The 2023 annual meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention is nearly here. The convention sessions have been meticulously planned by multiple people, with the expertise of our convention staff pulling it all together. We will emphasize international missions in a notably immersive and linear format. The convention’s creative team is outdoing themselves in preparing an experience to remember in support of the theme, “Let’s Go!”
Having served a five-year term on the Executive Board, followed by one year as president-elect, and now for nearly a year as president, I have had an up-close view of the functioning and operation of our convention for seven straight years. I have worked with and observed our convention staff very closely, and I can tell you that God has blessed us with a team that is second to none in calling, excellence, faithfulness, and integrity.
I am thankful for having had the opportunity to work closely with Gary Hollingsworth, a trusted brother who served our Lord and convention so well as executive director-treasurer from 2016 to April of this year. And as sad as I was to see Gary retire, I was so glad to meet and to help welcome Tony Wolfe as our new executive director-treasurer. Tony has already become a friend and, like Gary, a trusted brother. He brings much to the table as our EDT, and I look forward to watching, helping, and cheering him on as he leads our convention staff in their important work in support of cooperating churches.
Finally, I want to tell you about Tom Elliff, the keynote speaker for our upcoming annual meeting’s final session. Tom is a third-generation Baptist pastor. He holds degrees from Ouachita Baptist University (B.A.), Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div.), and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (D.Min.).
Tom married Jeannie Thomas in 1966. His early ministry years saw him pastor churches in Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. Leaving the pastorate in 1981, the Elliff family moved to Zimbabwe to serve under appointment with what was then known as the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (now IMB). While on the field, a tragic vehicle accident nearly took the life of their oldest daughter, with intense treatment and long-term recovery necessitating a return from the field.
Soon thereafter, Tom resumed pastoring, serving first in Lakewood, Colo., and then in Oklahoma, where he led First Southern Baptist Church of Del City for 25 years. During those years, he served Southern Baptists in multiple capacities, including as president of the Pastors Conference (1990) and as a two-term SBC president (1996–1998). In 2005, Tom left the pastorate to serve IMB as a senior vice president, then later, from 2011 to 2014, as IMB president.
After a nearly 50-year marriage to Tom, and after a long illness, Jeannie Elliff was called home in 2015. In 2017, God blessed Tom as he married Diana Barber, who had lost her husband of nearly 50 years (longtime pastor and Precept Ministries leader Wayne Barber). Combined, Tom and Diana share six children and 33 grandchildren.
Tom, who is the author of 15 books, and is in demand as a speaker around the world, currently serves with the Tom Elliff Center for Missions at Oklahoma Baptist University, devoted to encouraging and equipping college students in their call to missions. He is the real deal, and I am grateful to call this seasoned Southern Baptist statesman and missions leader, Tom Elliff, my friend.
I hope you will be able to meet him personally at the annual meeting, and that you will hear him prayerfully on Tuesday night, Nov. 14, as he presents an impassioned and biblical call for us to go and personally take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations.
— Albert Allen is pastor of First Baptist Church, Newberry, and 2023 president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.