Joe Campbell — Eastland Assembly of God / Camp Bell (charged 2025; pending)
A children's pastor expelled by the Assemblies of God in 1989 who went on to run a children's camp for decades. Indicted by an Oklahoma grand jury in May 2025 on rape and lewd-acts counts, arrested in December 2025, and awaiting trial — charged, not convicted.
Pentecostal (Assemblies of God) Charged (2025) — pending
- Person
- Joe Campbell
- Role
- Children's/youth pastor; camp founder
- Institution
- Eastland Assembly of God, Tulsa; later Camp Bell, Missouri
- Location
- Oklahoma (charges); Missouri
- Status
- Charged December 2025 arrest on May 2025 indictment — NOT convicted; presumed innocent
- Charges
- First-degree rape; lewd or indecent acts with a child under 16 (alleged 1984 offenses)
Case in brief
Tier 1 · Court-proven — the charges and procedural record only
Charged is not convicted. Joe Campbell was indicted in 2025 and had entered no plea at his January 2026 court appearance, per NBC's reporting. He is presumed innocent. Nothing in this file treats the charges as established.
Joe Campbell was a children’s and youth pastor at Eastland Assembly of God in Tulsa, Oklahoma. NBC’s investigation documented five women who said Campbell abused them as children in the 1970s–80s, and nine others who reported pornography or lewd conduct. The Assemblies of God held hearings and expelled and de-credentialed Campbell for life in 1989 — but he founded a non-denominational church and a children’s camp, Camp Bell in Missouri, later broadcast on Jim Bakker’s PTL network, and, per NBC and U.S. Marshals reporting, hosted at least four accused or convicted abusers to work with children at the camp between 2008 and 2014. In May 2025 an Oklahoma multi-county grand jury indicted him on one count of first-degree rape and one count of lewd or indecent acts with a child under 16 (alleged 1984 offenses). U.S. Marshals arrested him at Camp Bell on December 17, 2025.
The institutions
Eastland Assembly of God and the Assemblies of God denomination, which did act — expulsion for life in 1989 — and Camp Bell, the unaffiliated camp Campbell ran afterward for decades. The documented institutional problem is the gap between those two facts: a denominational expulsion that carried no registry, no warning system, and no bar on founding a new children’s ministry outside the denomination.
The record
Tier 1 · Court-proven — procedural record
| Item | Record |
|---|---|
| Denominational discipline | Expelled/de-credentialed for life by the Assemblies of God, 1989 |
| Indictment (May 2025) | First-degree rape; lewd or indecent acts with a child under 16 (Oklahoma multi-county grand jury; alleged 1984 offenses) |
| Arrest | December 17, 2025, by U.S. Marshals at Camp Bell |
| Plea | None entered at the January 2026 appearance, per NBC reporting |
Status
Pending. Indicted and arrested; no plea and no conviction as of the last reporting this file rests on (January 2026). This file will be updated as the case proceeds — in either direction.
Attributed allegations — not court findings
Tier 2 · Attributed allegations
The accounts of the five women, the nine additional reports, and the camp’s hosting of accused or convicted men come from NBC News’s investigation and U.S. Marshals reporting. They are allegations and reporting, not findings; the indictment covers only the two counts above.
Records requested & responses
This archive has not filed records requests in this case. The file rests on the published sources below and will be updated if court or institutional records are obtained, or if that changes.
Video coverage
Verified coverage of this case, embedded from the publishers’ own channels — this archive does not download or re-upload other outlets’ video. Each segment below was verified through the YouTube Data API on October 25, 2026; the channel and date in each caption are the API’s own records.
- NBC News via BishopAccountability.org, “Were not those little girls anymore — women who accused pastor of abuse see him in court” (January 2026: charges, no plea): bishop-accountability.org
- The Roys Report, “Campbell, former pastor at Jim Bakker’s Morningside church, arrested on rape and lewd acts charges” (indictment details, arrest): julieroys.com
Filed October 18, 2026, from the published sources below. Minor victims are never named or identified in this file.