Dan Spencer preaching at the 2025 Summit’s Sunday night service. – Jim Veneman
JACKSON — Dan Spencer stood before the crowd at the 2025 Summit’s Sunday night service and painted a bleak picture: Jerusalem under siege, God’s people worshiping idols, Babylonian armies poised to destroy the city and drag its inhabitants into 70 years of exile.
But Spencer wasn’t preaching despair. He was preaching hope.
“Some of you need to hear that today because you feel like your life is under siege right now,” Spencer said. “You feel like the enemy’s attacking your marriage, your children, your ministry. It’s disorienting.”
Spencer, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Sevierville, will be nominated for Tennessee Baptist Convention president as messengers convene at West Jackson Baptist Church this week. He preached from the same lectern his great-great-uncle, M.E. Dodd, used a century ago, which was brought in from Louisiana for the event. Dodd is considered by many to be the “father of the Cooperative Program.”
Drawing from Jeremiah 32, Spencer recounted what he called a “very strange real estate deal.”
While imprisoned, the prophet Jeremiah received word from God to buy his cousin’s field in Anathoth for 17 shekels of silver, even as Babylonian armies surrounded Jerusalem.
“God led Jeremiah to make the worst deal possible at the worst time possible in order to make a statement of hope,” Spencer said.
The message was clear: God’s people would return.
“Regardless of how dim and dark the present looks, the future belongs to God and God’s spirit,” he said.
Spencer emphasized that faith becomes real only through obedience, noting Jeremiah “made a major life decision based on something God promised to do seven decades in the future.”
The sermon acknowledged doubt — even Jeremiah questioned God’s plan in verse 24 — but highlighted God’s response: “Have faith, don’t doubt, don’t stop believing now.”
Spencer preaching from behind the same lectern his great-great-uncle, M.E. Dodd, used a century ago. Dodd is considered by many to be the “father of the Cooperative Program.” – Photo by Zoë Watkins
Spencer connected the ancient story to Southern Baptist life today. Churches devote large budget portions to missions. Pastors keep reaching out to unresponsive students and loving difficult members. Tennessee Baptists send money through the Cooperative Program “to do great commission work throughout our state and around the world.”
“We give to the Golden Offering [for Tennessee Missions] to do things like church planting in Nashville, in languages we don’t know with people that we will never meet this side of heaven,” he said. “We’re laying up treasures in heaven here. This is going to pay off in ways your spreadsheet can’t calculate.”
Spencer said Southern Baptists essentially “buy the farm every day” because they can be hopeful about the future, citing Jesus’ promise: “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail.”
“That means when we work together to plant churches and revitalize churches and strengthen churches, we can’t lose because we know that we can afford to have hope when we do it,” he said.
He compared this faith to David facing Goliath, Peter stepping onto the water, and Noah building the ark “with hammer in hand.”
Spencer concluded with a call to action drawn from Jeremiah 33:3, where God promises to show “great and mighty things.”
“Let’s get our hopes up,” Spencer said. “Let’s put our faith into action like never before.”
Southern Baptist Roots
Spencer brings Southern Baptist heritage to his TBC presidential nomination. In addition to being the great-great-nephew of Dodd, he is also the great-great-grandson of George Martin Savage, former Union University president and Dodd’s father-in-law. His father, Jerry, has served as a Southern Baptist evangelist and pastor since 1957.
A West Tennessee native, Spencer graduated from Haywood High School in Brownsville and holds degrees from Hannibal-LaGrange University, Troy University and Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.
He served churches in Missouri, Alabama, and Georgia before coming to FBC Sevierville. He served as Georgia Baptist Convention president from 2009-2011, sat on the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board’s Board of Directors from 2015-2019 and currently serves on Carson-Newman University’s Board of Trustees.
Spencer and his wife, Tresa, have two grown sons — both pastors serving Georgia churches — and five grandchildren. B&R
