{"id":173098,"date":"2026-02-20T16:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/173098\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T16:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:58:07","slug":"haslets-heritage-baptist-church-pastor-temporarily-relieved-following-sons-firing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/173098\/","title":{"rendered":"Haslet\u2019s Heritage Baptist Church pastor \u2018temporarily relieved\u2019 following son\u2019s firing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Haslet\u2019s Heritage Baptist Church announced Pastor Eric Crawford would be \u201ctemporarily relieved\u201d of ministry duties three days after his son was fired due to backlash about his sex offender status<\/a>, according to a statement released Thursday.<\/p>\n

The church\u2019s finance team is conducting an internal review of the relevant matters, the statement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis decision was made collaboratively and voluntarily in order to ensure transparency, preserve the integrity of the review process and avoid unnecessary distraction from the ongoing work of the church,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

Eric Crawford is the church\u2019s founding pastor, which was organized in March 2001, according to the church\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

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During this time, he will not be allowed to participate in preaching, teaching, administrative oversight or leadership functions within the church and school, according to the statement.<\/p>\n

His son, Caleb Crawford, 31, was terminated Monday after parents discovered he was a registered sex offender. He served two years in prison, starting in 2016, on an indecency with a child by contact conviction, according to Texas Department of Public Safety records.<\/p>\n

Online records show he was arrested and booked into the Tarrant County jail Friday for failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements. <\/p>\n

Parents and previous members of the Tarrant County church called for a change in church leadership and created a petition on Change.org<\/a> urging the pastor to step down.<\/p>\n

Katie Thompson, the creator of the petition, said she is hoping she can create enough awareness to keep the children safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a new situation, but it isn\u2019t the only time things have been covered up. I\u2019m just hoping I can make it stop happening,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Thompson attended the church growing up and had interactions with pastor Crawford and his wife.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was shocked to see the Crawford name in the news, but what really bothered me was him labeling the incident as a \u2018distraction,\u2019 \u201d she said. \u201cChildren\u2019s safety is important, more important than a distraction to the ministry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dani Jo Gunderson\u2019s children have attended Heritage Christian Academy in Haslet, which is affiliated with the church, for almost four years. <\/p>\n

She has since pulled her three children from the academy and enrolled them in public school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of integrity, transparency and honesty is the issue. It\u2019s frightening,\u201d she said. \u201dHe doesn\u2019t deserve to hide behind God.\u201c<\/p>\n

Dallas is moving the needle on crime<\/a>Man accused of killing fianc\u00e9 in Fort Worth was arrested twice for assault, record shows<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Haslet\u2019s Heritage Baptist Church announced Pastor Eric Crawford would be \u201ctemporarily relieved\u201d of ministry duties three days after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[294,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-173098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-crime","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}