The following is adapted from my written report to my church concerning the 2026 SBC Annual Meeting.

One of the things I love most about the church I pastor is our generous and sacrificial giving for the sake of the gospel. Our primary channel for that giving is the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). As I teach in our new members class, the SBC is not a top-down denomination. Instead, each SBC church is fully autonomous, and we have voluntarily chosen to cooperate together for the sake of missions and theological education.

Each year our little church gives a significant amount of money to SBC causes through the Cooperative Program, mission offerings, and other direct giving. That’s why it’s important to us to send messengers from our church each year to the annual meeting of the SBC. If we’re going to invest in our cooperative work as Southern Baptists at such a high level, it’s important for us to have a say in the direction of that cooperative work. This year we had six messengers from our church.

If you’ve never attended the SBC annual meeting, I wish you could see it in person. You would see very clearly that the news reports coming out of the meeting each year do not come close to giving a full picture of what takes place. There are always a couple of things that grab the headlines, but there are many more things that give a far more accurate representation of the important gospel work we are doing together as Southern Baptists.

The highlight of the meeting is always the International Mission Board (IMB) sending celebration where new missionaries are commissioned to take the gospel to the nations. This year 63 missionaries were commissioned. Many of them are going to difficult places where it is not even legal to be a missionary. Therefore, their identity is hidden as they share where they are going and what they will be doing. Your giving to the Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering makes this possible.

I also had the privilege of attending two events put on by the North American Mission Board (NAMB). I shared on Sunday about a church planter in Wyoming who is working to raise up preachers to send throughout Wyoming to preach the gospel in places where there are no gospel preaching churches. Your giving to the Cooperative Program and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering helps make that possible.

Another highlight of this year’s annual meeting was celebrating the retirement of Dr. Daniel Akin who has served as the President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary for 22 years. We had the privilege of having Dr. Akin lead a marriage conference at our church back in 2019. Dr. Akin also served as my supervisor for my doctor of ministry project. I am thankful to God for his impact in my life and ministry. In addition to Southeastern, Southern Baptists have five other seminaries that are doing the important work of training and preparing pastors, missionaries, and other church leaders for the work to which God has called them. Your giving to the Cooperative Program helps make that possible.

In addition to all the reports about all the wonderful things that are happening among Southern Baptists, I wish you could see and experience the spirit of unity and love in the gospel that exists when we get together. I have friends around the country that I typically only get to see each year at the SBC annual meeting. I am thankful for the opportunity to reconnect and celebrate what God is doing in our respective ministries and our cooperative work.

The big headline that came out of this year’s annual meeting was an amendment to the SBC constitution regarding the office and function of pastor.

Let me start by saying that Southern Baptists have always overwhelmingly believed that the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture. That position was enshrined in our statement of faith, the Baptist Faith & Message, in 2000. The Baptist Faith & Message is our church’s statement of faith and accurately represents our position when it comes to the office of pastor/elder/overseer. We believe that 1 Timothy 2:8-3:7 clearly teaches that only qualified men should serve in the office of pastor/elder/overseer and preach to the gathered congregation on the Lord’s Day.

We also believe that men and women are equal in dignity and worth, need for salvation through faith in Christ, and value to God’s kingdom. Women serve the Lord in our church in many ways. In fact, the only area of ministry where women are limited in our church is the office of pastor/elder/overseer and preaching to the gathered congregation on the Lord’s Day. We have women serving as deacons, Sunday School teachers, ministry directors, office manager, treasurer, hospitality, and much more! Where would we be without our sisters? I shudder even to think about it. God gifts, equips, and calls both women and men in service to Him. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Cor. 12:21).

The constitutional amendment that was proposed states that a cooperating SBC church does not “act to affirm, appoint, or endorse a woman serving in the office or function of a pastor/elder/overseer, specifically preaching to the assembled congregation.” The amendment passed with just under 75% of the vote. It needed and received a 2/3 majority to advance. It will need to receive at least a 2/3 majority again at next year’s convention to be adopted into the constitution.

