The ballots have been counted, and messengers to the 2023 SBC Annual Meeting in New Orleans voted overwhelmingly in favor of disaffiliating with Saddleback Church in California, Fern Creek Baptist Church in Kentucky and Freedom Church in Florida.

While Freedom Church allegedly did not properly handle sexual abuse accusations against its pastor, Saddleback and Fern Creek were deemed to not be in friendly cooperation because they have women serving as pastors on their church staff.

Messengers also approved a proposed amendment to the SBC constitution restricting women’s roles and titles on church staffs to go forward to the 2024 annual meeting in Indianapolis for final debate. If approved next year, the amendment will be added to the SBC governing document.

The Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force reported a new SBC Abuse Prevention website, which includes a database and ministry toolkit to equip and resource churches.

Task force chair Marshall Blalock assured messengers that there would be a thorough process for verifying anyone for inclusion in the database and said an accusation alone will not get anyone added to the database. Messengers also authorized the task force to continue work for another year.

For more information about the work of the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, visit https://sbcabuseprevention.com. Two more SBC officers were chosen by messengers in landslide votes: Louisiana pastor Jay Adkins was elected first vice president, and Texas pastor Kason Branch was elected second vice president.

There is one more session of the 2023 Annual Meeting remaining Wednesday, June 14. We will continue to live tweet at The Baptist Paper and post articles on https://thebaptistpaper.org/sbc2023/.