When Tim Cox was elected president of the Alabama Baptist State Convention in 2018, he didn’t know it was going to be a historic presidency.
Many times, ABSC presidents serve one year and are re-elected for a second. But Cox served three, and a president hasn’t served that long since the early years of the convention. For Cox’s term to be extended by a global pandemic also is a landmark.
“Looking back, it feels like I’ve been in this position my whole ministry,” he joked. “But I look back on it with great joy.”
Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, said Alabama Baptists can be proud of Cox’s service.
‘Godly wisdom and anointed leadership’
“He has been faithful in leading Alabama Baptists during the most difficult days of the historic pandemic period,” Lance said, adding Alabama Baptists benefited from Cox’s “godly wisdom and anointed leadership.”
For Cox, pastor of Liberty Baptist Church in Chelsea, even though the pandemic was his presidency’s greatest challenge, he said it also was a joy to see God’s people remain faithful when life was turned upside down.
“I’ve experienced the great joy of seeing faithful men and women of God seek the Lord and seek to fulfill the mission God has given us,” he said. “One of the joys is to see the faithfulness of Alabama Baptists in Cooperative Program giving in the very tough year of 2020 when we didn’t know what was going to happen. One thing that remained strong was the fuel of giving through the Cooperative Program to advance the mission of the gospel.”
Cox said deciding not to have an in-person convention annual meeting last year was difficult, and he’s thankful to be meeting face-to-face again this year.
“The number of decisions we’ve had to make has been off the chart, and it’s new kind of decisions we’ve never been faced with before,” Cox said, noting that goes for pastors as well as leaders at every level.
The truth he has encouraged other leaders to cling to is that God is still on His throne, and the meeting’s theme of “Christ-centered” feels especially poignant in light of the past year-and-a-half, he said.
‘Contentment in Jesus’
“Our contentment is in Jesus, and He is our sufficiency, and this season of ministry and convention life has not caught Him off guard,” Cox affirmed. “I pray we will steward well this season of ministry He has given us.”
That was Cox’s prayer three years ago, and he has watched it happen in Alabama Baptist life.
“Even though we have a diverse group of people called Alabama Baptists, from the local church to our entities and our State Board of Missions, we’re all pulling in the same direction to make Christ known and disciple believers to be more like Jesus and live life on mission,” Cox said.
That goes for everyone from state missionaries to disaster relief volunteers, Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes to Alabama Baptist Retirement Centers, he added.
“I’ve wanted to be an encourager and a cheerleader for the right things that were going on,” he said. “In the face of these challenging times, I believe and pray these could truly be the time we could see some of the most fruitful days of ministry.”
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