Greear re-elected as SBC president

  |  Source: Baptist Press

North Carolina pastor J.D. Greear was reelected by acclamation to a second term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) during the June 11-12 SBC annual meeting in Birmingham, Ala. (Photo by Kathleen Murray)

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (BP)—North Carolina pastor J.D. Greear was re-elected by acclamation to a second term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention during the June 11-12 SBC annual meeting in Birmingham, Ala.

He will serve with newly elected officers Marshal Ausberry, senior pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Fairfax, Va., first vice president; Noe Garcia, senior pastor of North Phoenix Baptist Church, second vice president; John Yeats, executive director of Missouri Baptist Convention, recording secretary; and Kathy Litton, director of planter spouse development for North American Mission Board, registration secretary.

Litton is the first woman to serve as SBC registration secretary, edging out incumbent SBC registration secretary Don Currence by 44 votes. Of 3,571 votes cast, Litton received 1,803 votes, or 50.49 percent of the ballots cast. Currence received 1,759 votes, or 49.26 percent of the ballots cast.

Support for Greear’s nomination to 2nd term

Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., area, was nominated by K. Marshall Williams, pastor of Nazarene Baptist Church in Philadelphia. No other candidates were nominated as president.

Williams noted that Greear’s appointments in his first year as SBC president are the most diverse in Southern Baptist history, including “48 non-white, 38 percent female and over 70 percent have never served on a national board before.”

Also, in his first year as SBC president, Greear “without hesitation addressed the issues of sexual abuse,” Williams added.

During the 17 years Greear has been pastor of The Summit Church, worship attendance has increased from 60 in 2002 to nearly 10,000, according to statistics available through the SBC’s Annual Church Profile. Baptisms have increased from 19 in 2002 to 616 in 2018 at the church’s nine campuses.

The Summit Church has given close to $1 million over the past two years through the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists’ unified program of funding state- and national-level ministries, according to the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. Summit’s Great Commission Giving, which comprises Cooperative Program gifts as well as direct gifts to SBC entities, associational giving and giving to state convention ministries, totaled nearly $4 million—close to 20 percent of undesignated receipts—in 2018.

The Summit Church has planted 292 churches to date, including 244 outside the United States, with a goal of planting 1,000 churches in 50 years. About 200 Summit members are serving as International Mission Board missionaries.


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