Vision 2025 adopted with amendments

NASHVILLE  SBC Executive Committee President Ronnie Floyd opened his Tuesday afternoon presentation on Vision 2025 to messengers at the 2021 SBC annual meeting with a sobering reminder of the plight of the lost from Revelation 20.

Speaking before some 15,678 registered messengers with guests in the overflow area because of the packed auditorium, Floyd called the adoption of Vision 2025 “the most urgent thing that we must do.”

The “call to reach every person in every town, every city, every state, and every nation” involves a five-pronged initiative characterized by five strategic actions:

1. Deploy 500 new IMB missionaries
2. Add 5,000 more congregations, a yearly increase of 1,250 congregations including 600 church plants, 200 replants, 100 new campuses of multisite churches, and 350 new church affiliations annually
3. Emphasize calling out the called: training and equipping pastors
4. Reverse the trend of declining baptisms by encouraging the evangelization of young people ages 12-17
5. Increase Cooperative Program giving among churches

Floyd called on messengers to join the Vision 2025 prayer team.

Following a time of corporate prayer, Jeremy Morton, pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia, formally submitted Vision 2025 to messengers for adoption.

Discussion followed as messengers expressed support for or questions about Vision 2025.

A proposed amendment to change the wording of strategic action 4 was accepted as friendly, and the emphasis of evangelism will be broadened to include all “18 and under.”

Speaking against Vision 2025, messengers Ben Raspberry of Morgan Chapel Baptist in west central Alabama admitted agreement with the actions of Vision 2025, but noted there was “less confidence in the leadership of the convention” and called for more “openness,” noting that “there are many who are hesitant to ask our churches to give more and more when we cannot find out what is happening with the funds that are spent.”

Messenger Benjamin Cole Prestonwood Church in Plano requested the addition of a sixth strategic action: “prayerfully endeavor before God to eliminate all incidents of sex abuse and racial discrimination among our churches.” Cole said that although he was in agreement with the five strategic action, the proposed addition would better “capture the heart of God.” The amendment passed.

Vision 2025 was adopted by messengers as amended.