Jeff Iorg, president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, during Monday night’s session at the 2025 Tennessee Baptist Convention Summit. – Photo by Jim Veneman
JACKSON — Jeff Iorg delivered a challenge during Monday night’s session at the 2025 Tennessee Baptist Convention Summit about who Southern Baptists welcome into the fold.
“One of the things that discourages me about some Southern Baptists and some Christians today is we are pre-qualifying who can come to Jesus and be a part of our movement,” said Iorg, president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.
Drawing from Ephesians 3 — “some of the most theologically rich language in the New Testament” — Iorg described God’s mission in four ways: eternal, inclusive and expansive, personal, and costly.
“I hope we can walk out of this room this evening with a fresh understanding of God’s mission and a renewed commitment to fulfilling it in our generation,” he said.
Eternal and Expansive
Iorg described God’s mission as “the grand narrative, the big story” of the universe. He explained how the mystery of God is revealed through the gospel and made known through the church, demonstrating God’s multifaceted wisdom.
But that mission extends far beyond comfortable circles.
Pointing to the first-century controversy over sharing the gospel with Gentiles — “filthy, dirty, rejected people” — Iorg said the “grace-through-faith people won” as seen in Acts.
“The gospel’s for people you don’t like. The gospel’s for people who don’t look like you, who don’t like the same food you like, who don’t speak the same language you like, maybe don’t smell like you want to smell,” he said. “The gospel is for people who don’t vote the way you want them to vote and don’t act the way you want them to act.”
Iorg, who has served in Tennessee for 18 months after leading ministries in Oregon and California, illustrated this commitment with his own personal example of wanting to retire in Portland, Ore.
“I want to live where people don’t know Jesus,” he said. “I want to live where people are broken and hurting.”
The expansive nature of the gospel to reach millions and billions requires cooperation.
“That’s why you need the Tennessee Baptist Convention. That’s why you need the Southern Baptist Convention,” Iorg said. “If we’re going to take the gospel expansively to the whole world of Gentiles out there, we’re going to have to find better ways to do it together.”
Groups prayed together during the Monday night session to emphasize the TBC’s initiatives of prayer and collaboration. – Photo by Jim Veneman
Personal Responsibility
Iorg emphasized that every Christian becomes a “conduit” for the gospel at salvation – a responsibility that doesn’t fall solely on pastors.
He cited Paul’s phrase “servant of the gospel” from Ephesians 3, noting it appears only once in Scripture.
“In the moment of your conversion, in the moment of your salvation, when you are saved or born again in that second, you receive the responsibility to be a conduit for the gospel to get it to other people,” he said.
Like marriage, Iorg added, believers often don’t realize the full weight of that commitment initially.
He urged churches to implement evangelism training to equip members to lead others to Christ. At his own church, a multi-year training program yielded results, where within a couple of years, 22 people in the 200-person congregation came forward for salvation on a single Sunday.
“I had not led one of them to faith in Jesus,” Iorg said. “The years of evangelism training had started paying off in dramatic ways as our church members led their friends and family members to faith in Jesus.”
A Costly Call
Finally, Iorg acknowledged the price of ministry, referencing Paul’s afflictions and his “thorn in the side,” as well as his own battles with cancer, heart issues and kidney problems.
“I have physical ailments because of what the mission has taken from me,” he said. “Some of you have been in situations where you struggle financially, paid a high price for this mission.”
But he emphasized that all suffering serves God’s glory and the salvation of others.
With this, Iorg ended with how in heaven, there will be no “Jeff Iorg books” or any bylaws he’s written, or any real estate he’s secured.
Instead, the people he’s ministered to and seen come to Christ will be there.
“I’m not giving these years of my life for a bylaw or budget,” he said. “I am not giving these years of my life for anything less than this: people going to heaven. … People go to heaven because of what we do.” B&R
