Thank you, Alabama Baptists

This will be the last letter I write to you while serving as president of the Alabama Baptist State Convention. It has been an honor, privilege and joy to serve as your president. 

We will meet Nov. 13 and 14 at Vaughn Forest Baptist Church, Montgomery. The theme for this year’s convention is “FutureFocus.” We will do God’s business God’s way and everything will be done “decently and in order.” 

On Tuesday night we will meet for worship with a great mass choir and hear a message from Phil Waldrep, one of God’s anointed evangelists. My president’s message Tuesday morning will be “The Debts We Never Can Pay” from Romans 1:14–17. We will elect officers on Wednesday morning and hear a powerful message from Lawrence Phipps, the dynamic pastor at Vaughn Forest. 

It has been a delight to get to know all of the people who serve the Lord as our state missionaries, entity board members and staff and faculty members and employees. 

We are wonderfully led in Alabama by the greatest state convention executive director, Rick Lance, and his entire staff. My job as president has been blessed with the assistance of Bobby DuBois, Mary Sue Bennett and Debbie Oliver, who are all dedicated and tireless workers for our Lord and His Kingdom. 

The members and staff at First Baptist, Pelham, have helped me tremendously and I would never have been able to serve as president without them. Pat MacKay has helped keep me on track and on target, and I appreciate her going above and beyond the call
of duty as my ministry assistant. 

My vice presidents, John Killian and Travis Coleman, have made themselves available and have been effective leaders these last two years. 

My lovely and precious wife, Mary, has been a gracious and Christlike first lady, and she is glad (I think) to have her husband be able to stay home more after Nov. 14. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the last two years. I will be an advocate for Christ, for Alabama Baptists and for the Cooperative Program the rest of my life. I love you, I love you, I love you. 

Mike Shaw