By Staff
SPRINGFIELD— Mac Brunson, pastor, First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Fla., will speak here at 4 p.m. Oct. 26 at the 176th annual meeting of the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) at the Expo Center.
Brunson is an author and longtime pastor who was brought to First Jacksonville in February 2006 and unanimously voted in as pastor. He holds degrees from Furman University (B.A.) and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div., Ph.D.).
His pastoral experience includes tenure at: First Damascus Baptist Church, Greenwood, S.C.; South Norfolk Baptist Church, Chesapeake, Va.; Green Street Baptist Church, High Point, N.C.; First Baptist Church, Dallas; and First Jacksonville.
His service at First Dallas was from July 1999 to March 2006. In 2003, the church gave the largest Lottie Moon Christmas Offering in the history of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). That immense sum was $1.2 million.
Brunson’s recent mission trips include: Ukraine; Israel; Argentina; England; Lebanon; Russia; Romania; and Egypt.
He served as president of the SBC Pastors’ Conference in 2003, and his most recent book is entitled Paralyzed by Fear or Empowered by Hope, published in 2009.
Brunson founded Inlight, a broadcast ministry. It exists to connect people to Jesus through his sermons.
Earlier this year he preached the SBC sermon in Orlando, Fla. He said that preachers today are like Richard the Lionheart, the king of England, who in 1191 could not win a victory of his own but instead compromised with his enemy.
As Baptist Press recorded it, he said that Richard could not re-take Jerusalem from his Muslim counterpart, Saladin, during the Third Crusade after he angered all his allies over differences in how to display his flag. Left to fight alone, Richard eventually negotiated with the enemy to open the city for every faith, disguised himself and fled to Austria.
“I’m afraid that in our convention and across the ministry today we are far better preachers at battling one another than at battling our enemy,” Brunson said.