A Reformed Baptist church network with more than 100 affiliated congregations has shut down effective immediately after four pastors confessed they "sinfully meddled" in the affairs of a Texas church, and the fallout has erased the organization's entire social media presence.

The G3 Church Network emailed its partners this week announcing the dissolution, a move that followed allegations published by the discernment site Protestia that Pastor Tom Buck of First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas, had regularly plagiarized sermons. The Christian Post reported that it had reached out to G3 Ministries by email, phone, and Facebook message but had not received a response as of publication.

The speed of the collapse is striking. On Tuesday, Protestia published a screenshot of the dissolution email. By Wednesday morning, G3 Ministries had announced it would close its X account at noon Eastern Time, without explanation, and its Facebook and Instagram accounts had already vanished. A network founded in 2013 and built around "sound doctrine, expository preaching, and the sovereignty of God in all things" was gone within days.

Four Georgia pastors confess, then resign

At the center of the implosion are four pastors from Pray's Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia: Matt Sikes, Dylan Joyner, Jon Norton, and Scott Aniol. Aniol served as president of G3 Ministries, having taken the role after his predecessor, Josh Buice, resigned following a confession that he had used various social media accounts, email accounts, and Substack platforms to "publicly and anonymously slander numerous Christian leaders."

On Tuesday morning, the four pastors sent a letter to the elders at First Baptist Church of Lindale, Buck's congregation, asking for forgiveness. The letter did not hold back about what they had done wrong.

Sikes, Joyner, Norton, and Aniol wrote:

"We confess that we sinfully meddled in the disciplinary process of your autonomous local church."

They went further, acknowledging they had spoken out of turn about how First Baptist Lindale handled internal discipline without possessing all the facts:

"We sinned by characterizing how your church handled its discipline situation without knowing all the details."

The letter also included a direct plea for reconciliation, stating that the four men had "sinned against God and against Tom Buck and the leadership of FBC Lindale" and asking for forgiveness. They said they recognized the pain their actions had caused. All four then announced their resignations from Pray's Mill Baptist Church, telling the Lindale elders that they had already confessed to their own congregation and been forgiven.

The episode is the latest in a string of church leadership controversies that have rattled congregations across the country. Earlier this year, elders at Cultivation Church removed their lead pastor's wife after a two-year affair with a married staffer came to light, a reminder that accountability failures at the top of church organizations carry real consequences for the people in the pews.

Protestia traced the anonymous plagiarism letter to Pray's Mill

The plagiarism allegations against Buck originated in an anonymous letter. Protestia reported in an August 17 story that it had traced the letter back to Pray's Mill Baptist Church. The letter's specific claims, which sermons Buck allegedly plagiarized, and from what sources, remain unclear from available reporting. Buck himself has not publicly responded to the allegations, nor has First Baptist Lindale issued a statement.

What is clear is that the four Pray's Mill pastors now acknowledge their involvement was wrong. Their letter frames the interference as a violation of local church autonomy, a principle that Reformed Baptist congregations hold as foundational. Each church governs itself. Outsiders do not dictate another congregation's discipline.

That principle matters because G3 described itself as a fellowship, not a denomination with top-down authority. Member churches were required to commit to biblical orthodoxy, practice church discipline, maintain an elder board, and contribute at least $500 a year. More than 100 churches in the United States and abroad belonged to the network as of last year.

Scandals involving pastors and church leaders are not confined to any single denomination or tradition. An Oklahoma megachurch pastor recently exited a congressional runoff after thousands of romantic texts surfaced, and similar controversies have dogged leaders across the evangelical landscape.

G3's digital footprint erased in hours

The dissolution email to network partners was brief. It stated that G3 was "dissolving the G3 Church Network effective immediately" and promised that all recurring dues set up through the payment processor Stripe would be canceled by the end of the week. The email closed with a single line of contrition: "We are sorry for any pain we have caused you."

No detailed explanation accompanied the announcement. No accounting of what went wrong internally. No plan for the more than 100 congregations that had affiliated themselves with the network.

By Wednesday morning, G3 Ministries had moved to erase its online presence. The organization announced on X that it would shut down its account at noon Eastern Time, offering no reason. Its Facebook and Instagram accounts appeared to have been deleted already. Yet as of Tuesday afternoon, the G3 website was still promoting a May conference titled "Faithful in the Ordinary", a jarring contrast with an organization in the process of ceasing to exist.

The broader pattern of pastoral accountability failures has drawn attention from churchgoers who increasingly want more structure and transparency in their congregations. A recent Lifeway survey found that younger churchgoers want more creeds and formal structure in worship, a trend that may reflect growing frustration with the loose governance models that allow these kinds of breakdowns.

Josh Buice's earlier resignation set the stage

G3's troubles did not begin this week. The organization's previous president, Josh Buice, resigned after confessing that he had used multiple social media accounts, email accounts, and Substack platforms to publicly and anonymously attack other Christian leaders. Aniol replaced him, only to find himself at the center of the next crisis.

The sequence raises hard questions. An organization built on Reformed Baptist principles of doctrinal fidelity and church discipline saw its first president resign over anonymous online attacks against fellow believers. His successor then admitted to meddling in another church's internal affairs. And the network itself dissolved rather than attempt reform or public explanation.

For the congregations that paid dues and aligned themselves with G3's stated mission, the abruptness is the insult on top of the injury. No transition plan. No leadership succession. Just a short email, a Stripe cancellation, and deleted social media accounts.

The fallout mirrors other recent cases where church leaders facing scandal chose swift exits over transparency, leaving their congregations to pick up the pieces.

Unanswered questions pile up

Tom Buck has served as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Lindale since 2006. He was a frequent contributor to G3 Ministries. Whether the plagiarism allegations against him have merit remains an open question, the anonymous letter's specific claims have not been made public in detail, and Buck has not responded publicly.

Equally unclear is what disciplinary process at First Baptist Lindale the Pray's Mill pastors acknowledged interfering with. Their letter references "your autonomous local church" and its "discipline situation," but the underlying facts remain undisclosed.

The Christian Post had not received a response from G3 Ministries as of its publication. With the organization's social media accounts gone and its X account scheduled for deletion, the chances of a fuller public explanation appear slim.

Churches that preach accountability to their congregations owe at least that much to the people who trusted them. Deleting your accounts is not repentance, it is an exit.