Bryant Wright, senior pastor of the 7,600 member Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., won the run-off election for president of the Southern Baptist Convention with 55 percent of the vote. More than 7,660 messengers voted during the June 15 election at the 153rd annual meeting of the SBC at the Orange Country Convention Center in Orlando, Fla.
By Norm Miller and Tammi Reed Ledbetter
ORLANDO, Fla. (BP)–Bryant Wright, pastor of the Atlanta-area Johnson Ferry Church, defeated Florida pastor Ted Traylor in a runoff for the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention June 14 in Orlando, Fla.
With 7,667 messengers voting, Wright received 4,225 votes, or 55.11 percent. Traylor, pastor of Olive Church in Pensacola, Fla., received 3,371 votes, for 43.9 percent. Nearly 11,000 messengers were registered at the time of the runoff.
In his nomination speech for Wright, David Uth, pastor of First Church in Orlando, said Wright is a pastor whose commitment to the Great Commission is evident.
“While we’ve been talking about the Great Commission, Bryant’s been quietly leading his church to do it,” said Uth, who cited a range of statistics regarding Johnson Ferry Church, started 28 years ago by Wright in Marietta, Ga.
Last year Johnson Ferry baptized 478 people, started seven churches in Cobb County, Ga., and in four of the past six years has given more than any other church in the SBC to the Lottie Mission Offering for International Missions. The church gave more than $2.7 million to missions last year, Uth reported.
Ed Litton, pastor of First Church of North Mobile in Saraland, Ala., nominated Traylor, saying he “rises from among us to lead us in a pursuit of a spiritual awakening and a Great Commission Resurgence.”
Two other candidates also sought election as president of the SBC: Jimmy Jackson, pastor of Whitesburg Church in Huntsville, Ala., and Leo Endel, who is executive director of the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention.
Bryant Wright
Newly elected Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright wants to see Southern Baptists return to their first love, radically reprioritize their lives, funding and ministries to fulfill the Great Commission and directly participate in overseas mission work.
Speaking to reporters less than an hour after his election on the first day of the SBC annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., Wright shared his dream of seeing every Southern Baptist pastor and church take at least one mission trip. “The pastor needs to experience what it’s like to be out there in another culture sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ,” Wright told reporters June 15 at the Orange County Convention Center.
Wright commended the Atlanta-area congregation he pastors, Johnson Ferry Church in Marietta, for having sent more than 1,500 people on 70 mission trips to 27 nations last year. “What that does in the life of a church is incredible,” Wright said.
In the midst of Kingdom-focused work like developing partnerships with Southern Baptist missionaries, Wright said Johnson Ferry’s leaders began to question why so much of their Cooperative Program contributions remained in the United States. That led to a decision to reduce CP giving in order to designate more to the International Mission Board.
“We realized it does cause the church to appear not to be as supportive of the main approach to missions in the Cooperative Program, and yet, at the same time, we continue to give very heavily to the Cooperative Program,” Wright said, noting that Johnson Ferry contributed the second-highest Cooperative Program amount in the Georgia Baptist Convention last year.
“We would very much prefer that all those funds go straight through CP,” Wright said, “but there needs to be a radical reprioritization of that money.”
He said state conventions as the place where change must occur and regards Cooperative Program allocations at the national level as generally healthy.
Asked about a column he wrote urging state conventions to retain only 25 percent to 30 percent of undesignated CP gifts from churches, Wright said, “I’d love to see states move in that direction, knowing it will be a long, long process.” Even a goal of splitting receipts 50/50 between state and SBC causes would allow funding for many more missionaries, he said.
Wright said state convention leaders “can be the real heroes in carrying out the Great Commission” since they control budgets and decide how much goes out of state for distribution to Southern Baptist causes. If more Cooperative Program dollars were sent to the international mission field, Wright said he believes Southern Baptists would see an increased passion for CP giving, especially among younger pastors, the group from whom he has received the greatest support for his stand.
He commended “the radical commitment of the Millenials and Generation X,” with seminary students expressing a desire to go to “the toughest areas to take the Gospel.”
Asked to reflect on the passage of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force recommendations during the annual meeting immediately prior to his election, Wright said: “We have been a people that have been united on missions and evangelism and reaching our world with the Good News of Jesus Christ and yet we are not moving ahead in that area as we have done a lot of our years.” He praised SBC President Johnny Hunt’s courage in raising the issue and to messengers for engaging in a healthy discussion.
“The task force leadership has led the convention in taking a very courageous step, but it is really just a beginning,” Wright said. “If we’re going to be radically serious about reaching this world for Christ, we as individuals and we as churches are going to have to really be prayerfully committed to fulfilling what God has called us to do with the Great Commission.”
In America, local church members need to repent of materialism, hedonism and other idols that distract them from their first love and inhibit their love of lost people, Wright added. “The beginning point for all of us is to renew our hearts. Jesus Christ could not be clearer, as politically incorrect as it is in our contemporary culture, that He is the only way to God,” he said.
Asked where he stood in his convictions regarding Calvinism, Wright described himself as “a follower of Jesus Christ that believes the Bible.” He added: “I really don’t believe that human beings are ever going to completely reconcile the sovereignty of God and the free will of man. To have a neat theological system is great for human beings, but it sure makes for a small God. We can have a greater awe about the majesty and wonder of God when we believe in both.”
Bryant Wright, pastor of the Atlanta-area Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, defeated Florida pastor Ted Traylor in a runoff for the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention June 14 in Orlando, Fla.
Tammi Reed Ledbetter is news editor of the Southern Baptist TEXAN (www.texanonline.net), newsjournal of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.