Month: October 2025

AM25: Turner elected president as messengers conduct the business of the convention

LUBBOCK—Messengers to the 2025 Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Annual Meeting held Oct. 27-28 at Southcrest Baptist Church conducted several items of business to support the work of the convention for the coming year.

Caleb Turner, senior pastor of Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church, was elected president Tuesday morning. Turner formerly served as chairman of the SBTC Executive board—the youngest ever to hold that responsibility.

Ed Johnson III was re-elected vice president. He is lead pastor of Harvest Fellowship Baptist Church in DeSoto and was nominated by Averri LeMalle, senior pastor of The Church at Jersey Village. Kason Branch, senior pastor of Creekstone Church of North Richland Hills, nominated Amy Hinote to serve a second term as convention secretary. She is a pastor’s wife from First Baptist Church in Justin. All three officers were elected by acclamation.

The convention’s operating budget for 2026 will be $27.83 million, a .18% increase over the 2025 budget. The budget is essentially flat, with a $50,000 increase funded from designated funds. The SBTC budget continues to call for 55% of undesignated receipts to be sent to the Southern Baptist Convention, while 45% of undesignated receipts remain in Texas to mobilize SBTC churches.

The convention’s Executive Board submitted resolutions commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the Cooperative Program and the Baptist Faith and Message. Jim Richards, SBTC executive director emeritus, presented the resolutions on behalf of the board. Reading from the resolution, Richards described the Cooperative Program as “a missions-funding strategy God has blessed to support and strengthen Southern Baptist efforts to share the gospel throughout the world.”

Messengers considered five resolutions produced by the Resolutions Committee. The first honored Danny Forshee, lead pastor of Great Hills Baptist Church, as he completed his second and final year as SBTC president. Another honorific resolution expressed gratitude to Southcrest Baptist Church and its senior pastor, David Wilson, for their “kind hospitality and generosity.”

The remainder of the resolutions highlighted the importance of freedom of speech; the need for prayer, fasting, and repentance; and an appreciation for the convention’s Texas Ethics and Religious Liberty Committee for “[representing] our biblical convictions before the Texas Legislature.”

The convention registered 790 messengers for their West Texas meeting. Registered guests brought the total number of attendees to 1,289.

Three motions regarding Fielder Church in Arlington were ruled out of order due to being inconsistent with the convention’s Constitution and Bylaws. In August, the SBTC Executive Board formed a committee to review the Constitution and Bylaws. The committee will review the documents in their entirety to ensure the convention’s polity and affiliation requirements are clearly stated, particularly as they relate to the office and title of pastor. Proposed amendments will be published 90 days before being voted on by messengers to the 2026 annual meeting.

The 2026 SBTC Annual Meeting will be hosted by First Baptist Church Forney Oct. 26-27, 2026.

AM25: President’s lunch panel highlights ways SBTC churches can reach the nations

LUBBOCK—Paul Chitwood was pastoring a small rural church in Kentucky while attending seminary when he was invited to a world missions conference featuring speakers from the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board. It was his first real exposure to missions.

“My imagination and heart were captured by these people and what they were doing with their lives,” Chitwood said.

In 2002, while pastoring and teaching at seminary, Chitwood became an IMB trustee. It was another mile-marker moment in his life and ministry, he said, changing how he preached and taught.

Today, Chitwood serves as president of the IMB. Although he never served as a career missionary, he said he and his wife, Michelle, “feel called to do everything we can do to ensure that our missionaries have everything they need to do what God has called them to do.”

On Tuesday, Oct. 28—the final day of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Annual Meeting—Chitwood sat on a panel during the President’s Luncheon to share how the convention’s churches can engage with the IMB to do what God has called them to do. SBTC Missional Ministries Associate Colin Rayburn joined the panel, which was moderated by outgoing SBTC President Danny Forshee.

Mobilizing through M-Link, Reach Europe

Referring to Matthew 24:14—“This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come”—Forshee asked the panel how SBTC churches can partner with the IMB to evangelize the world so Christ’s return might be hastened.

Rayburn mentioned M-Link, a new online tool that matches churches that have needs with sister churches that can meet those needs. Those churches may not only include SBTC churches, but those that are part of the convention’s ministry partnerships in Nevada, Puerto Rico, and Europe.

