Randy Adams
Age 60
Current role
Executive director-treasurer, Northwest Baptist Convention
Years of ministry service overall
38 years
Q. How do you define the role of the SBC president?
The SBC president represents the churches affiliated with the SBC to the SBC. The role has certain defined responsibilities, including the appointment of certain committee members and involvement in planning the annual meeting of the SBC. The president also has influence through the pulpit and other public statements. This influence is a sacred trust which I intend to use to push for transparency and accountability from our entities, as well as expand the participation of our churches in the annual meeting of the SBC.
Q. What do you hope to bring to Southern Baptists if you are elected president?
I will insist on transparency and accountability from our leaders and push to restore partnership and build back the trust of our churches. Southern Baptists are disheartened by the erosion of trust and partnership at various levels of Baptist life. We have over 5,000 fewer churches supporting Cooperative Program missions than in 2007, with a decline of over $85 million dollars. Baptisms have plummeted, and church starts are less than half the number a decade ago, despite NAMB increasing the budget. It’s time to get honest about the wrong road we took in 2010 through the Great Commission Resurgence recommendations. We will do this first through transparency about results and finances. I will push for opening bankbooks. Then we must hold ourselves accountable, making
necessary changes so that we can save the SBC ship.
Q. What was the determining factor in your decision to allow your name to be nominated for president?
Decline in Great Commission effectiveness is a major reason. As a pastor and a leader in two state conventions, I have learned Southern Baptists are at our best when churches are served by the denominational systems. Churches are served best beginning with the local association, then state convention and finally national SBC entities. The GCR inverted this, empowering NAMB and weakening states and associations. This has been a disaster. Most of the decline in Cooperative Program has been absorbed by the state conventions. Plus, NAMB ended the cooperative agreements with the state conventions. Our churches deserve better — beginning with transparency, accountability, enhanced participation by churches and rebuilding partnership.
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Ed Litton
Age 61
Current role
Senior pastor, Redemption Church, Mobile, Alabama
Years of ministry service overall
34 years as a senior pastor (7.5 as Arizona church planter)
Q. How do you define the role of the SBC president?
The person elected has the primary task of making appointments to the boards of the various entities, as well as presiding over the annual meeting.
The president also provides leadership and influence for what could be and should be in the future direction of the convention. God’s word gives a clear vision of getting the gospel out to every man, woman, boy and girl. To accomplish this as a convention of churches requires cooperation through the Cooperative Program, working together on mission and unifying people around the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I believe that the president is to foster unity and not division. While the president does not speak for Southern Baptists, he must certainly speak to Southern Baptists and to the watching world in a way consistent with God’s inerrant, infallible and sufficient Scripture.
Q. What do you hope to bring to Southern Baptists if you are elected president?
I hope to bring a vision of reaching out to our neighbors and challenging our churches to not be isolated from those in our communities who do not look like us or may not think or vote like us. To bring gospel reconciliation to our communities and to our divided nation. To be a biblical community that serves its city for the purpose of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ to all people.
I believe our decline in baptisms is tied to our isolation in the bubbles of our buildings. In such bubbles we are prone to self-absorption. We need a passion for those without Christ. If I am elected as your president, I want to help you reach your community, help you see revitalized congregations, and help you to join with other Southern Baptists to please the heart of our Savior by being unified in the gospel.
Q. What was the determining factor in your decision to allow your name to be nominated for president?
The determining factor for me is the current condition of disunity. I believe we have forgotten that the Great Commandment and the Great Commission are linked. Our credibility for the Great Commission is found in the heart of biblical love one for another. Jesus’ said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
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Albert Mohler
Age 61
Current role
President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Boyce College
Years of ministry service overall
43 years
Q. How do you define the role of the SBC president?
Technically, the most important responsibility of the SBC president is to preside at the annual meeting, to make certain that Southern Baptists in that meeting accomplish what the convention must do in order to further our mission work, theological education and denominational programs. The second thing the president does is to make certain appointments, but those are less significant than the larger responsibility of the president to speak to Southern Baptists and to speak on behalf of Southern Baptists to the larger world as a matter of witness, testimony and evangelism.
