YAZOO CITY, Miss.—Owen Cooper wasn’t a Baptist when he left for college, intending to be a Presbyterian as was his mother. But Bible-reading led the young Mississippian into a faith journey that helped shape Southern Baptists during the latter half of the 20th century.

He did so as a layman who founded a large-scale fertilizer plant.

Fifty years ago, Cooper ended two terms as president of the Southern Baptist Convention—among only a few laymen ever elected to the office. His legacy includes casting a vision for the SBC-wide Bold Mission Thrust initiative that aimed to share the gospel with every person in the world by the year 2000.

Emphasized importance of laity

Owen Cooper regularly underscored the importance of laymen as he visited every state in the union during his SBC presidency, along with an array of mission fields.

In his presidential address to the 1974 annual meeting in Dallas, he asserted, “The greatest apostasy” of the past century was “the perpetuation of the nonbiblical concept that the burden for evangelism and missions lies only with the full-time Christian worker and that the ‘layman’ has little responsibility.”

“Lay people are expected to occupy the church pew, to fill the offering plate, to teach a Sunday School class, to attend Church Training [the former Sunday evening discipleship hour] but otherwise are seldom challenged by the church program,” Cooper said.

In his 1974 book The Future Is Before Us, published by the convention’s Broadman Press, he insisted, “You will never know the abundant life, you will never find fulfillment in your church membership, and you will never know the peace that passeth understanding until you minister even as you are ministered unto.”

Cooper brought a layman’s demeanor to his presidency, as noted by the SBC Executive Committee’s lead administrative assistant, the late Martha Gaddis.

“The other presidents and their wives I called ‘Dr. and Mrs. So and So.’ From the very beginning the Coopers said: ‘We’re Owen and Beth. Don’t call us anything else,’” she recounted in a 1992 book about Cooper, The Thought Occurred to Me by the late Don McGregor, editor emeritus of the Baptist Record in Mississippi.

Humble beginnings

Cooper grew up as a farm-boy near Vicksburg, Miss., chopping cotton and milking cows. While a student at Mississippi State University, preparing to teach high school vocational agriculture and paying his way by beekeeping and delivering newspapers, he was elected as president of the statewide Baptist Student Union.

As a vo-ag teacher in his early 20s in the Mississippi Delta town of Leland, Cooper became the Sunday school superintendent at First Baptist Church and served on its pastor search committee.

After earning a master’s degree in economics and political science at the University of Mississippi, he pursued a law degree from the Jackson School of Law (now part of Mississippi College, a Baptist school). As a member of Jackson’s First Baptist Church, he became the Baptist Student Union director at two colleges in the state capital, Belhaven, affiliated with the Presbyterians, and Millsaps, affiliated with the Methodists.

Cooper moved to Yazoo City, 50 miles northwest of Jackson, while working to establish the nation’s first farmer-owned nitrogen fertilizer plant, Mississippi Chemical Corporation, which opened in 1951, in a cooperative venture involving the Farm Bureau, farmers and their banks throughout the South and federal loan officials.

He joined First Baptist Church in Yazoo City, taking on the role of Sunday school superintendent and knocking on doors in weekly home visitation and revival campaigns. He was moderator of the Yazoo Baptist Association before becoming president of the Mississippi Baptist Convention. As a longtime member of the SBC Executive Committee, he was elected as president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1972.

Call to engage in evangelism

Cooper’s advocacy for Baptist laymen typically was voiced alongside an insistent call for evangelistic fervor throughout the SBC.

In his 1973 presidential address on the “Share the Word” theme at the SBC annual meeting in Portland, Ore., Cooper said Baptists must witness “in our kitchen, in our dining room, in our den and in our living room … in our front yard and across the fence in our backyard.”

“It means we should witness to our neighbors next door and to our neighbors who live around the world,” he said. “It means we should witness where we work, where we shop, where we bank, where we play and where we make our social contacts … when we travel, when we are on vacation, when we are on a business trip, attending a conference, at the civic club, at the country club, at the hunting club, at the social club and at the garden club.”

He continued: “We should also witness to the uttermost parts of the earth …to the rural settlement, to the village, to the town, in the city, and in the metropolis. We should witness in the townhouses, and in the ghetto, in the single-family residence, and in the high-rise, in the row house and in the tenant house.”

As SBC president, Cooper initiated a 21-member Missions Challenge Committee in 1974 that brought a report to the 1976 annual meeting in Norfolk, Va., calling Southern Baptists into a 25-year Bold Mission Thrust effort encompassing numerous international and home missions initiatives.

The late Albert McClellan, the Executive Committee’s associate executive secretary, wrote to Cooper in 1977: “I remember quite vividly that the whole concept of the Missions Challenge was your idea. You stirred it up in the [former] Committee of Fifteen and fixed it so that it would become clear to Southern Baptists that we needed to go forward in missions.”

Passion for missions

Reflecting his passion for missions and his entrepreneurial spirit, Cooper took an interest in India, leading several U.S. fertilizer companies and the U.S. Agency for International Development to pioneer large-scale fertilizer plants in the populous Asian nation.

He then launched an organization to support Indian evangelists, naming it Universal Concern.

He also raised funds to rehabilitate the cemetery where missions pioneer William Carey is buried.

Creating an Agricultural Missions Foundation, Cooper worked with farmers to nurture their missions involvement by shipping beef and dairy cattle, hogs, rabbits, seed, tools and a tractor to Southern Baptist agricultural stations in Ecuador, Liberia, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the Philippines and other locations.

Promoted race relations

In civic affairs, as executive director of the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation in the 1940s, he led an effort in the state legislature to create the Mississippi Commission on Hospital Care, which he then chaired, approving the construction of more than 100 rural hospitals.

During the 1960s, Cooper bridged racial lines, accepting the chairmanship of an organization to lift the state’s Head Start program from bankruptcy. Called the Mississippi Action Project, the board consisted of an equal number of whites and blacks, including the NAACP state chairman.