Chitwood also referenced the latter partnership, known as Reach Europe, as a way SBTC churches can engage with the nations. Reach Europe is a partnership between the SBTC and IMB to bring the gospel to what has been described as one of the most lost continents on the planet. In addition to churches mobilizing toward those opportunities, Chitwood urged continued giving through the Cooperative Program, which marked its 100^th anniversary this year.

“When you give a dollar to the Cooperative Program or the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, your church has a witness in 155 countries around the world,” he said. “They are your missionaries.”

Those missionaries are working hard daily to bring the gospel to the roughly 3,000 unreached, unengaged people groups—also known as UUPGs. Hundreds of people groups have been reached since the IMB’s Project 3000 launch a few years ago, but others have been discovered since. France, one of the countries included in the Reach Europe initiative, has 29 UUPGs, Chitwood noted.

A unique role

During a question-and-answer session, the panel conversation turned to the impact churches can have when they work together.

“The church working together is such a beautiful thing in SBC life,” Chitwood said, adding that missions might look different for a large church than it does at a smaller church.

“We are a large denomination of small churches,” Forshee added. He told the story of two pastors from smaller congregations who, after meeting with an indigenous IMB worker in South Asia, realized their churches could adopt a UUPG there for $250 per month— affordable for many congregations.

Rayburn said M-Link can help churches identify those kinds of opportunities, as well.

“Your church, no matter what size … [has] a unique role to play in the Great Commission,” he said.

AM25: Amid a year of celebration, Lorick challenges messengers: ‘Let’s lean in like never before’

LUBBOCK—Churches across the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention are mobilizing.

They are focused on prayer and continuing to generously support their shared mission by giving through the Cooperative Program. They are planting more churches than ever and joining forces with church leaders across state and national lines through strategic partnerships.

And they are seeing—and celebrating—God’s blessing in those areas and many more.

In his Oct. 28 report to messengers at the SBTC Annual Meeting, hosted by Southcrest Baptist Church, SBTC Executive Director Nathan Lorick shared some of the victories the Lord has provided in 2025. Thousands came to faith in Christ through events such as Crossover Dallas, which included 59 SBTC churches; disaster relief deployments that included a response to historic flooding in the Texas Hill Country; and evangelistic events such as M3 student camps and Youth Week.

Throughout the past year, Southern Baptists marked the 100^th anniversary of the Baptist Faith and Message, as well as the Cooperative Program—the giving mechanism through which SBTC churches have given $580 million over the past quarter century. Thirty-four churches have been mobilized overseas as part of the convention’s Reach Europe ministry partnership with the International Mission Board.

And by the end of the year, leaders expect 70 churches to have been planted in Texas—the most in any single year in SBTC history. In the four years since the SBTC teamed up with the North American Mission Board to plant churches under the Send Network SBTC banner, 200 churches have been started, Lorick said, noting that an “amazing” 98% of those have survived to date.

“Our vision is to mobilize all SBTC churches to mobilize disciple-making movements—movements energized by prayer, that prioritize evangelism, normalize disciple-making, maximize sending, and synergize partnerships,” Lorick said.

Each of those five markers, he told messengers, can be seen through the ministries of SBTC churches across the state. They are exemplified by a movement of God reported at First Baptist Church in Carrizo Springs, about an hour from the Texas-Mexico border, where an emphasis on prayer has led to 52 people being baptized and regular attendance rising over 40% this past year.

In the North Texas community of Colleyville, disciple-making has been normalized in a way that is creating a pipeline of leaders—including, in one instance, a man leaving a successful business career to step into full-time ministry—who are making second- and third-generation disciples. Or in League City, where Bay Area Church sacrificially sent out one of its younger youth workers to plant a church in an area that needed a strong gospel witness.

As he spoke of each marker, Lorick cited other examples of SBTC churches making an eternal impact. When considered together, they reveal a unified, growing convention of more than 2,800 churches laser-focused on advancing the mission.

“That is what we see: a vision of all SBTC churches mobilized and multiplying disciple-making movements,” Lorick said. “Movements where our churches are resourced, leaders are networked, and the mission is advanced. Movements that saturate our state with the gospel and take it to the ends of the earth.

“It is a vision of cooperation—doing more together than any one church could do on its own,” he continued. “The apostles saw this vision. The messengers at the 1925 SBC Annual Meeting [where the Cooperative Program and the Baptist Faith and Message were adopted] saw it. The founding churches of the SBTC in 1998 saw it. Now, it’s our turn to pursue it.”

