By Tom Strode
Baptist Press

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an expanded version of the story posted on the Baptist Press website on Monday (June 10).

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The sexual abuse crisis in the Southern Baptist Convention calls for lament, honesty, unity and action, panelists said Monday evening (June 10) regarding an increasingly obvious problem in the country’s largest Protestant denomination.

More than 1,250 people registered for “Sexual Abuse and the Southern Baptist Convention,” a conversation co-hosted by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and the Sexual Abuse Advisory Study at an exhibit hall in the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex. [Read more…]

Baptist and Reflector

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — J.D. Greear was elected without opposition for a second term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention during the convention’s afternoon session on June 11.

He will lead a diverse slate of officers, including: Marshal Ausberry, senior pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Fairfax, Va., first vice president; Noe Garcia, senior pastor of North Phoenix Baptist Church, second vice president; John Yeats executive director of Missouri Baptist Convention, recording secretary; and Kathy Litton, director of planter spouse development for North American Mission Board, registration secretary.

Litton is the first woman to serve as SBC registration secretary, edging out incumbent SBC registration secretary Don Currence by 44 votes. Of 3,571 votes cast, Litton received 1,803 votes, or 50.49 percent of the ballots cast. Currence received 1,759 votes, or 49.26 percent of the ballots cast.

Greear, who was elected as president at last year’s annual meeting, was nominated by Pennsylvania pastor K. Marshall Williams. [Read more…]

By Tobin Perry
Baptist Press

Jacksonville State University student Lexie Tisdale (left) talks with a 90-year-old resident of Chalkville during the door-to-door outreach of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Crossover event in Birmingham, Ala. June 8. Tisdale had offered to carry groceries in for the woman after finding out her husband had suffered a stroke two weeks earlier. Tisdale was able to pray with her before leaving. — Photo by Bob Carey

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — An expected 400 teams of Southern Baptists took to the streets to pray with families and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ prior to the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Birmingham, Ala.

Despite intermittent rain and threats of even worse weather on Saturday (June 8), Southern Baptists set out to knock on the doors of 20,000 homes in greater Birmingham in their annual Crossover outreach. They also provided free medical and dental care through a Send Relief mobile clinic set up at Birmingham’s Sixth Avenue Baptist Church. [Read more…]

By Art Toalston
Baptist Press

Michael R. Stone (far right), chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, begins the Executive Committee plenary session June 10 by leading in worship and scripture reading at the Sheraton Hotel in Birmingham, Ala. — Photo by Matt Miller

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Sexual abuse and racism would draw heightened action within the Southern Baptist Convention under recommendations to be considered during the June 11-12 SBC annual meeting in Birmingham, Ala.

A key recommendation, approved by the SBC Executive Committee in its June 10 meeting, calls for repurposing the SBC Credentials Committee to field claims against churches in regard to sexual abuse and discrimination based on ethnicity as well as matters such as homosexuality that would call their relationship with the SBC into question. [Read more…]