A California megachurch recently expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention for having a woman pastor will continue to support female ministry leaders.
Last week, members of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee voted to oust five churches for allowing women to serve as pastors — including Saddleback Church, the denomination’s second-largest congregation.
Founded by bestselling author and retired pastor Rick Warren in 1980, Saddleback grew to be a popular megachurch with an impressive history of membership growth. Today it has more than 23,000 members across 12 locations in Southern California, as well as 11 million social media followers.
But despite being one of SBC’s biggest success stories in terms of growth, the church was expelled last week. The committee took issue with Stacie Wood, the wife of Saddleback’s lead pastor, Andy Wood, who was “functioning in the office of pastor” — a practice that goes against the convention’s statement of faith.
Saddleback has yet to announce if it plans to dispute the committee’s decision, but Stacie Wood doesn’t intend to go anywhere.
“I’m serving Jesus under the authority and in alignment with my spiritual leaders,” Wood wrote on Instagram in a post commenting on the church’s ousting. “We believe that women can be gifted and empowered as teachers and as pastors.”
In an email to Saddleback members, lead pastor Andy Wood said he’d soon release a statement about female pastors.
“God intends for both men and women to exercise their spiritual gifts of shepherding and teaching the church,” he wrote, while also asking members to refrain from speaking publicly against the convention’s decision.
At least one of the five churches ousted for having female senior pastors plans to appeal the committee’s decision.
The Rev. Linda Barnes Popham — who has served as pastor at Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky. for the past 30 years — said her congregation wants to continue to be a part of the SBC, adding that they “feel like the average Southern Baptist would have no problem with this.”
Women pastors go against the Baptist Faith and Message, the SBC’s statement of faith, which states that, “while both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”