In closing, Lorick thanked messengers for their commitment to the gospel and their generosity in supporting “our shared mission.”

“Let’s lean in together like never before,” he said. “Let us lead the way as the gospel advances in America and the world, starting right here in Texas through the churches of the SBTC.”

AM25: Ponder ‘humbled and surprised’ to receive Leaders Legacy Award

LUBBOCK—Russ Ponder, who has served West Texas churches for more than 25 years, received the Leaders Legacy Award during the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Executive Board report on Tuesday, Oct. 28, the second day of the convention’s annual meeting.

Ponder pastors First Baptist Church of Hamlin.

“I am humbled and surprised to receive the Leaders Legacy Award,” Ponder said. “[I’m] deeply grateful for the SBTC’s 25-year impact on my life and the churches God has allowed me to serve.”

The Leaders Legacy Award was established in 2021 by the Southern Baptists of Texas Foundation to annually recognize an individual who has “distinguished himself or herself by service to Christ through the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention or the Southern Baptist Convention.” The foundation funded from unrestricted reserves the initial corpus of an endowment to provide the award each year.

Ponder has served churches in Potosi, Hamlin, and Farwell since his ordination in 2000. He was youth pastor and senior pastor for First Baptist Farwell in addition to First Baptist Hamlin.

His ministry has been marked by growth and effective evangelism. Since coming to Hamlin in 2021, the church has completed a major development campaign while maintaining a strong evangelistic witness in the community. He has also led out in a series of community prayer meetings asking the Lord for revival.

Steven Gaither, chairman of the SBTC Executive Board and pastor of First Baptist Church in McAllen, described Ponder as a “valued partner to the SBTC, a friend to the convention, a leader in West Texas, and a faithful pastor.”

Ponder supported the convention as a member of the Executive Board and currently assists the SBTC Regenesis church health and renewal process as a cohort trainer. In that role, Ponder has mentored pastors and guided churches as they worked toward stronger ministries. He hopes to provide financial help to two church plants using funds from the Leaders Legacy Award.

Ponder is a graduate of Cisco Junior College, Clovis Community College, and Walsh Counseling Center. He has begun a master of divinity degree at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He is married to Kim, and the Ponders have two adult sons and three beloved grandchildren.

AM25: ‘We are sending our best’: Messengers celebrate new IMB missionaries being sent to the nations

LUBBOCK— They came from California, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. Some are newlyweds, others are new parents, and some are retired.

All will soon be headed to locations across the globe—to South and Central Asia, North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

As they were commissioned during an International Mission Board Sending Celebration Monday night, Oct. 27, at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Annual Meeting, SBTC Executive Director Nathan Lorick called the 31 new missionaries—many of whom concealed their faces because they will be serving in countries where proclaiming the gospel could be dangerous—“heroes.”

Among them were Rodelliza Hao and Alex Windle.

A heart for the nations

Hao, a native Filipino, came with her parents to the U.S. at age 6. She grew up in Texas and, after college, pursued a career in advertising. When her company manager invited her to church at Parkside Baptist in Denison, Hao came with questions and “a few misconceptions about Christianity.”

Eventually realizing she had been a cultural Christian, she gave her life to Christ after listening to an online message. Once reluctant to talk about her faith, Hao said her No. 1 desire became sharing Jesus.

When the same manager who had invited her to church—and gone on the mission field—later told her about IMB opportunities, Hao applied for a two-year term as a journeyman in Peru, working on the creative solutions team supporting missionaries with social media and media content and providing design and photography services. Her term ended in July 2025, and she will return to the team in January as a career missionary.

Japan is the next stop for Windle, an Arlington resident who will also be returning to the place where she did a stint as an IMB journeyman: Tokyo.

Windle grew up going to church every Sunday morning and Wednesday night, trusting Christ at age 6. Her family moved frequently during her childhood but always plugged in at different churches wherever they landed, she said.

“I heard about missions in GAs,” Windle said. She first traveled overseas at age 12 and befriended people from diverse cultures when the family lived in Louisiana.

When college summer plans fell through one year, she signed on last minute for a short-term mission trip to help IMB missionaries with a VBS in Johannesburg, South Africa. While there, she visited with missionaries and their children.

“God used that trip to open my eyes to His heart for the nations,” she said.

