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An Auburn family is suing Mount Rainier Christian Church in civil court after a youth pastor allegedly sent inappropriate messages to their daughter in the youth program, including texts that alluded to sexual behavior.
The suit was filed in the King County Superior Court in March, and the plaintiff is expected to be deposed Oct. 12.
The lawsuit claims former Youth Pastor Tyler Cash and the plaintiff exchanged over 10,000 text messages between 2023 to 2025. It further claims Cash alluded to sexual topics with the plaintiff during their text message communications and discussed these topics with her in more detail during in-person meetings. The contact between Cash and the plaintiff also included phone calls, in-person conversations at the church and church events, as well as unsupervised one-on-one meetings off the church’s premises.
The mother alleges Cash was grooming her daughter, pointing not just to texts that appear to confirm in-person conversations about sexual topics, but other messages she claims undermined her authority as a parent and attempted to isolate her daughter from friends, family and other church leaders.
The daughter added that Cash’s texts became more frequent and contained more sexual references after she disclosed past trauma to him, and he also became more physically affectionate, though the physical contact was not sexual in nature.
The church responded to the allegations by dismissing Cash from his position less than 12 hours after evidence was presented to leaders on April 22, 2025, but denied there was anything sexual in nature in his communication with the minor.
“[…] Tyler had committed a violation of our staff policies and the standards expected of the youth pastor,” Former Lead Pastor Greg Daulton wrote at the time in a church-wide notice, stressing that “there have been no allegations or evidence of physical misconduct, simply a violation (a serious one) of our staff policies and expectations.”
Current Lead Pastor Zack Cash, father of Tyler Cash said, “MRCC takes all allegations of misconduct very seriously and will continue to do so,” but declined to comment further, citing ongoing legal proceedings.
The family moved forward with a civil lawsuit because they believe the church has not been truthful to its congregation about the nature of the youth pastor’s actions.
In a Jan. 8 notice to the congregation, MRCC said there was “an absence of pastoral wisdom” but no texts containing “illicit content.”
The family’s intent is to help protect other potential victims.
“[T]he church has already refused to make a correction to their announcements. In fact, they responded by sending [a] letter out to the current congregation, reiterating that there was nothing ‘illicit’ in the communication between Tyler and our daughter,” the mother said. “Our second goal [is] to prevent Tyler from harming anyone else, which would have required the church to state the truth about his actions so that parents would know not to have their kids in contact with him.”
The plaintiff said the church’s failure to admit the texts were sexual in nature “completely destroyed” her reputation; she described multiple instances, both at church or in public, when current MRCC members would react negatively to her presence.
Cash is not a defendant in the lawsuit and did not respond to a request for comment.
The allegations in the lawsuit have not been proven in court. No criminal charges have been filed against Cash because the contact allegedly turned sexual when the plaintiff was 16-years-old, which is not punishable in the State of Washington. Only the church is being sued.
WHAT IS GROOMING?
Under Washington state law, “grooming” is not considered a crime, which means law enforcement and prosecutors were unable to charge Cash if they found reasonable evidence of grooming.
However, grooming is often a precursor to sexual abuse.
The state defines grooming as “befriending and/or establishing a connection with a student or a student’s family to lower the student’s inhibitions for the purpose of a sexual relationship.”
Some law firms warn that grooming can be misconstrued with innocent behavior.
“Washington courts have repeatedly warned that grooming evidence carries a significant risk of prejudice,” Marshall & Saunders, a Seattle-based sex crime defense firm, writes on their site. “Many actions labeled as ‘grooming’ — such as physical affection, attention, or mentoring — can also be consistent with ordinary caring or teaching behavior. Without direct evidence of intent, these behaviors can be easily misinterpreted.”
The mother argues some of the sexual texts sent to the plaintiff — which focus on masturbation — constitutes as evidence of intent.
“According to the prosecutor’s office, they were not allowed to press charges but if this had happened in most other states, he would have been arrested and would be a registered sex offender,” the mother said. “This is the reason a civil lawsuit had to be filed because it’s the only way to hold anyone accountable for the damage caused by Tyler or by the church.”
After the texts were given to the MRCC, an unidentified person from the church with knowledge of the situation contacted the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF).
The caller said “the tone of some of the texts could be considered flirtatious and too familiar,” and that the texts did not include “sexting or exchanging of images but the tone of the texts are emotionally intimate and include discussions of [the plaintiff’s] struggles with sexual issues.”
The DCYF did not follow up with an investigation, and a letter from MRCC leaders to the congregation stated that “DCYF advised that the situation likely did not meet the threshold for mandatory reporting.”
TEXTS AND MEETINGS
Court documents include 650 pages of text messages from the plaintiff’s family spanning November 2024 to April 2025.
The vast majority of the texts ran the gamut — religion, mental health, photography, cooking and more.