Cooper acknowledged to friends that his Head Start involvement would derail his long-held goal to someday run for governor of Mississippi.

Within the SBC, Cooper often voiced concern about race relations, drafting a 1972 resolution, for example, expressing “gratitude to God for the progress being made in an increasing number of our churches where persons of other races are welcomed into all areas of church life and fellowship.”

Cooper never was shy about tying an evangelistic exhortation to his Mississippi roots as well as his business interests, noting in The Future Is Before Us: “We need to be challenged by the fact that as Christians it is our responsibility, not our privilege, it is our obligation, not our wish, it is our duty, not our desire to see that the gospel is preached throughout the world.”

Cooper died in 1986 at age 78.

MORGAN CITY, La.—“Stop,” urged Chaplain Leslie Burch of the Texans on Mission Deep East Texas flood recovery team. “Can everybody stop and pray with me?”

She asked her fellow team members to halt their work as they tore out flooring in the home of Troy and Angel in Morgan City, La.

The couple’s home had been flooded during heavy rains that hit the Mississippi Delta town the week before as Hurricane Francine landed in southern Louisiana.

“Troy and Angel are talking about accepting Christ, and we need to pray for God’s Spirit,” Burch explained.

It was all she needed to say. The group left their scrapers, shovels and wheelbarrows, gathered in the living room, now an empty space with bare concrete floors, held hands and prayed for the young homeowners and their children.

The Texans on Mission team was one of two that responded to Francine’s aftermath, joining partner groups from several other states to provide flood recovery and tree and debris removal after the violent storm.

Like many Texans on Mission teams, the Francine volunteers represented a mix of churches and backgrounds from throughout southeastern Texas.

Burch, a member of First Baptist Church of Orange, said the team came to “serve the needs” of the flood victims.

Team leader Mike Petigo of First Baptist Church in Nederland explained the team had been assigned to do flood recovery.

“We’re taking out sheetrock and disinfecting their homes so that survivors can get ready to put new sheetrock back in,” Petigo said.

For Steve Hammer of Covenant Church in Willis, the recovery efforts were about “getting it all cleaned out so these people can get on with their lives.

“We’re here today, about a week after the hurricane came through, and it’s important,” Hammer added. “We’re cleaning out houses now, because it gets nastier and nastier and nastier as time goes on.”

Pastor on the receiving end of ministry

Homeowners Tracey and Marci Smith were grateful for the team, who removed the lower two feet of their home’s sheetrock to ready it for replacement after flood waters seeped in and posed a mold danger.

It was especially meaningful for Tracey Smith, pastor of First Baptist Church of Morgan City, where the combined relief teams camped in Bible study rooms and ate in the fellowship hall.

Smith has been involved in Louisiana Baptist disaster relief in previous hurricane recoveries, but after Francine flooded his home, he found himself on the receiving end of disaster response.

Taking a break from helping the Texas team tear out lower walls and treat for mold, he offered his perspective on the recent storm.

“Well, we’ve been through this before. We’ve been through Hurricanes Laura and Delta back in 2020. But we didn’t have flooding like this,” Smith said.

Smith rode out the flooding in his truck outside his home. Marci Smith said that as the water rose and came closer to their house, Tracey “sat in the truck with the two dogs” near his fishing boat in case he needed to “help our neighbors escape.” It was not needed, but he was ready to help.

The Smiths’ own home became surrounded by an unbroken sea of water.

“It’s just kind of a hopeless feeling not being able to stop or prevent that from happening,” Tracey said.

The day after the storm, he said, the couple noticed the water “was migrating more and more throughout the house.

“So, we didn’t know to what degree we were going to have to remove the flooring or walls or anything like that,” he said. “It pretty much changes your routine and most definitely changes your way of life. You know that it’s not going to be back to what you would consider normal anytime soon.”

Tracey Smith has responded to other disasters, including Hurricane Ian in 2022 when he worked with Texas volunteers. So, he knew what to expect from the volunteers when they arrived.

“We knew the quality job” they would do, Tracey said. “We knew that they were going to be more than willing to do whatever we needed. And we were just glad to have them. … This is a good bunch.”

NASHVILLE (RNS)—Court-ordered mediation between a former Southern Baptist Convention president and lawyers for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination failed last week, meaning the dispute between the two parties likely is headed to a trial in November.

Johnny Hunt, a former Georgia megachurch pastor and denominational official who served as SBC president from 2008 to 2010, sued the denomination in 2023, alleging defamation.

Hunt was named in the Guidepost report on abuse in the SBC for allegedly sexually assaulting another pastor’s wife. He initially denied the incident and has since said it was consensual.

Lawyers for Hunt have claimed the former SBC president’s misconduct was a private matter and the SBC ruined his reputation by making it public.

On Sept. 19, the two sides met for a court-ordered mediation, which ended in an impasse, according to a report filed Sept. 24 with the U.S. District Court of the Middle District of Tennessee.

The lawsuit has cost the SBC’s Executive Committee about $3 million in legal fees so far. Those legal fees, along with about $9 million in fees related to the Guidepost report, led the Executive Committee to put its Nashville, Tenn., office building on the market.

Last week, current SBC President Clint Pressley tweeted that no settlement had been reached. The possibility of a settlement was raised during a recent Executive Committee meeting.

“Despite what you may be hearing, there is no settlement with Dr. Johnny Hunt,” Pressley tweeted on Thursday, the same day as the mediation.

The trial for the lawsuit is set to begin Nov. 12 in Nashville. Hunt’s lawyer recently petitioned the court to block the SBC from calling several witnesses, including Kevin Ezell, the president of the denomination’s North American Mission Board, at the trial.

After stepping down as pastor of First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Ga., Hunt served as a vice president at NAMB before resigning following the release of the Guidepost report in 2022.

No details of the settlement discussions were made public. However, earlier this year, lawyers for Hunt claimed more than $75 million worth of damages.

