JEFFERSON CITY—Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee, will be the featured speaker at the 177th annual meeting of the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) Oct. 31-Nov. 2 at Tan-Tar-A, Osage Beach.
“Of course he’s an excellent speaker, and a really good guy,” said Vince Blubaugh, MBC development and communications director and co-chairman of the annual meeting. “So it will be nice to hear from him, especially with all of the changes that are happening in the Southern Baptist Convention on the national level.”
Page has launched Vision 2020, complete with principles of operation that he believes will help the SBC be conformed more to the image of Christ. Those principles are trust, honesty, and integrity.
The MBC annual meeting theme is drawn from Philippians 3:1-11, where Christians are encouraged to count everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus as Lord. Blubaugh said this will be challenging.
“I think we’re all prone to do what’s comfortable for us,” he said. “We talk about that we’re willing to follow Christ, but oftentimes when Jesus said ‘Come, follow me’ He hit what is called inconvenient and uncomfortable, and people had to do it.
“I think of Peter, and he had been out fishing all night, and that was his trade, and he left an entire boat and nets full of fish, which to him was a financial deal—again, it was his profession—and he abandoned that to go follow Christ. And he counted everything as lost. And Paul said, ‘I count everything as lost.’ And so I think for us, in this day and age, you talk about a serious charge.”
The MBC is without an executive director, which means that Jay Hughes, the interim, could be called upon to give the executive director’s address.
Another nationally known speaker has also been secured for Tan-Tar-A. He is Jim Shaddix, pastor, Riverside Baptist Church, Denver, and a longtime dean, professor, and director for two Southern Baptist seminaries.
The bulk of his work was at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary from 1994-2005, and his service since 2006 is as an adjunct professor of preaching for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary (Rocky Mountain campus). He is a frequent speaker and lecturer around the country at evangelism conferences, at preaching and pastors’ conferences, and at campus revivals.
Music for the annual meeting is being coordinated by Blubaugh’s co-chair, MBC Worship Specialist John Francis. It starts with musicians from Second Baptist Church, Springfield, on Oct. 31 and continues with various worship leaders from around the state Nov. 1. That evening Joel Engle, a songwriter/church planter from Keller, Texas, will handle the music. Engle is the lead pastor of The Exchange Church, which began in September 2008 and has grown to 500 people. Finally, on Nov. 2, Higher Ground from Southwest Baptist University and the Missouri Music Men will complete the lineup.
Joshua Hedger, pastor, Freshwater Church, Bolivar, will deliver the convention sermon. John Marshall, pastor, Second Baptist Church, Springfield, will deliver the president’s address.
Blubaugh said that more information about the annual meeting will be released as it is known.
ALLEN PALMERI/associate editor
apalmeri@mobaptist.org