Pastoral succession, megachurch wealth and family dynasties combine in a lawsuit filed against Second Baptist Church of Houston and its leaders April 15.
The Southern Baptist congregation is the 17th largest church in America, according to Outreach magazine, with average weekly attendance of 19,735 in 2024. After 46 years as senior pastor, Ed Young stepped down last May and named one of his sons, Ben Young, his successor. Another son, also named Ed Young, leads a Dallas-area megachurch called Fellowship Church, which is the 13th largest church in America.
But all is not well in Houston, nearly one year after Ed Young the elder took a sudden retirement at age 87 — amid grumblings inside and outside the church that he had become a bit unhinged in his rambling sermons — and orchestrated naming his son as successor.
This turn of events pitted two groups within the church membership against each other: Younger members who wanted new leadership versus older, wealthier members who remained loyal to Ed Young regardless. But that’s only the beginning of this saga.
Now there are allegations of deceptive practices, an illegal church business meeting and a family’s attempt to enrich itself by control of the church’s $1 billion in assets.
A rich history
A young Ed Young (Photo: Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives)
The elder Young is Southern Baptist Convention royalty and a legend among American pastors. He not only was elected president of the SBC twice during the “conservative resurgence,” but he grew the church from about 500 people in 1976 to tens of thousands today.
Second Baptist Houston was a megachurch before most Americans knew what a megachurch was.
With that growth, and with the extremely long tenure of a senior pastor, came governance issues that boiled over at the time of a pastoral transition. While the vast majority of Southern Baptist churches operate with congregational governance and call pastors through a lengthy search committee process and an all-church vote, none of that happened last year at Second Baptist.
Jeremiah Counsel
Now, a group of members has formed a nonprofit corporation called Jeremiah Counsel “to promote, protect and restore integrity, accountable governance and donor protection for churches in Texas.” Specifically Second Baptist.
Jeremiah Counsel filed suit against Ben Young, Ed Young, Associate Pastor Lee Maxcy and North Texas attorney Dennis Brewer, who served as chief financial officer of Fellowship Church in North Texas.
The plaintiffs charge these defendants — labeled “The Young Group” — conspired to steal church assets and take away the congregation’s right to choose its own pastor. They accuse the elder Ed Young of enacting a series of changes beginning in 2023 “to secure the ascendance of his son, Ben Young … as senior pastor to Second Baptist’s 94,000 congregants.”
That “circumvented the democratic processes which had long been observed under existing church bylaws for 95 years,” the plaintiffs charge. “This move was not merely about family succession. It was also about consolidating power and control over church governance and church assets.”
“This move was not merely about family succession. It was also about consolidating power and control over church governance and church assets.”
Further, the church members charge, Ed Young the elder was inspired by the governance model used by his son, Ed Young, at Fellowship Church, where the pastor has wide-ranging control over everything.
Bylaws amendments
They accuse their former longtime pastor of collaborating with Ben Young, Lee Maxcy and Dennis Brewer Jr. “to orchestrate undisclosed and unvetted amendments to the bylaws at Second Baptist.”
Ben Young
Ironically, they say, “the represented and ostensible purpose for these amendments was to clarify the church’s beliefs, and to reinforce its stance on social issues such as marriage and family, in response to the ‘woke agenda.”’ However, the true objective for the amendments was to radically alter Second Baptist’s long-observed democratic governance processes — and to eliminate the congregants’ voice in church matters in its entirety.”
The result, they say, was “abolishing church members’ rights to vote, installing an unelected and unaccountable board, and concentrating almost all power, including the power to select the future church pastor, in the pastor alone.”
These bylaws amendments were presented and approved “at a sparsely attended meeting where the attendees were not even permitted to see or read a copy of the actual amendments before a purported vote was held,” the plaintiffs state. They also say the notice of the May 31, 2023, church business was buried in a Memorial Day weekend update.
The result was transfer of “virtually all power to the senior pastor,” the complaint states. “The senior pastor can, at any time, for any reason: Sell the church or merge it with any other church, even if the transaction is with a family member; close or sell any campus; close, sell, or dramatically increase tuition at Second Baptist School instead of continuing to subsidize it as a ministry of the church; raise the senior pastor’s salary and that of his leadership, to any amount, in total secrecy; appoint the next senior pastor, without a search process, or approval by an independent board.”
Specifically, the revised bylaws create a Ministry Leadership Team whose members are appointed by the senior pastor. The names of who serves on that team are not made public, even to church members.
Remedies
The Jeremiah Counsel group says it has worked for two years seeking to reverse the bylaws change but has made no progress. Due to a two-year window before the statute of limitations expires for such a legal claim in Texas, they were forced to file suit now, they said.
Ed Young preaching at an SBC annual meeting (Photo: Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives)
Whether any civil court will adjudicate this case is yet to be seen. Often, courts cite the ecclesial abstention doctrine to defer judgment on internal church workings. For now, the case has been assigned to Judge Latosha Lewis Payne of the 55th Civil District Court in Harris County.
However, because the allegations include failure to follow an organization’s own bylaws to give proper notice of a meeting, it is possible this case could make it to trial.
What the Jeremiah Counsel has told church members it hopes to accomplish is to force the senior pastor to call a meeting of the church membership “to vote on the bylaws he believes should govern the church. The vote should be 100% transparent and provide plenty of time for the membership to plan to attend the meeting. If the membership votes to support his proposed new bylaws, everyone will know that was the will of the church body, without deception.”
“Let the members vote, which was their right for nearly 100 years, up until it was taken away from them,” the group urges.
The legal filing includes other demands, including seeking an injunction against the current financial management of the church and reimbursement of legal fees for the plaintiffs.
Church leaders, including Pastor Ben Young, have made no public comment on the lawsuit. Jeremiah Counsel has not disclosed the names of its members.
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