Those damages, according to court documents filed in the case, include a loss of $610,000 in annual income and benefits, a loss of $360,000 a year in book sales, a loss of $350,000 in speaking fees and an additional $80,000 in other lost income, for a total of $1.4 million a year. The lawyers also claim that Hunt intended to work for 11 years—or until he was 80—when the Guidepost report was published—for a total alleged loss of $15.4 million.  No supporting documents were included to substantiate those claimed losses.

The court filing also claims at least $30 million in reputational harm and at least $30 million in emotional distress

EDITOR’S NOTE: After the article originally was posted on Sept. 25, Religion News Service updated it to include the last three paragraphs with details of the settlement claim filed by Hunt’s lawyers.  This article was edited early morning on Sept. 26 to include those paragraphs. 

NASHVILLE (BP)—The Baptist Faith and Message soon could be more difficult to amend. That’s a good thing, said the Southern Baptist Convention messenger whose motion this summer in Indianapolis helped initiate the change.

“We have enough division in our denomination without the instability of our foundational confessional document,” said Chelsea McReynolds, the pastor’s wife and women’s ministry leader at Chandler (Okla.) Southern Baptist Church.

“If it is too easy to amend, our core doctrines could shift based on temporary trends or majority whims. Such fluidity could cause confusion among church members and undermine the theological foundations built by our forefathers.”

SBC messengers in Dallas next June will receive a recommendation from the convention’s Executive Committee to give the first of two required approvals to stiffen requirements for amending the Baptist Faith and Message, Southern Baptists’ confession of faith.

The Executive Committee voted Sept. 17 to recommend that messengers amend the SBC Constitution to require two-thirds votes at two consecutive SBC annual meetings to amend the Baptist Faith and Message—the same requirement that exists for amending the SBC constitution.

Triggered by two actions at 2024 SBC

Two actions at the 2024 SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis spurred the Executive Committee to consider Baptist Faith and Message amendments.

One was McReynolds’ motion that the convention require a two-thirds majority for all Baptist Faith and Message alterations. The other was a recommendation from the convention’s ad hoc Cooperation Group that “edits or amendments to The Baptist Faith & Message follow the same process as amendments to the Constitution (two-thirds vote, two consecutive years).”

Southern Baptists began discussing the process for Baptist Faith and Message amendments following a 2023 edit to the confession of faith that some viewed as hasty.

Last year, messenger Jared Cornutt, pastor of North Shelby Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., moved that the terms “elder” and “overseer” be listed as synonyms for pastor in Article 6.

The Committee on Order of Business believed the motion’s wording required that they schedule it for debate during that meeting. They did, and messengers voted to amend the Baptist Faith and Message as Cornutt suggested during the meeting’s final session on Wednesday afternoon.

Quick action could create complications

The quick amendment to a foundational document led many, including Cornutt, to raise questions.

“Amending our confession from the floor on a Wednesday afternoon, when our messengers are experiencing ‘delegate fatigue syndrome’ (credit to parliamentarian Al Gage), is like doing surgery on the dining room table with a pocketknife and a flashlight,” Cornutt wrote in a BP column.

“You might get the bullet out (or in this case, the benign tumor), but you’re taking a lot of risks along the way. And why take those risks when you have a team of experienced surgeons and a sterile operating room next door?”

Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the amendment helped clarify what Southern Baptists believe about the office of pastor, but he thought sudden changes to the Baptist Faith and Message could have a negative impact on SBC entities.

The entities include Baptist Faith and Message language in some employees’ contracts, he said, and need time to change legal and business documents.

A quick change could have “charter implications” as “SBC entities are fully accountable to the Baptist Faith and Message,” Mohler said.

Yet tightening the requirements for Baptist Faith and Message amendments is not just a matter of denominational polity, McReynolds said. It also affects local churches.

“Local church constitutions also utilize the BF&M to communicate their beliefs and as part of their governing documents,” she said. “Every change to the BF&M essentially requires each of our churches to personally accept or deny the change.

“There is already an issue in which edition of the BF&M one most closely aligns with. It is not unifying to further complicate the document over a foundationally insignificant change.”

The proposal for Baptist Faith and Message amendments will come before messengers during the Executive Committee report at the SBC annual meeting in Dallas, June 10-11, 2025.

NASHVILLE (BP)—The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee reported it has spent more than $12.1 million on the 2021-2022 Guidepost Solutions investigation into its handling of sexual abuse claims and subsequent legal expenses dating back to 2021.

To cover expenses and operating costs moving forward, the Executive Committee voted in executive session at its September meeting to authorize President Jeff Iorg to execute a loan secured by the SBC Executive Committee building and place the Nashville building on the market.

The release of the detailed financial information was the result of a motion adopted by messengers at this summer’s SBC annual meeting.

Executive Committee Finance Committee Chair Adam Wyatt told Baptist Press the funds to cover legal expenses have been taken from the Executive Committee’s reserve funds to “protect Cooperative Program dollars” even though the original motion adopted by messengers at the 2021 SBC annual meeting approved the use of Cooperative Program dollars for the review.

The numbers show the Executive Committee has “done everything in our power to take the burden on ourselves to protect the Cooperative Program and the work of the convention and its entities,” Wyatt said. “And it is our effort of trying to just be as transparent and clear about where we really are.”

The expense breakdown given to the Executive Committee shows:

• The total cost of the Guidepost Investigation was $3.1million.
• $2 million was paid directly to Guidepost to conduct the investigation.
• Legal and task force expenses totaled $1.1 million.
• The Executive Committee has paid $3.1 million to indemnify Guidepost.
• The cost of the abuse tipline hosted by Guidepost has been $861,000. This expense has been reimbursed by Send Relief.

Other legal expenses include:

• Litigation and case management: $2.4 million
• U.S. Department of Justice investigation: $2 million
• General counsel: $571,000
• Post investigation legal support: $131,000

Messengers to the 2021 SBC annual meeting in Nashville approved a motion calling for an independent, third-party investigation into alleged mishandling of sexual abuse claims by the Executive Committee over a period of 20 years.

