WARE SHOALS, S.C. (BP) — A financial secretary at Ware Shoals First Baptist Church has been charged with stealing more than $400,000, according to WISTV 10 News.

According to police, Shelley Strickland has used money from multiple church accounts, including its emergency fund, since 2019 for restaurant meals, trips to the Smoky Mountains, resort rentals and family expenses. Discrepancies in the church’s finances were discovered when a new financial secretary was hired by First Baptist.

Strickland, whose husband is pastor of First Damascus Baptist Church in Bradley, S.C., also had worked as a financial secretary at several other area churches and Lakelands Baptist Association. Additional theft charges against Strickland are under investigation.

David Little, director of missions for Lakelands Baptist Association, told The Baptist Courier that Strickland worked for Lakelands up until she was fired about four weeks ago when the association learned she had been misappropriating funds in multiple locations. She also is suspected of stealing approximately $58,000 from the association, which has filed a complaint with the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office, he said.

Strickland and her husband were well respected and well loved among the association’s churches, Little said. “He’s a pastor of one of our churches, so we were surprised and disappointed,” he said. “When you steal from a church, it’s bad. But when you steal from an association, you steal from all the churches in that association, and that’s really hard to swallow.

“People make bad choices, and those choices affect a lot of good people,” Little said. “We will pray for this family, but she has brought a lot of pain on a lot of people and churches and her own family. It’s just sad.”

The Baptist Courier also attempted to contact both the pastor and church treasurer at Ware Shoals First Baptist but had no response at press time.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Todd Deaton is managing editor of the Baptist Courier, news journal of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.)