Varnville pastor to be nominated for SCBC president

Tommy Kelly, pastor of First Baptist Church of Varnville, has told The Courier he will be nominated for president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention at the Nov. 11-12 annual meeting at Shandon Baptist Church, Columbia.

Brad Goodale, pastor of Philippi Baptist Church in Union, will nominate Kelly.

Kelly currently serves as SCBE first vice president and said he believes he can help unite the convention for a common ministry. “We have to take a hard look at things,” he said. “We need a new executive director [to succeed retiring state executive Jim Austin], the GCR is coming to an end, and we have to decide what is next.”

“We must decide how we are going to deal with our ministry partners,” he said, referring to the seven institutions (three universities, Ministries for the Aging, Connie Maxwell Children’s Home, the Baptist Foundation and The Baptist Courier) that receive Cooperative Program funding. “We all have got to come to the table [and] come together.

“I don’t think we need to get rid of our ministry partners,” he said, “and I believe we can find a solution.” He indicated that a part of the solution would be for everyone to learn to “get by with less.”

Kelly is the pastor of a smaller church with a large emphasis on missions and church revitalization. He said his church budgets 15 percent to the Cooperative Program and an additional 13 percent to associational missions. A few years ago, Varnville First Baptist helped relaunch a nearby church that had closed.

A plan Kelly would like to see implemented is for associations to identify a closed church building, find a group in the area not being reached, and develop a strategy for using the closed church building to reach the unreached group.“What kind of impact would that have on our state convention if each association did that?” he asked.