The motion also called for the creation of a Sexual Abuse Task Force to oversee the third-party investigation and bring recommendations to the 2022 SBC annual meeting.

That task force retained Guidepost to conduct the investigation, and the contract signed included a clause indemnifying Guidepost of any legal expenses resulting from its investigation.

The report from the investigation was released in May 2022. An investigation of the SBC by the Department of Justice was announced in July 2022.

Two men named in the Guidepost report later sued both Guidepost and the SBC for defamation—former Georgia pastor and SBC president Johnny Hunt and former Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor David Sills.

The Hunt suit in particular has made up the lion’s share of litigation expenditures thus far, Wyatt told Executive Committee members Tuesday.

One of the recommendations of the Sexual Abuse Task Force at the 2022 SBC annual meeting was the formation of the Abuse Response Implementation Task Force. The implementation task force functioned from September 2022 until the 2024 SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis.

In its final report to messengers this past June, the Abuse Response Implementation Task Force recommended the Executive Committee find a permanent home for sexual abuse response and prevention in the SBC.

The Executive Committee took first steps toward that end Sept. 17 by adopting a recommendation from its officers to form a new department within the Executive Committee.

Seeking to be ‘fully transparent’

SBC Executive Committee CFO Mike Bianchi told Baptist Press the Executive Committee is striving to be “fully transparent of how we got here, and we want to be equally transparent of where we’re going.”

“We want to bring all the partners, all the entirety of the SBC into that discussion of where we’re going,” Bianchi said.

Chairman Philip Robertson reported Executive Committee members acted during an executive session to help cover the entity’s expenses and operating costs.

“To meet the EC’s operational and legal expenses, the Executive Committee has authorized the president to execute a loan secured by the building and place the SBC building on the market,” Robertson said.

The Executive Committee discussed the potential sale of the SBC building in Nashville during its September 2023 meeting.

At the 2017 SBC annual meeting, messengers authorized the Executive Committee to “continue studying the advisability of a sale of the SBC Building, and to sell the property upon such terms and conditions, and at such a time, if any, as the Executive Committee may hereafter approve.”

The building is home to the Executive Committee, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, SBC Seminary Extension, the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives and the Southern Baptist Foundation.

Proceeds would be divided among them:

• The Executive Committee holds a 56 percent interest.
• The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission holds a 14 percent interest.
• The Council of Seminary Presidents holds a 26 percent interest. This is composed of a 10 percent interest for Seminary Extension Education and 16 percent for the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives.
• The Southern Baptist Foundation holds a 4 percent interest.

The Executive Committee’s next scheduled meeting is Feb. 19-20, 2025, in Nashville.

NASHVILLE (BP)—The Southern Baptist Convention is a diverse, cooperative “force for good” that is poised to move forward on mission, Jeff Iorg said at his installation as the eighth president of the SBC Executive Committee Sept. 16 in Nashville.

Whether in Christian youth education and discipleship, church planting and development, pastoral and ministerial preparation, evangelism, national and international missions, women’s ministry or financial giving, Southern Baptists have excelled through cooperation, Iorg said.

“Southern Baptists, cooperation around God’s mission is a convictional mindset worth preserving,” Iorg said. “My willingness to serve as president of the Executive Committee rests on God’s call, my gratitude to Southern Baptists and my bedrock conviction that Southern Baptists are a force for good.”

He described himself and his wife Ann as “a product of Southern Baptists at their best,” who accepted his leadership role at the Executive Committee in appreciation for all Southern Baptists have done for the two of them.

“Southern Baptists are a compassionate, devoted, sacrificial people who obey the Great Commission in the spirit of the Great Commandment. We are on mission to share the Gospel with every person and express God’s love in every context,” Iorg said at his installation at the September Executive Committee meeting.

“We believe the Bible is truth—and while we argue often over how to interpret the Bible, we are uncompromising in our commitment to it as our absolute authority.”

Iorg pointed to a Southern Baptist “force for good” that:

• Operates the largest missions sending agency, with more than 3,500 international missionaries deployed.
• Operates the largest domestic church planting movement with a network of nearly 47,000 churches.
• Gave $10 billion in tithes and offerings in fiscal 2023, with more than $457 million of that forwarded to the Cooperative Program to support national and international missions.
• Operates the largest seminary system in the United States with 22,000 students preparing for ministry leadership at six SBC seminaries and their five colleges.
• Has 270,000 students enrolled in more than 50 Southern Baptist affiliated colleges and universities.
• On a typical Sunday, has more than 4 million people gathered in churches for worship and 2.5 million for Bible study.
• Celebrated more than 3,500 confessions of faith in Christ among 114,000 teenagers and children at Lifeway Christian Resources summer camps in 2024, with 1,500 of them expressing a call to ministry.

In 2023, Southern Baptists responded to disasters through the strength of 32,000 volunteers, and supported those in need globally by giving more than $43 million to Send Relief, the SBC’s international compassion ministry arm.

Through entities, state conventions and partners, Southern Baptists provide such services as residential care for children, adoption facilitation, collegiate ministries and financial aid to widows.

Work on shortcomings, pursue God’s mission

Iorg implored Southern Baptists to reject the “debilitating myth” that they must be perfect in order to persuasively spread the gospel, but must instead work on our shortcomings while pursuing God’s mission.

“Spiritual maturation and missional advance are parallel, not sequential, experiences,” he said. “Our gospel integrity rests on humbly and honestly acknowledging our sins, not eliminating them before we can share the gospel with others.

“Unbelievers are willing to receive a clear witness about Jesus from authentic, imperfect believers. When our attitude is right, unbelievers are far less judgmental of us than our critics claim.”

He defended cooperation as “the best way for thousands of autonomous churches to work toward the common good of sharing the gospel with the entire world,” despite the process “being under attack from both external critics and internal detractors.”

Continue to cooperate, he encouraged, because it works, because the Bible says we can do more collectively than by ourselves, because it expresses unity and because while our churches are autonomous, they are not independent.

