Mike Keahbone / BP Press

NASHVILLE — It was an older lady knocking on his door that truly helped Mike Keahbone start his faith journey. The lady was from a church down the street, and she was inviting him to Vacation Bible School.

Keahbone, 52, pastor First Baptist Church in Lawton, Oklahoma, is one of the known candidates to be nominated for SBC president at the 2024 SBC Annual Meeting.

Growing up with a Native American heritage (he’s on the Comanche role), Keahbone says when things were good they were good, and when they were bad they were really bad. Alcoholism and addiction took a toll on his family. [Read more…]

Clint Pressley / BP photo

NASHVILLE — Clint Pressley feels indebted to the Southern Baptist Convention. The North Carolina pastor told Baptist Press he’s willing to be nominated to serve as SBC president because he wants to see the Convention healthy and strong as it moves forward doing the things Southern Baptists love to do.

Pressley, 55, was the first announced candidate for the office to be decided at the 2024 SBC Annual Meeting. While the official announcement came in January, Pressley had said he would be willing to serve back in October 2023 at the Baptist Convention of North Carolina’s Pastors’ Conference.

Originally from Charlotte, N.C., he began serving as senior pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte in 2011. Pressley was first a member of the church when he was 16 years old. He became a Christian while at a summer camp when he was 11, though he was attending a different church at that time. [Read more…]

David Allen / BP photo

NASHVILLE — David Allen has been preaching the gospel for a long time. That’s because he got an early start. Allen said God called him when he was only 16 years old.

Allen, 67, is one of the known candidates to be nominated for SBC president at the 2024 SBC Annual Meeting and said he’s blessed to have been in church all his life, literally. “Actually, I was attending nine months before I was born,” he told Baptist Press.

Growing up in Rome, Ga., his family was active at West Rome Baptist Church, and it was there that he heard the gospel. He came to faith in Christ when he was 9.

As a junior in high school, he sensed God calling him to ministry, and he began thinking about “what that would mean and what I would do.” [Read more…]

KNOXVILLE — A coalition of 18 states, including Tennessee, filed suit May 13 against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for including gender identity in Title VII protections against sex discrimination.

The states oppose EEOC guidance requiring employers to call transgendered employees by their preferred pronouns and to allow them to use facilities such as bathrooms, locker rooms and showers that align with their chosen gender.

The Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), which opposed the guidance before the EEOC finalized it, welcomed the states’ action. [Read more…]

The ADF Church and Ministry Alliance will host a livestream entitled Church & Culture: Navigating Faith and Politics as a Ministry Leader on May 16, at 2 p.m. The livestream will include discussion on how leaders can help their churches navigate this election season according to their convictions and within their legal rights.

Key questions to be explored will include:   [Read more…]

Clyde Meador, shown here speaking at Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., in 2010, worked closely with four IMB presidents. — IMB photo

Longtime International Mission Board leader Clyde D. Meador died April 26, 2024. He was 79.

Meador worked closely with four IMB presidents as a top advisor and executive vice president, and as the mission organization’s interim president from August 2010 to March 2011 and again briefly in 2018 before the election of current president Paul Chitwood.

“I thank God for the life and friendship of Clyde Meador,” Chitwood said. “I first met Clyde when I began serving as an IMB trustee in 2002. Over the following years, I saw Clyde was a leader who had earned the trust of everyone — trustees, administrators and missionaries.”

When Chitwood was elected president in November 2018, he asked trustees’ approval for Meador to remain in the President’s Office as interim executive vice president during the transition. [Read more…]

AUGUSTA — With its manicured greens, blooming azaleas and a spectator menu featuring prices from yesteryear, the scene at Augusta National Golf Club in the first full week of April is, indeed, a tradition unlike any other.

The subject of faith can also be raised. Scottie Scheffler, the top-ranked golfer in the world who earned his first green jacket in 2022, recently talked about how the sport doesn’t define him; his faith does.

“I feel I’ve been given a platform to compete and show my talent,” he said. “… I’ve been called to come out here and compete and glorify God.”

Testimonies like Scheffler’s and the PGA Tour Bible Study group of which he is a part are an encouragement for believers and golf fans alike. However, the gospel’s impact will not end with the final putt on Sunday. [Read more…]

Baptist Press graphic

LENEXA, Kansas — Steve Dighton will nominate David Crowther to serve as Southern Baptist Convention first vice president at the 2024 SBC Annual Meeting. Crowther is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Wichita.

“David Crowther is a young dynamic leader, and one who would thrive in this position of leadership,” Dighton told Baptist Press.

“He is humble, a servant leader, a gifted preacher and a loving shepherd,” said Dighton. “He is a consensus builder and desires to see us flourish in the years to come.” [Read more…]

NASHVILLE — Southern Baptist leaders are calling for prayer and peace in the wake of Iran’s direct attacks on Israel. The attacks occurred overnight on April 13 as hundreds of drones and rockets were launched in retaliation for a strike Israel made April 1 against an Iranian consulate.

Israeli defense forces claim that 99 percent of the drones and rockets were destroyed by their Iron Dome defense system before impacting targets.

U.S. president Joe Biden condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms.” [Read more…]