Alabama’s Craig Carlisle was elected first vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention in a run-off vote Wednesday morning (June 10).
Carlisle, director of missions for Etowah Baptist Association, won the runoff with a vote of 3,338 (65.92%) against Paul Purvis, lead pastor at Mission Hill Church in Temple Terrace, Florida, who drew 1,719 (33.95%). The other candidate was Larry Helms, pastor of Fort Lawn Baptist Church, Fort Lawn, South Carolina. See other SBC officer election results.
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Charles W. Smith, president of the University of Mobile and member of Redemption Church in the Mobile area, nominated Carlisle during the afternoon session on Tuesday (June 9) of the SBC Annual Meeting in Orlando.
Carlisle was elected second vice president of the SBC during last year’s annual meeting in Dallas, and wrapped up his two-year term as Alabama Baptist State Convention president in November of 2025.
‘Here we are’
The push for Carlisle to allow his name to be put in nomination for an SBC officer surfaced earlier this year after he posted a message on Facebook related to the upcoming officer election. He asked who would be willing to speak to the pastoral shortage and the need for bivocational ministers.
Read more stories from the 2026 SBC Annual Meeting in Orlando.
“The post got a strong reaction resulting in people encouraging me to allow my name to be nominated for president, (but I) decided that was not the right course,” he explained. “Fast forward a couple of weeks and … I began to be approached about first vice president. And here we are.”
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