Clint Pressley, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said if the SBC were a train, it would run on two rails — and both are a century old.
One is the Cooperative Program, the primary funding mechanism of the SBC’s ministries and missions, which messengers celebrated yesterday (June 10). The second is the convention’s statement of faith, the Baptist Faith & Message.
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Pressley said it is “no small thing that we’ve been held together for so long by one confession,” noting that he wanted to “celebrate what has held us together these 100 years.”
To mark the occasion, messengers watched a video of Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and a member of the BF&M 2000 committee, sharing some of the history of the confession.
Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church and another member of the BF&M 2000 committee, also shared a word and prayed for the future faithfulness of Southern Baptists.
“One of the greatest honors I’ve ever had was 25 years ago in a room with godly men and women, and we put together a revision of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message,” he said. “I was proud then, and I’m proud now of the work that has been done.”
Luter, also a former SBC president, asked messengers “that you will as fellow Southern Baptists apply these principles of faith to your life, to your ministry, to your church.”
“The same God that blessed us 100 years ago is the same God that will bless us continually now,” he said.
