SLO church says it didn’t know full scope of former pastor’s alleged misconduct
The church Board of Directors that kept a pastor’s misconduct from its congregation in 2020 says it didn’t know the full story.
Former Lead Pastor Rick Olmstead at Arise Vineyard Church recently resigned after old rumors resurfaced that he was caught taking inappropriate pictures of young women at Trader Joe’s five years ago.
The situation was dealt with internally at the time. While not considered serious enough to disclose to the church’s congregants, it did warrant a counseling and response plan that stipulated Olmstead “not be alone with teens or young women associated with the church.”
Taylor Berns — an employee at Trader Joe’s in San Luis Obispo in October 2020 who also worked as an intern at the church, known at the time as Mountainbrook Church — verbally reported to another former pastor that Olmstead was caught taking nonconsensual pictures of college-aged women’s backsides in a pandemic social-distancing line outside Trader Joe’s, following the women around the store and appearing potentially intoxicated, events which she did not witness but her coworkers did.
Berns also delivered a letter of a first-hand account written by her coworker, but the current board is now saying that not all the information reported at the time was passed along to the 2020 board, which initially dealt with the incident.
The current board said the letter was delivered, but not Berns’ name or her verbal report.
Since then, three distinct boards have reviewed the incident — in 2020, 2021 and 2025 — seemingly all with incomplete information.
Olmstead left Mountainbrook for unrelated reasons in 2021, before being brought back as a volunteer lead pastor in 2024. One former board member said at a Jan. 7 meeting that if the board had had all the information, it might not have thought bringing Olmstead back would have been “the best choice.”
The news of Olmstead’s resignation has shaken the Arise Vineyard Church community, triggering a wide range of reactions from sympathy and support to frustration at the church’s failure to disclosure the incident to its congregants sooner.
A Frequently Asked Questions page about Olmstead’s resignation and the 2020 incident was originally published on Dec. 26 as a stand-alone link emailed directly to congregation members that could not be navigated to from the church’s website.
After The Tribune published its first story on the incident on Jan. 2., the page was linked in large type on the church’s homepage. The FAQs were updated Jan. 9 with new information.
The board recognizes the congregation’s confusion in the updated sections of its FAQs, emphasizing that “a board’s actions are limited to the information presented to it, and in this case, the 2020 Arise Board acted on the facts available at that time.”
But to Berns, the facts available at that time warranted a stronger reaction, regardless.
“How is this letter not enough?” Berns said. “This letter holds the major, most important information. I’m not quite sure how the lack of the additional details still would justify the decisions they made.”
Olmstead declined a request for an interview with The Tribune but did say over text that he gave a complete account of the events that transpired at Trader Joe’s from his perspective to the board in 2020, noting that he “held nothing back” and his story has never changed since.
“I stand behind the statements that have already been shared by the Arise Board and believe they reflect the situation accurately and responsibly,” Olmstead said.
‘Lost in translation’
On Oct. 9, 2020, Olmstead was caught by a Trader Joe’s employee taking zoomed-in photos of young women’s backsides, according to Berns’ coworkers who witnessed the incident.
She said he was then observed “lurking and following different girls” around the store, and appeared to possibly be intoxicated, according to the store manager and employees on shift. He was wearing a Mountainbrook T-shirt.
When Berns came into work at Trader Joe’s on Oct. 10, 2020, she said, her boss and coworker told her what had happened the day before, and she connected the man to Olmstead, then lead pastor.
Berns gave a written eye-witness account from her coworker to Greg Jeffrey, a former Mountainbrook pastor who Berns was under the impression was still on staff at the time. She also gave a full verbal account beyond what was written in the letter.
Berns told Jeffrey about the specific content of the photos, allegations that Olmstead was following women around the store and that he appeared potentially intoxicated, she said. The letter was unsigned and anonymous, but Berns’ intended for her verbal report to be filed under her name, she said.
According to the current Arise Vineyard board, however, the anonymous letter did not include any of that additional information.
“No such reports were received through any channel,” the FAQ page said.
While the letter was delivered to the board in 2020, the board claims that Berns’ verbal account of this additional information that she remembers giving wasn’t passed along.
Berns said Jeffrey told her he also sat on the board, but the current Arise Vineyard board said that Jeffery was never a member and in fact was not an employee of the church or involved in any leadership in October 2020, having left his pastoral role in August 2020.
