For his first 10 years of leading Echo Church, a multisite megachurch in San Jose, California, Pastor Andy Wood—the incoming pastor of Saddleback Church—expressed no interest in joining the Great Commission Association of Southern Baptist Churches (GCA). If anything, he saw them as an impediment.
Wood was building Echo into one of the “fastest growing churches in the most unchurched areas of the United States.” And as previously reported in The Roys Report (TRR), GCA blocked Echo’s attempt to acquire a $10- to $12-million church property in nearby Campbell, California, in 2013.
But in 2018, Wood’s disposition toward GCA changed. And Echo applied for membership in the Baptist organization.
Yet once again, Wood had his sights on acquiring another church property worth about $15 million, GCA Executive Director of Missions Mike Stewart told TRR.
And 11 months later, when the small church—Oak Grove Baptist Church in San Jose—rebuffed Echo’s advances, Echo abruptly…
