In a vote by more than 12,000 delegates at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, Saddleback Church has lost its appeal of being expelled from the convention over having women in the role of pastors; it was announced Wednesday morning.
Saddleback Church’s founding pastor, Rick Warren, represented the congregation on Tuesday at the convention, asking the delegates to stay close to their Baptist roots and “agree to disagree.”
The result of the vote was 9,437 to oust the church, backing a decision by the convention’s Executive Committee in February. Fern Creek Baptist in Kentucky also lost its appeal.
The decision was made during the second day of the convention, which is being held in New Orleans. Each congregation is self-governing, so the main enforcement mechanism is to oust a church from membership.
Warren retired as the founding and senior pastor of Saddleback Church in August and has remained relatively quiet, with only a few appearances at Saddleback Church alongside new Pastor Andy Wood since then.
The Southern Baptists Convention’s statement of faith officially opposes women as pastors, adding in 2000 that the words “the office of the pastor is limited to men as qualified by scripture.”
Calls for expelling Saddleback Church began in 2021, shortly after Warren ordained three women pastors. The women led worship for children and students and provided visits to hospitals and funerals. Stacie Wood, wife of Andy Wood, was made a teaching pastor this summer.
A few weeks ago, Warren embarked on a sort of media campaign, releasing videos and podcasts about his reasoning on why women should be allowed to be pastors at the 40,000-strong mega-church that he founded in Lake Forest in 1980.
Warren, who founded Saddleback Church in 1980 in Lake Forest, helped grow the congregation to more than 40,000 people with 14 locations in Southern California and four international campuses. He was succeeded by Wood, who came from the Echo.Church in San Jose.
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