By Grace Thornton
Correspondent, The Alabama Baptist
Ninety-five percent of Southern Baptist churches run 400 or less on Sunday mornings — that’s a stat that Dave Miller said made him want to try something different.
Miller, president of the 2017 Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Pastors Conference, announced in September that conference leaders are looking for “the right 12 men” who lead churches that run roughly 500 or fewer on Sundays to preach at the 2017 conference.
“When you go to these (national) conferences, what you see represented on the stage is the small number of megachurches. Most of the churches in the SBC are never heard from,” said Miller, pastor of Southern Hills Baptist Church, Sioux City, Iowa, which averages around 200 on Sundays. “We have nothing against megachurches at all, and we don’t really plan to do this more than once. We just wanted to try something different and showcase the ministry that goes on at such a large number of the SBC’s churches.”
Preaching Philippians
The 12 men selected will preach through Philippians in an expositional fashion, and “we think that the Word of God is all the draw we’ll need” for the event, Miller said. “We think people will be blessed even if there’s not a single big name on stage. You may not know their names ahead of time, but you’ll get to hear the Word of God powerfully preached.”
At the helm
It’s an idea Miller and his friends have been batting around for years, and it’s the platform that earned him the spot at the helm of the conference.
He said he’s excited to have the chance to try it.
And as an added bonus for the concept, the Caskey Center for Church Excellence at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS) is partnering with the conference.
Caskey Center
Mark Tolbert, director of the Caskey Center, told Baptist Press, “The Caskey Center was asked to partner with the SBC Pastors Conference because we are one of the only entities in the SBC completely devoted to smaller-membership and bivocational ministry. The Caskey Center serves as a champion for our smaller churches throughout the convention. We look forward to sharing research, highlighting best practices and celebrating the significant work of our smaller churches.”
Working as a team
The 12 preachers also will gather at NOBTS in early 2017 for a seminar that will help them get on the same page as a team rather than as individual speakers for the Pastors Conference.
Miller said he hopes the Pastors Conference — with the theme “Above Every Name” from Philippians 2:9 — will showcase the fact that “there’s a lot of good ministry, a lot of good preachers out there” in the convention’s smaller churches.
Already Pastors Conference officers have received more than 100 nominations, but Miller said he didn’t have many from Alabama yet.
“We’d love to get more nominations in from there,” he said.
The Pastors Conference will be held in June 2017 in Phoenix. The soft deadline for submissions is Sept. 30, but nominations received soon after may still be considered until the lineup is full, Miller said.
For more information or to submit a nomination, visit sbcpc2017.com.
Share with others: