Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee President and CEO Ronnie Floyd has announced the addition of three full-time EC staff positions focusing on increasing diverse engagement and mobilization.

Building on the foundation laid by retiring vice president for convention advancement Ken Weathersby, the positions will focus on relations and mobilization for African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans.

“We want to create more relationships and pathways for everyone to be part of the Southern Baptist Convention,” said Floyd. “One of the greatest ways to impact a relationship is to be mobilized on mission with people who believe the same. We want to mobilize people to fields in North American missions, international missions, the missions of individual churches, and to our cooperative efforts together.”

The new staff structure comes after two decades of growth among non-Anglo congregations in the SBC, from 13.5 percent in 1998 to 22.2 percent in 2017, according to the North American Mission Board’s Center for Missional Research. Current church planting efforts also demonstrate the need for increased engagement. In 2018, 62 percent of plants supported by SBC partners were non-Anglo, including 45 African-American, 64 Asian, 106 Hispanic and 78 multiethnic churches.