Allan Kendrick, the long-serving senior pastor of a church in Alabama, is retiring from the ministry just months after his grandson was charged in the shocking murder of his family.
The 73-year-old pastor has been on leave from Oasis of Praise Church in Bessemer, Alabama, since Dec. 18 of last year, several months after the murders unfolded in his home July 18, 2024, AL.com reported.
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The preacher announced his retirement earlier this month, after 41 years of him and his wife, Gay, serving as co-lead pastors of the congregation. The pair took over the church in 1983, when it was Shades Crest Church of God. It later transitioned to Pocahontas Road Church of God before assuming its current name.
“I’m just tired,” he said in an interview with AL.com. “My wife’s tired.”
Allan Kendrick has faced intense scrutiny since his grandson, 32-year-old Brandon Allan Kendrick II, was charged with five counts of capital murder. According to court documents, Brandon Kendrick has been accused of fatally shooting his 24-year-old wife, Kelse, their two children, 6-year-old Kaleb and 2-year-old Kynli, as well as cousins 8-year-old Colton and 6-year-old Haley Daniels.
The pastor said, “When this happened, I started getting accused of being responsible for the five murders that took place. They claimed I stood and watched it.”
Allan Kendrick, though, has asserted that is simply not the case. He said “it was only by the grace of God that my wife and I” did not fall victim to their grandson’s deadly shooting spree.
Speaking to the Oasis congregants just days after the killings, Allan Kendrick recalled the harrowing ordeal, revealing it was his wife, Gay, who took the gun out of Brandon Kendrick’s hands.
The minister told churchgoers he and his wife had been talking and laughing with their grandson mere minutes before. After he left their bedroom, gunshots purportedly rang out. The alleged shooting took place in the apartment above the garage on the elder Kendrick’s property, where Brandon Kendrick and his family lived.
“I didn’t have my shoes on, so I’m putting my shoes on,” Allan Kendrick said, recalling after he and his wife heard the bullets fired. “He [Brandon] walks in our bedroom with a gun in his hand. [Gay] was closest to him. She grabbed the gun. It went off. I don’t know how it kept from hitting her.”
Then, after a brief pause, he said, “Yeah, I do,” suggesting it was God who protected his wife, keeping a bullet from fatally striking her. That comment sparked applause from the congregation.
The pastor continued, “Because our prayer team, that night, about an hour before this incident, our prayer team stood right here and joined hands and prayed for mine and Gay’s safety, because I had reached out to them; I’d reached out to several of the church members. There were several assisting me and helping me trying to get some kind of help. So they prayed for us.”
After managing to subdue his grandson, Allan Kendrick said the young man “didn’t know where he was.”
It’s important to note the co-pastors raised their grandson from the age of 12, because his father had died and his mother was allegedly addicted to drugs. Members of the family told the Daily Mail Brandon Kendrick suffered from schizophrenia that worsened in the weeks leading up to the massacre.
In the aftermath of the murders, a Facebook group materialized. In it, several people — including the granddaughter of Gay Kendrick’s sister, Haley Goodwin Beard — accused Allan Kendrick of enabling the deadly rampage, and even providing the firearm used by his grandson.
“My grandson’s wife had bought a gun,” he retorted. “She was working at Dollar General some at night. I told her not to do it; she did anyway. About two weeks before all that happened, she brought me the gun and said he didn’t need [to have access to] it. I said, ‘I told you that.’ I told her, ‘I’m going to hide it, put it up here in the closet.’ I set it right back behind this shelf right here. I didn’t know she came back and got it.”
Because of the intense scrutiny he has faced, Allan Kendrick said he and his wife have not been able to truly grieve the losses they’ve experienced.
“All that tragedy and then bam,” he said. “I was threatened, my family was threatened if we came to the funeral, so we didn’t go to the funeral. We had no closure with that. I’ve just been under a lot [of pressure].”
“I’ve been through hell and back in my 41 years there,” he later added of his time as a pastor, noting he has been accused by critics of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and covering up sexual abuse.
While he has denied those allegations, Allan Kendrick said the Tennessee-based Church of God denomination hired an investigator to look into the accusations leveled against him.
The pastor noted that, should the investigation continue, he will surrender his preaching license. And, rather than face a potential church trial, he said, he decided to retire.
“I gave my whole life to the ministry,” Allan Kendrick reflected, lamenting his damaged reputation as a result of the claims against him. “A lot of people have been saved.”
But now, he said, “I won’t be back.”
Members of the Facebook group, though, were happy to see Allan Kendrick retire.
“I hope his congregation can thrive and heal from all the hell he has put them through,” said Beard. “I hope Kelse’s friends and family can heal, and I also hope Kelse and the children that lost their lives get the justice they deserve. … Allan Kendrick does not deserve an ounce of sympathy; all the people he has hurt are the ones that deserve sympathy.”
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