She studied business in college and applied for IMB journeyman positions after graduation, serving in South Asia for two years working with university students.

Realizing “business is what I am good at,” she got a job in Arlington as a project manager for a nonprofit but missed being on the field. In Tokyo, she will work in logistics, using her business acumen for kingdom service.

Like Hao, Windle praises her church for its mission emphasis: “The Fields Church is why I am going back.”

A ceremony to remember

During Monday night’s Sending Celebration, held at Southcrest Baptist Chuch, IMB President Paul Chitwood praised the SBTC’s longstanding commitment to Cooperative Program giving, noting the convention’s practice of forwarding 55% of undesignated receipts to the Southern Baptist Convention.

“Whether your church is able to give hundreds or hundreds of thousands … all of us working together has made it possible for your IMB missionaries and their national partners to share the gospel with more than 1.6 million people this past year,” Chitwood said. Of these, 144,000 professed faith in Christ, with 68,000 baptized and thousands of churches launched.

Missionary applications have swelled in recent years, Chitwood said, contrasting the 300 applicants seven years ago during his first term as IMB president with more than 1,600 this year alone.

“And we’re looking for more,” he said, adding that even retirees can apply for fully funded two-year terms on the field, using their career experience for gospel advance.

Speaking from Deuteronomy 31, where Moses passes the torch to Joshua, Chitwood encouraged the candidates to “get [their] minds right,” and to be “strong and courageous.” He urged them to “get after it” and “do their job,” made easier because IMB funding eliminates the need to raise support. And he exhorted them to “get aligned,” to “follow the [ultimate] leader,” the Lord.

It was an emotional ceremony. SBTC President Danny Forshee, lead pastor of Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin, was visibly moved as the ceremony began. “We are sending our best,” he said.

When you give through the Cooperative Program, you mobilize your church to multiply disciple-making movements in Texas and around the world.

AM25: As record year nears end, next wave of Send Network SBTC planters are commissioned

LUBBOCK—Matt Clakley became aware of what is now known as Northrich Church in Richardson while he was serving as a missions pastor and elder at Restoration Church in Southlake.

When Restoration began working alongside Northrich with a goal to replant the legacy congregation, there was a feeling about the latter church that Clakley couldn’t shake.

“As the fall of 2024 went on, my family felt a growing desire to lead the replant in Richardson,” Clakley said. “I began the Send Network assessment process in late November, and by March [2025] I was given a go-ahead from Send [Network] SBTC and the church had voted me as lead replanting pastor.”

Clakley was among dozens of planters and spouses recognized Monday, Oct. 27, during a Send Network SBTC planter commissioning service held during the opening session of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Annual Meeting at Southcrest Baptist Church.

“I would love to see God use Northrich as a beacon of hope to struggling churches in our vicinity,” Clakley told the Texan before the event. “I would love to be a hub for training and sending out replanters and mobilize the people of Northrich Church to see God glorified as churches are replanted and revitalized in Richardson and beyond.”

‘You lose to gain’

“God is writing quite a story across Texas,” said Send Network SBTC Director Jason Crandall, noting the organization is on track to plant 70 churches by the end of 2025, including 12 international language congregations. That would be the most churches planted in the convention’s history in any single year.

“The nations aren’t just coming to Texas—they are meeting Jesus here,” Crandall said. Over the last four quarters, Send Network SBTC church plants have seen nearly 2,700 professions of faith with 952 baptized, he added.

Sending churches deserve praise as well, Crandall reminded those gathered at the ceremony, asking representatives of such churches to stand and be recognized.

“Behind every new church lies a sending church, pastors and members who pray, give, and release their best to start something new. These are heroes,” he said. “That’s the banner of the kingdom. You lose to gain. You send to grow. You give away to see God move. … You can’t outgive God.”

North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell, who attended the ceremony, praised the number of baptisms among the church plants and thanked sending churches for their sacrifices and Cooperative Program giving to “plant churches that plant churches that plant churches.”

Ezell cautioned planters there will be times of loneliness ahead, but he offered encouragement by reminding them people across the Southern Baptist Convention will be praying for them. He invited the audience to stand and stretch out their hands toward the planters as he led in a prayer for protection, blessing, and passionate service.

“I am so grateful for you,” he said to the planters. “You are heroes to Southern Baptists.”

You can support Send Network SBTC church plants by giving through the Reach Texas State Missions Offering.