I am in full agreement with the theology of the amendment. I do, however, have concerns with the fact that we are continuing to talk about this issue year after year. It would be much more beneficial to focus our attention on all of the wonderful ways that women give of themselves in service to our Lord and His church. I also believe that our statement of faith should focus on our theology, and our constitution and bylaws should focus on governance. They are separate documents with separate purposes. We do not need to delineate certain “super doctrines” in our constitution. And even if we did, there are a lot of doctrines in our statement of faith that are far more fundamental to the Christian faith than this one.

The question of whether women can serve as a pastor is relevant to our cooperative work of missions and theological education, but Southern Baptist messengers agree on the theology of this issue. Our seminaries all teach that the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture. Our mission boards both require that pastors be qualified men. There is no creeping theological liberalism in the SBC on this issue outside of perhaps a very small number of outliers. While there has been some confusion at times, that confusion has been almost completely cleared up. It’s hard to understand why a constitutional amendment is needed. I do hope that we will be able to move past this issue after next year’s convention.

One of the big things that happens at every SBC annual meeting is the election of a convention president. As I teach in our new members class, this matters because the convention president appoints the Committee on Committees who nominates the Committee on Nominations who nominates trustees for the mission boards, seminaries, and other entities. If you want to ensure that the convention stays on the right track, you have to elect trustees who will keep things moving in the right direction.

There were two candidates this year for SBC president, Willy Rice from Florida and Josh Powell from South Carolina. My preferred candidate was Josh Powell, but Willy Rice won the election with 57% of the vote. The big difference between the two candidates was really the question of whether reform is needed in the SBC. Willy Rice was the self-professed reform candidate, while Josh Powell generally believes that things have been headed in the right direction.

It remains to be seen what kind of reform will result from Willy Rice’s presidency. The SBC presidency has the authority of appointments and the opportunity to speak to issues he believes are important, but one SBC president cannot institute sweeping reform on his own.

My biggest concern with both candidates and some other SBC leaders is the way that they have spoken about the issue of sexual abuse in SBC churches. There are some who say that the issue of sexual abuse in SBC churches has been overblown and that some of the convention actions to address the issue in recent years were a mistake. Both presidential candidates would fall somewhere in that group. There are others who say that the SBC hasn’t done anything to address the issue of sexual abuse in SBC churches.

I think both of those perspectives are wrong. Sexual abuse has been an issue in SBC churches, and sadly, it will continue to be an issue until Jesus returns and makes all things right. Southern Baptists voted a few years ago to create a database of convicted and credibly accused abusers with connections to SBC churches. The database has never been created, and there does not seem to be any appetite among Southern Baptist leaders for creating such a database. While I do have questions as to how much benefit such a database would be, if the messengers vote to do something, it should be done. No one in Nashville should be deciding not to do something that the messengers voted to do.

However, while it is true that we have not done enough to address sexual abuse in SBC churches, it is not true that nothing has been done. We now have a standing Credentials Committee that is interacting with churches on a number of issues. The vast majority of reports received by the Credentials Committee have to do with the response of churches to situations of sexual abuse. Those issues are being addressed. Churches that want help are being helped, and those that continue to demonstrate apathy regarding sexual abuse are being removed. In addition, Baptist Press is proactively reporting on instances of sexual abuse by people connected to SBC churches, in effect creating an unofficial database that anyone who knows how to Google can access when hiring staff or receiving a new member or volunteer.

Our church has been doing background checks and sexual abuse awareness training for all children and youth ministry volunteers for quite a while now. The church was already doing background checks ten years ago when I arrived, and we began requiring the training in the years since. We take very seriously our responsibility to protect the children and youth that God and parents entrust to our care as a church.

There is so much more I could say about the Southern Baptist Convention and this year’s annual meeting in Orlando. But if you’ve read all the way through to this point, you already deserve a gold star. What I would really love is to have you join me in Indianapolis next June for the SBC annual meeting so you can see in person our cooperative work in action.

