Saddleback Church doubles down on support for female pastors

AP

The woman pastor at the centre of the Southern Baptist Convention’s decision to oust Saddleback Church – the California megachurch founded by pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren – says she will continue to serve as a ministry leader despite her longstanding ties to the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Saddleback has yet to say if it will appeal its expulsion. But at least one other church – a Kentucky congregation ousted the same day for having a woman pastor – plans to do so, guaranteeing Southern Baptists will weigh the issue at their annual meeting in June in New Orleans.

Stacie Wood, teaching pastor at Saddleback and wife of lead pastor Andy Wood, wrote an Instagram post about her church’s ousting. She credited her Southern Baptist upbringing for shaping her faith, but stood firm on heeding her calling despite being “at the centre of the discussion.”

“I’m serving Jesus under the authority and in alignment with my spiritual leaders,” Wood wrote. “We believe that women can be gifted and empowered as teachers and as pastors.”

Her husband told the congregation during weekend services about his plan to release a video explaining the church’s position on women pastors. Wood told The Associated Press last year that the Bible “teaches that men and women were given spiritual gifts by God.”

“My wife has the spiritual gift of teaching and she is really good. People often tell me she’s better than me when it comes to preaching,” he said.

The SBC’s statement of faith says that women should not be pastors. The SBC is not a hierarchy and can’t tell a member congregation what to do, but it can deem a church to be “not in friendly cooperation with the Convention,” the verbal formulation for ouster.

On February 21, the convention’s Executive Committee voted to expel Saddleback, the SBC’s second largest congregation, alluding to Stacie Wood “functioning in the office of pastor.” It was one of five congregations kicked out for the same issue.

One of them, Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, plans to appeal, said the Rev Linda Barnes Popham, who has served as Fern Creek’s pastor since 1993.

She said the congregation wants to continue working with the SBC, regularly uses its religious-education curriculum and supports its missionaries and other causes. At the same time, it believes the larger body of Southern Baptists – not just the Executive Committee – should decide whether to maintain fellowship with churches with women pastors.

“We feel like the average Southern Baptist would have no problem with this,” she said. “The other reason is to be a change agent for women in the Southern Baptist Convention – for all those young girls, for all those young people God is calling into ministry.”

The other three churches also said they planned to continue with women’s leadership but did not indicate they would appeal.