Ryan Pack, senior pastor of Riverland Hills Baptist Church in Irmo since 2017, will be nominated to serve as president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.
Pack will be nominated by Cory Horton, senior pastor of Brushy Creek Baptist Church in Greer, when messengers gather at First Baptist Church, Columbia, this November.
“From the time I set foot in South Carolina (three years ago), there have been a handful of guys who have been good friends to me, encouragers, but who are also leading churches that you hear about. Certainly, Ryan Pack at Riverland Hills is one of them,” Horton said.
“He’s a great leader,” Horton said. “He’s somebody whom I’ve just admired what he’s doing at Riverland Hills. It’s one of those churches that pastors kind of look at as a ‘bell cow,’ saying, ‘Hey, what are they doing? How are they succeeding? Let’s see if we can model any of that.’”
Horton highlighted that Pack has led Riverland Hills to be one of the leading South Carolina Baptist congregations, appearing among the state’s top five Cooperative Program giving churches and among the top 10 percent of congregations in baptisms.
Riverland Hills tripled its Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and doubled its Annie Armstrong Offering this past year.
The church also recently completed a $14 million building expansion and has partnered with the North American Mission Board in church planting in New York.
Pack “knows the state, he knows the area, he knows the different ministry settings,” Horton noted. “Ryan’s got some deep roots. He grew up at First Baptist, Spartanburg. That’s where he and his wife grew up and started dating in college. So, he’s a South Carolina boy through and through.”
Pack currently serves on Charleston Southern University’s board of trustees. His state convention leadership roles include service on the Nominations, Resolutions, Order of Business, and Enrollment and Credentials committees. He also has been a member of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Board.
“I am humbled by the possibility of serving SCBaptists as president,” Pack told The Baptist Courier. “I love being Southern Baptist because we can do more together than we could ever do alone.”
If elected, Pack hopes to elevate the fact that every church is a vital part of the SCBaptist family.
“The beauty of the Cooperative Program is that every church can be a part of spreading the gospel to our state and around the world,” he said. “People need Jesus, and we must not lose our focus to tell our neighbors and the nations about the name above all names.”
Ordained to the ministry at Spartanburg First, Pack has been pastor of four other churches in North and South Carolina, most recently serving at First Baptist, North Augusta.
A graduate of Clemson University, Pack earned a master of divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a doctor of ministry from Columbia International Seminary. He and his wife Heather have four children: Bailey, Ginny, Tori, and Micah.