Georgia pastor Johnny Hunt and former missionary Avery Willis will be nominated for president of the Southern Baptist Convention during the SBC’s June 10-11 annual meeting in Indianapolis.
Avery Willis
Johnny HuntHunt and Willis are among four announced nominees for the post, joining Frank Cox, also a Georgia pastor, and Bill Wagner, also a former missionary and seminary professor and current president of Olivet University International in San Francisco.
A native of North Carolina, Hunt has been pastor of First Baptist Church, Woodstock, since December 1986. During his first year as pastor, the church baptized 318 people and had 268 additions by statement and letter. Since he arrived, the church has seen average Sunday school attendance grow from 275 to 4,705, according to the 2007 Annual Church Profile.
In the 21 years of Hunt’s pastorate, church membership has increased from 1,027 to 16,495. Current average church worship attendance is 6,180.
In 1980, while attending Southeastern Baptist Seminary, Hunt served as pastor of Falls (N.C.) Baptist Church, which led North Carolina Baptists in Sunday school growth. During his pastorate, Longleaf Baptist Church in Wilmington, N.C., also led the Baptist state convention in baptisms for three consecutive years beginning in 1983.
FBC Woodstock relocated to an 82-acre site in the fall of 2004. The $54 million sanctuary, which seats 7,500, hosts two morning worship services.
Since 1987, the congregation has sent out more than 135 missionaries and started more than 78 churches. The congregation has developed ministries such as the “City of Refuge,” which provides an environment that enables hurting pastors and their families to find hope and healing.
Ted Traylor, pastor of Olive Baptist, Pensacola, Fla., said his “deep concern about the future of the Southern Baptist Convention” led him to want to nominate Hunt.
“I just believe the Lord’s raised him up to do it,” Traylor told Baptist Press. “I believe he’s a man to do it for our future. I don’t know of a greater Acts 1:8 church in all of our convention than First Baptist, Woodstock.”
Willis, perhaps best known for creating MasterLife discipleship materials while serving as president of the Indonesian Baptist Seminary in Semarang, Indonesia, was first commissioned as an International Mission Board missionary to Indonesia, along with his wife Shirley, in 1964. He worked as an evangelist and church developer for six years before transferring to the seminary in Semarang, where he served on faculty for two years and as president for six years.
During his service there, the Southeast Asian nation experienced a revival in which 2 million people gave their hearts to Christ. The large number of converts prompted Willis to pioneer innovative strategies for extension education and led the way in developing the prototype for what would become the MasterLife discipling process. During the next 15 years as head of the adult discipleship department at LifeWay Christian Resources, MasterLife was translated into more than 50 languages and used in more than 100 countries.
“I don’t know of anyone more loved and respected than Avery Willis,” said John Marshall, senior pastor of Second Baptist Church in Springfield, Mo., who will nominate Willis.
“When someone first approached me about this, I thought, ‘Good grief, why have we waited this long to do this?’ Creating MasterLife alone, because there is nothing quite like it, is enough for Southern Baptists to bestow this honor on Avery, but there is more. I’m glad that finally, in his retirement years, we have the opportunity to give Avery this honor.”
Willis left LifeWay in 1994 to become the International Mission Board’s senior vice president of overseas operations during a time of expansion and strategy changes in the Southern Baptist missionary endeavor. All totaled, Willis spent 25 years in missionary service, retiring from the IMB in February 2004.