In June, a majority of the personnel committee at First Baptist Church of Denton recommended the church leadership fire senior pastor Jeff Williams.
The recommendation followed an independent investigation by HR Ministry Solutions, a faith-based company that offers audits and training for religious organizations, that found 32 out of 37 interviewees — all former staff members who had worked at the church within the past five years — alleged that Williams created a hostile and harassing environment at the church. Among those 32, some reported experiencing “abusive or toxic behavior” from Williams themselves or seeing it happen to others.
By the end of October, church leaders announced in a business meeting that the remaining volunteers on the nine-member personnel committee wouldn’t be renominated to their positions.
Larry Brewer, the chair of the deacon board at the church, responded to the Denton Record-Chronicle on behalf of church leaders with a written statement on Friday.
“For context, it’s important to remember that while five members of the personnel committee voted against Pastor Williams’ ongoing leadership, the much larger body of deacons — all volunteer leaders of our church — examined those complaints, listened to the testimony of dozens of staff members, and voted their overwhelming support (41-3) to retain him as our senior pastor,” Brewer said in the statement.
Sources confirmed to the Record-Chronicle that the personnel committee voted 6-3 to recommend dismissing the pastor in an initial vote, and voted again later on a possible termination or to give Williams an opportunity to “repent” under a proposal drawn up by Reclaim Ministry, the second independent organization contracted to work through a resolution plan. That second vote ended up with five votes in favor of termination, and four against.
The Record-Chronicle invited Williams to respond to the investigation and report, but Brewer said the pastor couldn’t because the personnel committee hadn’t yet provided the findings to Williams or the deacon board. Sources said that the pastor was briefed on the results of the investigation, and that he was provided a summary letter of the findings.
Brewer said the church leadership has a structure in place to handle internal conflict with accountability and transparency. He said the structure is informed by scripture.
“This situation required a spiritual approach to a practical personnel matter,” Brewer said in his statement, “and was filtered through that process, confirming overwhelming support for Pastor Williams’ ongoing leadership expressed through the policies and procedures as by representative leaders and church vote.”
Brewer said the church has grown in the past 18 months despite the internal conflict and allegations.
“In the midst of all the accusations and turmoil, the church saw the most new members and most baptisms in over a decade, the best two-year span in offerings ever, and increased weekly attendance at pre-COVID numbers,” he said.
Brewer said First Denton is ready to move on from the conflict to serve the community and renew the church’s focus on ministry and mission.
A conflict heats up
For the last seven months, sources close to the church — about 10 members, former members and former staff members of First Denton — have spoken with the Record-Chronicle about what they say is a hostile environment that has created “a revolving door” of church staffers and members for years.
All of the sources asked to remain anonymous, saying they feared retribution from Williams and church leaders.
Formal complaints about the senior pastor were made to the church in 2023 alleging that he created a toxic work environment as a result of anger, bullying and abusive behavior toward staff members that persisted for years. At present, about 30 employees are listed on the church’s website as staff members.
Some sources said they witnessed Williams lose his temper during committee and business meetings, saying he “got loud,” and on at least one occasion, forcefully approached a female church member and put his finger in her face. In that instance, one source said, another church member stepped between Williams and the woman.
The complaints resulted in nearly a year of third-party investigations and recommendations, and the personnel committee eventually voting twice to terminate the pastor. The three committee members who voted to retain Williams in the first vote resigned from the committee.
In a written explanation of the vote obtained from several sources by the Record-Chronicle, two members left in disagreement and the third member resigned without giving a reason.
The recommendation was denied by the church deacons, who voted days later to reject the personnel committee’s recommendation. During that meeting, at least one staff member who had made a complaint against Williams recanted and apologized. The deacon board’s decision, which sources said was made before the personnel committee could produce a written explanation of their vote, meant the recommendation wouldn’t go before the congregation and Williams would remain in his position.
At a business meeting held at the end of October, church members took turns speaking for and against a motion to approve the nominating committee’s proposed slate of standing committees. Reed Hadley, a spokesperson for the nominating committee, explained the church’s new procedure to nominate volunteers for the church’s standing committees, which are the finance, personnel and committee on committees.
