SCBaptist Messengers Adopt Individual Missions Focus at Annual Meeting
November 16, 2023
COLUMBIA – Messengers to the 203rd Annual Meeting of SCBaptists convened November 13-14 at Shandon Baptist Church in Columbia to conduct business and celebrate ministry achievements from the previous year. A total of 789 messengers and 79 visitors were in attendance.
Under the theme “Let’s Go!” Albert Allen, convention president and pastor of First Baptist Newberry, invited messengers to individually respond to the call to international missions. The meeting created a platform to inform messengers of “the reality of lostness,” while introducing a variety of short-term and career international missions opportunities to SCBaptists.
Asia-Pacific Rim Mission Focus
SCBaptist established a missions partnership with the International Mission Board (IMB) in 2019 to engage Asia-Pacific Rim people groups through November 2025. According to IMB statistics, the Asia-Pacific Rim area is home to about 30% of the world’s total population, of which 4.2% identify as Christian. The IMB further reports that 59% of the world is considered “unreached” by the Gospel and has identified the existence of 3,072 unreached people groups, meaning groups with no Christian presence or access to a native language Bible.
“In response to God’s call for us to reach the nations with the Gospel, South Carolina Baptists have always had an eye on far-away places,” Allen said. “It is now time for us to go, with God’s enablement, and under his leadership and direction.”
Convention Business
In other news, messengers voted to approve a $26.5 million 2024 Cooperative Program budget and adopted seven resolutions, including social calls to action regarding judicial appointment reform, honoring women’s legacies, and the creation of laws to protect minors from pornography. Messengers also heard an update from the SCBaptist Sexual Abuse Task Force, a nine-member group named in late 2021 to craft a proactive response to the Southern Baptist Convention’s May 2022 Report on Sexual Abuse.
One Family Focus
In his address to messengers, Executive Director-Treasurer Dr. Tony Wolfe called SCBaptists “uncompromised” in their focus and investment in the Great Commission. “SCBaptists are One Family on One Mission through One Cooperative Effort. This is who we are. This is what we do. We have no time to waste. God is inviting us into the greatest season of cooperative Great Commission advance our people have ever known. I believe we will answer that call and rise to this task, because regardless of what is happening around us, in South Carolina we are allegiant to only one affinity: us. We have only one direction: forward. And we know only one pathway: together.”
Dr. Wolfe also led a Prayer Gathering on Monday night, where he invited the attendees to pray on their knees asking the Holy Spirit to see South Carolina, North America, and the nations transformed by the hope of the Gospel.
In addition to the annual meeting sessions, 1,154 leaders attended auxiliary events. These events equipped and encouraged missions, student and children, colligate, worship and creative, women, and church planting leaders. They were held at various SCBaptist churches in the Columbia area on Monday and Tuesday.
Messengers elected the following 2023-2024 officers:
President Wes Church, pastor of First Baptist Columbia
President-elect Chuck Sprouse, pastor of Ninety Six First Baptist
Vice President Chris Spires, pastor of First Baptist Murrells Inlet
Registration Secretary Mike McCormick, pastor of Berlin Baptist Church
