A North Texas pastor has stepped down from his pulpit — and from a national religious leadership role — after his son, a lifetime-registered sex offender, was found working inside a church school and leading worship services without parents’ knowledge.
The resignation of Eric Crawford, longtime pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in Haslet, Texas, came in the wake of his son Caleb Crawford‘s arrest in late February 2026. Caleb, a registered sex offender, was taken into custody for allegedly failing to comply with sex offender registration requirements — specifically, failing to report his job status to authorities. What followed was a community reckoning over how a man with a lifetime sex offender designation ended up employed at a church-affiliated school and leading music from the front of a sanctuary.
Working in Plain Sight
Caleb Crawford wasn’t lurking on the periphery. He was embedded. He worked as a maintenance worker at Heritage Christian Academy and served as a music leader at Heritage Baptist Church — roles that put him in regular contact with children and families. His contract was terminated only after parents discovered his status as a lifetime registered sex offender. That discovery didn’t come from the church. It came from the community.
How does that happen? It’s a question a lot of Haslet families are still sitting with. The circumstances raise hard questions about how thoroughly — or whether — the church vetted the pastor’s own son before handing him a role in front of the congregation and inside a school building.
A Victim Speaks Out
The conviction isn’t ancient history or a disputed allegation. Taylor Hamilton, Caleb Crawford’s cousin and his victim, said he was convicted in 2016 of indecency with a child after sexually touching her beginning when she was just 12 years old and he was 17. He served two years in prison. The lifetime registration requirement was part of his sentence. Hamilton, showing considerable courage, went on record — by name — to make sure that context wasn’t lost.
“It’s a big thing for me to be able to say this happened to me, but it doesn’t define who I am,” Hamilton said. “To be able to put a face to a name for people — because this isn’t just an accusation. This is something that he was convicted of and served time for. No matter what anyone says, he was found guilty.” It’s a statement that cuts through whatever fog of sympathy or denial might otherwise cloud the story.
Broader Fallout: A National Role, Now Scrubbed
Still, the resignation from Heritage Baptist Church was only part of the story. Eric Crawford also held the title of President of the Independent Baptist Fellowship International (IBFI) — a national religious organization. Since the story broke, his name has been quietly removed from the IBFI’s website. No public statement. No explanation. Just gone.
That kind of institutional silence has a way of amplifying the very concerns it’s trying to avoid. Whether Crawford’s departure from IBFI was voluntary or nudged along, the erasure of his name from the organization’s public-facing pages signals that leadership there understood the gravity of the situation — even if they haven’t said so out loud.
The Church Responds
Heritage Baptist Church has since announced a series of corrective measures. According to reporting, those steps include a new visitor access system, more rigorous background checks, and an increased security presence on campus. The moves are meaningful — or at least they’re a start. But for families who trusted the institution to have those safeguards in place already, the announcement lands with an uncomfortable undertone: these are fixes to problems that shouldn’t have existed.
That’s the catch with reactive security measures. They tell you something about what wasn’t working before. A church school employed a convicted child sex offender. His father led the congregation. The background check system, whatever it was, didn’t catch it — or didn’t flag it — or someone looked the other way. None of those possibilities are reassuring.
What Comes Next
Caleb Crawford’s arrest on registration compliance charges means the legal process is still unfolding. Eric Crawford’s future in ministry, at Heritage Baptist or elsewhere, remains unclear. And the IBFI has yet to formally address what, if anything, it knew — or should have known — about the situation at one of its top leader’s churches.
For Taylor Hamilton, the outcome of all this institutional shuffling probably matters less than the simple fact of being believed. She came forward, said his name, and made sure the record was clear. “No matter what anyone says, he was found guilty.” In a story full of institutions that moved slowly or quietly or not at all, that kind of directness stands out.
