2012: SBC New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS (BP) -- David Uth called Southern Baptists to a fresh understanding of the depth of the love of Jesus Christ, urging them to "love loud and love much because of all that He has forgiven."

NEW ORLEANS (BP) — Attendance at the 2012 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting June 19-20 tallied 7,868 messengers from the nation’s 45,000 Southern Baptist churches. Official numbers will not be released until later in June. In 2001, the last time Southern Baptists gathered in New Orleans, 9,584 messengers were in attendance. “We were expecting 8,000 […]

NEW ORLEANS (BP) -- Messengers offered 19 motions during the opening day of the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in New Orleans June 19.

NEW ORLEANS (BP) -- In one of the most historic meetings in the Southern Baptist Convention's 167-year history, messengers meeting June 19-20 elected the body's first African American president and voted to keep the convention's name while approving a descriptor, "Great Commission Baptists," for those churches that wish to use it. The momentous occasion in New Orleans brought media from across the nation to see the election of Fred Luter, a descendent of slaves who now is the president of a convention whose founders, in 1845, defended slavery. The convention officially repented of its racist past at the 1995 meeting, and has seen the percentage of non-white churches grow, from 5 percent of the SBC in 1990 to 19 percent in 2010. Last year, messengers approved a landmark report encouraging ethnic diversity in committee appointments. Luter, who was unopposed and received a lengthy standing ovation from messengers when elected, told media at a news conference that he sees his election as being a turning point for blacks and other ethnic groups. "Here is a convention that has been talking this racial reconciliation thing and now they're putting their money where their mouth is," said Luter, pastor of New Orleans' Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, whose building was flooded after Hurricane Katrina but has been rebuilt into a mega-church amid the city's much-reduced population.

NEW ORLEANS (BP) — The Conservative Resurgence within the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s and ’90s and its implications for the future of the denomination were discussed at the Baptist21 luncheon June 19 in New Orleans where two key leaders of the movement — Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler — were honored. A six-member […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: An updated story on resolutions adopted at the SBC annual meeting in New Orleans will be posted in Baptist Press on Thursday (June 21). NEW ORLEANS (BP) — Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention approved Wednesday morning June 20 at their annual meeting a resolution identifying what is frequently described as a “Sinner’s […]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) — Nearly equal numbers of pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention consider their churches as Calvinist/Reformed as do Arminian/Wesleyan, although more than 60 percent are somewhat or strongly concerned about the effect of Calvinism on the denomination, according to a new survey from LifeWay Research. LifeWay Research presented a slate of statements […]

NEW ORLEANS (BP) — North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell, at the Send North America luncheon June 19, thanked churches for their Annie Armstrong Easter Offering gifts in 2011 as NAMB leadership cast a vision for every church to be a part of church planting. “In a time of transition when many predicted the […]

NEW ORLEANS (BP) — In his report to the Southern Baptist Convention, LifeWay President Thom S. Rainer highlighted several transformational products and projects in which LifeWay has experienced “God’s hand and God’s favor.” Rainer expressed gratitude for the partnership with Sherwood Baptist Church, producer of highly acclaimed movies including, and “Courageous,” “Fireproof” and “Facing the […]

NEW ORLEANS (BP) — The “elephant in the room” in the Southern Baptist Convention is the tension between “traditional” Southern Baptists and “Calvinists,” Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright said in his message to the SBC annual meeting June 19 in New Orleans. Wright, pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., for over […]