LAKE FOREST, Calif. (BP) – Lead Pastor Andy Wood anticipates that the number of women clergy will grow at multi-campus Saddleback Church based in southern California, something that will certainly heighten the discussion over the congregation and its fellowship with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).
On Oct. 9, Wood’s wife Stacie preached a message at the church titled, The Courage to Slow Down, where she was listed as “teaching pastor” on the screen. In Andy Wood’s bio on the church website’s leadership page, he and his wife are both referred to as pastors.
“Stacie and I are grateful to be called to serve at Saddleback Church,” Andy Wood told Baptist Press. “We are not co-pastors but rather have unique roles on staff. I’m serving as the lead pastor and one of our Saddleback overseers while Stacie is serving as one of our teaching pastors.
“We believe pastoring and teaching are functions and spiritual gifts to be exercised in the church by both men and women. The function of teaching and pastoring is not necessarily synonymous nor exclusive from the office of overseer,” he said.
“While many SBC churches share the same view, we are committed to stay in fellowship and unified with other SBC churches even when we disagree. Saddleback Church has a strong commitment to the authority and inerrancy of the Bible,” Wood said. “We believe this approach is biblical and in alignment with the teachings of the New Testament as well.”
A May 2021 ordination service at Saddleback included three women. That brought a motion at the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting in Nashville for the SBC to break fellowship with Saddleback. At the June 2022 Annual Meeting in Anaheim, Calif., the Credentials Committee presented a recommendation for a study committee to look into ways churches assign the term “pastor” to various ministry roles.
Meanwhile, SBC President Bart Barber, pastor of First Church, Farmersville, Texas, and SBC Executive Committee Chairman Jared Wellman, lead pastor of Tate Springs Church, Arlington, Texas, issued a statement affirming that Southern Baptist polity and the Baptist Faith and Message remain central during a discussion over women serving as pastors.
“Both of us have the responsibility to protect the messengers’ rights, answer the messengers’ questions and implement the messengers’ instructions,” reads the statement issued Nov. 2.
Over the past week, a public document written by Mike Law Jr., senior pastor of Arlington Church, Arlington, Va., has received more than 800 signatures in support of his motion to amend the SBC Constitution to add an exclusion for any church that affirms women as pastors.
The Committee on Order of Business referred the motion to the SBC Executive Committee, which is expected to take up the referral at its February 2023 meeting.