For the new slate, the process included surveys given to staff to get feedback on the committees they work with. Hadley said staff members rated the personnel committee’s performance for the past year as “shockingly low,” and that the committee had a negative impact on the health of the church. The survey results contributed to the nominating committee’s decision to not renominate eligible members of the personnel committee but added them to a list of candidates for the group.
After days of prayer and fasting, Hadley said, the nominating committee put forward a new slate of nominees for the committee, which effectively didn’t include the remaining personnel committee members who had played a role in the vote to fire Williams.
During the meeting, a number of church members expressed feelings of pain, betrayal and anger over the slate of nominees and the church conflict.
A church member excoriated members who have persisted in their criticisms against the leadership, telling those with grievances to either leave the church or stay and accept the leaders’ decision. A member of the personnel committee said she felt abandoned by their senior pastor as they fielded angry, threatening and accusative communications from church members who felt the committee was unfair to Williams.
Several church members said in the meeting that they felt the nominating committee was trying to remove the remaining personnel committee members who had voted to recommend terminating the pastor, and that the process hurt the church further.
Hadley said the decision to not renominate the volunteers doesn’t constitute their removal. However, sources told the Record-Chronicle they considered the nominating committee’s move a purge of volunteers who faithfully acted on serious allegations against the pastor. Jayme Richmond, the chair of the church council, wept as she addressed the conflict in the meeting.
“I know this has been a very difficult season, and my heart goes out to many of you. I know there’s a lot of people who are hurt, and they’re angry and they’re confused,” she said. “I understand. I’ve been getting those texts and emails for a year now. And it is very hard when you want to serve and you get these little daggers that zing into you.”
Richmond said relationships in the church have suffered and that she believes “in forgiveness and restoration for every single person here, and even those who are not here.”
A fruitful ministry
Jeff Williams is a gifted preacher and teacher who excels in the pulpit. He was called to First Baptist Church of Denton in 1997, and took the reins of one of the city’s largest and historic churches. Williams was tasked with growing the congregation in size and in spiritual formation.
While some other local congregations shrank, First Denton has enjoyed a busy youth program and congregational outreach.
In 2008 and 2009, Williams contributed religion columns to the Record-Chronicle, which were written from a solidly Southern Baptist perspective. It was Williams’ leadership that shepherded the church in two projects that deepened its relationship to the community and developed the congregation’s long-standing mission to serve the city and beyond. The church built “The Hub,” a multimillion-dollar wing for its ministry to children and youths as well as its weekday child care program, which serves children ages 18 months to 4 years.
The church also founded First Refuge Ministries, which is now a stand-alone nonprofit that provides food, health care, counseling and dental care for low-income Denton residents.
Several sources credited Williams entirely for the founding of the ministry and said First Refuge was a dream of Williams’ that has grown and helped thousands of locals in crisis since its founding in 2012. The nonprofit expanded its food pantry into Sanger and established Community Strong Farm, a 14-acre community garden in Sanger that produces fresh vegetables for people who often can’t afford them.
Williams’ contributions go beyond Denton. Williams and his wife, Tami, graduated from Baylor University in the 1980s. Earlier this year, Baylor put the couple on the cover of a publication dedicated to its donors. The couple established the Jeff and Tami Williams Endowed Scholarship at the George W. Truett Theological Seminary, which is affiliated with the university, to help aspiring pastors afford seminary.
Williams hasn’t shrunk from hot-button issues in the Baptist church. Last week, he made a motion during a business session at the Baptist General Convention of Texas, a statewide denominational association that is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, to affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message. The policy is a Southern Baptist Convention statement of faith that limits the role of pastor to men. The Baptist Standard reported that the North American Mission Board, the Southern Baptist Convention’s domestic missions agency, announced that it wouldn’t fund church starts in partnership with the Texas convention unless the body adopted the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.
