By Baptist Message staff DALLAS (LBM) – South Carolina Baptist Convention Executive Director Tony Wolfe invited messengers to cast bread on the water to remember the generation who drove the growth of the Cooperative Program and to unite as the generation that continues its impact. “The Cooperative Program is not a foolproof investment,” Wolfe said. “But it is the best strategy we have to turn diverse, disparate tributaries into one roaring river.” Citing Ecclesiastes 11:1-6, Wolfe, a Louisiana native, shared memories of fishing on the riverbanks on the Comite and Amite Rivers and related them to the challenges Southern Baptists face today while urging them to push ahead with their cooperative global mission. Wolfe grew up in Baton Rouge, where his dad, Jim, was pastor with Brookstown Baptist Church (today, he is pastor with Ridge Avenue Baptist Church, West Monroe). Tony also served in Louisiana -- as music minister with Northside Baptist Church, Denham Springs, from 1999-2003. Wolfe emphasized that May 13, 1925 was a “watershed moment” for the Convention, when a group of Southern Baptists that included M.E. Dodd (pastor with First Baptist Church, Shreveport, at the time) gathered in Memphis, Tennessee, to found the … [Read more...]

By Baptist Message staff DALLAS (LBM) -- 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 mission 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 that are made on IRS Form 990, the public tax document that shows executive compensation, major salary expenses and other financial details. The vote on the motion (to force greater financial transparency from denominational entities) presented by South Carolina messenger Rhett Burns was defeated by a show of ballots. 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 -- although these disclosures would have been for the benefit of trustees and donors and not the government. ERLC retained Messengers voted to keep the Ethics and Religious … [Read more...]

By Baptist Message staff DALLAS (LBM) – An amendment that would have specified in the SBC Constitution that only men may serve as any kind of pastor or elder failed by messengers' vote, June 11. Messengers cast 3,421 for the Law Amendment (60.74 percent) and 2,191 against (38.90 percent). Because a super-majority was needed, the amendment failed. During the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California, messenger Mike Law, also pastor with Arlington Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia, introduced a motion to amend Section III of the Southern Baptist Convention’s constitution to state that a church is in friendly cooperation with the SBC only if it “does not affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.” The motion was referred to the Executive Committee and was brought before messengers during the 2023 Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Texas messenger Juan Sanchez then presented an amendment phrased differently to the motion: Cooperating churches must “affirm, appoint, or employ only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.” Eighty percent of messengers then approved the measure. The following year in Indianapolis, Indiana, messengers cast 5,099 ballots in favor (61.45 percent) … [Read more...]