2016 SBC Annual Meeting

ST LOUIS (BP) -- In the spring of 1891, Southern Baptists meeting at the Alabama Opera House in Birmingham voted to create a Sunday School board to publish Bible studies and other resources for discipleship. Today that board, now LifeWay Christian Resources, remains committed to the same core mission, Thom S. Rainer told messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention on Wednesday morning, July 15.

ST. LOUIS (BP) -- The Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting drew 7,321 messengers to St. Louis June 14-15 from the nation's 46,000-plus Southern Baptist churches. The unofficial total is 35 percent above last year's 5,407 messengers in Columbus, Ohio. When registered guests, exhibitors and others are included, the count of those at the SBC annual meeting rose to 11,581 as of Wednesday morning.

ST. LOUIS (BP) -- Southern Baptist volunteers took advantage of the preparations made in advance of Crossover St. Louis and saw those efforts result in 556 St. Louis residents placing their faith in Christ for salvation. As the host city for the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, the St. Louis Baptist Association and executive director Jim Breeden helped create environments where people were receptive to Gospel conversations.

ST. LOUIS (BP) -- Messengers to the 2016 Southern Baptist Convention, in addition to repudiating the display of the Confederate battle flag, approved 11 other resolutions on a variety of culture and ministry concerns. Messengers voted on the proposals over both days of the annual meeting, adopting resolutions that expressed compassion for those devastated by the Orlando mass shooting, urged consistent evangelism of unbelievers and encouraged care for refugees. They also passed measures that included calling for the federal government not to discriminate against people who support only the biblical, traditional view of marriage and opposing an effort to require women to register for the military draft.

ST. LOUIS (BP) -- Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention proposed 22 motions, the most since 2010. Ten motions were referred to convention entities for further study and for a report at the 2017 SBC meeting in Phoenix. The Committee on Order of Business automatically referred three motions to SBC entities and/or the Executive Committee:

ST. LOUIS (BP) -- Steve Gaines, elected president by acclamation at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, recounted in a press conference afterward how God led the candidates to that "special moment" of unity. After a runoff didn't produce a majority winner between Gaines, pastor of the Memphis-area Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn., and J.D. Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., Greear withdrew his name and urged messengers to vote for Gaines.

ST. LOUIS (BP) -- Two significant changes in Southern Baptist life were key elements of the Executive Committee report to 7,200-plus messengers at the SBC annual meeting in St. Louis: -- final approval of the new name -- Gateway Seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention -- for the former Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, which is relocating its main campus to Southern California from the San Francisco Bay Area.

ST. LOUIS (BP) -- At times they raised their hands. At times they gathered together in groups of two to three. And at times thousands of messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention knelt at their chairs on Tuesday night (June 14) as they pleaded with God to bring national revival and spiritual awakening to America. In one of his final acts as SBC president, Ronnie Floyd led the convention in an evening of prayer during its annual meeting in St. Louis. "From this moment on, it will not be about personalities on the stage. It will be about Jesus, all the way," said Floyd, who has focused much of his two-year presidency on urging Southern Baptists to pray for spiritual awakening. "We're about to give Him praise. And from this moment on, I'm going to ask you to give Him your all. What if this were your last night on this earth? Wouldn't you want to give it all to Jesus and be ready?"

ST. LOUIS (BP) -- Southern Baptists need "a long-term vision of Great Commission Advance." Frank S. Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee, addressing messengers to the convention's annual meeting, cited Southern Baptists' decline in baptisms and in missionary numbers in calling for "a groundswell of intentionality like never before to see God's Great Commission accomplished." "It is time to review our ministry assignments. It is time to see if there is any way we can lead our churches" toward heightened resolve in "the work God called them to do," said Page, whose vision for Great Commission Advance has called churches to elevate their missions involvement through the Cooperative Program.

ST LOUIS (BP) -- Radical obedience, inexplicable unity and Scriptural correctness were the clarion calls in K. Marshall Williams' final presidential address to the National African American Fellowship of the Southern Baptist Convention preceding the SBC annual meeting in St. Louis. Williams, pastor of Nazarene Baptist Church in Philadelphia, employed the rhythmic and exhortative preaching style traditionally heard in African American pulpits across the country when he called preachers to be prophets of God instead of "pimps and puppets."