By Baptist Message staff
Southern Baptist Convention messengers and guests gathered June 10-11 in Dallas, Texas, to conduct business, elect officers, enjoy times of fellowship, receive updates on missions work done by Southern Baptists across the world and hear inspirational messages.
Financial transparency motion defeated
Messengers rejected an amendment, June 11, that would have required the Southern Baptist Convention to publish detailed financial information like disclosures of IRS Form 990, the public tax document that shows executive compensation, major expenses and other financial details.
The vote on the motion presented by South Carolina messenger Rhett Burns defeated, by a show of ballots, efforts to force greater financial transparency from denominational leadership and entities. Jeff Iorg, president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee, strongly opposed the amendment, arguing that Southern Baptist entities fought legal battles decades ago to establish First Amendment protections from such reporting requirements.
ERLC retained
Messengers voted to keep the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, June 11.
Originally proposed to Florida messenger Willy Rice, the motion failed with 3,744 (56.89 percent) voting to retain while 2,819 (42.84 percent) voted to abolish it.
Rice was among the messengers who spoke in favor of the motion, while former ERLC President Richard Land was among the messengers who spoke against it.
In recent years, some Southern Baptists have raised concerns about the ERLC’s direction, prompting calls to reduce or eliminate its funding through the Cooperative Program.
Cooperative Program 100th anniversary
Louisiana Baptist Executive Director Steve Horn joined other state executive directors and leaders of SBC entities and ethnic fellowships for a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Cooperative Program.
“Throughout this convention, we are erecting memorial stones of 100 years of cooperation demonstrated through the Cooperative Program,” SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg told messengers and guests. “We point to missionaries sent, churches started, students educated, institutions built and most of all people saved because Southern Baptists have contributed more than $20 billion through the Cooperative Program in the past 100 years.”
The celebration on stage comes a month after Baptist leaders from across the nation gathered in Memphis, Tennessee, to sign a Declaration of Cooperation that celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Cooperative Program. Seventy-three of the more than 175 individuals gathered for the May 13 celebration inside Renasant Convention Center in Memphis, Tennessee, made it on stage to sign the document on the podium once used by M.E. Dodd, pastor with First Baptist Church, Shreveport (1912- 1950), who brought the idea of the CP to Southern Baptist Convention messengers in 1925.
Great Commission call
The North American Mission Board shared that last year, Southern Baptists saw a 13 percent increase in church plants baptized more than 250,000 people, a 10 percent increase over the previous year and the most baptisms since 2017.
Additionally, the International Mission Board appointed 58 new missionaries in a sending celebration. Messengers and guests watched at the newly-appointed missionaries took the stage to share about where they will serve to further the Great Commission. The appointed missionaries are part of an IMB force of more than 3,500 missionaries and their families serving in 155 countries.
NOBTS update
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary celebrated a successful year marked by multiple milestones, including more than 100,000 Gospel presentations and 10,000 professions of faith through the Caskey Center for Church Excellence since its founding in 2014.
NOBTS President Jamie Dew, in his report to the messengers and guests, said their support has helped enable students to be trained to share the Gospel from the city to the nations. He added that the Cooperative Program provides an education for $25,000-30,000, compared to the $80,000 it may cost to receive that same degree at a non-Southern Baptist seminary.
“So that support is absolutely essential for us as we train up that next generation of servants that are going to come back to your churches and labor there with the Gospel for you,” Dew said. “So we express our gratitude to you.”
Earlier in the day during the NOBTS Alumni and Friends Luncheon, Dew invited Louisiana Christian University President Mark Johnson on stage for prayer. Johnson assumed the office on June 1.
Luter honored
Fred Luter, pastor with Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, was honored with the Legacy Award during the National African American Fellowship. He was honored for having served as the first and only African American president of the SBC.
Elections
Clint Pressley (pastor with Hickory Grove Baptist Church, Charlotte, North Carolina) was re-elected SBC president after defeating David Morrill (author and member of Applewood Baptist Church, Wheat Ridge, Colorado). Pressley received 5,567 votes (92.64 percent) to Morrill’s 408 votes (6.79 percent).
Meanwhile, Daniel Ritchie (evangelist and member of the Summit Church, Durham, N.C.) was elected first vice-president with 5,409 (87.84 percent), while Larry Helms (pastor with Fort Lawn Baptist Church in Fort Lawn, S.C.) got 722 votes (11.72 percent).
Craig Carlisle (associational mission strategist, Etowah Baptist Association, Gadsden, Alabama and member of First Baptist Church, Gadsden) was elected second vice president. He received 3,765 votes (56.46 percent), while Tommy Mann (pastor, Highland Terrace Baptist Church, Greenville, Texas) got 2,057 votes (30.85 percent) and Christopher Rhodes (pastor, Dover Baptist Temple, Dover, Ohio) received 806 votes (12.09 percent).
In other office races that were unopposed, messengers elected:
— Don Currence (administrative pastor, First Baptist Church, Ozark, Missouri), registration secretary; and
— Nathan Finn (professor, North Greenville University, South Carolina), recording secretary.
Messenger count
The annual meeting drew 10,599 messengers, including 491 from Louisiana.
Messenger counts for other recent SBC annual meetings:
— 2024 (Indianapolis, Indiana), 10,946
— 2023 (New Orleans), 12,737
— 2022 (Anaheim, California), 8,133
— 2021 (Nashville, Tennessee), 15,726
— 2020 pandemic (no annual meeting)
— 2019 (Birmingham, Alabama), 8,183
— 2018 (Dallas, Texas), 9,632
