Southern Baptists Embrace Diversity

Kevin Ezell, the president of the North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, spoke at the 2011 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting Tuesday night in Phoenix.

Ezell, delivering the NAMB annual report, commissioned 20 missionaries for the 2011-2012 year.

One Twitter account holder, Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote that Ezell "pledges that NAMB will define & plant real churches—Southern Baptist churches."

First Baptist Church of Woodstock pastor Johnny Hunt tweeted that the NAMB report "will always inspire with changed lives, thanks @kevezell."

You can share some of that inspiration by downloading the videos shown during the presentation.

The NAMB's Shawn Elledge  of Alpharetta shared a view behind the scense of Ezell's speech: "My view of the @NAMB_SBC presentation from the A/V truck. ... http://t.co/pR81I9."

Another local pastor, the Rev. Bryant Wright of East Cobb's , was elected for another year as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention by a vote of 2,274 to 102 against Wiley Drake from Buena Park, CA.

Pastor Fred Luter Jr. of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans was elected vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is the first African American to hold the position.

Luter's election fit with a theme of diversity at the conference, USA Today reported.

The meeting attendees adopted a 10-point proposal "to foster conscious awareness of the need to be proactive and intentional in the inclusion of individuals from all ethnic and racial identities within Southern Baptist life," the Baptist Press news service reported.

Before passing that proposal, the Southern Baptists debated and rejected a motion to use "Gospel minded" in place of ethnic identity.

"The debate was not more diversity vs. less diversity in that motion, but wording of more diversity vs. wording of more diversity," tweeted Peyton Hill, a teacher at First Baptist of Woodstock.

In his speech to the meeting, Wright urged church members to take the Gospel to 3,800 groups of people with no church or ministry, the Baptist Press reported.

"We have to make a decision. Our decision is to be a part of God's kingdom business or be on the sidelines," Wright said, according to the Baptist Press. "With all of our resources and with all 45,000 churches, there is no reason why we cannot have a sufficient number of churches to step forward and embrace every one of the unengaged and unreached people groups."

Meanwhile, the NAMB's Drew Pearce of Cumming kept the mood light:

• "I think the elevators in my hotel were manufactured by the Sirius Cybernetics Corp. They sound sad when they say 'going down.' "
• "I didn't get to vote on anything today at #SBC11. I'm really disappointed. #TryingToKeepAStraightFace."
• "I thought this was the SBC annual meeting, not the RNC."