By staff
WASHINGTON (LBM, BP) – Gevan Spinney, senior pastor with First Baptist Church, Haughton, was among 16 pastors who recently gathered in Washington, D.C., to champion pro-life causes and advocate for other positive policy changes.
Hosted by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the trip that took place March 25-26 included meetings with three Southern Baptist congressional leaders – House Speaker Mike Johnson, a member of Cypress Baptist Church, Benton, and Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and James Lankford (R-OK). While there the pastors hand delivered, to Lankford and the office of Sen. Majority Leader John Thume (R-SC), letters containing 10,000 signatures for the ERLC’s campaign that asks Congress to defund Planned Parenthood
The pastors from Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee and Texas also met with Timothy Goeglein, vice president of external and government relations with Focus on the Family, Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC) and the White House Faith Office. They ended their trip with a visit to the Museum of the Bible.
Spinney, in comments to Baptist Press, said he left with a strong burden to pray for those fellow believers in the fight.
“I wish that every Southern Baptist could have been with us,” he said. “It became evident to this pastor that the work of Brent Leatherwood and the ERLC is vitally important for Southern Baptists to have a clear and compelling voice on the Hill to communicate those issues that matter most to all of us. I am more grateful for that voice than I have ever been.”
ERLC President Brent Leatherwood told BP that the pastors advocacy trip reaffirmed the entity’s mission to equip Southern Baptist to thoughtfully engage the public square.
“The ERLC was founded over 100 years ago with a dual mandate to speak into the public square while equipping our pastors and churches with resources to engage the culture on matters such as life, religious liberty, marriage and family and human dignity,” he said. “Serving our SBC pastors is at the heart of our mission.”
