The elders of the Saddleback Church announced a preliminary investigation has cleared Andy Wood, Rick Warren’s recently announced successor after allegations were made by a former staff member who worked at the church Wood currently leads.
Saddleback reports it had already conducted extensive research about Wood and is continuing its due diligence to ensure he is a man of godly character.
As CBN News reported on June 3, Warren, senior pastor of one of the country’s most dynamic megachurches, announced he would be retiring after four decades of leading Saddleback just as soon as a successor could be found.
After a year’s search from 100 potential candidates and much prayer, the Saddleback leadership selected Andy Wood, as their new pastor of the megachurch which is located in Orange County, California. Wood, 40, has been leading Echo Church in San Jose along with his wife Stacie, who’s also a teaching pastor at Echo.
Like Saddleback, Echo Church has ties to the Southern Baptist Convention. Religion News Service (RNS) reports the church has four campuses and draws about 25,000 people to weekly services. Wood is a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and has also worked with church planters through the SBC’s North American Mission Board.
After Warren made the announcement of Wood’s hiring at Saddleback, a former Echo Church staff member posted comments criticizing Wood’s style of leadership on social media.
Wood previously told the church’s elders about the former church employee’s allegations during his interview and offered to show them videos of his meetings with the former staff member, according to a statement issued by Saddleback leadership Sunday night. The church then asked the company which did the initial background check on Wood, to do a follow-up review and “launched a second series of interviews of our own.”
Echo gave the company’s investigators video footage, emails, text records, and interviews that it had gathered in its own review of Wood’s actions. Echo had conducted its own interviews, as well, according to Saddleback’s letter.
“Finally, they tried to reach out to the former staff member and have yet to receive communication back,” the church said.
“Vanderbloemen was provided an exhaustive report that was conducted by the board at Echo Church, which included video footage, email and text records, and interviews. They also interviewed more staff and board members of Echo. Finally, they tried to reach out to the former staff member and have yet to receive communication back. In this preliminary secondary report from Vanderbloemen, they stand behind their original assessment of Pastor Wood and believe he is clear of all allegations,” the Saddleback elders said.
“The report is not yet completed. As you can imagine, a process this thorough requires numbers of conversations. So instead of waiting until the end of the process to report to you, we felt it was important that you hear the facts on this from us now, rather than in the news or on social media. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear on the final report,” the letter said.
“Please stop a moment and pray right now,” the church’s elders asked the congregation. “Pray for clarity of the truth and for wisdom.”
Wood, in a statement to RNS, said that Echo “would be happy for any current or former staff members to share their working experience at Echo with Vanderbloemen as a part of their investigation, adding, “We want to do everything we can to help the truth about these allegations come to light.”
Founded in 2008 as South Bay Church, Echo now has four campuses and draws about 3,000 people to weekly services, according to the RNS.
Although some may consider the allegations against Wood as hearsay, Saddleback’s leadership is doing its best to make sure there’s accountability during the pastoral transition. With the sins of leaders from other churches being exposed in recent years, these types of essential but uncomfortable conversations are becoming more public for the global Christian church.
According to The Christian Post, the Woods will officially step down from their positions with Echo Church on June 26.
The Saddleback congregation will celebrate the Warrens’ service of 43 years on the weekend of Sept. 3-4. Then on the weekend of Sept. 10-11, the Woods will be installed in their new positions with Sept. 12, being Wood’s first day as Saddleback’s senior pastor.
“For decades, we have admired and respected Pastor Rick and Kay Warren, and their work through the Purpose Driven Church model has been critical,” Wood said in a statement. “We’ve been so blessed by their friendship, and after months of prayer and seeking counsel from others, we believe that God has called us together to step into serving at Saddleback Church.”
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