Pastor Arrested for Molesting Child on Trip to Disney World; Had Prior "Moral Failing" While Leading Baptist Organization
Justin Rhodes, the former pastor at Big Creek Baptist Church in Soso, Mississippi, was arrested on June 23, 2025 for molesting a child.1
Jones County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Denny Graham said an initial report was filed with JCSD by the victim, and that the incident occurred earlier this spring while Rhodes was reportedly attending a show choir trip to Disney World.2
I began looking into Rhodes, and discovered a few posts that indicate he also had a very brief tenure as the president of the Baptist Missionary Association of America.
While their current website does not contain any reference to Rhodes, a post from Midland Baptist Church in 2020 refers to Rhodes as “the current VP of the BMA of America and former president of the BMA of MS”
The following year, on August 3, 2021, a blogger congratulated Justin Rhodes, “as the new president of the Baptist Missionary Association of America!”
Here’s what’s most concerning to me, however.
In a December 2021 the Director of the Baptist Missionary Association of Missouri wrote this at the end of his “Missions Director Report:”
Lastly, on a negative note, but also positive from the standpoint of potential healing and restoration, our Baptist Missionary Association President Justin Rhodes was relieved of his duties as Pastor of his church because of an unstated moral failure. This is public knowledge, I am told, and I got permission to share this before I included it in this article. You may not know Justin, but I do. This was a shock and a great disappointment. I have nothing but empathy, forgiveness, and love for Justin, and I’m asking you to pray for him, the church that he pastored, and the association, that God will bring healing, restoration, and forgiveness. I love the verse that says God will restore the years the locust have eaten. What Satan means for evil, God will use for good and for a lesson to all of us.
Let’s remember 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”
In light of these new charges, I can’t help but wonder what “unstated moral failure” could have led to Justin Rhodes being removed from his position as pastor and BMA President after just a few short months.
I’ve reached out to the Baptist Missionary Association of America by phone for comment on this. The operator forwarded my call to staff member, John Meriweather – he did not answer, but I left a message.
I have also sent an email to both John Merriweather and current BMA Global Missions President, Dr. John David Smith, but have not received a response as of time of publishing.
I will update this article once I know more.
https://www.jonesso.com/inmate-roster/68595768ba082f28b5082212
https://www.leader-call.com/news/rhodes-to-perdition-county-man-and-former-pastor-faces-molestation-charges-in-florida/article_41f01222-6996-46a2-8354-e010acb90dff.html
Castrate and hang. Notice he had a moral failing. No discussing the impact on the child’s entire life. Told the pastor was safe and could be trusted. Forever after this abusive invasion of the child’s body and mind and boundaries will make that child afraid to trust, wary, isolated and angry and also hopeless. This child will ask itself what is wrong with you. It will blame itself. It will have a secret that is shameful. And it will blame itself. Follows years of addiction and therapy and either failed relationships or none. So fuck another pastors moral failure. This is and should be about the child. Abolish toxic religion.
So in 2021 they decided to pray for him and had faith his moral failing would be healed? Then he went on to do it again!
This could have been prevented - fing religious people baffle me!