'Great Commission Baptists' is proposed description of SBC

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – “Great Commission Baptists” is proposed description for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

A task force appointed by SBC President and Georgia pastor Bryant Wright of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, Marietta, Ga., recommended the new description for Southern Baptists unhappy with the current name of the convention. They will now have the option of adding another descriptor to their signs, stationary, or identification, or simply do nothing at all, according to a report of the SBC name change committee.

The announcement was made at the SBC Executive Committee meeting held at Feb. 20 in Nashville.

The Great Commission Baptists verbiage could use in addition to the SBC name or in place of it, Committee Chairman Jimmy Draper told Executive Committee members on Feb. 20.

​The descriptor will not require a legal name change and so, if recommended to messengers in New Orleans in June and approved by those messengers, it would be available for immediate use. Since it does not change the denomination’s historic name there would be no need for it to be approved at a second convention.

​The description is completely voluntary and is not binding on any congregation, state convention, or national entity.

Information for this story was provided by Joe Westbury, managing editor of The Christian Index, the official newsmagazine of the Georgia Baptist Convention.

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Kansas-Nebraska state exec says NAMB changes present huge challenges

REPORTS FROM a number of state conventions related to changes in NAMB funding have surfaced the past several months and some are now public. 

MillsIn a recent column in Baptist Digest, the official publication of the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists (KNCSB), Executive Director Bob Mills recounted a number of what he called “significant consequences” affecting work in the states.

“Change is ever-present in our relationship with the North American Mission Board,” Mills wrote.

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Seek to ‘maximize cooperation’: State Baptist execs to study NAMB relations

Tim Yarbrough
Arkansas Baptist News 

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – State convention executive directors have appointed a special committee of their peers to evaluate relations with the North America Mission Board (NAMB).

TurnerThe action came during the annual Fellowship of State Executive Directors meeting held Feb. 13-16 in Scottsdale, Ariz. State executive directors meet each year for fellowship and to discuss issues related to Baptist state convention work. 

The name of the group is “A Study Committee on Implementation of NAMB Initiatives with State Conventions.”

Emil Turner, executive director of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention and president of the fellowship for 2011-12, said the committee was established “to evaluate how state conventions and NAMB can maximize cooperation during the transition process of implementing the new NAMB initiatives.”

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New church plants make gains: Arkansas baptisms up 3 percent in 2011

LITTLE ROCK – With 91 percent of churches reporting, baptisms among Arkansas Baptist churches are up 3 percent from 2011.

Brad Curtis (right), pastor of Mountain Top Cowboy Church, Heber Springs, baptizes Roger Nelson of Rose Bud, during a recent service.The Arkansas Baptist State Convention (ABSC) evangelism and church growth team distributed a report outlining ABSC-affiliated churches leading in baptisms during the ABSC’s 2012 State Conference on Evangelism and Church Growth, held Jan. 23-24 at First Baptist Church, Sherwood. Sonny Tucker is team leader.

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Kelley: Return to ‘discipleship foundation’

SHERWOOD – Southern Baptists have abandoned the biblical process of sowing and reaping, and the consequences have been plateaued and declining baptisms, said Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

KelleyPreaching the final sermon of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention’s 2012 State Conference on Evangelism and Church Growth Jan. 24, Kelley used an agrarian analogy to remind Arkansas Baptists of the “amazing story of how Southern Baptists became the largest non-Catholic religious body in America.”

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