A native of Arkansas, Drake has been pastor of the Buena Park congregation since 1987. He is a former second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention and twice has served as moderator of the Orange County Southern Baptist Association. He is listed as a co-founder of the Presidential Prayer Team and currently serves as vice president of the Congressional Prayer Conference in Washington, D.C., and as chaplain to the Minuteman Project. He is a member of the board of directors of Crusade Radio, on which he hosts “The Wiley Drake Show.”
A native of Arkansas, Drake has been pastor of the Buena Park congregation since 1987. He is a former second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention and twice has served as moderator of the Orange County Southern Baptist Association. He is listed as a co-founder of the Presidential Prayer Team and currently serves as vice president of the Congressional Prayer Conference in Washington, D.C., and as chaplain to the Minuteman Project. He is a member of the board of directors of Crusade Radio, on which he hosts “The Wiley Drake Show.”
Drake is a perennial presence at open microphones during general business sessions of annual meetings. He is best known in Southern Baptist circles for his successful motion at the 1997 SBC annual meeting to boycott The Disney Company for its support of homosexual activist causes. Messengers to the 2005 annual meeting approved a resolution ending the boycott.
According to a resume provided by Drake, he dropped out of school in the ninth grade to enter the circus and rodeo. Sidelined by a bull-riding injury, he worked on a crew building missile silos before he joined the U.S. Navy. During a tour of duty in Vietnam, he accepted Christ as Savior.
Drake’s resume states that he attended Biola College, Golden West College, California State University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, International Bible Institute and Seminary and Andersonville Baptist College and Seminary and holds degrees in psychology, communications, theology and Christian education.
Drake and his wife Barbara have four children.
Information from the 2007 Annual Church Profile for First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park lists $200 given through the Cooperative Program in 2007, and $0 received for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. No information was provided in other categories. Baptist Press asked Drake for several figures, which he supplied: baptisms – 120; primary worship service attendance – 45; total undesignated receipts – $80,000. The $200 given through the Cooperative Program represents .25 percent of the $80,000 in undesignated receipts.
Question and Answers
Drake’s answers to
the questions posed by Baptist Press follow:
1) What has God done
in your life and ministry to prepare you to be president of the Southern
Baptist Convention?
Forty-two years
pastor of SBC churches in California, Texas, New Jersey, Arkansas. Seeing God
save 300-plus each year for the past 10 years and allowing us to disciple them.
God has allowed me
to serve as moderator of our association twice and as second vice president of
our SBC.
He has allowed me to
serve as a founder and ambassador for the Presidential Prayer Team and vice
President of the Congressional Prayer Conference in Washington, D.C.
God has also allowed
me to serve as chaplain to the USS Kitty Hawk, CVA-63 Veterans Association and
the Minuteman Project.
He has allowed me to
minister to millions of radio congregants five hours a week for the past six
years.
He called me to
serve for the past five years as facilitator for a nationwide “Telephonic
Prayer Meeting,” not only with Southern Baptist but other evangelical
prayer warriors.
God has worked out
that I am well known in the media, especially in regard to soul winning (church
of 100 winning over 300 to Jesus each year), salt and light and fighting the
big guys. This presence in secular, as well as Christian media, will help the world
find Jesus and help people better understand who Southern Baptists really are.
They will know that all that we do is to lift up Jesus, and remember He said if
He is lifted up, He will draw all men unto himself.
God has worked it
out for me to network with U.S.
government officials, as well as two ambassadors from Israel, and this will help me bring Southern
Baptist soul winning to a wide audience in America and the world.
2) If you are
elected, what would be your priority message for Southern Baptists?
Articles XIV and XV of our Baptist Faith and
Message, to put into practice all across our convention New Testament unity to
win souls and bring our convention back to the people. I will also stress that
our convention needs to establish righteousness, especially with those who are
saved, and to encourage those who are not to come to Jesus.
If Southern Baptists
ask me to lead, I will lead us to follow Article XV to oppose “racism and
every form of greed, selfishness, and vice, sexual immorality, including
adultery, homosexuality, and pornography. We should work to provide for the
orphaned, the needy, the abused, the aged, the helpless and the sick. In order
to promote these ends, Christians should be ready to work with all men of good
will in any good cause, always being careful to act in the spirit of love
without compromising their loyalty to Christ and His truth.” If elected,
Articles XIV and XV will be my marching orders.
3) What do you
believe is needed to see churches more effectively bringing people to Christ
and making disciples?
The local church
needs to put Articles XIV and XV in effect to minister to the needs of the
community, as well as be salt and light, and then lead them from help to faith
in Jesus and disciple them to become a part of this outreach and soul-winning
effort. If we meet their non-spiritual needs and then win them to Jesus, they
will want to be a part of carrying that same physical/spiritual needs to
others.
4) Decline/plateau
in membership, baptisms: What do you think the future holds for the SBC?
If our leaders will
help us put into practice Articles XIX and XV, we will see many more come to
Jesus. Our future is in His hands and I believe if we will do our best, and we
have not been doing that, He will do the rest and baptisms will go up.
5) Regenerate church
membership: To what extent do you see regenerate church membership as a
significant concern in the Southern Baptist Convention?
The Bible says
repent, remember and return to our first love. As much as we can, we need to
make sure all our members are saved and on their way to heaven, not just
members.
6) Calvinism: Do you
see any reason for non-Calvinist Southern Baptists to be concerned about a
renewed emphasis on Calvinism in some Southern Baptist churches and seminaries?
I am not a
Calvinist, but I see no problem for those who wish to understand Scripture that
way. We have a lot more in common than we do in difference.
7) The IMB trustee
guidelines governing baptism and private prayer language in appointing missionaries:
Do you think their action was needed and appropriate?
Yes.
8) The role of the
Baptist Faith and Message: What do you see as the proper role of the Baptist
Faith and Message when it comes to governing SBC entities and employees?
We need to get back
to the entire message, not just the parts we like. Our founding Baptist fathers
spent a lot of time and prayer putting this together, and even though it is not
Scripture, I believe it is of God. It needs to govern our entities and
employees.
9) While you served
as SBC second vice president, controversy arose over what some alleged was your
use of the title to push your personal issues. Should Southern Baptists be
concerned you will use the office of president to promote activism rather than
lead the SBC?
I did not use my
title or position to push personal issues, only to push us to win more people
to Jesus by doing what Article XIV and XV said we were to do. I assure Southern
Baptists I am a team player, and if any member of the SBC asks me to not proceed
in an area, I will listen.
I will use my
position and presidential office to promote activism in the area of Articles
XIV and XV, nothing else.