FORT WORTH (June 30, 2009)—The University of the Cumberlands, a Baptist school in Kentucky, withdrew its invitation to host a youth mission team from Texas at the last minute after Southern Baptist messengers voted last week to oust the team’s church, Associated Baptist Press reported Tuesday.

Truett Theological Seminary graduate Brent Beasley, whose first day as senior pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth is Sunday, told APB the church's youth minister received a call Tuesday from a university official who said the Fort Worth congregation’s youth choir was no longer welcome to stay in dorms or perform mission work through the school's Mountain Outreach construction program, which builds house in impoverished rural areas.

A church near the campus in Williamsburg, Ky. also canceled a concert that was scheduled as part of the trip, Beasley told APB.

The group’s 12-day mission trip and choir tour begins on Friday and a stop at the university was supposed to be a big part it, Beasley told APB.

Broadway Baptist’s youth minister was attempting to make alternative plans, Beasley told APB.

He told APB he has received several invitations and suggestions from churches in the general area of the campus, most of them congregations that identify with the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

"All these kids want to do is praise God with their singing and serve God by helping those in poverty," Beasley told APB.

“We’re not going to let denominational politics keep them from doing this good work” he said.

The invitation was withdrawn a week to the day after Southern Baptist messengers meeting in Louisville, Ky. voted to end the convention’s 125-year relationship with the church, which became embroiled in a controversy in 2007 and 2008 over whether to include photos of gay couples who are church members in a new church directory,

The vote took about 30 seconds, the Associated Baptist Press reported.

Beasley, 37, is a 1998 graduate of Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary.

The board’s recommendation didn’t specifically mention homosexuality, ABP reported, but the issue was a backdrop for the controversy surrounding the church.