DALLAS (BP)—Austin pastor Juan Sanchez is urging Southern Baptists to re-visit an amendment at their annual meeting this June that addresses the definition of pastor/elder/overseer in the Southern Baptist Convention constitution.
Virginia pastor Mike Law originally presented an amendment to Article III of the constitution—which came to be known as the Law Amendment—at the 2022 annual meeting in Anaheim.
It asked for the addition of a sixth item that noted a cooperating church would “not affirm, appoint or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.”
The next year in New Orleans, Sanchez, pastor of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, offered what Law accepted as a friendly amendment for churches that affirm, appoint or employ “only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.”
The amendment received the first of two required successive 2/3 vote of approval by messengers, but failed to reach that mark last year in Indianapolis.
Support for the Law Amendment received momentum recently over the shared exchange of correspondence from the credentials committee regarding the submission of NewSpring Church in Anderson, S.C., and its employment of a woman as teaching pastor.
The committee informed the submitter no action would be taken, and NewSpring remained in friendly cooperation with the SBC.
The decision “makes it clear that the committee needs stronger and clearer guidance in making decisions about which churches closely identify with the SBC and our confession of faith, particularly regarding churches with women serving with the title and office of ‘pastor,’” Sanchez wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
An “Open Letter to Our Southern Baptist Family” asks messengers in Dallas to give the majority vote needed to suspend the convention’s sixth standing rule.
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The rule states all motions to amend the SBC’s governing documents or the Baptist Faith & Message not presented to messengers by the Executive Committee automatically will be referred to the Executive Committee for review and reporting to the next annual meeting.
The letter’s supporters say that time gap won’t do.
“Because we have already debated this language at the last two conventions, we do not believe that we need to spend another year waiting for the Executive Committee to decide whether to put the amendment before the convention for a vote,” said the letter.
In addition to Sanchez, those undersigning are:
- Nate Akin, executive director, Pillar Network
- HB Charles, pastor-teacher of Shiloh Metropolitan Church in Jacksonville, Fla.
- Jed Coppenger, lead pastor of First Baptist Church in Cumming, Ga.
- Aaron Harvie, senior pastor of Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky.
- Brian Payne, pastor of Lakeview Baptist Church in Auburn, Ala.
- Clay Smith, senior pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga.
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