Jeff Iorg delivered a challenge during Monday night’s (Nov. 10) session at the 2025 Tennessee Baptist Convention Summit about who Southern Baptists welcome into the fold.
“One of the things that discourages me about some Southern Baptists and some Christians today is we are pre-qualifying who can come to Jesus and be a part of our movement,” said Iorg, president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.
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Drawing from Ephesians 3 — “some of the most theologically rich language in the New Testament” — Iorg described God’s mission in four ways: eternal, inclusive and expansive, personal and costly.
“I hope we can walk out of this room this evening with a fresh understanding of God’s mission and a renewed commitment to fulfilling it in our generation,” he said.
Eternal and expansive
Iorg described God’s mission as “the grand narrative, the big story” of the universe. He explained how the mystery of God is revealed through the gospel and made known through the church, demonstrating God’s multifaceted wisdom.
But that mission extends far beyond comfortable circles.
Pointing to the first-century controversy over sharing the gospel with Gentiles — “filthy, dirty, rejected people” — Iorg said the “grace-through-faith people won” as seen in Acts.
“The gospel’s for people you don’t like. The gospel’s for people who don’t look like you, who don’t like the same food you like, who don’t speak the same language you like, maybe don’t smell like you want to smell,” he said. “The gospel is for people who don’t vote the way you want them to vote and don’t act the way you want them to act.”
Iorg, who has served in Tennessee for 18 months after leading ministries in Oregon and California, illustrated this commitment with his own personal example of wanting to retire in Portland, Oregon.
“I want to live where people don’t know Jesus,” he said. “I want to live where people are broken and hurting.”
The expansive nature of the gospel to reach millions and billions requires cooperation.
“That’s why you need the Tennessee Baptist Convention. That’s why you need the Southern Baptist Convention,” Iorg said. “If we’re going to take the gospel expansively to the whole world of Gentiles out there, we’re going to have to find better ways to do it together.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Zoë Watkins and originally published by the Baptist and Reflector.
