--- type: newsletter-issue title: State of the Church Today — Issue 09 issue: 9 date: 2026-07-19 audience: Pastors & Elders status: draft created: 2026-07-19T07:00 updated: 2026-07-19T07:06 --- # State of the Church Today *A weekly digest of Southern Baptist, Reformed, and broader theological news — curated for pastors and elders.* **Issue 09 · Sunday, July 19, 2026** > A hard week for pastoral credibility: a Tennessee pastor confirmed federal agents raided his home over church finances, and a Texas pastor was indicted for allegedly defrauding his own congregants of $3.2 million. Meanwhile the quieter, better story — four SBC seminaries sending one joint mission team — is the one worth telling your church. --- ## ⛪ SBC & Convention Watch *Annual meeting, entities, ERLC, resolutions, denominational politics.* **Four seminaries, one mission team.** More than 35 students and faculty from New Orleans, Southeastern, Southwestern, and Southern seminaries took a joint two-week trip to the Asia-Pacific region in late May and early June — reportedly the first international mission trip where multiple SBC seminaries have partnered this way. The idea was hatched at an IMB training-center gathering in Richmond back in 2024. Southern's George Martin caught the significance: "On the 101st anniversary of the establishment of the Cooperative Program, it was great to see the seminaries together on the other side of the world." A small thing institutionally, a good sign culturally. — [Baptist Press](https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/join-seminary-mission-trip-a-picture-of-sbc-cooperation/) · [Biblical Recorder](https://www.brnow.org/news/joint-seminary-mission-trip-a-picture-of-sbc-cooperation/) **Cooperative Program giving stays behind budget.** June receipts came in under the monthly goal, leaving year-to-date giving a little more than 3 percent below the $190 million budget — though at $140.9 million, essentially level with the same point last year (down 0.21 percent). Designated giving in June was notably softer, $22.5 million against last June's $26.8 million. Not a crisis, but a flat trend against a rising budget, and worth naming honestly to your congregation rather than letting missions allocations absorb the difference quietly. — [Baptist Press](https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/cp-giving-remains-about-3-percent-under-budget-for-the-year/) · [Biblical Recorder](https://www.brnow.org/news/cp-giving-remains-about-3-under-budget-for-the-year/) **Southeastern's handoff is now twelve days out.** Danny Akin's 22-year presidency at SEBTS ends July 31; provost Scott Pace takes office August 1 as the seminary's seventh president. Nothing new has broken since we noted this last week — but it lands during the window when trustees, faculty, and donors quietly decide whether they're going to grant a successor the same trust they gave his predecessor. — [SEBTS](https://www.sebts.edu/news-and-events/headlines/2026/04/trustees-unanimously-elect-scott-pace-as-seventh-president-of-southeastern-seminary/) --- ## 📖 Reformed & Confessional *Reformed Baptist, Presbyterian (PCA/OPC), confessional churches and networks.* **The OPC calls its churches to prayer and fasting for ministerial candidates.** This year's General Assembly called the denomination to a season of prayer and fasting during the week beginning September 13, asking the Lord of the harvest to raise up and equip men for gospel ministry at home and abroad. Worth putting on your own calendar regardless of your denomination — the shortage of qualified, examined, ordinary pastors is not a Presbyterian problem. — [OPC General Assembly Report](https://opc.org/GA/92nd_GA_rpt.html) **Grimké's "Churchman" conference is eight days out.** Grimké Seminary's inaugural men's conference runs July 27–29 at Remnant Midtown in Richmond, with preaching, daily worship, and Grimké faculty on the theme of living as a faithful churchman. The framing is telling: not leadership platform, not conference-circuit celebrity, but the ordinary dignity of membership and service in a local congregation. Late notice, but a useful marker of where confessional-Baptist training energy is pointed. — [Grimké Seminary](https://grimkeseminary.org/churchman/) **Kevin DeYoung makes the case for modesty without the usual baggage.** DeYoung's "Watching What We Wear" (July 16) works from 1 Corinthians 12:23 — that we all have "unpresentable parts" treated with greater modesty — to argue that calling Christians, men and women alike, to cover up is neither cruel nor legalistic. It threads a needle most treatments of the topic miss, and it is short enough to hand to a youth leader or a women's ministry team without a fight. — [Clearly Reformed](https://clearlyreformed.org/watching-what-we-wear/) · [The Log College](https://thelogcollege.wordpress.com/2026/07/16/watching-what-we-wear/) --- ## 🕊️ Theology & Doctrine *Major debates, books, controversies, council and committee statements.* **The PCA's Christian nationalism report is still the live doctrinal document of the summer.** The ad interim committee's 35-page partial report — released ahead of the 53rd General Assembly and now under continued discussion, with the committee asking to extend its work and report to the 54th Assembly — declines to treat "Christian nationalism" as a single unified position, denies that the Westminster Standards as adopted in 1788 permit the establishment of the church by the state, and explicitly condemns kinism and racism. Note the procedural caution the committee itself presses: a received or adopted study report carries no constitutional weight. Baptists have no vote here, but we have the same questions, and this is the most careful confessional treatment of them presently in print. — [byFaith](https://byfaithonline.com/christian-nationalism-study-committee-releases-partial-report/) · [Full report (PDF)](https://pcaga.