AM25: Mesquite’s Turner elected SBTC president

LUBBOCK—Caleb Turner, senior pastor of Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church, was elected president of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Tuesday morning, Oct. 28, during the convention’s annual meeting at Southcrest Baptist Church. He was elected by acclamation.

In making his nomination, Michael Criner, lead pastor of First Baptist Church Rockwall, referred to Turner as having “the strength of character, wisdom, and leadership experience to serve well as our president.”

Turner has led Mesquite Friendship since 2023 after serving the church as equipping/teaching pastor and co-pastor. His father, Terry, preceded Caleb, and was the founding pastor of Mesquite Friendship.

Turner attended the University of Oklahoma on a track and field scholarship. Prior to graduating, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, working with its Special Operations Command while stationed at Hurlburt Field in Florida. He was also stationed at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan for a time.

Turner served as the youngest, and first African American, chairman of the SBTC Executive Board. He is also a North American Mission Board trustee.

Caleb is married to Tamera, and they have three children: Caden, Cason, and Camden.

Everything you need to know for SBTC AM 2025

IMB Sending Celebration, CP100 reception among highlights at this year’s annual meeting

In Acts 11:19-30, God’s Word presents a beautiful picture of multiplication: As followers of Jesus scattered because of increasing persecution, God used their circumstances to spread the gospel in all the places they traveled. Along the way, those disciples “proclaimed the good news about the Lord Jesus” to Jews and Greeks alike.

As a result, Scripture says, “large numbers of people were added to the Lord.”

The theme of this year’s Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Annual Meeting is “Mobilize to Multiply,” based on that passage in Acts 11. The meeting will be held Oct. 27-28 at Southcrest Baptist Church in Lubbock.

For more than a quarter century, SBTC churches have been faithful to the command to make disciples in Texas and around the world—not only in going, but in giving through the Cooperative Program. Each year’s annual meeting provides opportunities for messengers to celebrate all that God has done over the past year, network with other pastors and church leaders, and help direct the future of convention work.

This year’s meeting will also include several special events. Three of the Southern Baptist Convention’s entity heads—SBC Executive Committee President/CEO Jeff Iorg, North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell, and International Mission Board President Paul Chitwood—will be present on Monday night. Ezell will speak during a church planting commissioning service, while Chitwood will lead an IMB Sending Celebration where the next wave of missionaries from SBC churches will be sent out to take the gospel to the nations.

Later that evening, a reception will be held in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Cooperative Program. Messengers will have an opportunity to meet future IMB missionaries at the reception. On Tuesday, SBTC President Danny Forshee will moderate the President’s Lunch Panel featuring Chitwood and SBTC Missional Ministries Associate Colin Rayburn on the topic of, “How your church can engage with the IMB.”

The annual meeting will also feature the launch of a new SBTC network, the Shepherds Collective, for lead/senior pastors.

SBTC officer nominations announced

Michael Criner, senior pastor of First Rockwall, has announced his intention to nominate Caleb Turner, senior pastor of Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church, as president of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention at its annual meeting in October.

Turner has been Mesquite Friendship’s senior pastor since 2023, having previously served as the church’s equipping/teaching pastor, assistant pastor, and co-pastor.

“If you were to visit [Mesquite Friendship] on a Sunday, you would find a church that is in love with the Lord, but a church that trusts their pastor,” Criner said. “ … I believe [Turner] has the strength of character, wisdom, and leadership experience to serve well as our president.”

Turner has held multiple leadership positions in Southern Baptist life, including his service as a trustee for the North American Mission Board. He was also the youngest person and first African American to serve as chairman of the SBTC’s executive board.

Turner said he would be grateful for the opportunity to serve as president, if elected.

“It is my belief that the SBTC is the greatest state convention in the country,” he said. “God has used godly, capable, and gifted men to lead our convention, and it would be an honor to follow in their footsteps.”

Mesquite Friendship gave $205,100 through the Cooperative Program in 2023 and $181,650 in 2024.

Turner and his wife, Tamera, have three children: Caden, Cason, and Camden. Turner’s father, Terry—Mesquite Friendship’s founding pastor—served as SBTC president from 2011- 2013.

