Bring together a lineup of great Alabama preachers and bring in a slew of powerful out-of-state speakers and busloads of church groups from all over the state, and the combination should be something big.
So big, in fact, that Sammy Gilbreath, director of the office of evangelism for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, has chartered a fleet of 15-passenger vans and buses just to make sure no one has to walk too far from their cars to get to this year’s State Evangelism Conference at Samford University in Birmingham.
“We are getting more and more calls of churches bringing entire busloads, and we are getting very excited about this year’s conference,” Gilbreath said of the event, set for Feb. 23–24.
Headlining the Monday night rally will be Robert Smith, associate professor of divinity at Samford’s Beeson Divinity School, as well as Ted Traylor, pastor of Olive Baptist Church, Pensacola, Fla.
Other speakers featured during the conference will be:
• Matt Brady, senior pastor of Carolina Baptist Church, Andalusia,
• Emir Caner, president of Truett-McConnell College in Cleveland, Ga.,
• Don Cass, evangelism director for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention,
• Charles T. Carter, pastor emeritus of Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills,
• Scott Harris, pastor of Southside Baptist Church,
• Roy Hill, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Satsuma,
• Johnny Hunt, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Ga.,
• Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas,
• Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of Evangelist Billy Graham and founder of AnGeL Ministries,
• Bob Pitman, Alabama evangelist, and
• David Uth, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Orlando, Fla.
“Every session has an outstanding speaker, and there is a huge variety of speakers, which bodes well,” Gilbreath said.
Contemporary Christian singer Charles Billingsley will lead worship during the conference. He will be joined by the choir of Gardendale’s First Baptist Church for the Monday night rally.
And breakout sessions will be offered again on topics ranging from using demographics effectively to conducting an evangelistic golf tournament.
“So many different things will be offered that every staff member or layperson should find practical, hands-on help,” Gilbreath said.
Tours of the Samford campus, the athletic department and Beeson also will be offered during the conference.
“We’re thrilled to death to be on the campus of Samford — we haven’t been there in a long, long time,” Gilbreath said of the conference. “It’s a win-win for Alabama Baptists to put us back partnering on that campus.”
It also bodes well for state Baptists to have the event in a central location once again, he said.
“We gathered some information and found that when we hold the conference in one end of the state, we lose the people from the other end of the state. But both ends said yes, they would attend if the conference was held in the middle of the state,” Gilbreath explained.
Next year’s conference will be held at the new facilities of Vaughn Forest Baptist Church, Montgomery, and the year after that, it will be held at Gardendale’s First.
“Both of these are new additions to the circuit, and we’ve gotten great response about that,” Gilbreath said.
For more information, visit www.alsbom.org or call 1-800-264-1225, Ext. 245.
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