{"id":301698,"date":"2026-06-09T20:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T20:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/301698\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T20:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T20:05:13","slug":"erlc-introduces-new-president-during-report-to-messengers-in-orlando","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/301698\/","title":{"rendered":"ERLC introduces new president during report to messengers in Orlando"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Ethics &amp; Religious Liberty Commission team is guided by a desire to support pastors, stand for truth and serve churches, said Gary Hollingsworth, ERLC outgoing interim director, in his report to messengers at the 2026 SBC Annual Meeting.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-37168\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/VCP_6529-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"323\" height=\"215\"\/>Evan Lenow, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, speaks during the entity report at the 2026 SBC annual meeting in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Van Payne\/The Baptist Paper)<\/p>\n<p>Hollingsworth said the ERLC has supported recent efforts to allow ministers who opted out of Social Security to voluntarily opt back in, which he said would be a \u201chuge win, potentially\u201d for pastors in retirement.<\/p>\n<p>He said the Psalm 139 Project placed its 100th sonogram machine in a pregnancy ministry center in North Carolina, with the 101st in place too. He added the ERLC continues to advocate for legislation supporting life, religious freedom, technology and protections for children, with several resources available online that address a variety of topics related to those and other contemporary issues.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-37153\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Untitled-300x166.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"358\" height=\"198\"  \/>Will Spivey, messenger and next gen pastor at FBC Opelika in Alabama, asks a question during the ERLC report at the 2026 SBC annual meeting in Orlando, Florida. (Screenshot)<\/p>\n<p>Hollingsworth also introduced Evan Lenow, who became ERLC president on June 1.<\/p>\n<p>Question from mic: Will Spivey, messenger and next gen pastor at FBC Opelika.<\/p>\n<p>Will Spivey, messenger and next gen pastor at FBC Opelika, asked Lenow how the ERLC will respond to calls for financial transparency among SBC entities. Lenow said the ERLC\u2019s financial records are available on the ministry\u2019s website, adding that ERLC trustees are aware of his salary and the entity is \u201ccommitted to full financial transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ethics &amp; Religious Liberty Commission team is guided by a desire to support pastors, stand for truth&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":["post-301698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}