“While other denominations strain to preserve loyalty through top-down control, experience doctrinal error when power is vested in a heretical few, demand financial support through assessments, and struggle to produce leaders loyal to their movement,” Iorg said, “our cooperative efforts have excelled and expanded for more than 175 years.

“We cooperate because cooperation works—producing supernatural spiritual results which reflect God’s grace, power and favor on our movement.”

Servanthood emphasized

Servanthood was the focus of the installation that included many who have been impactful in Iorg’s ministry, including Burtis Williams, who led Iorg to Christ at a county fair 50 years ago in Texas—and 25 years later led Iorg’s mother to Christ.

Victor Chayasirisobhon, associational missions strategist for the Orange County Baptist Association, spoke of Iorg’s commitment to service. David Johnson, executive director and state missionary of the Arizona Missionary Network of Southern Baptists, testified of Iorg’s commitment to partnerships.

Neal Hughes, who led the search committee that recommended Iorg as Executive Committee president, shared the selection committee’s journey to Iorg as the candidate for the post.

The staff of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission heard an official word of affirmation Sept. 11 with the release of a statement approved by the agency’s board of trustees in a two-hour executive session the day before during the annual meeting in Nashville.

The statement affirms the work of ERLC president Brent Leatherwood and the 17 other staff members, noting the importance of “bringing light and hope to the public square.”

The statement also emphasizes how ERLC’s role is to keep the churches informed about the pressing moral issues and urges staff “to be cautious when addressing controversial political issues by allowing [Leatherwood’s advocacy assessment filter] to serve as the guide in choosing the wording of the response.”

Leatherwood explained during the Sept. 10 afternoon plenary session of the meeting how he and the team have used the framework outlined in the advocacy assessment since the beginning of his time in the president’s seat.

Both Leatherwood and interim trustee chair Tony Beam of South Carolina acknowledged the concern about ERLC being the focus of a vote for shutting down the entity during the SBC annual meeting in June.

While the motion failed to receive the mandated two-thirds vote of messengers for approval to then go before the 2025 messengers for the final confirmation vote, the fact that the motion was made has ERLC board and staff evaluating policies and procedures.

The board seeks “to support the team at the ERLC, as well as listen to our churches, as together we navigate a turbulent political climate,” Beam said in a statement. “We pray that the [public release of both the advocacy assessment and the affirmation and encouragement statement, which were] affirmed by the trustees, will assist and encourage the ERLC president and staff in speaking clearly and boldly to the issues of the day.

“[We also pray the statements] inform the churches in a transparent way, how the ERLC makes decisions about how they address the issues.”

In other business

During the Sept. 11 morning plenary session of the board meeting, a second executive session was held for roughly 45 minutes.

The result was two motions approved by trustees:

• “The trustees acknowledge that Brent Leatherwood’s salary has been presented to the full board by the executive committee [of the ERLC] and reviewed by the trustees as stated in the bylaws.”
• “That we affirm the ERLC’s existing conflict of interest policy and encourage trustees and staff to follow this policy. We also encourage trustees and staff to report violations of this policy. Trustees who violate the conflict of interest are subject to board censure and staff are subject to disciplinary action.”

No context was provided related to the conflict of interest motion, but some board members have been the subject of media reports and social media discussions in recent years related to allegedly “leaking” material and forcing discussions beyond the trustee board meetings. The conflict of interest/standard of conduct policy is in Article VII of the ERLC bylaws.

Trustees also elected new officers and subcommittee chairs: Scott Foshie of Illinois, chair; Amy Pettway of Florida, vice chair; and Anthony Cox of Arizona, secretary; Heather Sells of Virginia, communications chair; Matthew Morgan of Mississippi, administration and finance chair; and Mitch Kimbrell of Vermont, research and public policy chair.

Trustees approved two new temporary trustees to fill the vacancies on the board:

Jon Nelson, lead pastor of Soma Community Church in Jefferson City, Mo., will take the at-large seat left vacant with the resignation of Kevin Smith of Florida, who was serving as board chair until the July confusion related to Leatherwood’s position.

Todd Brooks, pastor of Smith Rock Community Church in Terrebonne, Ore., will take the Northwest seat left vacant by Michael Lerma, who needed to resign following the recent death of his wife.

Nelson, who previously served on the SBC’s Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, and Brooks are allowed to serve until the next slate of new trustee nominations are presented to SBC messengers during the 2025 annual meeting.

In response to a motion referred to the ERLC from the SBC annual meeting, the board affirmed it will continue serving churches in the area of sexual abuse reform efforts.

“Sexual abuse is an affront to the cause of Christ, especially when it takes place within the church,” board members stated. “The ERLC will continue to serve churches regarding this issue and call on them and others to take this grave issue seriously as we care for victims of abuse and provide a witness to a watching world that the Lord calls us to this ministry of reconciliation.”

With the disbanding of the implementation task force in June, the $250,000 allotted for its work comes back to ERLC and will be used for future sexual abuse reform efforts conducted by the commission.

BALTIMORE (RNS)—After an unusual election that gave voters the choice on the ballot of a name or a “no,” members of the National Baptist Convention, USA, lined up behind a new president, Pastor Boise Kimber of First Calvary Baptist Church in New Haven, Conn.

Kimber, who ran unopposed but needed the approval of the historically Black denomination’s delegates, received 1,774 “yes” votes, or 69 percent of the votes cast, on Sept. 5, while 79 votes, or 31 percent, were cast as “no” votes.

“Oh, how marvelous God is,” said Kimber, after outgoing convention President Jerry Young invited him to greet those attending the final session of the annual meeting. “My brothers and sisters in Christ, I greet you in the name of him who orders our steps. What God has done no persons can put asunder.”

In the months ahead of the convention’s annual session, which concluded shortly after the election results were announced, officials determined Kimber had received the necessary 100 endorsements from member churches and other National Baptist entities to qualify to run for president.

Four other men who had hoped to be on the ballot were told they did not qualify: Pastor Tellis Chapman of Detroit, Pastor Claybon Lea of the San Francisco area, Pastor Alvin Love of the Chicago area and Pastor James B. Sampson of Florida.

