Over 450 messengers and guests gathered on Monday, November 10, at Taylors First Baptist Church in Taylors, South Carolina, for the 205th Annual Meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.
The day began with Pre-Convention Collaboratives at SCBaptist churches in the area, training and equipping leaders in ministry-specific areas before messengers began to fellowship, worship, and make important decisions regarding the direction and mission of cooperative work.
President Chuck Sprouse, pastor of Ninety Six First Baptist, taps the gavel, calling the meeting to order.
Updates from SBC Executive Committee and Baptist Foundation
On behalf of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee, Jonathan Howe, Vice President for Convention Administration, brought greetings from the SBC. He celebrated exciting updates, including more than 6,800 missionaries and church planters, over 250,000 baptisms, nearly 25,000 seminary students at SBC seminaries, and more than $10.4 million given to support Mission Dignity—all as a testimony to God’s movement through the cooperative efforts of Southern Baptists.
In addition, he shared that the SBC has launched abuse prevention and response tools to support the local church’s stewardship work of protecting the vulnerable through SBCAbusePrevention.com. He also announced that in an effort to provide increased transparency and accountability, the SBC is providing entity audits online at sbc.net/audits. Lastly, Howe reminded messengers about the SBC’s annual meeting held in Orlando in June 2026.
Messengers heard from Nathan McCarthy, President and CEO of the Baptist Foundation of South Carolina (BFSC). “Fulfilling the Great Commission takes faith, prayer, and, yes, faithful stewardship,” McCarthy said. “When we give, we invest and plan for Kingdom impact. We’re mobilizing ministry.” In its 75-year history, the BFSC has distributed almost $105 million to Kingdom ministries from churches and ministries in South Carolina and around the world. “The resources God has entrusted to us can, and should, be used to make an eternal difference,” McCarthy said.
Ministry priority team leaders share what their teams are celebrating.
A Lot to Celebrate: SCBaptist Ministry Priorities
Assistant Executive Director-Treasurer Lee Clamp brought the team leaders from SCBaptist’s six ministry priority teams to hear what they are celebrating and where they pray God will move. Jon Jamison, Serve Team Leader, celebrated that the South Carolina Baptist Disaster Relief (SCDR) was honored with the Disaster Response Volunteer Group of the Year from the 2025 South Carolina Governor’s Volunteer Awards for their work following Hurricane Helene. “They didn’t just bring help; they brought hope,” Jamison said, as evidenced by 25 reported salvations through Disaster Relief efforts.
Chad Stillwell, Share Team Leader, emphasized the increase in baptisms this year. “We’ve seen a 23% increase in baptisms among students and a 42% increase for college students and young adults,” Stillwell said. He also shared that the total number of students attending ONE Night evangelistic events across the state just surpassed 25,000. With another exciting trend among the next generation, Steve Rohrlack, Strong Team Leader, about SCBaptist camps. “Most of our camps show salvation as the leading decision number. But at SummerSalt, our leading decision number is students responding to a call to ministry,” with salvation numbers following closely behind. In total, 284 students expressed a call to ministry at SummerSalt.
Brian Saxon, Shepherd Team Leader, discussed the Young Pastors Network and the 104 monthly participants being trained and poured into. “Our hope was not only that they would learn, but that they would have a network of seasoned pastors they could call,” he said. SCBaptists are also seeing an increase in funded church plants. This year, there are 42 church plants. “The pipeline of potential planters is more robust than anytime I’ve seen it in the last 10 years because of the commitment of some of our established churches to send out their best,” Cliff Marshall, Start Team Leader, said.
Finally, Ken Owens, Send Team Leader, celebrated that almost 1,000 college students went on a short-term mission project. He shared that Camp McCall also had their highest attendance and most decisions for Christ since 2012, even in spite of extensive damage to the campus after Hurricane Helene. In addition, Owens emphasized that in five years of the Palmetto Collective, the program has seen 97 graduates, many of whom now serve full time through the International Mission Board (IMB), at North American Mission Board church plants, and in full-time ministry in SCBaptist churches.
The evening closes with joint corporate prayer and worship.
SCBaptists Sending Missionaries
The evening concluded with a video telling the story of June Estes, the first Project 3000 Explorer sent through the IMB from South Carolina. Due to security concerns, her story was told using AI-assisted generative animation to ensure her continued safety on the mission field.
Following the video, Estes took the stage to address messengers, thanking them for their continued support. “We talk a lot about the unreached and unegaged people groups, but it is easy to feel distant from that,” Estes said. “I’ve had the privilege to sit in homes of hundreds of people that do not know the name of Jesus or the saving power of the Gospel.” She encouraged SCBaptists to keep sending missionaries and going on mission. SCBaptists closed the evening in prayer, with a mentor praying specifically over Estes as she returns to the field and continuing in a time of corporate prayer.
All sessions can be accessed online here.
This article originally appeared on the SCBaptist website.
Anna Gardner serves as the Creative Editor where she communicates the mission, vision, and strategy of SCBaptists by crafting compelling, Gospel-centered content across various platforms.