By DEEPA BHARATH and PETER SMITH
The woman pastor at the center of the Southern Baptist Convention’s decision to oust Saddleback Church — the Lake Forest, 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 Orange County’s 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 center 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.”
RELATED: Saddleback Church ousted by Southern Baptist Convention over woman pastor
“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 Feb. 21, the convention’s Executive Committee voted to expel…
Read the full article here
