{"id":240255,"date":"2026-04-08T11:16:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T11:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/240255\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T11:16:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T11:16:20","slug":"houstons-second-baptist-trial-date-changed-as-court-orders-mediation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/240255\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston&#8217;s Second Baptist trial date changed as court orders mediation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The legal fight, playing out in Texas\u2019 11th Division Business Court, could determine whether the megachurch committed fraud in 2023 when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonchronicle.com\/news\/houston-texas\/article\/second-baptist-church-legal-war-jeremiah-counsel-20368608.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">it changed bylaws that stripped the congregation<\/a> of all its voting rights, consolidating power in the hands of a few instead of Second Baptist\u2019s 94,000 members.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to his congregation last year, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GLVlj1D4Hcw\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">senior pastor Ben Young said<\/a> that the allegations &#8220;simply are not true.&#8221; He added that the new bylaws were both &#8220;biblically and legally&#8221; sound.<\/p>\n<p>Both the defendants and plaintiffs agreed to the new trial date of July 27 as opposed to the previously scheduled trial on April 29, according to court filings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The request from both parties came as the court ordered them to mediation last week. If the mediation is unsuccessful, the matter will proceed to a jury trial. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis continuance is not made for the purposes of delay, but so that justice might be done,\u201d the request read.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Alongside <a href=\"https:\/\/www.second.org\/\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Second Baptist<\/a>, the defendants are longtime senior pastor Ed Young; his son and the church\u2019s new leader, Ben Young; associate pastor Lee Maxcy; and Dennis Brewer Jr., general counsel and executive pastor at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonchronicle.com\/news\/investigations\/article\/second-baptist-fellowship-church-ed-young-21079311.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fellowship Church in Grapevine.<\/a> Fellowship Church is led by Ed Young,\u00a0Jr., Ben Young\u2019s brother. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Attorneys for both parties did not respond to the Houston Chronicle by the time of publication.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The legal fight, playing out in Texas\u2019 11th Division Business Court, could determine whether the megachurch committed fraud&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[86133,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-240255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-hc-crime","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240255","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=240255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}