Yellow ballots went up across the convention center in New Orleans on Wednesday morning June 14 during the 2023 SBC Annual Meeting’s convention sermon — but it wasn’t to vote on a controversial issue or about Baptist politics.
While delivering the convention sermon, Todd Unzicker asked the crowd to raise their ballots if a Southern Baptist had invested in them and impacted their decision to follow Christ — and the crowd responded.
“This is the picture I want to remember us by,” said Unzicker, executive director of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. “Do you see what we have in common today? There are 16,000 people in this room representing people who are from independent, local autonomous churches that are on mission together. You send missionaries, plant churches and train up the next generation.”
On a personal note, Unzicker knows this because Southern Baptists helped change his life. As a “product of grace,” he focused on how Southern Baptists are at their best when they are on mission together.
Searching for hope
Unzicker pointed to how Southern Baptists — those like former University of Georgia football coach Mark Richt — reached out to him when he was a student there.
During that vulnerable season of life, Unzicker began attending Prince Avenue Baptist Church in Athens.
He still remembers Sept. 25, 2004, when he hit a particularly low moment in his life. That morning, with a loaded gun, Unzicker considered ending his life.
But he caught sight of a Bible that he noted had been “provided by Baptists.” He remembered the Lord showing him grace that morning.
“Right in that moment, with a gun across my lap, I just looked up and prayed the only sinner’s prayer I knew, ‘Lord Jesus, save me,’ ” he said. “Save me, and I’ll do anything you want me to do and go anywhere you want me to go.”
It was through that low point, Southern Baptists soon began investing in him and taught him how to share his faith. “Soul winning was not the end of the line, it was where you began,” he said. “I couldn’t wait to tell my friends about Jesus.”
He soon stumbled upon a question by a Southern Baptist friend that changed his life: “How would you like to go on a short-term missions trip with us?”
It was on that trip he would meet his wife, Ashley. It also was on that trip, he noted, that Ashley gave her life to Christ.
From there, Unzicker went on to become more plugged into Southern Baptist life through enrolling in seminary and various career opportunities that only strengthened his conviction that Southern Baptists are stronger when they are on mission together.
‘God’s endgame’
Preaching from Revelation 5, Unzicker shared how the Bible is clear about God’s endgame, and how Southern Baptists are a part of it when they are doing what they do best — go on mission.
“This convention, what you set out to do, we are a product of,” he said.
“This convention was founded to send missionaries, to plant churches and train up the next generations,” he added. “You have done that for Ashley and I. We have seen that firsthand, and that is why we are here.”
Stay focused
Unzicker urged Southern Baptists to not get distracted from the main mission.
“From this day, will we be on mission together to reach others? Or are we going to be … fighting?
“Are we going to give weight to people in this convention who tweet more than they tithe — who post more than they pray, who raise objections to reforms instead of raising protections for the vulnerable? Are we going to be a people who sue the saints, or are we going to be a people who sow seeds of the gospel?
“God’s endgame is clear,” Unzicker affirmed, “and we get to join Him on it.”
But to do that, he noted, Southern Baptists need to be willing to pray, suffer, preach that salvation is in Christ alone and preach to all peoples and worship together.
“We do all of this,” he said, “because we want to see the worship of Jesus Christ go from this place to every place on earth — and we get to do that on mission together.”
