HINESVILLE, Ga. (WTOC/Gray News) – The House of Prayer Christian Church has long been under scrutiny from federal authorities and former members describe it as being both a scam and a cult.
According to a federal indictment, the church scammed more than $3 million in veteran education benefits for its Georgia locations and more than $23.5 million for all five of its locations.
Gregory Ward said he decided to leave the House of Prayer Christian Church in 2018.
“They closed us out from the world; we didn’t know anything that was going on,” he said.
In 2008, Ward enlisted in the United States Army, stationed at Fort Hood in Texas.
Before his first deployment, he says the House of Prayer location in Texas invited him to service, but it wasn’t until he got back from Iraq that he really got involved.
“I deployed for a year, and when I came back, I really got sucked in,” Ward said.
According to Ward, the church pressured him into leaving the military and getting deeper involved with the ministry. But he says involvement cost him his sanity, his savings and ultimately his veteran benefits.
“It’s torn me up mentally, I am still trying to recover from that,” he said.
Ward says the church enrolled him in bogus bible classes that were non-transferable and not accredited to receive funding from his GI Bill.
“It was made up of classes by them, so I can’t use them to this day,” he said.
The nonprofit group Veterans Education Success has introduced the Student Veteran Benefit Restoration Act of 2025 to help victims like Ward retrieve benefits that were scammed from them.
“Those are earned benefits; they worked for them through service, and they should be able to get a productive outcome,” William Hubbard, with the veterans group, said.
As the law stands now, once a service member like Ward uses their GI Bill, it’s gone and they usually can’t get it back. But the group says they are working with veterans to help strengthen the standards of veteran education to help avoid such oversights.