Among the 15 motions proposed during the afternoon session of the SBC Annual Meeting today (June 10), one suggests a task force determine how seminaries and others help address the pastoral shortfall many states are experiencing.
Keith Taylor, pastor of First Baptist Church Wedowee, made the motion.
Check out more stories on SBC Annual Meeting coverage.
Also proposed was a request by Ben Cole of Texas for the SBC legal counsel to counter sue longtime pastor and former SBC president Johnny Hunt to recover legal fees incurred by the Convention.
Hunt sued the SBC and several others following his appearance in the 2022 report following the Guidepost Solutions investigation into the SBC Executive Committee’s handling of sexual abuse allegations during a 20-year period.
His lawsuit is one of three requiring significant expenses from the EC to defend.
While 11 of the 13 motions made during the morning session were referred to appropriate entities for further consideration and to report back to messengers next year, two will be debated and voted on by this year’s messengers tomorrow, June 11.
The motion by Florida pastor Willy Rice to abolish the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is set for tomorrow at 11:45 a.m.
Action such as abolishing an entity requires affirmative votes at two consecutive annual meetings for the action to take place. An affirmative vote this year would be the first of those two. Previous attempts to abolish ERLC have failed.
The motion by Texas pastor Juan Sanchez regarding adapting the definition of pastor/elder/overseer in the SBC constitution will be debated tomorrow at 3:05 p.m.
Sanchez’s motion requests the definition be expanded to say cooperating SBC churches affirm, appoint or employee “only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by scripture.”
The two other motions made by Alabama Baptists during the morning session were referred to the EC for review and reporting back to messengers at next year’s annual meeting.
A full report of all the motions and results will be available in upcoming articles by The Baptist Paper.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Taylor’s motion was ultimately ruled out of order along with four others. Motions are ruled out of order if they violate local church or entity autonomy, are outside the convention’s authority or are unclear or procedurally inappropriate. To read more about how the motions process works, check out this resource provided by The Baptist Paper.
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