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/AICReport_CN.pdf) --- ## 🏛️ Culture & Church-State *Religious liberty, ethics, politics affecting the church, cultural engagement.* **The Supreme Court's religious-liberty term closed mixed, not triumphant.** The term's capstone religious-liberty ruling, *Landor v. Louisiana Dept. of Corrections* (decided June 23), went against the religious claimant: a 6–3 Court, per Justice Gorsuch, held that a Rastafarian prisoner whose dreadlocks were forcibly shaved — in violation of a Nazarite vow he had disclosed to wardens — cannot sue officials in their personal capacities for damages under RLUIPA, because the statute rests on the Spending Clause and binds only the contracting entity. The Court did not dispute that his rights were violated. That is a real limit, and it sits alongside the previous term's wins (*Mahmoud v. Taylor* on parental opt-outs, the unanimous *Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin* on denominational preferences). Read the losses as carefully as the wins: a right without a remedy is a thinner thing than the headlines suggest. — [SCOTUSblog](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-former-louisiana-inmate-cannot-sue-prison-officials-in-religious-dispute-over-long-h/) · [Christian Post](https://www.christianpost.com/voices/the-supreme-courts-tragic-misstep-landor-religious-freedom.html) **Church autonomy awaits a cert decision.** *U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops v. O'Connell* — testing how far the First Amendment keeps civil courts out of a church's internal affairs — is still pending on the cert docket. Of every case in the pipeline, this is the one with the most direct bearing on whether your elders' handling of membership, discipline, and staff can be second-guessed in court. — [SCOTUSblog](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/04/church-autonomy-returns-to-scotus/) · [First Liberty](https://firstliberty.org/news/the-supreme-courts-next-term-will-be-monumental-for-religious-freedom/) --- ## 🔥 Also Worth Noting *Notable controversy and media shake-ups — reported with discernment, not appetite.* **Greg Locke confirms a federal raid on his home over church finances.** Locke told his Global Vision Bible Church congregation in a service reported on July 15, following a six-week sabbatical, that federal agents entered his home with a battering ram around 6 a.m. some weeks earlier and executed search warrants on his residence and Locke Media, seizing phones and computers. He says investigators cited allegations of misappropriated church funds, that no arrest warrant was issued, and that "we have nothing to hide"; banks subsequently closed church and personal accounts after receiving subpoenas. No charges have been filed. Reported here not for the spectacle but because the underlying question — who can see the books — is one every eldership should be able to answer without a subpoena. — [Religion Unplugged](https://religionunplugged.com/news/2026/7/15/greg-locke-says-feds-investigating-his-finances-following-home-raid) · [Christian Post](https://www.christianpost.com/news/pastor-greg-locke-says-his-home-was-raided-by-federal-agents.html) **Texas pastor indicted for allegedly defrauding church members of $3.2 million.** A federal grand jury indicted Richard Reinaldo Garcia, 53, pastor of Gracia Church in Fort Worth, on conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Prosecutors allege that from August 2021 through April 2025 he solicited more than 50 victims through church-related entities with fake renovation projects, Christian concerts, and mission trips to Kenya — in one instance instructing an investor to characterize payments as charitable donations. Trial is set for October 13 in Fort Worth; he is presumed innocent. The mechanism is the point: the fraud worked because congregational trust and financial trust were treated as the same thing. — [Fort Worth Report](https://fortworthreport.org/2026/07/13/federal-indictment-accuses-arlington-pastor-of-3-2m-fraud-scheme-involving-church-investments/) · [The Roys Report](https://roysreport.com/texas-pastor-targeted-church-members-in-schemes-worth-3-2-million-fbi-alleges/) --- ## 🧭 For the Elder's Desk *A pastoral takeaway for your leadership team this week.* > Two pastors in the news this week, two sets of allegations about money, and one common thread: in both cases the sheep had no ordinary way to see what was being done with what they gave. Neither man has been convicted of anything, and we should say so plainly. But the lesson does not wait on a verdict. Paul arranged his own collection so that no one could blame him — "we take pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man" (2 Cor. 8:21) — and he did it by sending a second man along with the money. A question for your elders: *If a member of our congregation asked tomorrow to see how we handle, approve, and audit the offering, would we have a ready answer — or would we first have to explain why the question felt like an accusation?* The health of a church's finances is measured less by the size of the account than by how little defensiveness the question provokes. --- *State of the Church Today · Compiled July 19, 2026. Reply with corrections or tips. Forward to a fellow elder.*