Mercy Culture’s Landon Schott defends Michael Brown

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Monday, May 12, 2025

Despite ongoing controversy over an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse against Michael Brown, founder of The Line of Fire – Dr. Brown Ministries, Inc., the senior lead pastor of the multi-campus Mercy Culture Church, Landon Schott, celebrated his return to public ministry with a full-throated endorsement of his spiritual leadership

“I met @drmichaelbrown 12 years ago. Since that day, he’s only made me want to be a better man, a better leader, and a better Christian,” Schott declared in an Instagram post on Friday along with four photos. Two of those photos show Brown being warmly welcomed at the ministry with confetti while another two show the two leaders hugging.

“I’ve met many leaders — where the closer I got, the more I cringed. But the closer I’ve gotten to Dr. Brown, the more I’ve wanted to be like JESUS,” Schott added. “Through all the noise and accusations, Jesus said, ‘You will know them by their fruit’ (Matthew 7:15–20). I’m part of the fruit of Dr. Brown.’”

Schott’s endorsement of Brown came a day after the embattled ministry leader suggested that the independent sexual abuse investigation firm Firefly, which concluded last month that he engaged in sexual misconduct with two women, was “more friendly” to the perspective of his accusers.

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“When accusations came to our ministry last fall, my board said to me, ‘Mike, it’s the better part of wisdom. It’s the right thing to do a third-party investigation.’ And I said, ‘Let’s do it immediately.’ I’ve shared the truth with you. I want everything to come to light. I’ll take a lie detector test. I’ll give you [my] cell phone, the laptop, everything,” Brown shared in a video update last Wednesday.

Brown said the board also asked him to recuse himself from the investigation and step away from public ministry to allow them to fairly evaluate the allegations and he complied.

“So immediately the board hired a law firm, a leading law firm in the state of Arizona. And the gentleman who was going to conduct the investigation was the former assistant attorney general of the state. And one of my board members said, ‘Mike, they are going to get the labels on your underwear.’ I said, ‘Please let’s bring everything to light,” Brown said.

His accusers, however, were reportedly not satisfied with the law firm in Arizona.

“They said, ‘No, we won’t work with them.’ And they insisted on our board finding a firm that would be more friendly to their perspective. So it took some time. Our board finally got an organization that was acceptable to them. And this was the first part of a twofold process,” Brown said.

In their 47-page report, Firefly investigators said they were asked on Jan. 13 to examine information received from Line of Fire about allegations that Brown had an inappropriate relationship with former Fire School of Ministry member Sarah Monk. Brown, 70, had said she was like a daughter to him. They were also asked to investigate a second inappropriate relationship with a married woman from his church community who has since died.

Firefly concluded that the allegations were valid. A group of Christian leaders asked by the board of The Line of Fire – Dr. Brown Ministries, Inc., to review the findings of the Firefly investigation chose to reject the report, suggesting the manner in which it was done was a “miscarriage of Biblical Due Process.”

Responding to Brown’s claim that he was completely truthful in his disclosures about the allegations, Messianic Jewish communicator Ron Cantor published a 135-page document called The Michael Brown Witness Report. It paints Brown as duplicitous and hypocritical.

“Our purpose is not to punish Dr. Brown or bring humiliation upon his family. As previously mentioned, had this been properly dealt with 23 years ago, we would not be dealing with it today. However, as you will read in the pages that follow, Dr. Brown was confronted on many occasions regarding his relationship with Sarah Monk. And on a few occasions, he was confronted over allegations that he had an inappropriate relationship with ‘Kim,’ a married mother in the community,” the witnesses argue in the report.

“Still, this process is meant to be redemptive. We believe in restoration to Jesus and his body. However, we do not believe under any circumstances that a minister can commit a sexual act, whether physical or verbal with a member of the community he serves, and then repent privately apart from his fellow elders,” they add.

“Having long been associates of Dr. Brown and being very familiar with his message, we do not believe that he would tolerate the private repentance of a minister for sexual sin without disclosing it to his elders. He definitely would not excuse a student for such secrecy and duplicity,” they add.

While Brown’s supporters call for grace to be applied to his failures, the witnesses allege that he didn’t show much grace to students at his FIRE School of Ministry when they fell short of the institution’s rigid standards.

“There have been claims that Dr. Brown expelled students from school for lesser offenses than those for which he is accused. Students were allegedly dismissed for seeing R-rated movies (several alumni remember their friend being expelled for seeing ‘The Matrix’). However, eyewitnesses say that Dr. Brown played a video of Woodstock for students, which portrayed nudity,” they recall.

“Londa Parker was told by a student upon returning from The Call New England 2002 that Dr. Brown had several young women and a few men in his hotel room, where he was playing video footage from Woodstock. This has been confirmed by [name redacted], who was in the hotel room as well as two anonymous former students. [Name redacted] said he was playing stock footage from Woodstock, which included nudity. When you have a reputation of being very strict regarding morality, there’s an expectation that you are living at least to the standard that you are setting for others.”

Travis M. Snow, founder and president of Shiloh Media, argued in a statement on X that after reading the expanded witness report, he believes Brown is unfit for ministry.

“Well, I didn’t plan on spending 4 hours on a Saturday reading an expanded report on the Michael Brown situation. But I did. And it confirms everything I had already concluded, and more. Brown is not, in my view, a dangerous sexual predator. But he is, in this case, behaving as an ego-driven, manipulative liar who idolizes himself and his own ministry,” Snow wrote.

“He is not fit for ministry and I want nothing to do with anyone who sides with him in this current debacle. Like so many things in life, what he should do is simple but hard: Own up to everything (the past behavior and the lies). Make things right with everyone involved. And step aside for an indeterminate amount of time so that you don’t further divide the Body of Christ for your own benefit.”

Schott, however, disagrees.

“The apostle Paul taught that elders are to be given double honor and triple defense (1 Timothy 5:17–19). I refuse to participate in cancel culture — I will only lead a MERCY CULTURE,” he wrote. “It was powerful having Dr. Brown back from sabbatical and with us at @mercyculturesls!”