G3 Ministries has been rocked by another leadership crisis after its president, Scott Aniol, and three fellow pastors admitted they anonymously circulated damaging allegations against Texas pastor Tom Buck-and then resigned from their positions at Pray's Mill Baptist Church.
Aniol, Matt Sikes, Dylan Joyner, and Jon Norton issued a public apology to Buck and the elders of First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas, acknowledging that they had "sinned" by interfering in the church's internal disciplinary process and distributing packets alleging that Buck had plagiarized material in several sermons.
The four men did not attempt to soften their confession.
"We have sinned against God and against Tom Buck and the leadership of FBC Lindale, and we humbly ask you to forgive us," they wrote, according to ChurchLeaders. "We recognize the pain this has caused your church, and we are sorry."
The apology is especially damaging because the packets were not merely sent to Buck's own church. The pastors admitted that the material was also distributed to some of his public ministry partners and friends-apparently taking an internal church controversy and pushing it into Buck's wider professional circle.
They also acknowledged that they concealed their identities instead of approaching Buck's elders openly.
"It was wrong and even more serious to send the packets to Tom's public ministry partners and friends," the pastors confessed. "Furthermore, we should have contacted you directly rather than sending the packets anonymously."
The men said they had characterized First Baptist Church of Lindale's handling of the allegations without possessing all the relevant information. In their words, they had "sinfully meddled in the disciplinary process" of an autonomous local church.
That admission cuts particularly deeply within conservative Baptist circles, where the independence and authority of the local church are regularly defended as biblical convictions. The four pastors were effectively acknowledging that their conduct had violated the very ecclesiology they publicly championed.
Aniol, Sikes, Joyner, and Norton subsequently resigned as pastors of Pray's Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia. They said they confessed their actions before the congregation, which accepted their resignations and extended forgiveness.
"We offer no excuse for these foolish actions," their letter stated. "Sunday afternoon, all four of us voluntarily resigned to our congregation as pastors at Pray's Mill Baptist Church, we humbly confessed our sin to the congregation, and our congregation graciously forgave us."
The scandal could hardly have arrived at a worse moment for G3 Ministries. Pray's Mill has long been closely associated with the influential conservative Reformed organization, which says it exists to equip Christians with "biblical theology for faithful living."
Aniol became president of G3 only in July 2025, following the spectacular downfall of founder and former president Josh Buice. Buice resigned from G3 and was disqualified from serving as an elder at Pray's Mill after it emerged that he had operated anonymous social-media accounts used to attack and criticize other Christian leaders.
Now, just over a year later, G3's replacement president has become embroiled in another controversy involving anonymous activity directed against a fellow pastor.
The parallels are impossible to miss. G3's leadership had previously condemned Buice's concealed online behavior as divisive, deceptive, and inconsistent with Christian leadership. Aniol and his fellow pastors have now confessed that they, too, used anonymity while seeking to circulate damaging information about another Christian leader.
That painful repetition threatens to turn the controversy from an isolated pastoral failure into a much larger credibility crisis for G3. The ministry presents itself as an uncompromising defender of biblical truth, church accountability, and qualified leadership. Critics will now ask how such conduct could have emerged again among the very men entrusted with restoring confidence after the Buice scandal.
Buck and the elders of First Baptist Church of Lindale publicly responded by extending forgiveness, writing, "May the Lord be glorified." Nevertheless, forgiveness does not erase the practical consequences-or settle the mounting questions about G3's leadership and future.
The four former pastors said they are committed to demonstrating genuine repentance in the days ahead. Their resignations suggest they recognize that a public confession must be accompanied by visible accountability.
For G3 Ministries, however, the crisis is now larger than one anonymous packet. A ministry built on warnings about compromise, unqualified leaders, and failures of church discipline must confront an uncomfortable question: How did its own leadership become entangled in the very kind of secretive and divisive conduct it had so recently condemned?
