Editor’s note: Full articles on the various items included in this wrap up — along with additional articles on other SBC topics — can be found at baptistandreflector.org and in the B&R print issue.
Clint Pressley — Photo by Van Payne / The Baptist Paper
INDIANAPOLIS — In a runoff with Sevierville pastor Dan Spencer, North Carolina pastor Clint Pressley was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention at the 167th annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention June 11-12 at the Indianapolis Convention Center.
Messengers also narrowly voted down the Law Amendment, withdrew fellowship from a church that supports women pastors and acted on 49 other motions while also adopting eight resolutions.
The annual meeting drew 10,946 messengers, 3,132 guests and 2,740 exhibitors for the meeting with a total attendance of 16,818.
Messengers hailed from all 50 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico, representing 3,988 churches.
Tennessee led with the most messengers, 974, accompanied in the top 10 sending states by Texas, 958; Kentucky, 856; Florida, 761; Georgia, 733; North Carolina, 700; Alabama, 637; Missouri, 489; Indiana, 474, and South Carolina, 439.
By comparison, the 2023 annual meeting in New Orleans drew 12,737 registered messengers and 3,799 guests (See chart on page 4 for year-by-year numbers since 1974).
Officers elected
Pressley, pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, won the second runoff with 4,244 votes (56.12 percent). Spencer received 3,305 votes (43.71 percent).
Pressley was nominated by Chris Justice, senior pastor of Lee Park Baptist Church in Monroe, N.C.
“This is a significant moment and in this moment I believe we need a leader who loves our convention deeply,” Justice said.
“Clint Pressley is a man of conviction. Clint Pressley is a leader of courage. (He) is a pastor committed to our cooperation as Southern Baptists,” Justice said.
Spencer was nominated by Chris Kendall, senior pastor of Oak City Baptist Church, Seymour. Kendall said, “Dan’s highest aim reflects Christ’s highest call for Southern Baptists to come together in the name and for the fame of King Jesus.”
Kendall commended Spencer, pastor of First Baptist Church, Sevierville, for his “track record of Great Commission cooperation” and his loyalty to the Cooperative Program. Spencer, the son of evangelist Jerry Spencer, is a former president of the Georgia Baptist convention, and is the great, great nephew of M.E. Dodd, the “father of the Cooperative program.”
The presidential race was originally a six-candidate race, with the other four candidates being: North Carolina pastor Bruce Frank; Oklahoma pastor Mike Keahbone; Tennessee pastor Jared Moore; and dean of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary’s preaching center David Allen.
New SBC officers are (left to right) registration secretary Don Currence, second vice president Eddie Lopez, president Clint Pressley, first vice president Brad Graves, recording secretary Nathan Finn. — Photo by Sonya Singh / Baptist Press
In addition to electing Pressley as president, SBC messengers elected a slate of other leaders.
Brad Graves, senior pastor of First Baptist Church Ada, Okla., was elected first vice president. Graves received 4,072 votes (69.04 percent), defeating Michael Clary, founding pastor of Christ the King Church, Cincinnati, who received 1,812 votes (30.72 percent).
Eddie Lopez, pastor of First Baptist Church en Español, Forney, Texas, won the second vice president spot with 2,074 votes (52.11 percent) over Micheal Pardue, pastor of First Baptist Church, Icard, Connelly Springs, N.C., who received 1,886 votes (47.39 percent).
Nathan Finn, executive director of the Institute for Transformational Leadership and professor for North Greenville University, Tigerville, S.C., was reelected recording secretary, and Don Currence, administrative pastor of First Baptist Church Ozark, Mo., was reelected registration secretary, both unopposed.
Law amendment
During last year’s annual meeting in New Orleans, messengers adopted a motion by Mike Law, pastor of Arlington Baptist Church in Virginia, that the SBC Constitution be amended to note that any church in “friendly cooperation” with the SBC “does not affirm, appoint or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.”
Mike Law speaks for the Law Amendment during the second report of the SBC Executive Committee at the 2024 SBC annual meeting. — Photo by Van Payne / The Baptist Paper
The motion was amended by Juan Sanchez of Texas to read that a cooperating church “affirms, appoints or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.”
The vote took place by ballot this year. While the amendment received a majority of votes, it failed to gain the needed two-thirds vote by a margin of 5,099 (61.45 percent) for to 3,185 (38.38 percent) against the amendment.
The proposal was included among recommendations from the SBC Executive Committee. Despite the amendment falling short of a two-thirds majority this year, the SBC’s 2000 Baptist Faith & Message statement still specifies that the office of pastor “is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”
Resolutions
SBC messengers spoke to in vitro fertilization (IVF) for the first time in adopting a resolution on the topic after a sometimes-emotional floor discussion that featured messengers sharing their personal experiences with reproductive technologies.
Messengers were presented with a slate of 10 resolutions but only eight came to the floor due to a lack of time.
Messengers adopted resolutions on the conflict between Israel and Hamas, religious liberty, parental rights, just war theory and integrity in SBC leadership among other topics.
This year marked the first time messengers were able to preview the resolutions 10 days before the gavel dropped on the first day of the meeting.
Dozens of motions
Messengers presented more than four dozen motions at the 2024 SBC annual meeting. They also acted on several others, rejecting calls to abolish the ERLC and censure Southern Baptist leaders and approving the unseating of messengers from FBC Alexandria.
Messengers raise their ballots during the 2024 SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis. — Photo by Van Payne / The Baptist Paper
Abolishing an entity requires two successive two-thirds votes of approval. The crowd in the Indiana Convention Center fell well short of that margin on a motion brought by Tom Ascol, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Fla., getting an estimated quarter of the vote. Attempts in recent years to abolish the ERLC have failed by bigger margins.
Louis Cook, pastor of Oak City Baptist Church in Oak City, N.C., presented a motion to censure Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler, Lifeway Christian Resources president Ben Mandrell and then-SBC president Bart Barber in relation to signing an amicus brief in a case of Kentucky-based statute of limitations case. The messengers ultimately overruled the Committee on Order of Business by ruling the motion out of order.
The motion to unseat messengers from First Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va., was brought by Aaron Decker, a messenger from Red Village Church in Madison, Wisc.
The Credentials Committee followed Decker’s motion with a recommendation to deem the church not in friendly cooperation with the SBC based “on the grounds of their public endorsement of egalitarianism.”
Messengers voted to disaffiliate with First Baptist Church Alexandria, Va., by a ballot vote of 6,759 (91.78 percent) to 563 (7.65 percent). Forty-two ballots were disallowed.
Five other motions also were rejected by messengers, including a review of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, a review of the work of the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, an examination of legal matters related to NAMB, a removal of pledges of allegiance from convention activities (not to be unpatriotic but to keep the focus on Jesus) and a broadening of ERLC’s fundraising opportunities.
Eight motions were ruled out of order and 33 were referred to various entities during the session. B&R — This article includes reporting by Lonnie Wilkey and David Dawson of the B&R and the staffs of The Baptist Paper, The Alabama Baptist and Baptist Press.
