DACULA, Ga. (BP)–James Merritt is at heart a country boy. The president of the Southern Baptist Convention and the pastor of one of Atlanta’s largest churches, Merritt likes his tea sweet, his music country, and his football between the hedges. As his second term as president of the SBC comes to an end, Merritt said he is still amazed that a boy who grew up in Oakwood, Ga., had the chance to lead the nation’s largest evangelical denomination.
“It’s a microcosm of America,” Merritt said in an interview with Baptist Press. “I grew up in a town that was Mayberry. I was Opie Taylor growing up. We didn’t lock our doors at night and the most money my dad made a week was $100.”
From those humble beginnings, Merritt graduated from South Hall High School in nearby Gainesville and moved to DeLand, Fla., where he earned a business degree at Stetson University. In 1974 he answered the call to preach and four years later he earned a master of divinity degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
“When I got to seminary I didn’t even know how to write a paper,” Merritt said. “The only thing I knew was the Bible was the Word of God. It never occurred to me that I would be president of the Southern Baptist Convention. God has an incredible sense of humor.”
Merritt was first elected president of the SBC at the 2000 annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. At 47, he became one of the convention’s youngest presidents and the first baby boomer elected to lead Southern Baptists.
SBC Executive Committee President and Chief Executive Officer Morris H. Chapman called Merritt one of the most effective communicators ever elected to the presidency.
“When I think of James Merritt, I first and foremost think of his love for Jesus and his passion for telling others that Jesus loves them too,” Chapman said. “He is one of the Southern Baptist Convention’s most effective preachers and he never fails to give an urgent appeal for people to trust Jesus as Savior.”
As his presidency nears its end, Merritt said he is ready to return home to his church and, most importantly, his family.
“As long as I live, I will never get over the unbelievable honor Southern Baptists gave me by electing me president,” he said. “I will forever be humbled that Southern Baptists put enough trust in me at a young age. But I am ready to go back to my plow. I am more than happy to go back to my church, pastor my church and just be another Southern Baptist pastor cheering on the next guy.”
Despite the power and prestige that accompany the SBC presidency, Merritt said he is gladly giving it up.
“Frankly, I have never given a second thought to what I will do next,” he said. “I didn’t ask for this job and I was happy before I became president of the convention. The number one thing I hope people will say about me is that the guy they knew before he was president is the same they know now that he isn’t president.”
Merritt said the true hero in his tenure as president is his wife, Teresa.
“My wife is unbelievably supportive,” he said. “I do have the greatest wife in the world. We’ve been married 26 years and she is my best friend. I love her more than anything in life. I couldn’t have done what I’ve done without her support, her love and her understanding.”
When Merritt was first approached about the presidency, he called a family meeting in the living room with Teresa and their three sons, James Jr., Jonathan and Joshua.
“I told them that they were all president and had veto power. If one person said no, I would not consider the presidency,” he said. “They all said, ‘Dad, you ought to go for it.’
“Candidly, it was tougher than we thought it would be,” he said. “It was tougher on our family than we thought it would be. Thank God we have an incredibly strong marriage. To be honest, I think lesser marriages would have some real severe trouble. But Teresa has been great.
“I can assure you, though, that she is counting the seconds to when I’m no longer president of the Southern Baptist Convention,” he added.
Merritt said part of the tough times involved his travel schedule. Merritt became the only SBC president to visit all 15 regions of the world with the International Mission Board.
“You can be president of the convention and go nowhere,” he said. “But I don’t think you can be as effective as you ought to be without going.”
Added to his non-stop travel schedule were countless interviews with national media, television talk shows, appointing individuals to positions within the SBC, and the sheer fact that he was representing more than 16 million Southern Baptists.
Was it really worth the stress?
“That’s for others to say,” Merritt said. “I hope I made a difference. I hope history will look back kindly on my tenure as president. I think it was worth it. I think I had an impact that I couldn’t have before. How many men in history have the president of the United States look at you and say, ‘James, what do you think?'” President Bush invited Merritt and other national religious leaders to the White House in the days and months following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to seek spiritual counsel. He was one of a handful of ministers asked to privately meet with the president for prayer and encouragement.
“I had a chance to say some things to the president, who I love and admire greatly,” he said.
In his missions travels, Merritt delivered a seven-minute sermon in Brazil on how to be saved and 600 people came to faith in Jesus Christ.
“To be able to go to remote areas of the world where we have workers in the field, and having missionaries with tears coming down their face say that they never dreamed they would get a chance to meet a president of the Southern Baptist Convention and that we would never know what it meant for us to be there, is something that made it all worthwhile,” he said.
Looking back on the presidency, Merritt offered some advice for his successor.
“Be extremely careful that you don’t neglect your family,” he said. “Be judicious at what you say yes to and no to. And be extremely careful what you say to the media. No matter what anybody says, you are always on the record.”
Finally, Merritt said, don’t let the job go to your head.
“Even though you are president of the Southern Baptist Convention, you are no better in the eyes of God than that little country preacher down in Arkansas who gives his Cooperative Program money, comes to the convention, eats his sack lunch and votes just like everybody else.”
Ironically, the man who originally nominated Merritt to the presidency, Dallas-area pastor Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist Church, will be nominated to replace him. Graham is expected to be elected president of the SBC at the June 11-12 annual meeting in St. Louis.
“I believe Jack Graham will do a tremendous job as president of the convention,” he said.
Meanwhile, Merritt will focus his attention on his family and the congregation at First Baptist Church, Snellville. After two years, the country boy from Georgia has a new appreciation for the 16-million-member SBC.
“I have never been more impressed by Southern Baptists than by having seen them up close over these past two years,” he said. “I have never been more proud of our Southern Baptists and I’ve never been more proud to be a Southern Baptist.”
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(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at https://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: MERRITT FAMILY.
