Jarman Leatherwood, pastor of House of Hope and Restoration Church in Huntsville, was re-elected to a second one-year term as first vice president during the Nov. 13 morning session of the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting in Daphne. He previously served two one-year terms as the convention’s second vice president.
He was nominated by Alabama pastor Theron Hawkins, who outlined Leatherwood’s various leadership roles across the state convention and in Madison Baptist Association as well as Etowah Baptist Association. Leatherwood also serves with Samford University’s Ministry Training Institute and is working on a master’s degree through New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
“Many of our recent church planters have been impacted in some way by his leadership,” Hawkins said. “He has a heart to serve.”
Leatherwood ran unopposed.
Sermon notes
During the 2023 convention sermon, Leatherwood urged Alabama Baptists to “remember your purpose” and persevere through stormy trials.
“The Word is very clear that while we are saved by grace and we love the Lord, we are not exempt from dealing with stormy days,” he said as he preached from Philippians 3:13–14.
“There are times when life happens to us and it seems our joy can be tampered with … but Paul says you can be on death row and still have joy.
“Nations are going crazy, wars are raging, situations are bad, but God is still on the throne.”
Leatherwood noted three things he believes are necessary for Alabama Baptists to joyfully continue doing the work God has called them to do.
1. Forget the past but not our purpose.
“There are times when it’s good to look back and pull a memory from your Rolodex and celebrate the goodness of what God has done,” Leatherwood said.
For example, when David fought Goliath, he recalled how God had given him strength to defeat a lion and a bear and knew that God could give him that strength again.
But there are other times “when we recall the painful memories of the past and they cripple us,” Leatherwood said. Let those memories go and be faithful with the present opportunity.
2. Faithfully strive to make forward progress.
Striving means to want something bad enough, to yearn for it, Leatherwood said. “It means to literally give yourself away.”
One of the things those who have been in ministry for a while may ask themselves, he noted, is “do you even want it anymore? Are we trying to make forward progress?”
3. Focus on the prize.
Passion for the lost, Leatherwood said, brings a laser-like focus on what is most important in the life of the believer.
“I want to know Christ, I want to know Him, I want to know the fellowship of His suffering,” he said. “I believe it’s possible for us to spend our whole life in church and never know Him.”
The ultimate prize is knowing Jesus Christ in His fullness, Leatherwood said.
“You know what makes me afraid? Succeeding at something God never told me to do,” he said. “Paul says to press toward the mark.”
That mark is knowing Jesus and taking Him to a dying world, Leatherwood said. “If we don’t finish the work He called us to, it’s possible some others won’t finish theirs. … I believe that it’s important and it’s necessary for God to set your soul on fire to make sure you do the best you can to go and finish the work He started.”
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