Doran Gingerich

Ohio Mennonite church and school leader admitted sexual misconduct with an adult woman

Doran Gingerich (b. 1976) admitted to making a sexually suggestive comment and “likely” touching a woman’s rear end in a public setting in 2001, when he was approximately 25 years old. Gingerich was at the time a youth leader at United Bethel Mennonite Church (UBMC), a congregation in Plain City, Ohio, that is affiliated with the Biblical Mennonite Alliance (BMA). Gingerich served as the principal and a teacher at Plainview Christian School, Plain City, Ohio, from 2009 until 2024, and at the time of publication, Gingerich was an associate pastor at UBMC.

In 2023, the leadership at UBMC engaged Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE) after the public criminal cases of two church members. GRACE investigated how UBMC handled those and other allegations of abuse and in 2024 released the report of their independent investigation.

According to the GRACE report, “In his initial interview with GRACE investigators, Doran Gingerich brought up an incident from 2001 while he was serving as the assistant youth leader at UBMC. […] [Gingerich’s] admissions about the event expanded over the course of the first interview, a phone call initiated by [Gingerich] to a GRACE investigator that same day after the interview, and a second interview approximately three weeks later.”

GRACE investigators found the allegations that Gingerich committed sexual misconduct to be credible and to meet the evidentiary threshold of the GRACE evidentiary standard.

According to [Gingerich’s] admissions over the course of three interviews:

1. He made an inappropriate and sexually suggestive or objectifying comment about a woman’s intimate body part
2. To a woman who was a complete stranger to him
3. In a public location
4. “Likely” touched that body part (her rear) without her consent
5. Was reported to store security (and possibly the police)
6. Was questioned and photographed by store security
7. Was ordered not to return to the store for a period of years
8. Considered the allegations to be serious enough that he may hear further from police and that the incident may become public.

These admissions alone qualify as sexual misconduct. Further, Doran’s description of the events changed and expanded over the course of three interviews, suggesting some level of deception, minimization of his conduct, and/or failure to take responsibility for his actions. Therefore, the actual incident may have involved even more serious actions that Doran has never admitted.

Given that Doran was married and had a child, served as an assistant youth leader at the time, and his father was a pastor at UBMC, he had incentives to deceive and minimize his conduct, both to himself and to others. While his prompt admission of some inappropriate conduct to UBMC leadership at the time was the minimum level of accountability, witnesses reported a lack of clarity from his admission, suggesting some level of obfuscation and failure to take full responsibility for his actions.