Nashville, Tenn. | A network of 4,000 Black churches within the Southern Baptist Convention has called for a season of prayer and dialogue after an action by messengers prohibited application of the term “pastor” to women serving in any ministry capacity. Their challenge has received support from former SBC President J.D. Greear.
In a July 3 letter to Southern Baptists and current SBC President Bart Barber, President of the National African American Fellowship (NAAF) Gregory Perkins said that “many of our churches assign the title ‘pastor’ to women who oversee ministries of the church under the authority of a male Senior Pastor, i.e., Children’s Pastor, Worship Pastor, Discipleship Pastor, etc.,”
Use of the term pastor to describe these various shepherding and ministry functions by those churches does not mean they advocate female senior pastors, he explained.
At the SBC Annual Meeting in New Orleans, messengers passed the first of two votes required to amend the SBC Constitution to state that only “churches that affirm, appoint, or employ only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture” will be viewed to be in friendly cooperation with the SBC.
That action came as messengers also turned away appeals from Pastors Rick Warren and Linda Barnes Popham to reinstate their churches’ SBC membership. The SBC Executive Committee (EC) dismissed Saddleback Community Church and Fern Creek Baptist Church for having women as teaching pastors or lead pastors. Three other congregations were similarly disfellowshipped, but only Warren’s and Popham’s churches appealed for reinstatement from the floor of the convention.
“These actions, while within the rights of our messengers, undermine the tie that binds, i.e., the autonomy of the local church and are inconsistent with our shared Baptist polity,” wrote Perkins, who is lead pastor of The View Church in Menifee, Calif. “This may signal to churches in the SBC that do not believe that women should be the Senior Pastor but allow women the usage of a pastoral title, or appoints a woman to a pastoral role, are no longer welcome in the SBC.”
The NAAF letter also objected to the lack of a ballot vote on the constitutional change, lack of time for messengers to consider its ramifications, and appropriateness of such a change without first engaging a study task force.
In response, Barber called the request for prayer and dialogue “Christ-honoring” and “biblical.”
“I will make sure that the entire SBC family has ample opportunity for prayer and dialogue throughout the coming year leading up to our meeting next June in Indianapolis,” Barber wrote. His first stop was the Black Church leadership week at Ridgecrest Conference Center later in July.
Meanwhile, Greear sided with NAAF in a statement posted at The Summit Church website. “This amendment forces conformity down to tertiary levels in ways that will both violate local church autonomy and are inconsistent with our past practice,” Greear said.
“If we continue down this road, we might become a Convention that spends its time focused on who is in and who is out, instead of on the best ways to reach our communities and glorify Jesus.
“I’m tired of micromanaging churches; I want to be about the Great Commission,” Greear said.
A second favorable vote on the constitutional amendment will be required for it to become official. The 2024 SBC Annual Meeting is set for June 11-12 in Indianapolis.
– With info from Baptist Press and Christian Post
Related: Trevin Wax offers “7 considerations for Southern Baptists” at BaptistPress.com.