Willy Rice is our new SBC president and is a likable fellow. That goes a long way in my book although I don’t know if I would have voted for him or not. He has been running for the office (and function) of SBC president for quite a while and has said a lot of things. I don’t think anyone argues about how he has been designated as “a reformer” in the secular press and inside the SBC.

Will Willy reform the Cooperative Program?

Highly doubtful.

His quote above is from Ben Cole’s podcast where Willy is asked nicely but pointedly about his church giving record. Credit due BC for pursuing this line of questioning. Credit due to Willy for being generally forthright in answering.

Willy states plainly that the CP’s future is “in question.” He’s right and for context this was in a discussion about his church giving record. The record shows that CP percentage has been cut significantly over the past few years although the percentage is still healthy for a church of its size.

Willy explained that his church decided to cut CP and increase the designated offerings, Lottie and Annie (and perhaps others). No congregation has to explain their giving decisions to anyone, not to any denominational employee, not to any relic blogger of an earlier day, not to a podcaster. The local church might not be king in the SBC in the aggregate but it doggone sure is king of their own budget and decisions.

My giving philosophy as a pastor was to move funds from CP to the designated offerings. I decided that 40 years ago during the real reform movement.

The CP has been declining for decades, for generations. That is the longest trend in Southern Baptist life. We have only been a declining denomination for about 20 years. Our Grand Giving Scheme at least doubles that timeframe in decline.

I haven’t seen a transcription of that interview but I’m fairly certain that Willy also said that both the IMB and NAMB now spend considerable efforts raising money outside of traditional channels. They are both supposedly prohibited from appealing directly to churches outside of their seasonal offerings.

I regularly get IMB appeals on social media, usually for a few hundreds of dollars for this or that specific project.

Our venerable CP has no chance of competing in the modern world. It is still substantial but will continue to decline in importance. The percentage of budget revenue that specific entities receive from come from the CP is declining. Entity heads and trustees may tout the CP as our grand mission funding scheme but I don’t see corresponding despair that it is not, nor do I see optimism that anything will reverse the trend.

So, what would I suggest Willy do to reform the SBC and CP to reverse longstanding trends? Here you go Willy:

1. Keep peace with state conventions but be plain that the states, which still suck up most of a CP dollar, aren’t the key to global or North American missions. ‘God bless you guys in the southern states but our church mission dollars are better spent outside of the South.’ Last time I checked, Southern states receive 90% of CP dollars and keep most of it.
2. The ERLC is a problem, has been for a long time. Work to transition that entity, which couldn’t exist without CP dollars, to self-support. It is over budgeted as it is. Cut their percentage but, better, excise the problem altogether by getting it out of the CP.
3. While everyone, including you, genuflects towards the altar of anti-women church staff, I liked your idea of a task force on women. The ludicrously named “Truth and Unity” amendment solves nothing. Wait until some committee in Nashville starts making decisions in private about excluding churches with female preschool pastors or churches where a woman speaks to any church assembled group. If next year’s convention passes it, it means little or nothing. If it fails to pass, here we go again. You may have a better idea. It’s a drain on energy better spent elsewhere and deleterious to the CP.
4. There may be marginal CP benefit from moving entity trustees towards openness and transparency and towards 990-like reporting. I’m not optimistic but follow through on your support of something along these lines. It can’t hurt. Secrecy is poison. SBC entities all keep a stockpile of poison.

Other that all that, all the best for the coming year. Surprise me.

_________________

I must add as an aside. People are comparing your preaching to Adrian Rogers’ preaching. Don’t be taken in by this. There are no latter day Adrians. Not you. Not Mike Stone whose preaching is similarly excellent. No one that is a living breathing Southern Baptist. But I’d just as soon hear your or Mike and probably some others than any of the modern bros who have cool shoes (sometimes stockless) and an affected modern GQ look. Nah. Preach on.

Work with me here. Al Mohler’s guy, one Colin Smothers, not only speaks stridently in favor of the motion but makes a smarmy, cheap shot parliamentary move to disallow any opposition to speak. That was a low class no matter that the assembled messengers, snarling with the smell of the red meat of victory, agreed. A true leader, and the three piece suit guy is not one, would have finessed the matter and equalized the discussion. There was a time when blurting out “call the question” was not considered a proper motion.

