baptist Church fellowship hall. The footage — taken on my own camera, GPS-stamped by my phone directly to Oak Grove Baptist Church on Heskell Oney Road — shows her at the fellowship meal, handling and setting out the food served to the congregation.

Not visiting once. Not sitting quietly in a back pew. Serving the meal, at a family gathering, where children eat.

(The dated, location-stamped video and photos are preserved, along with the registry record. Exhibits are being added to this post.)

How this surfaced

My family did not find this on the internet. My father was preaching and teaching at Oak Grove on Sunday nights. A member of the congregation came to my mother and father privately and warned them — and asked not to be named, because everyone out here knows what happens to people who speak up. My parents looked up the record themselves. The warning was true, word for word.

They didn't know how to deal with it. And before anyone could — I was out of the church, and you'll read how below.

So the question was never whether this is real. The record is the record. The questions are who knew, who was told, and why the people who tried to raise it quietly got nowhere.

This is Harleton, Texas. Keep that name in your head, because every thread of this story runs through it — this church, this registry record, and the Mother's Day arrest in this church's own parking lot. At every step, people called me a liar. At every step, the records came back on my side.

My questions for Pastor Craig Evers

These are questions, not accusations. They are the questions any parent at Oak Grove has the right to ask, and I am asking them in public because I have learned in this county what happens to questions asked in private:

1. Did you know a registered sex offender with child-sex convictions was attending — and serving meals at — Oak Grove Baptist Church?
2. When did you learn?
3. Were the deacons informed?
4. Were the parents of the children informed?
5. What written safeguards are in place? Many Texas churches handle exactly this situation in the open — with a supervision covenant, informed leadership, and boundaries that protect both the children and the person worshiping. Does Oak Grove have one?

Pastor Evers, my email is ryan@realryannichols.com. Whatever you send me, I will print in full, unedited. And if the answer to these questions is what it should be — that the deacons knew, the parents knew, and safeguards exist on paper — then say so, show it, and this story has a good ending.

But if nobody told the deacons, and nobody told the parents, then the congregation deserves to know why the man asking was the problem.

My own experience there

I will state only what I lived: I raised concerns, and I found myself unwelcome. I was effectively shown the door at the very time I was asking the questions you just read. I am collecting sworn statements from witnesses right now — members, family, people who saw it happen — and when those statements are in hand, this post will be updated with what they establish. I publish what I can prove, when I can prove it. That is the standard on this site, and it does not bend — not even for a story I am living.

I Was Not a Stranger There. I Was Their Security.

Here is the part that ties this church to everything else on this site. I served as security for Oak Grove Baptist Church. Pastor Craig Evers knew I carried a pistol — he is the one who told me to keep it covered under my shirt. I worked the back of the church. That was my post, with his knowledge and his instructions.

My vantage from the back of the sanctuary — my security post. Pastor Craig Evers, walking in past me.

Then I broke the story about the federal game warden.

On Mother's Day — May 10, 2026 — I was arrested at that church. The charge: deadly conduct, for allegedly displaying the very firearm my own pastor knew I carried and told me how to carry. The man trusted to stand armed at the back of that sanctuary became, the same week I started telling the truth out loud, a danger to it. The Sheriff's statement about me went out the next day.

The complaint that Mother's Day came from Jon and Kacie Costello. I have already published what happened to their story — in Kacie's own private messages, they had "planned to get in our vehicle and just leave"; in her own public comment, Jon was "to the point of getting violent" and she was "making sure that didn't happen." Their account moved. Mine never has: I deny drawing, pointing, or pulling anything — and I am the one demanding every second of bodycam, dispatch audio, and church camera footage be released, because the truth is on my side of that tape.

And mark the timing, because this is the part they need you not to notice. By Mother's Day, I had broken the story of the federal game warden — the report Sheriff BJ Fletcher's office sat on for five months — and I was preparing to blow the whistle on what this county's leadership had done with it. Before I could, I left my own church in handcuffs, and the Sheriff's statement about me went out the very next day. The story I was about to tell got buried under the story they told about me.

After the arrest, Pastor Evers prayed with me and told me I could come back. Then I was served with a criminal trespass warning from the same church.

And the cameras. The church has cameras. The few seconds of footage that would show exactly what happened on Mother's Day have not been produced. I asked. I was told they could not be found.

So add a sixth question to my list:

6. Where is the video? I am publicly and formally requesting that Oak Grove Baptist Church preserve all camera footage from May 10, 2026 — every camera, every second — along with the DVR and system logs. That footage is material evidence in a pending criminal case, and a written preservation demand is being delivered. It either shows what the charge claims, or it shows the truth. There is only one reason footage like that stays lost.

7. Why was I really trespass-warned? My father was teaching at Oak Grove on Sunday nights. My family was quietly asking about this exact record. You prayed with me and told me I could come back — then I was served a criminal trespass warning from the church where I had stood as your security, carrying the firearm you knew about and told me how to carry. So answer this one plainly, Pastor: was I removed because of a gun you already knew about — or because my family had started asking the question this article now asks out loud?

If you know something

If you are a member of Oak Grove — a deacon, a parent, anyone — and you know who was told and when, I want to hear from you. Anonymous is fine. Signed is better. Every statement is reviewed by hand.

Why I am doing this

Not for revenge. I grew up in these woods and these pews, and I believe what that congregation believes: that the truth sets people free, and that what is hidden will come into the light — Luke 8:17 promises it. A church that brings this into the light loses nothing. A church that buries it loses everything, starting with the trust of every parent in that building.

"Confess your faults one to another." That is the verse. That is the ask. Confession in the light — not concealment in the dark.

I will keep this post updated as the statements come in.

— Ryan Nichols