Pastor Thomas Morris Sr., chairman of the convention’s election supervisory commission, said in an earlier interview many of the other candidates’ endorsements were voided, because they came from churches that have been unable to afford their required annual registration with the denomination due to lack of funds, consolidation or closure.

Disqualified candidates critiqued the election process

In May, the disqualified challengers released a video in which they urged supporters to help them “fight for the soul of our convention.” They hoped sufficient “no” votes would cause the election process to restart.

In August, Sampson wrote about his continuing concerns in a Facebook post that said, in part, “There is no way that any candidate selected under these circumstances can legitimately govern this august body.”

But shortly after the election results were announced, the latest posting on Sampson’s Facebook account seemed to offer a different tone: “God have spoken, let the National Baptist Convention USA inc, Constituency say Amen. Lord Bless and keep ‘President Boise Kimber.’”

Pastor Dwight McKissic of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, whose congregation has been dually aligned with the Southern Baptist Convention, was a newly appointed officer along with Kimber in 2020.

The day before the election, McKissic expressed his support for a “no” voting, saying in a Facebook post that cited lyrics from the hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”: “A ‘No’ vote immediately fuses ‘strength for today’ and ‘bright hope for tomorrow’ into the fabric and fellowship of our great convention.”

McKissic, who declined further comment, told RNS after the election that he sent Kimber a text with his congratulations.

“You prayed and worked hard for this,” he told Kimber. “God granted it to you. May God crown your time in office with phenomenal & Kingdom success. Blessings on you, and the National Baptist Convention.”

Support framed as generational change

On the day before the election, some attendees at the gathering voiced support for Kimber as a generational change.

Dwight and Derik Jones, senior pastor and pastor, respectively, of First Baptist Church of South Richmond, Va., expressed concern about how the convention will draw in more members of younger generations.

“We’re hopeful that this election will kind of be the dawn of a new day for the convention in terms of it being serious about meeting the needs of the church in 2024,” the younger pastor said.

“The church, particularly the post-pandemic church, is going through so many gyrations and changes that it needs a leadership that is able to adapt and to lead the convention,” added his father, who said he planned to vote for Kimber. “Many churches are dying, and if the church is dying, the convention can’t live.”

Both Young, the outgoing denominational president, and Pastor Breonus Mitchell Sr., board chair, said the denomination’s election processes need to be changed in the future.

Mitchell said the current bylaws contain “so much ambiguity,” pointing to one church that had joined and paid for its registration in 2023 but was not able to have voting delegates at the session.

Young, in his final address, acknowledged the “unusual” election but said its strangeness did not mean anyone had done wrong.

“There is absolutely no question that there are some problems with the process,” he said. “But hear me: You can’t get in the middle of the process and then decide it ought to change.”

After Thomas announced the election results on behalf of the elections commission, Young said the decision was final.

“Their report here tonight says clearly that the body has spoken,” he said, drawing some applause. “And when the body speaks, that settles the matter. Within the context of Baptist polity, there is no appellate system.”

Shortly before calling the meeting to a close, Young noted he hopes to achieve the transfer of authority over the denomination in less than the 30-day maximum stated in the convention’s constitution.

He also contrasted his plans for a “smooth transition” with the last national U.S. election.

“I can promise you this: There will be no insurrection on our part,” Young said, drawing some laughter and applause. “And you can bet on this: We’re not going to storm the headquarters.”

NASHVILLE (BP)—The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee announced a reorganization of executive-level leadership roles on Sept. 3, a little less than three months after Jeff Iorg became president and CEO.

While there were no staff reductions, Iorg made changes to the Executive Committee’s departmental structure.

Interim Chief Financial Officer Mike Bianchi was hired to fill that role on a permanent basis.

“We are delighted Mike has agreed to continue with us—removing the interim title—and fulfill his new role as our chief financial officer,” Iorg told Baptist Press. “He understands our financial challenges and has the expertise to help us resolve them.”

Jonathan Howe was named vice president for convention administration.

“Jonathan served with distinction as our interim president,” Iorg said. “His new role capitalizes on his overall knowledge of the Executive Committee’s work and oversight of the annual convention meeting.”

Howe has served as the Executive Committee’s vice president for communications since November 2019. He served as the entity’s interim president from August 2023 through May of this year.

Charles Grant will remain as associate vice president of convention partnerships but will move to the president’s office to work closely with Iorg in maintaining relationships with affinity groups and partners.

“When multiple staff members who served various partner groups were laid off for financial reasons, Charles stepped up to maintain those partnerships,” Iorg said. The Executive Committee eliminated five full time staff positions in Sept. 2023.

“Moving him to the president’s office connects these partner relationships more directly to me as president. Despite the staff reductions, we want our partners to know we value their relationships and input,” Iorg said.

Brandon Porter has been named vice president for communications.

“Brandon Porter has been a vital leader in communications and Cooperative Program promotion on our team,” Iorg said. “His new role is a recognition of his gifts and commitment to our overall mission.”

Porter, former Executive Committee associate vice president for convention news, will manage the communications team, which includes Baptist Press, and oversee Cooperative Program promotions.

The SBC Executive Committee is set to meet Sept. 16-17 in Nashville.

BALTIMORE (RNS)—As the annual session of the National Baptist Convention, USA, the historically Black denomination, opened Sept. 3, the biggest question that loomed is how the meeting will end. Will it have a new president or not?

In the months leading up to the gathering at the Baltimore Convention Center, members of the National Baptist Convention have witnessed a contentious battle over who will be next to lead the group that traces its roots to 1880.

Pastor Jerry Young of New Hope Baptist Church in Jackson, Miss., has been president for two five-year terms and cannot run for a consecutive third term under the denomination’s bylaws.

Of the five candidates vying to replace Young, only one—Pastor Boise Kimber of First Calvary Baptist Church in New Haven, Conn.—was found to have received the necessary 100 endorsements from member churches and other convention entities to qualify to run for president.

