Gaines
FRANKLIN — Three Tennessee Baptist pastors are among the 11 speakers announced to address the 2024 Pastors’ Conference in Indianapolis June 9-10 preceding the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting.
Stephen Rummage, senior pastor of Quail Springs Baptist Church in Oklahoma City and conference president, announced last August that the theme would be “Faithful: Pursuing Your Mission” and based on Revelation 17:14. Erik D. Cummings, lead pastor of New Life Church in Carol City, Fla., is serving as vice president while Ray Anderson, minister of missions and evangelism at Quail Springs, is the treasurer.
Tennessee Baptists on the program are Adam Dooley, Englewood Baptist Church, Jackson; Steve Gaines, Bellevue Baptist Church, Cordova; and Bartholomew Orr, Brown Missionary Baptist Church, Southaven, Miss.
Orr
Gaines, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, announced last November that he had kidney cancer. In December he shared that the cancer had spread to his lungs. The Baptist Paper reported March 2 that Gaines announced in a video on March 1 that cancer polyps in his lungs and the cancer in his ribs were gone.
He added that the cancer in his lungs has “gone down significantly,” the paper reported.
“So I still have cancer, but it’s really, really going away, and I’m grateful to God for a miracle and medicine,” Gaines said, noting that “the Lord has done a great thing in our lives, and we are glad.”
Gaines returned to the pulpit on Sunday, March 3.
Dooley
Other speakers at the Pastors’ Conference are Jack Graham, Prestonwood Baptist Church, Plano, Texas; Jimmy Scroggins, Family Church, South Florida; Greg Mann, affinity group leader, International Mission Board: Shane Pruitt, National Next Gen Director, North American Mission Board; Robert Smith Jr., professor of preaching, Beeson Divinity School; Benny Wong, Chinese-English bilingual director, Gateway Seminary; and Hershael York, professor of preaching, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Charles Billingsley, teaching pastor at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., will serve as worship leader. B&R — This article includes reporting by Scott Barkley of Baptist Press and Grace Thornton of The Baptist Paper.