Q. What do you hope to bring to Southern Baptists if you are elected president?
I hope to bring to Southern Baptists the full measure of conviction so that we never forget that we begin with the biblical beliefs that bind us together, including the inerrancy of Scripture and exclusivity of the gospel. We have absolute confidence in the gospel of Jesus Christ and that is fundamental to our missions and evangelism program. I would hope to help Southern Baptists talk through some of the critical issues of our day in such a way that would maintain conviction and build the fellowship of our convention of churches. I would hope that our churches would be more faithful and more joyful together in our work through the Southern Baptist Convention.
Q. What was the determining factor in your decision to allow your name to be nominated for president?
A significant number of Southern Baptists came to me and asked me to be willing to be nominated because they felt that the SBC, in this crucial juncture, requires someone with a steady hand, someone who deeply loves the SBC and knows it pervasively, and someone who can help Southern Baptists work through issues courageously and respectfully, maintaining conviction and fellowship. I have been committed to the Southern Baptist Convention for my entire life, and I want to see the Southern Baptist Convention healthy, faithful, energetic, generous and joyful moving into the future as we answer the call of the Great Commission.
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Mike Stone
Age 50
Current role
Pastor, Emmanuel Baptist Church, Blackshear, Georgia
Years of ministry service overall
30 total, nearly 25 at Emmanuel
Q. How do you define the role of the SBC president?
The headquarters of the SBC is the local church. And our Baptist bodies are only beneficial to the point they assist local churches in fulfilling the Great Commission. Therefore, the role of SBC president is a position of service to our local churches.
I have regularly stated that I have served in nearly every capacity in SBC life, from the local church pastorate down to the chairmanship of the SBC Executive Committee. My congregation has joyfully allowed me to serve within our local association, as well as our state and national conventions. Whether leading as associational music director or president of the Georgia Baptist Convention, each position has been a place of service.
Messengers in Nashville will not elect a pope to lord over us or a father to lecture us. We need a pastor to lead us. A pastor who understands the daily challenges and opportunities of a typical Southern Baptist congregation.
Q. What do you hope to bring to Southern Baptists if you are elected president?
First, I will zealously focus on a nationwide evangelism emphasis. 2020 statistics were recently announced, and the news was not good. While 2020 was clearly impacted by the pandemic, we saw our ninth straight year of declining baptisms. Southern Baptists must be about evangelism. And our convention must lead the way in resourcing and equipping local churches in that mission.
Second, I will champion, in my communications and appointments, the sufficiency of Scripture. We do not need the unbiblical theories that are threatening the unity of our convention.
Finally, I will seek to foster greater participation in our meetings. The time has come for a strategic look into multisite participation in our annual meeting. This is not a simple undertaking. There are legal and logistical concerns many people have not considered. But the costs of attending the annual meeting create a real barrier for too many of our churches. With advances in technology, the time has come for our processes to allow input from more Southern Baptists.
Q. What was the determining factor in your decision to allow your name to be nominated for president?
When I vacated the chairmanship of the SBC Executive Committee last summer, I had no thoughts of a presidential nomination. But I sensed the Lord place this possibility on my heart in a time of prayer. It was soon confirmed by my wife, my church staff and our lay leadership. Finally, pastors and other leaders from across the SBC asked me to consider a nomination.
My nomination is supported by a broad coalition of Southern Baptists. From across geographic, methodological and soteriological lines, thousands of Southern Baptists share the concerns and emphases I referenced above. We each believe our convention will be best led by a local church pastor whose connections and other positions do not create a conflict of interest. I am first and foremost a husband, father and pastor. But if the messengers agree, I would consider it a privilege to serve our convention as SBC president.
EDITOR’S NOTE — These are the four known candidates for SBC president at press time. Others can be nominated until time for the election at the annual meeting June 15-16 in Nashville, Tennessee.
