McLean leaders, the statement continues, are “grieved that our brothers and sisters are still choosing to file lawsuits rather than meet with us [and] our prayer is that we are soon nearing a day where this kind of thing is behind us for good.”
In a 2021 letter to the church’s board chairman, SBC executive C. Ashley Clayton clarified McLean’s “relationship status” with the denomination. The SBC considers McLean a “partnering” church, not a “member” church, he wrote, adding that McLean has an SBC ID number “purely for the sake of accounting purposes as [McLean] partners together with SBC entities on mission.”
