In response to a lawsuit filed by some disgruntled current and former members, Texas Pastor Ben Young used part of his sermon on Sunday (April 27) to deny the allegations. Young, senior pastor of Houston’s Second Baptist Church, told worshipers that change always leads to “pushback,” and some of the church’s 94,000 members had been “struggling with change.”
Although Young said he couldn’t talk about the lawsuit, he assured people that allegations made about him and his family “simply are not true.” Second Baptist will respond “appropriately for this body of Christ,” said the pastor, adding that the church is receiving counsel from Jay Sekulow, chief counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice.
While preaching about the “new day” at Second Baptist, Young assured congregants they have an “excellent” leadership structure and team that serves with “great efficiency and accountability.” He also spoke about the church family “moving forward with all that God has in store for us, to reach the next generation for Jesus Christ.”
Pastor Ben Young Rebuffs Allegations From Lawsuit
Last May, longtime Senior Pastor H. Edwin Young, then 87, retired after 46 years serving Second Baptist. He named son Ben Young, a longtime associate pastor at the six-site megachurch, as his successor.
According to a lawsuit filed April 15 by the newly formed nonprofit Jeremiah Counsel Corporation, leaders at Second Baptist had changed church bylaws via “deceitful and deceptive practices” to ensure that ministry control—and profit—stayed within the Young family. The church has an annual budget of $84 million, plus $1 billion in assets.
The suit alleges that a small team strategized to revoke church members’ voting rights, block members from accessing financial records, and prevent future congregational input about church policies and decisions. “Under the purported Bylaws ‘updates,’ the Senior Pastor would also have nearly dictatorial authority over church business and staff,” the lawsuit stated.
As ChurchLeaders reported, the lawsuit claimed that as soon as Ben Young assumed power at Second Baptist, he prevented his father from staying involved with the ministry and “summarily fired” top staff members.
The Jeremiah Counsel Corporation is seeking a permanent injunction that would revoke Ben Young’s authority as senior pastor of Second Baptist and address the allegedly invalid church-bylaw updates. According to the lawsuit, those updates were pushed through in May 2023 under the guise of fighting “the woke agenda,” and a meeting about the issue was minimally publicized to church members.
Bylaw Changes Were Biblical and Legal, Says Pastor Ben Young
Preaching at Second Baptist’s main Woodway campus on Sunday, Pastor Ben Young noted that his father—a former Southern Baptist Convention president—was “such a massive agent of change.” Throughout Ed Young Sr.’s lengthy ministry, Ben said, the megachurch saw change, which led to challenges, which led to growth. “Every time we change, every time we launch something new,” said Ben Young, “there’s always pushback, always challenge, always conflict.”
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