For the first time, national gatherings of the Southern Baptist Convention and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 2018 will meet in the same city on the same week.
The Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting will take place in the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas June 11-12. This year’s theme is “Testify! Go. Stand. Speak.” In addition to business sessions and an emphasis on prayer, keynote speakers at this year’s meeting include Dave Ramsey, personal finance expert and CEO of Ramsey Solutions; Ravi Zacharias, president of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and Jonathan Evans, chaplain of the Dallas Cowboys. Paige Patterson, recently fired as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, withdrew his name today (June 8) from preaching the convention sermon; Austin, Texas, pastor Kie Bowman will take his place.
Prior to the meeting, the SBC Pastors’ Conference will take place June 10-11. H.B. Charles Jr., lead pastor of Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville, is the conference president, the first African American to be elected to this position.
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship will hold their Annual Gathering June 11-15 at the Hyatt Regency, also in Dallas. The time will feature business, education and workshop opportunities, nightly worship and partner events. The program will celebrate women in leadership in this year’s theme, “Global Church. Local Church,” including Pam Durso, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry; Melissa Rogers, a senior fellow for the Brookings Institute and former Executive Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships; Rev. Ellen Di Giosia, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Jefferson, City, Tenn.; Nora Lozano, a theologian and director of the Latina Leadership Institute at Baptist University of the Americas; Molly Marshall, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary and noted Baptist theologian; and Jane Lyon, founder of Whole Women’s Conference and a Virginia pastor. Wednesday features day-long institutes on preaching, church finance and investments, evangelism and the pastor search process.
Both are offering news, programs, materials and streaming for their meetings. The site for the Fellowship’s gathering is cbf.net/assembly and a Facebook livestream of all worship sessions will be available at cbf.net and then can be found on cbf.net/dallas2018. The SBC site for information is sbcannualmeeting.net/sbc18.
