Southern Baptist Convention Day 3: A Historic Day

Tuesday began the actual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans. This is where all of the entities of the SBC give a report of what has happened the previous year and also give a glimpse of where they see things going the next year. Depending on how you look at it, this meeting can be boring as you hear all the figures or exciting as you see the direction the ministries of the SBC are going.

The exciting part of the day came with the election of the new President of the SBC. This year there was only one candidate on the ballot: Fred Luter, Jr. Luter is the pastor at Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, LA. He had previously served as the 1st Vice President of the SBC. From all these details, one would have a hard time realizing what all the hype is about.

The key element is that Fred Luter, Jr is now the first African American President of the SBC.

In our day where racial lines are guarded greatly, this election is a move by the SBC to show that we have come a long way from where we were. One of the biggest black eyes of the SBC was that a main issue at its beginning was that the SBC was in favor of slavery. In 1995, the SBC took a step in the right direction with a resolution that was passed at the annual meeting declaring the wrongs of the SBC in the past concerning racism and seeking forgiveness.

Today's unanimous vote for Fred Luter, Jr was another step in showing that the SBC has its focus in the right direction. Jesus died for the world - that is all races. One thing I would like to point out though is that I firmly believe that this was NOT a political vote. Luter is one of the finest preachers I have had the opportunity to hear. He has had the leadership skills to take a dying church in one of the toughest areas of the country and make it a mega-church before and after Hurricane Katrina. There's no doubt that God has His hand on Fred Luter and has equipped him for this position as the President of the SBC.

My prayers and support go to my brother. I look forward to serving with him at the helm of our denomination.

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Southern Baptist Convention Day 2

Monday was the final day of the SBC's Pastors Conference. I came down to NOLA knowing that this (the Pastors Conference) would probably be my favorite part of the whole meeting time. How many times does one get to hear preaching from some of God's most gifted servants at one place?

I love conferences like this. There is just so much. It is true that many times you feel that you are trying to drink from a fire hydrant, but it is still good. There are all the booths in the exhibition hall where you have people trying to show you what they have to offer. The best part about these is that most of these booths have freebies.

You also have those people that you run into and haven't seen in forever. I believe that I ran into half of my graduating class from college today. It was good catching up with some. I had the privilege of talking with a seminary professor from NOBTS and letting him know that the prayers we prayed together about God opening a place for me to serve as pastor were answered. He returned that favor by introducing me to a couple of pastors who have been at it for a while. These great guys gave me some "words of advice" and prayed for me,

And what would the Pastors Conference be without the preaching? Today there were sermons from people like Johnny Hunt, David Jeremiah, Dennis Swanberg, David Platt, Jack Graham, James Macdonald, and Fred Luter, Jr. To say that my cup is overflowing is an understatement. It will take some time to go through what each of these men shared from the Word and let it get in deep to my heart. I will wait for future posts to flesh my thoughts on some of these messages out more.

One thing that I was grateful for was the way that some of the issues that may have divided some were handled by this conference. Yes, I am talking about the Calvinism debate that seemed to pop up right before the Convention in SBC circles. I believe that men on both sides of the aisle proved that we can be on either side and still be about taking the Gospel to the nations.

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