In a surprise move, Southern Baptists said no to two well-known presidential candidates and elected a church planter from Marietta, Ga., to lead them in the coming year.
Bryant Wright, senior pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, Marietta, Ga., beat Ted Traylor, pastor of Olive Baptist Church, Pensacola, Fla., 4,225 to 3,371 in a runoff. Wright’s votes represented 55.11 percent of the 7,667 votes cast, while Traylor’s represented 43.97 percent. Seventy-one votes, or 0.93 percent, were disallowed.
Traylor and Jimmy Jackson, senior pastor of Whitesburg Baptist Church, Huntsville, entered the race as the front-runners, particularly in what many labeled a pro/con Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) presidential race. Traylor served on the GCR Task Force. Jackson was outspoken against the task force’s report, which was approved by convention messengers just minutes before the presidential election results were announced.
Wright and Traylor garnered a combined 66.02 percent of the original vote, which included Jackson and Leo Endel, executive director of the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention.
In the original vote, Wright received 3,433 votes, or 36.84 percent, while Traylor received 2,719 votes, or 29.18 percent. Jackson received 2,482 votes, or 26.64 percent, and Endel received 589 votes, or 6.32 percent. Of the 10,873 messengers registered at the time of the vote, 9,318 cast ballots. Of those, 95 ballots, or 1.2 percent, were disallowed.
In nominating Wright, David Uth, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Orlando, Fla., said, “He’s not been on a lot of programs and you may not know his name.
“He wasn’t waiting on a resurgence or a vote of a convention. He has been quietly leading his church … and doing the Great Commission,” Uth said.
Wright helped start Johnson Ferry Baptist 28 years ago and has been its only pastor. The church routinely leads Southern Baptist churches in giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions and has a strong missions emphasis.
The church plans to give 3.5 percent of its undesignated receipts — more than $600,000 to the Cooperative Program (CP) in 2010. Regarding the relatively low percentage for the Southern Baptist Convention’s unified budget, Wright said because his congregation is so missions-minded, key leaders questioned why so much of the CP stays in the United States.
“We had a stewardship issue and had to make a decision,” Wright said during a news conference following his election June 15. “We wanted the majority of the money to wind up on the missions field where the witness for Christ is not as prevalent” as in the United States.
“I don’t plan to encourage churches to bypass the CP,” Wright said. “I do think we need to re-prioritize the CP as far as where the funding goes. … More people would be more passionate about the CP if that would happen.”
Wright acknowledged the autonomy of state conventions, but he also noted, “I would encourage state conventions to move … (toward a) 50–50 (split of CP dollars). We could do such a greater work.
“I feel there will need to be more funding for NAMB (North American Mission Board) and the seminaries. They are vastly underfunded,” he said.
“We are at a crossroads. … Some major changes are going to have to occur,” Wright said.
“I would like to see all kinds of practical implementations that will have to occur in moving the convention in the direction it is going to have to go (during my year as president). A lot will have to be done.”
Wright said his priorities as president will revolve around reprioritizing the funding structure of the CP, fulfilling the Great Commission, encouraging every church — and particularly every pastor — to experience a missions trip and urging Southern Baptists to “return to our first love for Christ.”
In the first vice president’s race, Ron Herrod, president of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists, was elected with 1,653 votes compared to 1,117 for Jim Drake, pastor of Brushfork Baptist Church, Bluefield, W.Va.
Eric Moffett, pastor of First Baptist Church, Sparkman, Ark., was elected second vice president with 706 votes, while Jim Goforth, pastor of New Life Baptist Church, Forsyth, Mo., received 689 votes. Moffett and Goforth received 66.69 percent of the vote on the first ballot with four candidates.
In the first vote, Moffett received 436 votes and Goforth received 423 votes. Ray Newman, ethics and religious affairs specialist for the Georgia Baptist Convention, received 245 votes, and John Copeland, pastor of First Baptist Church, Fulton, (Ala.) received 171 votes.
Two officers were re-elected — John L. Yeats, director of communication for the Louisiana Baptist Convention, as recording secretary and Jim Wells, director of missions for Tri County Baptist Association in Missouri, as registration secretary.
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