According to the Baptist Standard article about the business meeting, Williams said Texas could use the support of the mission board: “I think we’d all agree we need hundreds — if not thousands — of new churches here in Texas to reach those people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Williams’ motion was debated but was ultimately defeated. Earlier this year the Southern Baptist Convention delegates voted down a measure that would have added the body’s official stance on women to the convention constitution. That measure also failed to win the necessary two-thirds vote.
Confronting growing conflict
After staff members formally alleged bullying and abusive behaviors on the part of Williams, the personnel committee hired a firm that serves churches, HR Ministry Solutions. The Record-Chronicle obtained a portion of the company’s investigation.
HR Ministry Solutions started its investigation of the complaints on June 7, 2023, and closed it on June 20, 2023. In its investigation, the firm’s investigator said she couldn’t substantiate a hostile work environment on the basis of age, gender or race. However, the report said Williams’ behavior meets some criteria for “harassment in the form of a hostile work environment.”
The report found the following: Williams’ behavior inhibited job growth opportunities because staffers left their jobs because of it, “either directly or indirectly”; his behavior interfered with some employees’ ability to do their jobs; and Williams’ behavior qualified as abusive due to “hostile, demeaning, intimidating and bullying words and actions.”
Among the complaints were allegations that Williams failed to correct his behavior when staff members took their concerns to him directly. Some sources said if they spoke up, the senior pastor retaliated and threatened to fire staff members who made complaints to the church leaders.
The investigation estimated that in the past five years, 41 staff members have left their positions, though not all of those employees left because they clashed with the senior pastor.
HR Ministry Solutions offered a number of recommendations to the church, which included hiring a leadership coaching company to walk the church through a healing process and a culture change in the church. The investigation also recommended restorative dialogue between the pastor and complainants, an overhaul of staff communication procedure and an early retirement plan for Williams.
Sources said the church then hired Reclaim Leadership, a nonprofit organization that offers church leadership coaching and conflict consulting, to consider the recommended changes and begin a conflict resolution process.
During that time, sources said the personnel committee and the church council agreed to remove Williams from his administrative role and to keep him in the pulpit. Multiple sources said that most church members have never been on Williams’ bad side because it only came out during staff, committee and business meetings. Most church members know Williams as a highly engaging preacher, they said.
“Jeff is wonderful in the pulpit. There’s no denying that,” said a source who has served on several committees over more than 10 years. “These episodes, where his face will get red, his eyes will kind of bug out and he puts his finger in your face, that happens behind the scenes. A lot of people have never seen this side of him. I’m talking about people who have been in the church for years, but see him in the pulpit, where he’s really wonderful, really good.”
A source said Reclaim Leadership worked with church leaders to coach Williams and work through conflict resolution. Another source said the process was true to the company’s name, but felt that, rather than hold Williams accountable for his failures, the consultant focused on returning him to full leadership and restoring him to his administrative leadership role.
The personnel committee’s vote explanation said the committee did see improvements but was alarmed that Williams waited so long to address the conflict. Sources also said Williams failed to follow biblical mandates to address grievances quickly and personally, which allowed the conflict to fester.
Several sources said they believe the church hasn’t adequately disciplined its pastor.
“The revolving door, that’s not going to stop,” a source said.
A new model
The church has spent months drafting an elder-led governance structure and reviewing the church bylaws. At the October business meeting, nominating committee members said the new committee selection process has already been effective. Currently, the nominating committee reported that it has tapped 60 church volunteers willing to serve. Men nominated to serve as elders agree to a rigorous process that can include written tests and church interviews with neighbors, family members and church peers.
The new governance model, which was introduced to the congregation on Sunday, clearly outlines the pastor’s role in the church as a shepherd and a servant, as well as a dispute resolution process.
The deacons and standing committees signaled their support for Williams and their confidence in the new governance model and bylaw revisions.
Pending a congregational vote in December, First Denton will launch the elder-led model to govern the church, a model that concentrates church lay authority into an all-male board. Women and men would be permitted to serve as deacons, a group that serves the congregation, supports the ministry and models “Christian character.”
The new governance model also prescribes a range of service, teaching, mentorship and leadership roles for women, but excludes them from acting as pastors or elders in the church.