Find a pattern here. We amended the BFM with no discussion. We create unity by bulldozing a gracious minority. But it gets better: The Smothers brother successfully smothered the opposition. Political hardball. He’s a Biblical Manhood guy. What a coward.  But it gives the minority fuel for next year.

I will continue to point out the obvious: the sbc in session can be stampeded into foolish votes. The sex abuse vote was 90+%. It cost us tens of millions and did not yield safer churches. Truth and unity will come to be seen as vanity and legacy. And Willy can preach a stemwinder sermon but can’t fix anything.

The SBC disappears until next June. There’s neither unity nor clarity for the next 363 days.
__________________

So, as long as Bertha Smith perches herself on a stool and speaks to the church, she’s fine. The snarling dogs of denominational purity will leave her be?

If my church’s WMU leader, retired principal, speaks on a Wednesday night to 1/4 of the typical assembled congregation, she’s in danger of getting the church excluded, or not?

Specifically, the only definition of office/function is preaching to the assembled congregation? The cred committee is free from having to assess any other scenarios?

And, unless we have a spy network, how would anyone know what the 35,000+ small churches do on a Sunday or Wednesday?

It’s not clear. It’s not unity. It’s not truth except in a perverted postmodern way. This issue will never be solved but churches can easily ignore the sbc.

Let the local church decide.

______________
Nope, I wasn’t present and only watched a little.

The Mohler mess was a boon for the ERLC and too the spotlight off of that beleaguered organization. They should be transitioned to independent status and their tiny CP percentage given to IMB.

There are clearly no leaders in the SBC these days.

Well, it’s on to Mohler’s backyard for 2027.

My dad used to tell a story about a pastor who went to visit an older woman who had been visiting his church. He encouraged her to join. She said,

“Pastor, I’m not physically able to be a Baptist.”

After being in the convention hall the last 4 days, I am beginning to wonder.

Am I physically able to be a Baptist messenger?

I was writing down the exact numbers when I got an emergency message from my wife. She won the Foundation money estimate and demanded I come out.

That’s about all I won this week.

The amendment passed by approximately 75% to 25% as many of us expected. It has to pass again next year.

I have two groups of SBCish friends.

I’ve got friends who think about the SBC the way Bilbo and Frodo thought about Mordor. Some have already left and others are engaging in quiet-quitting (not participating, giving less or designating). Many who have left are vocal in lambasting our denomination (or convention of churches) at every chance. Some get offended if anyone says anything positive at any time about anything in the SBC. Most of that is, frankly, related to the SBC’s failure to deal well with sexual abuse and its survivors.

I have other friends who are excited about the SBC, about it missions and missionaries, about the increased baptisms and churches being planted. We have six of the best seminaries in the land. Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong have shown strong offerings in recent years.

As I’ve listened to reports at the convention this year, there is a lot of good going on.

Which side is right? My answer – YES.

I think we have some serious problems, but I think that by God’s grace we are still alive and moving forward. Maybe we are a Dave Miller convention. Aging. A lot wrong with me. Perhaps facing major surgery and doggone it, everything hurts, but God is still at work.

I realize that this is going to anger everyone. Those who have soured on the SBC have soured hard and to say that “PBPGINFWUY” (Please be patient, God is not finished with us yet – remember those buttons?) is offensive to them. True SBC loyalists often recoil at criticism. I stand firmly in the center.

We have problems, but I still think we have a future.

So, to everyone who’s mad at me – be nice to me. I’m getting old and my mind is slipping.

Notice the French? I’m nearly 600 days into my Duolingo French! Impressive, right?

During the discussion as to whether we should go to Anaheim, I noticed another “Grumpy Old Man” moment I wanted to vent about.

A (likely perfectly nice) young pastor said that we should ONLY have SBC conventions in the DEEP SOUTH because that is where most of our churches are and that it would be cheapest. As someone who spent 32 years pastoring in Iowa and the last almost 4 in Nebraska, I say,

GET OFF MY LAWN!

