Pastors Conference to focus on ‘clean vessels’

Those attending this year’s Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference Nov. 18 at Hunter Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, will hear about the need for ministers to be spiritually pure. The conference theme, “Vessels for Honor,” is based on 2 Timothy 2:20–21.
   
“In the past year, there have been a number of ministers I am familiar with who have lost their ministry for moral reasons,” said current conference president and pastor of East Memorial Baptist Church, Prattville, Glenn Graham Jr. “Usually, [the conference] focuses on preaching God’s Word, but before we can be used optimally by God, we must be clean vessels ourselves.
   
“Some of these speakers are men I’ve known and God used them in my life,” Graham said. “Others I felt led by God to ask.”
   
The lineup of speakers includes:
   
–Sammy Gilbreath, director of evangelism, Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions;
   
–Joe Godfrey, pastor of Taylor Road Baptist Church, Montgomery;
   
–Junior Hill, evangelist, Decatur;
   
–Johnny Hunt, pastor, First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Ga.;
   
–Chuck Kelley, president, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary;
   
–James Merritt, immediate past president, Southern Baptist Convention and pastor, First Baptist Church, Snellville, Ga.;
   
–Paige Patterson, president, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, N.C.;
   
–Fred Wolfe, former Alabama Pastors Conference president and founder of Barnabas, a Ministry of Encouragement, Mobile.
   
Rob Britton, minister of music at Blackshear Place Baptist Church, Flowery Branch, Ga., will lead the music. The Celebration Choir from East Memorial Church, led by music associate Michael Wilson, will provide special music. Officers for the 2003 Pastors Conference will also be elected.