FREMONT, Ohio — Gary Click had already quietly left the pulpit.

Then came the police investigation.

A timeline assembled from police records and Click’s own later account shows the Republican state representative stepped down as lead pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple at the end of March 2025, ending a 19-year tenure that had been central to his public identity.

Six months later, on Sept. 29, the Fremont Police Department received a referral from the Oregon Department of Human Services containing allegations that Click and the father of an 18-year-old had physically and sexually abused the person when they were a child.

Detectives questioned Click on Oct. 1. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation reviewed the matter days later. And on Nov. 10, The Rooster made the investigation public.

But Click’s departure from Fremont Baptist Temple still had not been publicly announced through any channel TiffinOhio.net has identified. The church’s website continued identifying him as pastor.

TiffinOhio.net would not uncover that Click had left the pulpit until February 2026, nearly 11 months after he says he stepped down and three months after the police investigation had already become public.

There is no evidence in the records reviewed by TiffinOhio.net that Click’s March departure was prompted by the allegations reported six months later.

But the timeline places two previously separate pieces of Click’s public record in sequence: he quietly ended a 19-year pastorate, the church continued presenting him as pastor, and six months later police received a child-abuse referral naming him in connection with a person who had attended that church.

March 2025: Click leaves the pulpit

Click says he stopped serving as lead pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple at the end of March 2025 and became pastor emeritus.

TiffinOhio.net found no announcement from Click, his campaign, his legislative office or Fremont Baptist Temple informing the public that he had stepped down from the position he had held since 2006.

The church’s own website continued presenting him as pastor for nearly another year.

Click’s pastoral identity had been woven throughout his political career. His official biographies emphasized his decades in ministry, and he entered the Ohio House as a sitting pastor who continued leading the Fremont congregation while serving in Columbus.

That changed in March 2025.

The church website continued listing Click as pastor, and no public announcement of the leadership change has been identified.

Sept. 29: Child welfare officials send allegations to Fremont

Six months after Click says he left the pulpit, the Fremont Police Department received a fax from the Oregon Department of Human Services requesting a welfare check at a Fremont-area home.

According to police records obtained by TiffinOhio.net, an unidentified third-party reporter had told Oregon child welfare officials that an 18-year-old had been physically and sexually abused as a child by their father and Click, whom the report identified as the person’s former pastor at Fremont Baptist Temple.

The referral alleged that the person had been beaten, starved and sexually abused.

Fremont Det. Sgt. Matthew Ranazzi located the person identified as the alleged victim.

They denied the allegations.

According to the police report, the person said they had never told anyone in Oregon that Click or their father abused them and denied having been beaten, starved, sexually assaulted or otherwise abused by either man.

When specifically asked about Click, the person identified him as their former pastor but said they did not remember Click doing anything to them.

Oct. 1: Police go to Click’s home

Two days after receiving the Oregon referral, Fremont detectives went to Click’s residence.

Click was in Columbus. Detectives spoke with his wife, and Click later called Ranazzi.

Asked whether he knew the person identified in the referral, Click told police he did not remember them but acknowledged that they “might have been a member of his church.”

Asked whether he knew the person’s father, Click said he did not know him “off the top of his head.”

After Ranazzi explained the allegations, Click denied ever physically or sexually abusing anyone.

The Fremont investigation was closed after the person identified as the alleged victim denied the allegations.

Oct. 8: BCI declines further investigation

Because Click was a sitting member of the Ohio House, Fremont police also referred the matter to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

BCI informed Fremont police on Oct. 8 that it would not investigate further.

By then, Click had been out of day-to-day leadership at Fremont Baptist Temple for six months.

His departure still had not been publicly announced through any channel TiffinOhio.net has identified, and the church continued presenting him as its pastor.

Nov. 10: The police investigation becomes public

On Nov. 10, journalist D.J. Byrnes reported the investigation in The Rooster.

The report brought the allegations and police response into public view.

Click denied the accusations and later defended himself when Byrnes confronted him on camera, describing himself as having a “clean conscience,” “squeaky clean” and “ivory clean.”

He also disputed the characterization of the family’s relationship to Fremont Baptist Temple.

“Attended is not a member,” Click told Byrnes. “There’s a lot of people that come and go. I do not know them.”

That came after Click had told Fremont police that the person “might have been a member of his church.”

By November, the public knew that police had questioned Click about abuse allegations involving a person who had attended his church.

Click’s departure from that same church still had not been publicly announced through any channel TiffinOhio.net has identified.

February 2026: TiffinOhio.net uncovers Click’s departure

It was not until Feb. 16, 2026, that TiffinOhio.net reported Click had stepped down from Fremont Baptist Temple.

By then, Click says he had been out of the pulpit for nearly 11 months.

At the time of the report, Fremont Baptist Temple’s website was still identifying Click as its pastor even though his official Ohio House biography had been changed to say that he had “recently stepped down and assumed the honorary title of pastor Emeritus.”

Click objected to TiffinOhio.net’s description of his departure as quiet.

“Actually, it was very public. You just missed it,” Click wrote on X.

When TiffinOhio.net asked Click to identify the public announcement he said reporters had missed, he did not provide one.

Fremont Baptist Temple subsequently changed its website to identify Rick Ash as pastor and Click as pastor emeritus.

Click later said he had stepped down at the end of March 2025 and explained that leaving the church’s day-to-day leadership gave him greater freedom to travel and expand his ministry.

TiffinOhio.net later reported that Click had begun traveling nationally, preaching about Christianity’s role in government, taking leadership positions with the National Association of Christian Lawmakers and establishing a nonprofit ministry he called “We the Church.”

The timeline

End of March 2025: Click says he steps down after 19 years as lead pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple and becomes pastor emeritus. TiffinOhio.net has identified no contemporaneous public announcement of the change.

Sept. 29, 2025: Oregon child welfare officials forward allegations involving Click to Fremont police.

Oct. 1, 2025: Fremont detectives contact Click. He denies the allegations and tells police the person identified as the alleged victim “might have been a member of his church.”

Oct. 8, 2025: BCI tells Fremont police it will not pursue a further investigation.

Nov. 10, 2025: The Rooster reports the police investigation, bringing the allegations into public view.

Feb. 16, 2026: TiffinOhio.net reports that Click had left the Fremont Baptist Temple pulpit nearly 11 months earlier. The church’s website was still presenting him as pastor.

Days later: Click says his departure had been “very public” and tells TiffinOhio.net, “You just missed it.” Asked to identify that public announcement, Click does not provide one. Fremont Baptist Temple subsequently updates its website.

Click said his departure was “very public.” No announcement has been identified.

Click’s exit from Fremont Baptist Temple ended a 19-year tenure that had been a central part of his public biography.

Yet TiffinOhio.net has found no announcement from Click, Fremont Baptist Temple, his campaign or his legislative office informing the public when that tenure ended.

Click says he left the pulpit at the end of March 2025.

Six months later, Oregon child welfare officials sent Fremont police allegations naming him.

Seven months after his departure, the police investigation became public.

Yet Fremont Baptist Temple continued listing Click as pastor, and it would be nearly 11 months after his departure before TiffinOhio.net reported that his tenure had ended at all.

When Click later insisted the departure had been “very public” and told TiffinOhio.net, “You just missed it,” he did not identify the public announcement reporters supposedly missed.