SBC task force concludes second meeting

The second meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention’s evangelism task force concluded on the campus of Southwestern Seminary, Dec. 5. This was the second of three meetings as the group—appointed at the SBC annual meeting in June—seeks to prepare a final report on evangelism and soul-winning to present at the 2018 SBC meeting in Dallas.

“The meeting [this week] of the SBC task force on evangelism was simply remarkable,” says Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern and chairman of the task force. “Members representing various theological perspectives, multiple age groups, and every geographical section of America came together with harmony seldom exhibited anywhere in the common cause of reaching men and women for Christ. Watching these men work evoked the strongest hope I have had for the future of Southern Baptists.”

The task force is charged with determining how Southern Baptists might reap a greater harvest through personal evangelism and evangelistic preaching. Having utilized their first meeting in August to study evangelism and prayerfully seek the will the God, the team used this meeting to begin formulating recommendations to the SBC. As Patterson said following their August meeting, “We sincerely hope these will harness the energies of our churches for an assault on the kingdom of Satan and guide us in the witness of Southern Baptists to a fallen world.”

Those in attendance were Patterson; SBC President Steve Gaines; Executive Director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Jim Richards; pastors Jordan Easley, Nick Floyd, J.D. Greear, Doug Munton, and Jimmy Scroggins; Midwestern Seminary professor Robert Matz; New Orleans Seminary professor Preston Nix; Southeastern Seminary professors Alvin Reid and Jim Shaddix; Southern Seminary professor Adam Greenway; and Southwestern Seminary professors David Allen and Matt Queen.

“Every man on the evangelism task force has a hot-hearted passion to see every soul come to Christ and to see Southern Baptists reclaim this great distinctive of our denomination,” says David Allen, dean of Southwestern’s School of Preaching. Southwestern’s Chair of Evangelism Matt Queen adds that it was exciting to see representatives from multiple areas of service within the convention as well as different age groups coming together for this purpose.

“We spent time in concerted prayer,” Queen says, “and I believe God, out of that time of prayer, through His Holy Spirit, directed us in such a way that we can bring a report to the convention that will be accepted and help us reclaim our heritage as an evangelistic denomination.”