Most messages were sent during the day, but some continued until or past midnight, or started early in the morning. Some late-night messages appeared to be scheduled in advance by Cash, but others were direct responses to the plaintiff’s texts and responses.
There are several messages referring to one-on-one phone calls or meetings at a specific Buckley coffee shop, and the complaint alleges that the plaintiff and Cash met weekly for “counseling sessions” without her parents’ knowledge.
The mother alleges that Cash’s minister’s credentials, obtained in 2025, allows him to be a youth pastor, but not to be a mental health counselor.
During a protection order proceeding prior to the civil suit, Cash said in a declaration that he and the plaintiff discussed masturbation, but “I never sent [her] any sexually explicit messages, and there are none in the texts filed with the court.”
Cash also provided the court with a screenshot of a text between him and the mother regarding the conversations he and the plaintiff were having.
“She shared she was struggling with something… and I told her that I wasn’t the best person to talk to and that she should talk to you about it,” Cash texted in April 2025 to the plaintiff’s mother.
That was at least six months after Cash and the plaintiff began allegedly discussing sexual content, according to the texts.
It does not appear Cash encouraged the plaintiff to speak to her mother or any other figure in any of those messages via texts, and the plaintiff said he never encouraged her in person to do so.
None of the messages are sexually explicit, but Cash and the plaintiff discussed masturbation, including when the plaintiff may have masturbated, asking what the plaintiff used as masturbation aids, and the spiritual implications of masturbation.
In one conversation, Cash introduced the plaintiff to a sobriety app and discussed how long the plaintiff had abstained from sexual activity.
The following month, the plaintiff tells Cash she threw part of an item away in a dumpster; in an interview, the plaintiff said it was a part of a massage tool.
“So theres (sic) still a chance to dive after [it],” Cash texts.
“I not that crazy,” the plaintiff responds.
“I’m not wrong… Clearly you don’t understand the power of temptation,” Cash texts.
During a midnight conversation a few days later, the plaintiff says she doesn’t want to get out of bed and Cash responds, “Because if you get up…?”
The plaintiff responded, “It’s at the end of my bed inconveniently.”
“My guess… if you get up you’ll give in. Correct?” Cash replies.
“Maybe maybe not,” was her response.
“Only one way to find out,” Cash texted, to which she replied, “Don’t want to.”
Cash replied, “IMPOSSIBLE. Respectfully.”
Multiple times after these conversations, Cash would say he was “proud” of the plaintiff and there was no shame in stumbling.
According to the plaintiff, Cash asked for more details during their in-person sessions.
The plaintiff said no other youth group children received the same attention as her, and she believes Cash was purposefully isolating her from friends and other church members by expressing negative opinions of other pastors, youth leaders, and friends, and discouraging her from dating.
“He didn’t really want me talking to other leaders … he did the same things with friends and boyfriends,” she said. “I did not realize it at first. I was very much in shock, because … why would somebody like him want to hurt me?”
Physical contact immediately increased after she divulged to him some past trauma, the plaintiff alleged.
“What the church did was extremely wrong,” she said. “What he did was wrong.”
The mother and daughter also allege numerous other staff members were already aware of Cash’s attention toward the plaintiff and the texting, which violated church policy. It was only when the mother approached Daulton with the alleged inappropriate texts that the issue was addressed.
CHURCH RESPONSE
After Cash was dismissed, MRCC made several announcements to its congregation.
Former Lead Pastor Greg Daulton made an announcement a few days after Cash was dismissed.
“Tyler had committed a violation of our staff policies and the standards expected of the youth pastor,” he wrote, stressing that “there have been no allegations or evidence of physical misconduct, simply a violation (a serious one) of our staff policies and expectations.”
A second announcement on Jan. 8, 2026, noted that Cash’s behavior “did reflect a pattern of poor judgement and an absence of pastoral wisdom,” adding that a criminal investigation ended without charges recommended to prosecutors.
A third announcement included a list of new staff policies, including no longer permitting staff members to accept or send social media “friend” requests; requiring all communication with minors through “official, church-managed” accounts; staff refraining from privately messaging minors or using “disappearing messaging” apps; and that a minimum of two screen adults must be present in any setting that involves minors.
It is unclear what policies the church had prior.
The mother said the church board made several promises after Cash was dismissed, including a promise to inform all youth leaders that students should not be encouraged to be in contact with Cash, as well as making a recommendation to the Northwest Ministry Network that his minister’s license be suspended for two years and be restored only after he completed their “restoration” process, which includes telling the congregation why his license was suspended.
This was confirmed by a board member, but he said the board did not move forward with the suspension recommendation because Cash’s license was already suspended.
The National Assemblies of God confirmed that Cash was still licensed as of November 2025. However, the Northwest Ministry Network and the National Assemblies of God have declined to confirm if Cash is still a credentialed minister.
