Church of the Highlands Senior Pastor Chris Hodges said on Thursday that a lawsuit accusing him and the church’s associate pastor of engineering the takeover of a Florida megachurch last year is “false and misleading.”

The suit, filed this month in U.S. District Court in Florida’s middle district, names as defendants Hodges and Dino Rizzo, and the Association of Related Churches (ARC), a global cooperative of thousands of evangelical churches co-founded by Hodges.

Rizzo is the executive director of ARC. John Seibeling of The Life Church, a founding board member of ARC, is also listed as a defendant.

The suit was filed on July 12 by Stovall Weems and his wife Kerri Weems, who founded Celebration Church of Jacksonville, Fla. back in 1998.

The Weems were removed from the church’s leadership in April 2022 over issues of alleged financial mismanagement and abusive conduct toward staff members.

According to the lawsuit, the Weems accuse ARC, Hodges, Rizzo and Seibeling of a “continuing unlawful conspiracy,” framing the Weems for financial improprieties in order “to protect and expand their church growth business interests and endeavors…”

In a statement, Hodges said he is “saddened” by the allegations.

“ARC is a non-profit with the singular mission to help new churches as they get off the ground and develop,” he said.

“Hundreds of ARC churches are loving and serving people in their communities because of the support and resources they have received. Any claims mischaracterizing the actions or mission of ARC will be proven untrue.”

Bryan O. Balogh, Hodges’ attorney, said the allegations raised against Hodges and ARC “have no merit.”

“It’s a privilege to represent Pastor Chris Hodges because he is a man of high integrity and remarkable kindness. His ministry has immeasurably impacted our state,” Balogh said.

“ARC is a non-profit on which Pastor Hodges serves as a director that supports communities through church planting around the nation. We regret that Mr. Weems named Pastor Hodges in the lawsuit, but we are grateful for a judicial system, like ours, focused on finding the truth. And because the courtroom has always been the best place in which to hear the truth, we look forward to continuing this discussion there.”

The lawsuit lays out a host of accusations, claiming that Hodges benefits from not only ARC, but Church of the Highlands and its affiliated ministries, which includes The Lodge at Grants Mill on its main campus in Irondale, a pastor restoration program that in the past has sparked controversy and drawn scrutiny.

The Lodge, according to the plaintiffs, is a copy of their Honey Lake Farms’ Lodge, operating since December 2020.

The suit alleges that the Weems were forced out because Stovall Weems wanted to move away from ARC’s high growth push and angle more towards mission work.