NASHVILLE (BP) — The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee (EC) took major steps to tackle issues that have been brewing in the Convention for several years, including addressing the financial fallout from the SBC’s response to sexual abuse, introducing a new director for abuse response within the convention and responding to the call for additional financial information from entities.

Members also voted, at the recommendation of the SBC Credentials Committee, to deem two churches “not in friendly cooperation” with the convention.

Though the SBC faces challenges, they are not unprecedented in Southern Baptist history, nor are they insurmountable, EC President Jeff Iorg told members.

“Southern Baptist pastors do not run from trouble. They walk toward it,” Iorg said in his address Feb. 17. “They specialize in holding steady in messy situations — especially those caused by the choices of others.”

And later: “I signed on to guide us through these current challenges. … My hope is the leaders in this room, thousands of pastors who will hear this speech and millions of Southern Baptists will resolve to go through this together.” Iorg’s address is available on Baptist Press’ YouTube channel.

SBC President Clint Pressley told EC members in his Monday night address that while the SBC may have “fixable flaws in the system,” its design is good and should be celebrated and stewarded well.

“The SBC and the Cooperative Program — nothing else even comes close,” Pressley said.

Financial actions

After more than 30 minutes of discussion, members voted Tuesday morning (Feb. 18) to recommend to messengers at the 2025 SBC annual meeting that the 2025-2026 SBC CP Allocation Budget include $3 million as a special priority allocation taken off the top of the $190 million budget.

The day before, members of the EC’s Committee on Convention Finances and Stewardship Development held a long discussion in executive (closed) session, presumably dealing with the recommendation.

That discussion likely also included the details of a new Business and Financial Plan that was presented to and adopted by EC members Tuesday morning.

Sexual Abuse Prevention and Response

The meeting, held at the Hilton Hotel at the Nashville airport, was the first EC meeting for Jeff Dalrymple, newly appointed director of the EC’s office of Abuse Prevention and Response. (See related story.)

Iorg recognized Dalrymple during his address Monday night, and the two hosted a joint press conference Tuesday following the close of the meeting.

“I long for a day when kids can come to church and learn about Jesus free from any sexual abuse,” Dalrymple said at a press conference Feb. 18. “That’s my heart. And Lord help us, that’s our mission. It’s become a calling.”

The EC’s ownership of the permanent home for sexual abuse prevention and response was the result of action taken at the last EC meeting in September.

SBC Credentials Committee

The EC deemed two churches not in friendly cooperation with the SBC, based on recommendations from the Credentials Committee.

Centro Cristiano Jesus es el Camino Church in Merced, Calif., was disciplined for “acting in a manner that is inconsistent with the convention’s beliefs regarding sexual abuse,” and Rabbit Creek Church in Anchorage, Alaska, was deemed to have a “faith and practice which does not closely identify with the convention’s adopted statement of faith, as demonstrated by the egalitarian beliefs publicly expressed by its leadership.”

Regarding Centro Cristiano Jesus es el Camino, affiliate groups the Mid Valley Baptist Association and the California Southern Baptist Convention also deem the church not in friendly cooperation with their respective organizations.

While the EC did not specify Centro Cristiano Jesus’ actions at issue, Senior Pastor Ernesto Uriostegui told Baptist Press the church’s problems arose over text messages he sent a congregant more than two years ago that he believes were incorrectly judged as sexually inappropriate.

“They say because they saw the word, like, princess, or something like that,” Uriostegui said, “they say that that is harassment. And there was nothing about sex, though. They want to try to interpret the message. They want to decide.”

The church of about 30 members voted to retain him as pastor about two years ago, he told Baptist Press, adding that he will continue in the pastorate on a bivocational part-time status.

Rabbit Creek Senior Pastor Mark T. Goodman and at least four other Rabbit Creek staff members signed Baptist Women in Ministry’s Open Letter to Baptist Women supporting women in church leadership and asserting that “Jesus did not place any limits on women’s roles.”

The church employs female Lori Pepiton as children and families pastor, but the position was not stated as a cause of the EC’s action.

Joining Goodman in signing the document were Cory A. Pepiton, pastor of outreach and student ministries; Joshua Travis, Rabbit Creek Huffman Campus pastor; ministry assistants Nikki Palmer and Kyong Green, as well as Goodman’s wife Vonda Kay.

Rabbit Creek, a church of 568 members that averaged 974 in attendance in 2023, gave $7,632 to the Cooperative Program that year from undesignated receipts of $1,101,226, according to the Annual Church Profile.

Other actions

Other recommendations adopted by EC members from EC officers and the EC’s four standing committees include:

Recommendations from EC officers

• An increase in the salary structure for EC staff by 2.9%
• Amendments to the Pay Periods and Outside Employment and Honorarium sections of the EC Personnel Policies Manual.

Committee on Convention Finances and Stewardship Development

In addition to the presentation of a proposed new Business and Financial Plan and a revised CP allocation budget, other recommendations submitted by the finances and stewardship standing committee and adopted by EC members include:

• Assurance of continued work toward a 51% allocation of national CP receipts for the International Mission Board, in response to a messenger’s motion from last summer.
• Declining, in response to a messenger motion, to recommend that the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission be allowed to raise funds from outside the SBC. The stated rationale is that the EC, in cooperation with other SBC entities and organizations, “is addressing these and other issues by proposing changes and clarifications to the Southern Baptist Convention Business and Financial Plan.”

Committee on Missions and Ministry

• Electing two new trustees for the Southern Baptist Foundation — Craig Parker of Louisville, Ky., and Tom Boyd of Lebanon, Tenn.
• Declining to recommend an amendment to the SBC Constitution regarding the makeup of SBC entity trustee boards. A motion referred from the 2024 SBC meeting in Indianapolis called for the change which would disallow service on an SBC entity board of anyone “employed by” an SBC entity. The EC’s stated reason for declining the motion is “because the phrase ‘employed by’ could be broadly interpreted and would make the proposed amendment difficult to enforce.”

Committee on Convention Events and Strategic Planning

• Retaining C. Barry McCarty to serve as chief parliamentarian at the 2025 SBC annual meeting in Dallas, with Al Gage serving as assistant parliamentarian.
• Requesting $100,000 from the 2025 SBC Pastors’ Conference as partial reimbursement for its use of the meeting space and facilities.
• Recommending a change in the location of the 2028 SBC annual meeting from Indianapolis to St. Louis, as the Indiana Convention Center will be a host site for Olympic trials.
• Recommending future sites for annual meetings, including San Antonio (2029, 2036) and St. Louis (2033, 2038).

Committee on Southern Baptist Relations

• Declining, in response to a messenger motion, to appoint a study team to consider how Southern Baptists from every state convention can serve on SBC boards. While declining the motion, the EC did affirm it will “continue to study this issue, in cooperation with the entities and state executive directors, to determine future best practices regarding representation on convention boards, committees, commissions, and institutions, and

“That the Executive Committee also requests the Committee on Nominations and others who select persons for SBC service responsibilities broaden their consideration of nominees from all state conventions when appointing persons to serve in capacities permitted by the current Constitution and Bylaws.”

• Informing that the EC, in response to a recommendation from the SBC’s Cooperation Group, “has altered its database administration processes to include in ChurchSearch only churches who have cooperated with the convention as reported in the Annual Church Profile, in accordance with Article III of the SBC Constitution within the preceding 5 years.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Laura Erlanson is managing editor of Baptist Press. Diana Chandler, Scott Barkley and Brandon Porter contributed to this report.)