The president of the Southern Baptist Convention sees an “authenticity” in the denomination that “warms my heart.”
Frank Page, pastor of First Baptist Church, Taylors, spoke to the recent meeting of Southern Baptist editors meeting in Philadelphia.
Page, elected SBC president in Greensboro last June, said he “senses a huge number of people who are loving, Christian men and women who want to help people and to win the lost.”
The South Carolina pastor emphasized the need of sharing the gospel with the lost. “By not sharing the gospel,” he said, “we are saying to them, ‘Find your own way.'”
Page called on Southern Baptists to possess a “Christlike selflessness,” making sure that “all we do brings glory to God.”
He said Baptists also should ask, “Why do we do what we do?” The SBC president said leaders ought to lay aside personal agendas, recognizing that the “convention belongs to God.”
Page said it is good “to seek to influence” the Southern Baptist Convention as long as “Christ, and not self, is exalted.”
He said that methods used by SBC leaders should be “Christ-honoring,” bringing “glory, not reproach, to the name of Christ.”
Page said that he is “cautiously optimistic” that the SBC can achieve greater harmony. There are, he said, “some extreme factions that hardly talk to each other,” while others are trying to “pull us together.”
The SBC president encouraged fellow Southern Baptists to “talk with, and not just about, each other.” Those who do that, he noted, “often find they have more common ground than they thought.”
He said that diversity within the denomination is healthy so long as Baptists “speak the truth in love.”
A balance between truth and love is required, he said. “Truth without loves results in cold legalism,” he pointed out. “Love without truth leaves us bereft of direction.”
Page reemphasized his desire to “broaden the spectrum” of Baptists involved in denominational work. He repeated his requirements for SBC appointments: a sweet spirit, an evangelistic heart, belief in the integrity of God’s word, and strong support of the Cooperative Program.
The Taylors pastor was a first-ballot winner over two other candidates at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting last June in Greensboro. He joked about his lack of name recognition at that time. “I was not in ‘Who’s Who,'” he said, “but ‘Who’s He?'”
Page said he expects to be nominated for a second term as Southern Baptist Convention president at the annual June meeting in San Antonio.
He said the June meeting will emphasize repentance, revival, renewal and unity in the work of Christ. Page said there likely will be “less preaching and more praying.”