Pastor Thomas Morris Sr., chairman of the convention’s election supervisory commission, said while other candidates may have gotten a sufficient number of endorsements, some of the endorsements may have come from entities that had not met their financial obligations to the denomination in recent years and are not considered in good standing.

Morris said some churches have been unable to afford their annual registration with the denomination due to lack of funds, consolidation or closure.

“Many of them did not meet that 100-vote threshold,” said Morris, who also is a member of the convention’s board of directors. “Dr. Boise Kimber did.”

A new president is chosen by a simple-majority vote and is not elected by acclamation even if there is a sole candidate, said Morris, a Mississippi pastor.

“If no, then we go back to square one,” said Morris of the election set for Thursday. “But, if yes, then Dr. Kimber becomes the next president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Incorporated.”

Praying for harmony

The election was briefly mentioned at the opening session in a prayer by Rodney McFarland Sr. of Louisiana, who sought divine intervention for harmony.

“God, we realize and recognize that we will elect a new leader,” he said. “Father, we know that you already have preordained this individual and we ask right now, God, whoever it might be that, God, that you will touch your people to follow leadership. Please have mercy. Keep our convention now as one.”

The opening session included welcome messages from Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, both of whom quoted Scripture in their remarks.

Scott mentioned the other presidential election on many members’ minds and voiced his support for Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Black women have saved this country from itself time and time and time and time again and it’s high time that we elect one of them to lead us,” Scott said, drawing applause from some of the thousands in the convention center.

On his campaign website, Kimber lists his goals for the denomination, describing his vision as “A Convention where Everyone is loved, united, and committed to living out God’s Word through: global missions, evangelism, discipleship development, Christian Education, and social justice.”

Electoral process challenged

His opponents have mounted a unified campaign to challenge the process that eliminated them.

“Each of us as candidates in this presidential election cycle have united for a cause that surpasses our individual aspirations,” said Pastor Tellis Chapman of Detroit in a four-and-a-half-minute video produced in May by the disqualified challengers. “We stand together and ask to stand with us in this fight for the soul of our convention.”

Pastor Claybon Lea of San Francisco added, “We’re here because member churches have followed the membership process and are being denied the right to have their recommendation letters counted and the right to cast their vote in the upcoming election.”

Pastor James B. Sampson of Florida also participated in the video and continued to voice his concerns in an August Facebook post addressed to Young and convention members.

“There is no way that any candidate selected under these circumstances can legitimately govern this august body,” Sampson wrote. “How can we as a convention talk about politicians when we have lost our moral compass and spiritual high ground? How can we criticize or critique anything that any secular political party is doing when it comes to voter suppression?”

Pastor Alvin Love of Chicago, who also appeared in the video, told The Tennessean in August the turnout at the meeting would be a factor in the outcome of the vote.

“Our biggest challenge is not Boise Kimber. And at this point, it’s not even the shenanigans of the board,” Love told the paper. “Our challenge now is building up enough excitement among our people to even want to come to Baltimore.”

Asked to respond, Morris said: “People have different persuasions, different ways to reach a same point, and sometimes just don’t see eye to eye. And I think that’s just the way it is.”

Pastor Greggory Maddox, president of United Baptist Missionary Convention and Auxiliaries of the State of Maryland Inc., which is hosting the meeting, said in an interview the week before the gathering that he hopes it will begin and end peacefully.

“I think that the process is not flawed,” he said, speaking personally and not representing his organization.

“We want it to be a unified thing,” he added. “It may be of God’s timing and not of our timing.”

FORT WORTH (BP)—Dozens of key Baptist leaders—including Julio Guarneri, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas—gathered for a kickoff to begin preparations for the 2025 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Dallas.

Leaders met at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Aug. 22 to launch plans for the June 2025 event, which will feature a 100th anniversary celebration of the Cooperative Program and President Clint Pressley presiding over his first SBC annual meeting.

Pressley said during this year as president, he wants to remind Southern Baptists they are united around the Baptist Faith and Message and the Cooperative Program.

“We agree on those two things,” he said.

“I want us to hold fast to the confession that tells us who Christ is and why we’re on mission and our cooperating together to actually be on a mission,” said Pressley, senior pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C.

The annual meeting’s theme will be “Hold Fast,” based on Hebrews 10:23-24.

“We hold fast to the confession. We hold fast to stirring up one another to love … and to good works,” Pressley said. “That is the mission.”

Significant volunteer involvement

Around 700 volunteers are needed annually to ensure messengers and guests are served well at the annual meeting.

George Schroeder, pastor of First Baptist Church in Fairfield, is leading the coordination of the volunteers who will serve as greeters, ushers, tellers and more.

“This is Texas and we got to do this thing right. Right?” he asked the more than 200 guests.

“We get to tell people about barbecue, Dr Pepper, football and George Strait, and I suggest we do that,” said Schroeder, a former editor of Baptist Press who also worked for a time in the BGCT communications office.

“But we get to tell them about Jesus. We get to show them who we are.”

Between the two “strong state conventions” in Texas—the BGCT and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention—Baptists in the state will be able to make a favorable impression on Southern Baptists, he said.

South Carolina pastor D.J. Horton, president of next year’s pastors’ conference and senior pastor of Church at The Mill in Spartanburg, S.C., told the group the 2025 theme will be “Worth Following,” and conference preachers will focus on 2 Timothy.

“Every pastor will be assigned an exposition in 2 Timothy, and if you attend all of it, you’ll hear 10 consecutive sermons laid through verse by verse of the book of 2 Timothy,” Horton said.

“One of the themes in 2 Timothy is that Paul says it’s not about being an innovator, a cultural specialist or social media kingdom,” Horton said. “It’s about following … the doctrines that have been given to us following the pattern of sound teaching.”

Horton said he also wants to model Paul’s intentional mentorship of Timothy and create a way for all willing pastors to be connected with a mentor. He said more details will be released closer to the meeting.

Emphasis on Cooperative Program centennial

The 100th anniversary of the Cooperative Program will be a prominent theme of the 2025 meeting.