Berns exchanged emails with Jeffrey about applying for her internship in September 2020. She shared them with The Tribune.
“If Greg would have told me he did not sit on the board, I would not have given it to him,” she said.
The current board said it followed up with three 2020 board members, none of whom remember getting any information about other allegations. The only allegation they received — and later confirmed — were unsolicited photos, the board said.
Other new information was never reported at the time, the Arise Vineyard board said, including that police were contacted during the Trader Joe’s incident — which is supported by police call logs — and a claim by Berns that Olmstead had inappropriately touched her lower back on church grounds. Berns said she never reported the latter incident.
“The report received by the board was anonymous,” the board said. “We don’t know why there was a disconnect between what the board recalls receiving and what Taylor remembers communicating.”
Berns said she followed up with Jeffrey for an update a few weeks later, but she was never contacted by the board. If they had reached out her, she would have told them the additional information she initially reported, she said.
“How does that make sense if I reach out for a follow-up?” Berns asked. “Clearly, I’m invested. Clearly, I want to know what’s going on. I’ve given my name.”
The board said it was not clear about who spoke to Berns about the update because no one seems to recall a conversation.
“There was, like, something lost in translation,” she said. “This was an anonymous report, but somehow I got taken completely out of the equation.”
The Arise Vineyard board held a meeting with the congregation on Jan. 7 to discuss the incident and answer questions about the future of the church. Berns attended the meeting.
At the meeting, a member of the 2024 board that made the decision to bring Olmstead back as a volunteer pastor said access to the full story might have changed her mind.
“If we were given all of those details, I do not think we would have thought it was the best step to bring Rick back,” Ann Marie Collins said, according to Berns. “Even if Rick had offered, I would have said it may not be the best choice right now.”
When asked if it agrees, the current board said it can’t speak for Collins, but that it will continue to investigate the new allegations and will act on any new information that can be confirmed.
The updated FAQ page said that most members of the 2024 board that brought Olmstead back on staff knew about the incident to “varying levels of detail and disclosure.” The board relied on its predecessors and believed the matter had been thoroughly resolved through a formal restoration process.
“While no board member was informed about the full details of the original board investigation, they trusted that the process was complete and that the level of disclosure chosen was appropriate, especially as no new information or allegations had come forward at that time,” the FAQ said.
Since The Tribune’s first report, Arise Vineyard’s YouTube videos from October 2020 to July 2021 have been wiped from its channel, which was the time when Olmstead was undergoing counseling and had stepped back from preaching.
Jeffrey did not respond to the Tribune’s attempts to reach him for comment via phone and email.
How will Arise Vineyard move forward?
The updated sections of the FAQ page provides additional details about how Arise will move forward from here.
Arise Vineyard is a member of Vineyard USA, an evangelical Christian movement of nearly 500 congregations. The Arise board did not ever notify Vineyard leadership of the Trader Joe’s incident.
In 2020, the church operated with “a high degree of local autonomy,” the FAQ said. The report was considered internally, but there were no protocols or rules in place for communicating it up the chain to national leadership. The board “acted within its authority to resolve the matter locally,” the FAQ said.
However, both Arise Vineyard and Vineyard USA have grown since 2025, and reporting structures and standardized protocols have been put in place that did not exist five years ago.
The current board of Arise became aware of the incident again in 2025 after the former church member anonymously reported it to Vineyard USA’s Guidepost Solutions hotline, a third-party oversight firm, in August. Church members who wish to report a serious matter “that is not being addressed satisfactorily by current leadership” are encouraged to directly contact the Guidepost Solutions hotline.
“We see in retrospect that we could have better thought through the ramifications of not involving wider leadership earlier,” the FAQ page said. “We have since implemented much more robust reporting structures to ensure greater transparency.”
The FAQ page stated the need for all staff and volunteers to be trained, familiarized with reporting channels and equipped to handle inappropriate conduct they may observe, as well as the need for a “better rubric” to guide how board members address conduct and inform others.
These protocols have yet to be developed, and the page informed interested church members to request a copy of this document from the board for when it becomes available.
Since Olmstead has left Arise, the board has been leading the church in close partnership with Vineyard USA and regional leader Mike Safford, the FAQ page said. The entities are creating a plan for future leadership and a long-term pastor.
Church services and programs like the children and youth ministries are continuing as normal, according to the FAQ.
This story was originally published January 23, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
