Southern Baptist Convention 2024

JUNE 30, 2024  |  PASTOR JR VASSAR

Church family,

As you might know, Church at the Cross cooperates with the Southern Baptist Convention for the sake of planting churches in North America, contributing to global disaster relief, and sending missionaries all over the world. Every year, the SBC holds its annual meeting, where participating churches come together to celebrate God’s work among us and to make some important decisions as a cooperative of churches.

Each church is granted a certain number of “messengers” corresponding to their contributions to the Cooperative Program (the funding mechanism of the SBC). These messengers, made up of the church's men and women, are responsible for voting on key decisions that the SBC makes. The maximum number of messengers that a church can send is twelve. This year we had the privilege of sending twelve messengers consisting of 7 men and 5 women.

A Few Items to Note

New President

Pastor Clint Pressley of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, NC was elected the new President of the Southern Baptist Convention. Clint has faithfully served as the Pastor of Hickory Grove’s since 2011. He loves the Gospel, holds fast to the Scripture, and will lead our convention with conviction, integrity, and kindness.  

The “Law Amendment” Failed to Pass

The Law Amendment (named after the author of the amendment) was an attempt to amend the SBC Constitution to specify that churches would only be in friendly cooperation (part of the SBC) if they appointed, affirmed, or employed only men as “pastors of any kind.” This can be somewhat confusing. The Baptist Faith and Message already states that the office of pastor/elder/overseer can be filled only by men who meet the Scriptural qualifications. The Law Amendment attempted to draw stronger lines around the title “pastor,” stating that not only could women not be elders, but the title “pastor” should only be given to qualified men who fill the office of pastor/overseer/elder and any church who appoints women to any pastoral role would no longer be in friendly cooperation with the SBC. Many SBC churches give the title “pastor” to women in ministerial roles, while not having women fill the office of elder/pastor/overseer. The amendment did not get the 2/3 majority that it needed, and it failed. In our opinion, the Baptist Faith and Message is sufficiently complementarian, and the Law Amendment was an unnecessary amendment that would not serve our cooperation of churches well. You might find Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg’s explanation helpful.

The Resolution on IVF Passed

This year the messengers passed a resolution on IVF (in vitro fertilization) that has been mischaracterized in the media. The resolution did not say that IVF is sinful or should not be utilized by Christians. Rather, the resolution called for the responsible use of IVF, and the protection of embryonic human life. The resolution was in keeping with the whole-life ethic of the SBC and the desire to honor the image of God in every person. It is also important to note that resolutions in the SBC are expressions of opinion or concern and do not call for specific, required actions by the churches in cooperation with the SBC.  

83 Missionaries Commissioned

83 newly-appointed missionaries were commissioned by the International Mission Board. This is the greatest thing about the SBC. We have the largest fully-funded missionary force on the planet. Many of these missionaries could not show their faces or allow their voices to be heard during the commissioning because they were being sent to places at great risk.