The SBC needs to expand outside the SEC-territory base, and one way to do that is to support state conventions beyond our Deep South borders and raise our profile in what we used to call frontier states. I remember when World Changers used to come to Iowa, and we loved it. It made a huge difference, but then they told us it was too far to come.

I am sure that brother who said we should stay in the Deep South for the conventions is a good guy, but this Nebraska pastor disagrees with him strongly!

There are a couple of things I don’t like about SBC Orlando, and it has nothing to do with the massive amount of walking I’ve had to do. I’m going to turn 70 next year, so that’s just a problem for me! It’s life for us old codgers. I have a couple of serious gripes about the process.

The thing about the SBC is that it’s a 10,000-person business meeting, and it’s going to be messy. I get frustrated with some of the silly motions people make, but it’s one of the things that makes us unique. Any person can get up and brave the echo that makes them sound like a drunk and make any motion they feel like making. Bless their hearts.

ONE: I don’t like the new process we’ve developed to send these motions into outer darkness with a wave of our magic wand. Yes, it’s easier, quicker, and neater, but it’s not who we are. We send the motion to the EC, which ignores it! Once in a while, the EC gets a decent motion, and I don’t think this new process we’ve discovered of saying, “Avada Kedavra” to messengers’ motions is a good thing.

Doing business quickly isn’t necessarily our highest goal. Letting messengers have their say is.

TWO: This is a longtime gripe, and I know I’m fighting history and probably Robert’s Rules on this. It’s been going on for years. I hate what Colin Smothers did today. He had his say on the Mohler Amendment, and then, as his time was running out, he moved the question.

If I were king (and what a great world that would be, right?) you would NOT be able to speak your mind, then move the previous question. If you spoke your mind, you would have to let others have their say. If you wanted to move the question, that is all you would do. Move the question and sit down.

It seems grossly unfair to have your say and then prevent others from having theirs. Selfish. Wrong.

I know this is an unwinnable battle, but this isn’t about winning a battle, but telling you…

GET OFF MY LAWN!

Do you have any reasonable gripes?

It feels like old-time Conservative Resurgence power politics at the SBC Orlando. I attended most of the conventions from 1979 through the decisive election that settled the victory of conservatives about 12 years later. There were certain things that happened.

The conservative candidate always had a prominent place at the Pastors’ Conference. Lo and behold, Willy Rice was given a speaking slot at this year’s PC. It was pretty clear that this was an orchestrated attempt by the denominational power structure to promote his candidacy. Josh Powell is also conservative, but one side insists that they are “the conservatives.” Willy was their candidate.

The Mohler amendment debate this morning was quintessential power politics. Mohler, of course, was first to the mic on Tuesday to offer his amendment – could that have been an accident? Mohler was then allowed to speak to his amendment, which is normal, then one person was allowed to speak against it, then Colin Smothers spoke for it and moved the previous question. No debate allowed. No amendments allowed.

This was a major move. Dr. Mohler could have at least allowed the messengers to speak before he pushed it through. If you don’t think Colin and Dr. Mohler coordinated the effort to close debate, I have some swamp land in Arizona to sell you. Also, I was told that the Mohler forces convinced those who were going to bring a substitute motion to restore the original, harsher motion not to do so.

This was old-fashioned power politics. I don’t like it.

I think it will pass its first test easily. Friends suspect it will get through by 75%.

Personally, I supported the CR but always found the power politics distasteful. I found the orchestrated power politics today distasteful.

If you see Tiffany, and she’s not hard to spot, give her a word of encouragement and support.

Tiffany has a unique hairstyle, unlike any preacher’s wife I know. Bright pink. She made a motion Tuesday to establish a ministry to support pastors wives. It was one of the ones sent into outer darkness by the messengers.

Before that, though, she was the subject of some online trolling by people claiming to be pastors, because of her appearance.

If you see her, why not thank her for her concern for pastors wives, and let her know she is welcome among us. I chatted with her and Larry on the way out of this afternoon’s session. Nice people. A little aggravated but nice.

Say hi. Don’t let the trolls win.