Ed Johnson III, lead pastor of Harvest Fellowship Baptist Church in DeSoto, will be nominated to serve as SBTC vice president, having served in the role this past year. A bivocational pastor, Johnson also serves on the convention’s executive board and will be nominated by Averri LeMalle, senior pastor of The Church at Jersey Village. The convention vice president fulfills the duties of the president in the president’s absence or when requested to do so by the president.

Amy Hinote, a member of First Baptist Church Justin and the wife of its pastor, Beaux Hinote, will again be nominated to serve as convention secretary. She will be nominated by Kason Branch, senior pastor of Creekstone Church in North Richland Hills. The convention secretary’s duties include receiving copies of motions offered for consideration at the SBTC Annual Meeting.

The secretary and vice president also serve on the credentials committee, as outlined in Article III of the convention’s constitution and bylaws.

Meals & Events

Meal registration is required at sbtexas.com/am25.

At a Glance

Messengers to the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Annual Meeting will gather for a powerful time of prayer, worship, and fellowship at Southcrest Baptist Church in Lubbock on Oct. 27-28.

Sagemont Church, Houston

11300 S. Sam Houston Pkwy E Houston, TX 77089

Main Sessions

Monday evening 6:15-9:00 p.m.

SBC greetings

Jeff Iorg, president/CEO, SBC Executive Committee

Church Planter Commissioning & NAMB greetings
Kevin Ezell, NAMB president

IMB Sending Celebration & Message
Paul Chitwood, IMB president

Tuesday morning 9:00-11:35 a.m.
Messages by SBTC President Danny Forshee & SBTC Executive Director Nathan Lorick

Tuesday afternoon 1:30-4:00 p.m.
Messages by Carl Bradford, associate professor of evangelism, SWBTS & dean of Texas Baptist College, Fort Worth, and Luis Soto, executive director of Convention of Southern Baptist Churches of Puerto Rico

Sesión en Español

Sunday, Oct. 26

5:30-6:45 p.m. Fellowship

7:00-8:30 p.m. Session

Monday, Oct. 27

10:00-11:55 a.m. Breakout sessions

12:00-2:00 p.m. Lunch*

* Registration is required

ANNUAL MEETING MEALS

Monday, Oct. 27

12:00 p.m.

Almuerzo en Español

Lunch con un testimonio especial por
Luis González, Director de SBTC En Español.

Executive Pastors & Administrators Network Lunch

“Protecting the Mission: Insurance Insights for Today’s Church Leaders”

Speaker: Mike Wierick, Southern Baptists of Texas Foundation

Join us as we discuss the factors driving rising premiums, how to make your church more insurable, and what some churches are doing to address insurance challenges.

4:30 p.m.

Resourcing Churches Dinner

“What Is So Strategic About Soul Care?”

Speaker: Mark Dance, Executive Director of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention

Sprinting through church responsibilities week after week without stopping to reflect or rest leads to stress. How can we serve our families and ministries faithfully without trying to be the hero of both? At this dinner, Mark will explore three practical ways to take soul care seriously so we can lead from a place of health and sustainability.

Shepherds Collective Dinner

The Shepherds Collective is a new network for lead pastors in Texas. Panelists Danny Forshee and Ben Lacey will discuss preaching topics such as staying fresh, addressing cultural narratives, and the role of the Holy Spirit. Every attendee will get a free Shepherds Collective T-shirt.

9:00 p.m.

CP100 Reception

Food and fellowship for everyone. Come celebrate 100 years of kingdom impact through the Cooperative Program and meet our new IMB missionaries. Although admission is free, please sign up so we know you are planning to attend.

Tuesday, Oct. 28

7:30 a.m.

Southern Seminary Breakfast

Southwestern Seminary Breakfast

SBTC Disaster Relief Taco Truck (Free)

11:45 a.m.

President’s Lunch Panel

“How Your Church Can Engage with the IMB”

Speakers: Danny Forshee, Paul Chitwood, Colin Rayburn

Join us for an engaging and insightful lunch panel focused on how churches can actively participate in global missions. This panel will offer practical strategies, inspiring stories, and actionable steps to help advance the mission in Texas and around the world.

Resolutions

A resolution allows convention messengers to express consensus on a current issue. While resolutions are non-binding on convention churches, they add substance to current conversations in Baptist life and the culture at large. Any member of an SBTC church may submit a proposed resolution to the resolutions committee for consideration. The resolutions committee considers these submissions when preparing resolutions to present to messengers at the annual meeting.

