SPRINGFIELD – Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a leader in the Southern Baptist Convention’s “Conservative Resurgence,” is slated as the keynote speaker for the meeting of the Fellowship of Missouri Baptist Evangelists (FMBE), Feb. 4.
The meeting is the pre-conference to the Feb. 4-5 Missouri State Evangelism Conference, “Desperate for Jesus,” at Crossway Baptist Church here. All Missouri Baptists are welcome to the pre-conference, and FMBE President Jim McNiel hopes Missouri Baptists don’t miss the opportunity to hear from Patterson.
“He believes in evangelism, and he advocates the office of the evangelist,” McNiel said, adding that Patterson led in the Southern Baptist “battle for the integrity and authenticity of the Scriptures.”
Indeed, “in 1979 Patterson became one of the architects of the ‘Conservative Resurgence,’ a grassroots movement to return the convention to the confessional fidelity in the inerrant Scriptures,” according to the Southwestern Seminary website. After later serving as president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and as president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1998-2000, Patterson took up the mantle as president of Fort Worth, Texas, based Southwestern Seminary in 2003.
Alongside Patterson, the FMBE pre-conference will spotlight evangelists and music evangelists from around the state, who will proclaim the gospel and call Missouri Baptists to win souls for Christ Jesus.
“Evangelism is the bottom line,” McNiel said. “If we’re not leading people to the Lord, we (Missouri churches) are nothing but social clubs.”
The FMBE pre-conference begins at Crossway Baptist, Springfield, at 1:30 p.m. To learn more about the conference, visit http://mobaptist.org/evangelism/sec-2016.
To learn more about the FMBE or to find an evangelist to lead a revival at your church, visit http://mobaptist.org/evangelism/evangelists.