Bruno Molina, Hispanic Baptist Network executive director, and Nathan Lorick, Southern Baptists of Texas Convention executive director, joined SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg, Pressley and Guarneri for a panel discussion on the Cooperative Program.

The group gave firsthand accounts of the many ways funds given through the Cooperative Program have been a part of their ministries—from supplementing their seminary educations, to providing a way for their local churches to be involved in national and international missions to supporting state conventions and national entities.

“We’re celebrating what God has done for each one of us to make it possible for us to be not only supporters of but recipients from the Cooperative Program and what it’s meant in our lives,” said Iorg.

Crossover outreach events slated

Ryan Jespersen, Dallas Baptist Association executive director, will be at the helm of Crossover, a citywide outreach initiative, that will take place in the days leading up to the 2025 meeting. Hundreds of Southern Baptists joined together in Indianapolis this past June to carry out dozens of events across the city.

Jespersen believes the impact in Texas will be felt across all of the local associations that touch the Dallas area as efforts will be to mobilize churches in each association to lead in what he called harvest events.

“This year, the North American Mission Board has said we are going to do events that focus on church evangelism,” Jespersen said.

After the meeting, Jespersen told Baptist Press, “These Harvest events could be backyard Bible clubs, block parties, neighborhood canvassing, park outreaches, harvest Sundays with the availability of preachers from all over the country, or anything that the church feels led to do that will directly reach people with the gospel.”

He said “limited grants will be available for churches in Dallas, Denton, Collin, Tarrant, Kauf-Van, Southwest Metroplex, Ellis, and Hunt” Baptist associations.

Jespersen encourages Southern Baptists from across the country “to come and share the gospel with people in the greater DFW area.”

Kickoff participants spent time praying that God would not only lead during the gathering next June but prepare the way for Southern Baptists as they plan to impact Dallas with the gospel.

The prayer time was led by Ray Gentry, president of the Southern Baptist Conference of Associational Leaders; Eddie Lopez, SBC second vice president; and Marcus Hayes, pastor of Crossroads Baptist in The Woodlands.

Texas-based SBC leaders David Dockery and Hance Dilbeck shared their excitement for welcoming Southern Baptists to the “Big D” next summer. Dockery is president of Southwestern Seminary, and Dilbeck is president of GuideStone Financial Resources.

“Being in Dallas, where GuideStone is located, we will have the opportunity to deploy financial educators and advisors to the annual meeting to serve pastors in a great way,” Dilbeck said.

Dockery prayed for the work of the convention: “God, thank you for the privilege to work together in the cause of advancing the gospel. We pray that your hand of favor blessing might rest upon Southern Baptists this day and in days to come.”

Days before the start of a new school year, more than 1,730 college students and leaders gathered at Falls Creek Conference Center in Oklahoma to learn how to live on mission and become passionate followers of Jesus.

Groups from across North America—including Alaska, Hawaii and Canada—met with International Mission Board and North American Mission Board personnel for the five-day event that included worship, teaching and fellowship.

State convention collegiate ministry leaders partnered to plan and produce the event, which saw its largest post-COVID attendance this year.

Pastor Arjay Gruspe of Pawa’a Community Church in Honolulu, who also is director of Next Generation Ministries for the Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention, served on the event planning team.

This year he brought eight others from Hawaii, including four students, to “challenge them to be countercultural in the way they live and approach life on their campuses.”

He celebrated the report that more than 50 individuals prayed to receive Christ as Savior and more than 200 responded to a call to ministry during Collegiate Week.

“It was great to see so many campus and church-based campus ministries interacting and planning ways to partner and pray for one another this fall,” Gruspe said. “IMB always has a strong presence and did a great job in having students consider mission involvement.”

Gruspe added he was glad to see increased numbers of seminaries engaging with students this year.

‘College years are pivotal’

Collegiate Week partners with Southern Baptist seminaries, Woman’s Missionary Union, NAMB and IMB to introduce students and leaders to a wide spectrum of available missions, vocational and educational opportunities.

Registration Coordinator Carissa Jones of the Oklahoma Baptist Convention noted the event also seeks to help participants take their next steps in ministry leadership.

“The college years are pivotal. Students are often on their own for the first time and making decisions that will impact them for the rest of their lives,” Jones said. “The world is there waiting for them, and the body of Christ needs to be as well.”

H.B. Charles, Shane Pruitt and Tommy Woodard were featured speakers during the 2024 Collegiate Week, with worship sessions led by Cody Dunbar and Matt Roberson.

Participants recorded decisions and requested follow-up contact through a QR code, and others responded during worship services, which saw hundreds of participants gather throughout the altar area.

Denton minister brought 35 students

Jared Gregory, college pastor at First Baptist Church in Denton, has brought students from his church’s ministry to Collegiate Week since 2018 and has served in several planning capacities for the event over the years.

He characterized it as a time for students to “connect with God, each other, and our mission agencies” before the back-to-school rush sets in.

This year, Gregory brought 35 students from the University of North Texas, Texas Woman’s University and North Central Texas College.

“It’s such a good week to see students get right in their relationship with God before they start ministry to others,” Gregory said. “This year, we had a number of students come forward to confess sin in their lives that is holding them back from God, and three students declared a call to ministry.”

Stacy Murphree, campus minister at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn., said the timing of Collegiate Week is a bonus, right before the beginning of fall semester. This year, she brought about 100 Baptist Collegiate Ministry students from six campuses, and she said student and leaders benefitted from networking and sharing ideas.

The experience also “jumpstarts” her leaders, who had about one week before campus ministries officially started, she added.

“I love that our students can hear about campuses in emerging areas. Maybe they could feel personally led to serve in those areas, but this also broadens their perspective of campus ministry that’s not just about what we do on our campuses,” Murphree said. “It’s about what God is doing throughout the United States.

“Nowhere else could they be with other students from other BCMs across the country and now be able to better pray for those campuses, too. This is such a valuable time.”