The 2025 resolutions committee will receive proposed resolutions from Monday, Sept. 1, 2025, until Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025. A proposed resolution must include a name, church membership, phone number, and email address. Please review the format of previous SBTC resolutions at sbtexas.com/resolutions. All proposed resolutions must be emailed to Jenna Griffis at jgriffis@sbtexas.com.

‘We sit in awe of what God has done’

North Texas churches join forces to amplify witness in growing town

Continue reading →

In Montreal, NAMB trustees see city’s beauty—and its lostness

MONTREAL—North American Mission Board trustees, meeting in Montreal Oct. 6-7, toured the city, learned about the ministry challenges associated with reaching Canada, and conducted business in support of NAMB’s ministries.

After visiting with three local church planting missionaries Monday, a trip to nearby Mount Royal Park provided a sweeping view of Montreal’s skyline with the St. Lawrence River in the background. The deep spiritual need, though, overshadowed the beauty as trustees learned of Montreal’s unique challenges for church planters serving in a city marked by secularism and religious disaffiliation.

Once more than 80% of residents identified as Catholic. Then in the 1960s during a societal shift known as “The Quiet Revolution,” millions in the province of Quebec, where Montreal is located, left the church.

Today, fewer than 10% attend weekly mass. Fewer still—only 1%—of residents identify as evangelical Christians.

A deep distrust of organized religion remains. Local church planters describe Montreal residents as spiritual, but mostly uninterested in attending church.

At a Monday night dinner, Jeff Christopherson welcomed trustees and local missionaries. Christopherson serves as executive director of the Canadian National Baptist Convention, NAMB’s church planting partner in Canada.

Noting that in 2010 NAMB’s total budget for Canada was $300,000, Christopherson told NAMB President Kevin Ezell, “Thanks to your leadership and willingness to go to the mat, we are at 15 times that now. It’s humbling to recognize that there are a lot of people sacrificing, a lot of people doing without so that this could happen here.”

‘Something is going on right now’

David Pothier, who planted La Chapelle church in 2013, gave trustees a sense of the challenges churches face in Montreal. Most neighborhoods have laws preventing new religious zonings, making it next to impossible to start a new church unless that area is already zoned for religious gatherings.

“So for churches to find a place to meet is a big challenge,” Pothier said. “Especially if you have more than 200 people attending. For us, we were meeting in a school, and last November the government of Quebec kicked out all the churches that were meeting in schools. We had notice at 5 p.m. on a Friday night that said your contract is done, don’t come back to the school. That was Nov. 22, and it took four months to find another place.”

Pothier outlined several other proposed laws the government is currently considering. One would ban prayer in public spaces. Another would eliminate tax deductions for tithes to churches. Still another would require churches to pay taxes on their buildings, and another would remove the non-profit status of organizations that adhere to a pro-life position on the issue of abortion.

“Despite everything I said, something is going on right now,” Pothier sad. “We have a movement of church planting right now.”

Montreal has seen more than 70 church plants since 2008, and activity continues to grow.

“Despite everything here in Quebec, I believe we are on the verge of the greatest revival we have ever seen here in Quebec, but at the same time we are on the verge of the greatest persecution we have seen here in Quebec,” Pothier said. “But nothing will stop the kingdom of God, and thank you for being part of it.”

Obedience over outcomes

In his address to trustees, Ezell said, “What we are doing is no small thing. Can you believe we get to do this? God allows us to be a small part of all this. Thousands of churches started.”

Ezell challenged leaders to live with a faith that expects the unexplainable, trusting in God alone. “We have to expect God to do things only He can do, which means we won’t always be able to explain them,” he said.

He emphasized obedience to God over outcomes: “Our job is obedience. His job is the results.” Confidence, he noted, should come not from circumstances, but from God’s sovereign hand.

Reflecting on the rebuilding of the temple in the book of Ezra, Ezell pointed out that the people began with worship, not work. “Worship strengthens your courage and keeps you focused on God’s power, not your enemy’s pressure.”

Opposition, he said, is a sign you’re building something that matters.

Ezell told a story about Cuba under Fidel Castro. Though churches were suppressed, they adapted—multiplying house churches every time the regime imposed lower attendance limits.

“God started a church planting movement in Cuba and used a communist leader to do it,” a local pastor had told Ezell. “That’s something only God could do.”

This article was distributed by the North American Mission Board.