Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd tells messengers at the SBC annual meeting that “we must pray for the third Great Awakening.” The two-day meeting was held June 16-17 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio.
– Photo by By Adam Covington

By Baptist Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (BP) — Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd called for pastoral leadership in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination to seize a “Bonhoeffer moment” by refusing to be silent in the face of persecution, to hold on to the Word of God, take heart and be encouraged.

“The lostness has never been greater in our dangerous and hopeless world,” Floyd, pastor of Cross Church in northwest Arkansas, said in his president’s message to the SBC annual meeting June 16 in Columbus, Ohio.

“Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to rise up and lead.”

Punctuated by frequent applause from nearly 7,000 messengers and guests, Floyd’s message, titled “Now Is the Time to Lead,” began with broadcast clips showing that “the alarm clock is going off in our nation and across the world.”

“I believe if the 59 presidents who have preceded me could speak to us in this hour … they would declare to us that we are living right now in our most defining hour as Southern Baptists.” Citing Romans 13:11 to declare it a “kairos” moment, Floyd described a season “fixed by a sovereign God as a true moment of destiny.” [Read more…]

Ronnie Floyd, SBC president, seated, left of center, and past SBC presidents participate in a June 17 press conference on their statement on marriage and religious liberty. Jack Graham, far left, senior pastor, Prestonwood Baptist Church, Plano, Texas, is speaking.

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

COLUMBUS, Ohio – With the decision of the United States Supreme Court on whether all states must recognize same-sex marriage still to come, Southern Baptists have made it clear where they stand.

Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Columbus passed a resolution June 16 that declared that “no matter how the Supreme Court rules, the Southern Baptist Convention reaffirms its unwavering commitment to its doctrinal and public beliefs concerning marriage.”

The following day (June 17) all 17 former living SBC presidents since 1980 issued a statement on marriage and religious liberty. The signers included Bobby Welch, associate executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, who served as president in 2005-06 while serving as pastor of First Baptist Church, Daytona Beach, Fla.

Prior to reading the statement during a press conference, SBC President Ronnie Floyd stressed that the former presidents were speaking for themselves, not the convention. [Read more…]

Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd gives the president’s address June 16 during the opening session of the SBC annual meeting at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio.
– Photo by By Matt Miller

By Baptist Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (BP) — Arkansas pastor Ronnie Floyd was reelected without opposition to a second term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention June 16 during the SBC annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio.

Registered messengers totaled 5,277 messengers at the time.

Floyd was nominated by North Carolina pastor J.D. Greear, who said, “God’s hand has been upon Brother Ronnie. I believe he is the man God has raised up to lead us for another year.”

All other SBC officers for the coming year also were elected without opposition.

Kansas pastor Steve Dighton, senior pastoral adviser at the Kansas City-area Lenexa Baptist Church in Lenexa, Kan., was elected as first vice president, nominated by Texas pastor and former SBC president Jack Graham. [Read more…]

Messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting vote on a resolutions report by raising ballots June 16 during the afternoon session at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio.
-Photo by Paul W. Lee

By Baptist Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (BP) — Messengers to the 2015 Southern Baptist Convention adopted nine resolutions — some on culturally divisive issues — with almost no opposition.

All the resolutions offered in the Tuesday afternoon session (June 16) at the SBC’s meeting gained passage by unanimous or nearly unanimous votes. The messengers affirmed biblically based stances on such topics as same-sex marriage, racial reconciliation and the sanctity of human life, as well as religious persecution and pornography. Approved resolutions also called for spiritual awakening and celebrated the 90th anniversary of the Cooperative Program.

Prior to the convention, the Resolutions Committee received only four resolutions, an unusually small number. As a result, the committee initiated more resolutions than normal, but committee chairman Steve Gaines said finding topics proved no problem. [Read more…]

Steve Gaines

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Prayer needs to be the priority of every Christian’s life, affirmed Tennessee Baptist Steve Gaines of Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova.

In the final message of the afternoon session of the Southern Baptist Pastors Conference June 15, Gaines observed, “a day without prayer is a wasted day.”

Using Mark 11:22-26 as his text, Gaines noted that prayer can still move mountains but it takes more than a “bless me, business as usual” type of prayer. Three things must take place for mountain-moving prayer, he stressed.

“Mountains are moved when God’s people pray with fervency,” Gaines said.

Fervent prayer means prayers that involve risk. Gaines noted that John Knox, a Scottish clergyman and leader of the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, prayed, “Give me Scotland or I die.” That was a fervent prayer, Gaines observed. [Read more…]