2017 SBC Annual Meeting

The Executive Committee report highlighted Resonate, a collegiate church planting network supported by the Cooperative Program that has seen more than 700 students baptized since 2007 and continues to multiply.

PHOENIX (BP) -- Tennessee pastor Steve Gaines was reelected by acclamation to a second term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention during the June 13-14 SBC annual meeting in Phoenix. He will lead a diverse slate of officers including Walter Strickland, an African American leader of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary's Kingdom Diversity Initiative, first vice president; Jose Abella, a bilingual church planter from Miami, second vice president; John Yeats, who has served as recording secretary for the past two decades; and Don Currence, a pastor at First Baptist Church in Ozark, Mo., registration secretary.

Messengers to the 2017 Southern Baptist Convention to vote Wednesday (June 14) on a previously rejected proposal denouncing the "alt-right."

PHOENIX (BP) -- The 4,000-church strong National African American Fellowship (NAAF) announced new partnership initiatives at its June 12 business meeting to increase black church participation and leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention. Partnership initiatives with Southern Baptist mission boards, intended to strengthen churches while advancing the Great Commission, are at various stages of development, NAAF Executive Director Dennis Mitchell said during his annual report. Initiatives with non-SBC but like-minded ministries valuable in the African American community are also underway, Mitchell said.

PHOENIX (BP) -- AVANCE 2017 drew Hispanic Southern Baptists from across the nation on Monday (June 12) prior to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting to encourage more Hispanic congregations and their pastors to mobilize for missions. Edgar Aponte, International Mission Board vice president for mobilization, encouraged those in attendance to fill up the ranks of missionaries and churches going out and sharing the Gospel.

PHOENIX (BP) -- Flanked by more than two dozen Florida pastors, Tommy Green of the Florida Baptist Convention presented a gift of $3,136,500 to the Southern Baptist Convention during the Executive Committee report June 13 in Phoenix. The CP gift, from the sale of the Florida convention's former building, was among numerous facets of the Executive Committee's report to messengers during the convention's 160th session since the SBC's founding in 1845.

The 2017 SBC Pastors' Conference proved historic on many levels including the unanimous election of H.B. Charles Jr., pastor of Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., as the conference's first black president.

PHOENIX (BP) -- Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, said he began his ministry as a street preacher who didn't know anything about the Southern Baptist Convention. Luter, a former SBC president, was one of four pastors who gave a "Common Ground Testimony" to encourage those in ministry during the SBC Pastors' Conference meeting in Phoenix June 11-12.

PHOENIX (BP) -- A full-capacity audience gathered at the Phoenix Convention Center Monday (June 12) for a discussion about evangelism at the North American Mission Board's 2017 Send Luncheon which coincided with the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors' Conference. "NAMB exists to come alongside churches and help them be on mission," NAMB president Kevin Ezell told pastors. "The mission of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To push back lostness in North America. To see that every man, woman, boy and girl can hear the Gospel. Everything we do is about evangelism. We as a convention need to focus on having gospel conversations."

PHOENIX (BP) -- The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee heard a report today (June 12) that "escrowing, withholding [and] reducing" gifts through the Cooperative Program is "not as widespread" as thought in February when the EC's CP Committee created a special committee to study the issue. The EC also voted to ask the SBC for authorization to sell the SBC Building in Nashville if a favorable offer is made. The committee additionally adopted a resolution of appreciation for SBC registration secretary Jim Wells, who has completed 15 years of service and will not attend this year's SBC annual meeting due to an ongoing battle with cancer.