This page is devoted to sharing thoughts that couldn’t make it into the message on Sunday or Wednesday!

Every year in June, messengers from the 47,000+ Southern Baptist Churches gather to hear reports, vote on important motions, approve a budget, commission missionaries, worship Jesus, and celebrate God’s work in and through our churches all around the world! This year over 18,000 Southern Baptists traveled to Dallas, Texas for our annual meeting and nearly 11,000 were sent as messengers from churches just like South Gate to vote on various things throughout the week. Because the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest protestant denomination in the world, these annual meetings tend to attract a lot of attention from Christian and non-Christian circles alike. Chances are, over the years you have been told something from someone or seen a report online about something that Southern Baptists supposedly voted on or said that might or might not actually be true. Because of this, I view it as my responsibility as your pastor and shepherd to share some insights on what took place in Dallas, both positive and negative.

Praises!

1. On Tuesday morning, we commission our outgoing IMB missionaries before they travel to countries all around the globe (this is my favorite moment of the whole convention). This year, we commissioned 58 missionaries, and the majority of them couldn’t reveal their face because they are going to be ministering in countries where Christianity is either heavily persecuted or completely outlawed. What a joy-filled time of worship this is each year!

2. This year, we celebrated the 100th year of the Cooperative Program. In 1925, Southern Baptists were trying to figure out how to fund missions and make Christ-centered education for pastors affordable, and the Cooperative Program was born. Over the last 100 years, over $20 billion has been given through the cooperative program to support missionaries in North America and around the world, fund seminaries, and assist local ministries across our state and community. Many churches give 10% of their undesignated receipts to the Cooperative Program, and these dollars help mission work happen all around the globe. It was a blessing to hear about all that Southern Baptists have been able to accomplish simply by being faithful in the world of financial giving.

3. This year, we also celebrated the 100th year of the Baptist Faith and Message, our convention statement of faith. In 1925, the convention adopted the 1925 BFM, which articulated what we believe about a variety of Biblical issues. Today, we have the BFM 2000 as our society has changed significantly in the decades since 1925, and our statement of faith needed to be clear about what we believe about things like the family, gender, marriage, and the inerrancy of God’s Word. We celebrated the fact that we have a clear statement of faith that helps keep us accountable to one another as Southern Baptists and helps those outside our denomination see what we believe about Scripture. 

4. We see numbers trending upward in terms of attendance and baptisms throughout our denomination, as attendance is up nearly 250,000 on each Sunday, and baptisms are up nearly 25,000 from a year ago across our churches! Further, our IMB missionaries baptized nearly 14,000 more people than the previous year, and the North American Mission Board planted 159 more churches throughout North America than a year ago! This is exciting to see!

5. We passed a number of solid resolutions (including a resolution on gender, marriage, and family, as well as religious freedom) that you can read about here.

6. The spirit of our messengers in the room was one of Christ-centeredness, as many see this meeting as a time of genuine worship and growing in Christian community.

Key Decisions - this is what many will focus on!

1. ERLC Vote - one of the entities of our Southern Baptist Convention is called the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, as their stated purpose is to “Assist your churches by helping you understand the moral demands of the Gospel.” They engage with our world, advocating for religious liberty and speaking to culture and government officials by applying Christian principles to real-life events and legislation. A motion was made to “Abolish the ERLC” which required a simple majority in 2 consecutive years. The stated reason for this motion was a lack of trust in the current leadership of the ERLC in how they have sought to represent Southern Baptists in the public square. This motion went to a vote, and 56.89% voted in favor of keeping the ERLC, while 42.84% voted in favor of abolishing it. 

2. Sanchez Amendment - our statement of faith, the BFM 2000, states that “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” Southern Baptists have historically and remain presently united in this statement as we believe that 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 make this point clear that the office of pastor/elder/overseer in the local church is a role that God only calls qualified men to - not all men, but qualified men. While this is in our statement of faith, this language is not presently in our constitution. Because of this, there was a motion that sought to add to our constitution the following language regarding what it means for a church to cooperate with the SBC. This church “affirms, appoints or employs only men as any kind of pastor.” While this language is consistent with our statement of faith, it required a supermajority vote in 2 consecutive years to change our convention constitution, and this vote only received 60.74% in favor and 38.90% against, meaning that it was the majority opinion, but not the supermajority required to pass. In recent days, many have used this result to state that the SBC is now supporting women pastors, but our statement of faith still says that the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture. Many individuals voted against this constitutional amendment for various reasons, while still agreeing with the theological basis behind it (complementarianism).

3. Financial Transparency - each year, the SBC messengers vote to appoint trustees who exercise oversight of the boards of our various entities (6 seminaries, 2 mission boards, Executive Committee, ERLC), and each messenger (and anyone for that matter) has access to view the annual budget of these entities. This year, a motion was made for messengers of the convention to not only receive the general annual budget, but also to receive detailed financial information like the IRS requires on 990 Forms. There was a host of opinions that people had about this issue. Some argued that every messenger deserved to know the complete breakdown of every dollar, while others argued that the messengers know the total and the trustees are responsible for the specific details and decisions, such as financial compensation for employees, faculty members of seminaries, and presidents of our entities. This motion was rejected by the messengers, as the majority rejected the need for this level of transparency from our entities to the world as the trustees are voted and tasked by Southern Baptists with this responsibility.

Brothers and Sisters, not everything in Dallas went the way I would have liked it to go. However, I remain grateful to be a Southern Baptist. I was raised by a Southern Baptist pastor. I have attended and pastored Southern Baptist churches. I have attended a Southern Baptist school (Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri) and seminary (Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri) and received significant discounts because of our Cooperative Program. I joyfully affirm our Southern Baptist statement of faith, the BFM 2000. I rejoice in the work that God has done and is continuing to do throughout our convention and look forward to what He has in store in the seasons to come. We are not perfect people who come from perfect churches to form a perfect convention. We are sinners. We have made errors in the past. We will make mistakes in the future. But I’m excited. I’m thankful. I’m optimistic about what God has in store at South Gate and throughout our world as we stand unwaveringly on His Word, share the Gospel unashamedly, and unapologetically tell our world that our greatest problem is sin and the only solution is Jesus Christ.

This is a link that summarizes the annual meeting if you want to dive deeper into the discussion (click here)