Texas pastor Bart Barber was reelected to a second term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention at the 2023 Annual Meeting in New Orleans.
Out of 11,014 messenger votes, Barber received 7,531 votes (68.38 percent) while Georgia pastor Mike Stone received 3,458 (31.40) percent. Barber was nominated by Jarrett Stephens, senior pastor of Champion Forest Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. Stone was nominated by Florida pastor Willy Rice.
“I do not believe this is owed to Dr. Barber, but I do believe he has earned it,” Stephens said. “He courageously gave straight answers to tough questions and was unapologetic in his defense of sound doctrine, pointing millions of people to the hope of Jesus. I was so proud he represented us.”
Barber has served as pastor of First Baptist Church of Farmersville, Texas, since 1999, as well as in a number of roles in the SBC. He served as chairman of the 2022 SBC Resolutions Committee and was a member of that committee in 2021.
He preached at the 2017 SBC Pastors Conference, served as first vice president of the SBC from 2013 to 2014, served on the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention executive board from 2008 to 2014 (including serving as chairman and vice chairman), served as a trustee for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary from 2009 to 2019 and on the SBC Committee on Committees in 2008. From 2006 to 2009, he taught as an adjunct professor at SWBTS.
In his presidential address, Barber implored Southern Baptists to dwell on the good and beautiful, even during challenging periods. Referencing what can, at times, be a raucous SBC social media conversation, he urged messengers to dwell upon the good God is doing through the Southern Baptist Convention.
Barber asked messengers to check their hearts about what stirs them, whether they become angry, bored or frustrated when they read good news about how God is using Southern Baptists.
“If you’re not sure about the state of your own heart, let me tell you, Google knows,” Barber said. “Facebook knows. Twitter knows. The algorithm knows. It watches every time you click ‘like.’ Santa Claus has nothing on Facebook. It knows when you’ve been sleeping. It knows when you’re awake. It knows when you’ve liked bad or good. If your social media feed is a constant barrage of criticism and conspiracy, what social media is giving you is a mirror image of the sense of taste that you have cultivated.”
Barber preached from Philippians 4:8-9, focusing on the passage’s commands to imitate the ways of Paul and dwell on specific truths in order to receive peace that God promises in the passage. He noted Southern Baptists already do many of the activities Paul did in the New Testament, such as planting churches, training pastors and warning of doctrinal drift.
“Doing all of the things that Paul did doesn’t seem to be, all by itself, any guarantee that we will experience the overwhelming presence and peace of God,” Barber said. “We as Southern Baptists are trying to do all of those things. We are committed to doing all of those things. But sometimes the peace-giving presence of God seems hard to find in our family of churches.”
Barber suggested that both parts of the text are important.
“Maybe doing the right things only guarantees that peace will rule over us if we are also dwelling on the right things,” Barber said.
Noting Philippians 4:8-9 is all about aesthetics, which he described as the study of beauty and taste, he told messengers that they had their own philosophy of what is beautiful. A Christian’s aesthetic tastes drive him or her to dwell on “one thing versus another.”
“God is calling us to dwell on the right things — to have a distinctively Christian sense of taste,” Barber said.
In other SBC action, New Orleans pastor Jay Adkins was elected first vice president; Texas pastor Kason Branch, second vice president; North Greenville University provost Nathan Finn, recording secretary; and Missouri pastor Don Currence, registration secretary.
— Timothy Cockes and Tobin Perry are writers for Baptist Press.