Five sessions featuring a variety of preaching and singing that are designed to encourage and motivate Alabama ministers are part of this year’s Alabama Baptist State Evangelism Conference.
Scheduled for Jan. 29–30 at The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, the theme of this year’s conference is “Through Every Door.”
Sammy Gilbreath, director of evangelism for the State Board of Missions, said the annual event is the one conference in the state evangelism office geared toward inspiration and encouragement.
“Our other conferences are primarily instructional, teaching — introducing tools to do ministry,” Gilbreath said. “This conference, by its design, is for inspiration and encouragement.
“It’s strictly to say to those pastors and lay people, come and join us for a time of worship and praise for motivation, inspiration and encouragement,” he said.
Gilbreath believes the fellowship between pastors and church members from across the state is also important.
“Pastors look to this conference in a similar way that they do the convention,” he said. “It’s a time for pastors who went to school together, that have served in associations together to get back together. There’s great camaraderie.”
Gilbreath also believes those attending will find favor with the conference speakers and music.
“There’s a huge variety of speakers — young and old, mega churches and small churches, bivocational, black and white,” Gilbreath said. “We’re really excited about that.”
Among the preachers who will speak during the conference are:
-Voddie Baucham, associate teaching pastor at Sagemont Baptist Church, Houston, Texas.
-John Bisagno, former pastor of First Baptist, Houston, Texas.
-Phillip Ellen, pastor of Cross Point Community Church, Gadsden.
-Burney Enzor, pastor of Antioch East Baptist Church, Greenville.
-Don Graham, president of Don Graham Revival Ministries, Clanton.
-Roger Graham, pastor of Nazareth Baptist, Rainsville.
-Richard Jackson, president of Jackson Center for Evangelism and Encouragement, Brownwood, Texas, and pastor emeritus of North Phoenix Baptist Church, Phoenix, Ariz.
-Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, New Orleans.
-James Merritt, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of First Baptist Church, Snellville, Ga.
-Jerry Passmore, director of evangelism for the Florida Baptist Convention.
-Hershael York, associate dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky.
Gilbreath also promised music to satisfy everyone’s tastes. “Musically, I think that we’ve got a real variety,” he said.
“One of the big struggles in churches today is style of worship — music style especially,” he said. “We’ve tried to bring a variety of preaching and a variety of music.”
Music will include:
-The choir and orchestra from Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills, which he described as “very traditional.”
-The praise team from The Church at Brook Hills, which Gilbreath characterized as “a totally different style.”
-The Stone Brothers from Huntsville, who perform everything from Southern gospel to praise music.
“Probably no one is going to like every preacher or every singer,” Gilbreath said, “but is going to like something in every session.
“There are three messages in each of the five sessions and very deliberately we’ve tried to stagger those to where there’s a different style of preaching all through that session,” he added. “We’ve not loaded any one session with all one kind of anything."
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