June 9-10, 2026 saw more than 11,000 messengers and thousands more guests attend the 2026 Southern Baptist Convention. In recent years, my church, Wilkesboro Baptist, has sent me as a messenger to the annual meeting of our denomination. Here are some reflections from previous years’ meetings: 2023, 2024, and 2025.
By way of reminder, Southern Baptists make up the largest Evangelical denomination in the United States with more than 46,000 affiliated churches and millions of members. Southern Baptists are not a hierarchical denomination. We don’t have a Pope, a head, or a board that governs us. The messengers are the denomination. Essentially, the two business days a year are the only time the “convention” exists. Business is done in these two days a year. Think a church Member Meeting or business meeting. In the intervening days, the Executive Committee serves the messengers by facilitating the motions and business executed at each meeting. SBC churches are autonomous and cooperate with the denomination by choice. SBC polity is independent, beautiful, and cumbersome. Any messenger can speak which makes for interesting comments and commentary. Here are six of my observations from this year’s meeting.
“Largely” uneventful. The meeting was typical in proposed business and lacked much of the drama of other meetings. The only major item of business addressed was a proposed amendment to the constitution by Dr. Al Mohler (more on that below). Otherwise, the business was rather straightforward. Reports drew questions and messengers sought to amend several resolutions.
Constitutional amendment. If you read anything about the SBC Annual Meeting in the news media, you likely saw a headline about Dr. Mohler’s amendment and what Southern Baptist’s think about women in ministry. Over the past several decades, Southern Baptists have been solidly complementarian in view of gender roles and ministry. The Baptist Faith and Message is clear on this issue, and most SBC churches are aligned with the Baptist Faith and Message. Churches that are deemed not “in friendly cooperation” (those not in alignment with SBC doctrine), are not allowed to seat messengers. The Credentials Committee is assigned the responsibility of questioning churches whose alignment is uncertain. The issue at stake with the amendment is the office and function of a pastor being reserved to qualified men. Mohler’s proposed amendment reads that a church in friendly cooperation “does not act to affirm, appoint, or endorse a woman serving in the office or function of a pastor/elder/overseer, specifically preaching to the assembled congregation.” Mohler proposed the amendment with the aim of giving clarity to the Credentials Committee regarding churches in friendly cooperation. Constitutional amendments require 2/3 majority for two successive annual meetings. Similar amendments in recent years were not approved at two successive meetings. The Mohler amendment passed the Orlando meeting nearing 75% approval. It will have to pass next year for implementation.
Tone and temperament. While I understand the intention behind Mohler’s amendment and align theologically with it, sometimes Baptists are guilty of inflating issues. Some at this year’s meeting suggested that the issue of women pastors is “crisis” for our denomination. I’m not sure I agree. It may have been a crisis decades ago, but not now. For several conventions, we’ve been focused on what offices women cannot hold in the church rather than on what they can do in the church. Whatever happens with the amendment next year, SBC processes and policies have been working when addressing churches deemed “not in friendly cooperation.” Also, the amendment does not reflect a change in doctrine or practice. It’s simply a restatement of what we have already affirmed. This means at least two things. First, the Mohler amendment is not really newsworthy. While it may be the major “news” at this year’s meeting, it is consistent with current belief and practice. Second, headlines surrounding the amendment miss the ways we have and do affirm the role and place of women in church life. At the meeting, Baptists affirmed women in a variety of ways unlikely to make headlines. For the first time in SBC history an African American woman will serve as president of the WMU (Women’s Missionary Union). In addition, a significant number of missionaries going to the field are women with a call to take the gospel to the nations.
Grace and reconciliation. One of my favorite moments this year came a the convention sermon preached by Caleb Turner. Turner preached from Exodus 4 and the need for God’s presence, power, to be experienced by obedient servants. It was a powerful message. He concluded by telling the story of his ancestor, Lucy Turner, who was a slave to one of the most prominent members of the Southern Baptist Convention prior to the Civil War. In his message, Caleb said: “I wish little Lucy would have known that my father [Terry Turner] would become the first African American to serve as president of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. I wish my grandparents could bear witness to something they could never have fathomed in their lives but could only pray for and hope for their children and grandchildren.” It is a testimony to grace and confession, reconciliation and forgiveness, change and repentance, that today’s SBC will have an African American pastor as it convention preacher whose ancestor was a slave to a prominent Southern Baptist more than 170 years ago. That is God’s grace and mercy.
Leadership Multiplication. One shared statistic from this year’s meeting is that by 2040, the SBC will need 20,000 more worship leaders. Anecdotally, we can identify unhealthy, declining, and dying churches across our communities. We are not the only evangelical believers in our country, but as the largest evangelical denomination, we bear a measure of responsibility for the trajectory of evangelical and Christian influence in our nation. As grateful as I am for our seminaries and agencies, we cannot wait on them to raise up this or the next generation of pastors, missionaries, and ministry leaders. This ought to be the mission and the goal of local churches. I write this as a Senior Pastor of a healthy, multi-generational, elder-led, disciple-making church. We have a long way to go, but God has blessed us immensely with people who are following Jesus by leading others to follow Jesus. We cannot be content to bask in the victories of the past or the health of the present. We must look around us and ahead of us to the need for additional leaders. We must call out, raise up, train, develop, equip, disciple, send, and multiply ministers, servants, missionaries, worship leaders, pastors, and elders for the kingdom. Leaving the annual meeting, I’m more convinced than ever that the local church must be hands on in this process.
Missionary commitment. Sixty-three missionaries were commissioned to go the foreign field through the International Mission Board. More than half of them were introduced without names, their voices changed, and their images hidden because of the security risks based on where they plan to serve overseas. These missionaries are leaving behind families, security, safety, comfort, luxury, and the U.S. They are going to the nations for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Southern Baptists are an odd and independent people. We can be cantankerous as exemplified by extensive floor discussion regarding the location of future annual meetings. We don’t always get everything right as evidenced by our history (slavery). We’re not always quick to move or address real problems with practical and meaningful solutions because our polity can be cumbersome. We sometimes focus on the wrong problems. In other words, our denomination is like us and our churches.
But at our best, we see the real problem in the world–lostness. And we realize that we have the solution to that problem–the gospel. As we gather with crazy uncles, odd motions, entrenched leaders, and misplaced priorities, we should be thankful that Southern Baptists exist in partnership to send missionaries with the gospel to the nations. This we can be proud of.
