SBC President Clint Pressley preached from Ephesians 4 in his address to messengers at the Annual Meeting in Orlando June 9, calling for vigilance in biblical doctrine, but also a spirit of humility in the body.
“It is right for us to stop and consider (doctrinal issues),” he said. “We need to be serious…we need to be clear about what we believe,” Pressley said. But later in the six-point message, the soon outgoing elected leader of the 12-million member convention called for self-control and humility in our relationships with one another.
“We need to be patient,” he told more than 12,000 registered messengers and over 5,000 guests at the Orange County Convention Center, the largest attendance in years. If “you feel like your rights are more important than other people’s, that is incongruent (with Scripture) and with us as Southern Baptists.
“We need to do what we can to strive for a unified front,” he said.
The admonition came ahead of an expected vote on two measures: a motion to amend the SBC Constitution to make the office of “pastor/elder/overseer” limited to men only, and a motion to suspend Standing Rule 6 to allow the first vote in Orlando, rather than sending the constitutional amendment to the Executive Committee first, followed by votes in the next two annual meetings.
At the first introduction of motions an hour into the meeting, Southern Seminary President Al Mohler was the first person recognized at a floor mic to introduce a motion for a later session on new business—his proposed constitutional amendment, and a second motion to suspend the rules for its immediate consideration. A vote on both motions is likely to be announced for Wednesday morning.
At the opening of the meeting, a motion failed that would have raised the required majority from half to two-thirds on suspending Rule 6. Several messengers spoke against that motion, saying they wanted to be able to bring Mohler’s male-only pastor amendment for discussion. One messenger pointed out that’s why so many people had traveled to Orlando. Changing the threshold for bringing a vote now was viewed as a preemptive strike on the Mohler Amendment.
Both candidates to follow Pressley as SBC President have expressed support for Mohler’s constitutional amendment, but not everyone is in agreement with going around the standard procedure in order to cut a year off the approval process.
In his sermon, Pressley did not mention Mohler’s “Truth and Unity” amendment directly, but he advocated for doctrinal clarity in the convention. “I said vigilant, I didn’t say vigilante. There’s a difference,” Pressley said. “Convictional clarity gives us the confidence to move forward.”
Of his term, the Charlotte, North Carolina pastor said he had seen the worst of Southern Baptists with debates and arguments, but he emphasized, “I have spent two years seeing the Southern Baptist Convention at its best.”
Pressley offered a personal example. Immediately after he was asked to consider being nominated for SBC President, Pressley said he and his wife, Connie, received a call that their youngest son had died from a drug overdose. “You know the fog it puts you in,” he said. Pressley said his family was surrounded by friends and by regular Southern Baptists “with genuine affection,” as they dealt with their loss.
“We all have our affinity groups, but the Southern Baptist Convention is my affinity group,” Pressley said, “because we’re centered around the gospel.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Eric Reed and originally published by the Illinois Baptist.
