(NewsNation) — One of two churches ousted by the Southern Baptist Convention for having female pastors says “God has something bigger and greater” in store.
Rev. Linda Barnes Popham has spent decades as the pastor at Fern Creek Church in Louisville, Kentucky, which had previously been part of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The SBC at its national convention in February, however, ousted five churches with female pastors. Two churches — Fern Creek and Saddleback Church in California — appealed that decision. They lost that appeal Wednesday when 12,000 members voted to keep them out.
“We will continue to be a church and continue to lift the name of Jesus high,” Popham said. “We want the world to know Jesus and we don’t know why somebody like that wouldn’t want to partner with us.”
Popham attributes the removals, as well as a series of sexual abuse scandals, as the main reasons more than 1 million members have left the SBC in the past three years.
“The recent vote this week is saying to women, ’We do not value you. God cannot call you. Only Southern Baptist men can decide who is to make the call,'” Popham said. “But I tell you, it is God who called me and God who has called so many other women pastors that I know.”
