BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (BP) — Kathy Litton, director of planter spouse development for the North American Mission Board, will be nominated as registration secretary of the Southern Baptist Convention during the SBC’s June 11-12 annual meeting, Florida pastor Jimmy Scroggins has announced.
Scroggins, lead pastor of Family Church in West Palm Beach, Fla., said in a May 28 statement to Baptist Press that Litton “has given a lifetime of service to Southern Baptists at all levels of our convention.”
“But what really sets her apart is her tireless encouragement and courageous friendship to so many spouses and families of pastors and planters,” Scroggins said. “She has established strong credibility with both men and women across the SBC and she can speak with wisdom, strength and compassion to the issues at hand. With all of the conversations going on in our convention about integrity, sexual abuse and women in ministry, this is the right time and Kathy is the right person for this vital role.”
Litton is the second nominee for SBC registration secretary during the SBC’s upcoming sessions in Birmingham, Ala. Current registration secretary Don Currence will be nominated for a third term, according to a May 13 announcement by his pastor, Phillip Burden of First Baptist Church in Ozark, Mo. Currence is the church’s administrative pastor.
Litton is a member of Redemption Church in Saraland, Ala. In 2018, the church reported $456,976 in Great Commission Giving to Southern Baptist causes, including $128,205 through the Cooperative Program, or 3.9 percent of $3,298,747 in undesignated receipts, for state convention and SBC national and international missions and ministries.
Litton has been a pastor’s wife in Missouri, Texas, Colorado and Alabama for more than 35 years, Scroggins said, and has participated in mission work both internationally and domestically, serving in Malawi, Cuba, Guatemala, Thailand, India and South Korea, disaster relief in New Orleans, migrant work in central Michigan and outreach in inner-city Chicago.
She has been a member of the SBC Committee on Nominations, the Committee on Resolutions and the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force and has served on the staff at Cross Church Pinnacle Hills in Rogers, Ark.
Litton has been on NAMB’s staff for eight years. In her current role with the mission board’s Send Network team, she gives leadership in providing various avenues of care, coaching and training for planter spouses across North America “to enable them to be equipped and healthy to advance the Gospel in areas of vast lostness,” Scroggins said, noting that she has gained “a strong and balanced perspective of the scope and richness of Southern Baptist work” in her travels across the country.
Litton has been actively involved Bible teaching and discipleship in the local church since she was 18 years old serving students, women and young married couples, Scroggins said.
Litton’s husband Ed is Redemption Church’s senior pastor. She was previously married to Rick Ferguson, former senior pastor of Riverside Church in Denver, who was killed in tragic auto accident in 2002 just before their 26th wedding anniversary. Her husband Ed’s former wife Tammy also was lost in an auto accident in 2007.
“God is writing a unique story with the Littons as together they share of the marvelous goodness of God in the midst of their devastating losses,” Scroggins said. The Littons share six children and 10 grandchildren.
Litton holds a bachelor of science in education from the University of Missouri in St Louis.
Scroggins, in his statement to Baptist Press, relayed support for Litton from Johnny Hunt, a former SBC president, and other leaders.
Hunt, now senior vice president of evangelism and leadership at NAMB and former senior pastor of the Atlanta-area First Baptist Church in Woodstock, noted, “For over 25 years Kathy Litton has modeled leadership at its finest” and has been “tested and proven in character” through “the loss of a pastor/husband, the marrying of a pastor who lost his wife tragically, the embracing of Christ-honoring service to two pastors” and now as a leader at NAMB to church planters wives and through the mission board’s Timothy+Barnabas discipleship ministry to pastors and their spouses.
Susie Hawkins, speaker, author and former pastor’s wife, said Litton’s “understanding of how our convention operates, her winsome leadership abilities and years of ministry experience uniquely qualify her for this position. She will bring her characteristic efficiency and considerable skills to this office and I look forward to her service.”
Micah Fries, senior pastor of Brainerd Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tenn., described Litton as “a passionate and faithful Southern Baptist who has served our family of churches well for years. She is an excellent leader who has served as a model to the rest of us in Southern Baptist life about how to live and serve Jesus and her family of churches with excellence.”