As the son of a Southern Baptist pastor, I’ve only ever known Southern Baptist life. Our family vacations often included the SBC annual meeting, many of which I still vividly remember. As a child, I naively believed all Southern Baptist churches were alike. In my childhood simplicity, I thought every SBC church looked and sounded just like mine.
As I grew older and became a Southern Baptist pastor, I’ve realized our convention isn’t evenly uniform. The truth is, we’re different in lots of ways. Our differences span from different ministries to worship style to even precise doctrinal positions. Southern Baptists are cheerfully diverse.
If we’re different in so many ways, then what unifies us? Why do we cooperate as a convention of autonomous churches? Southern Baptist cooperation can be distilled to three, foundational beliefs.
1. We believe the Bible is both inerrant and sufficient.
We certainly could say more about the Bible, but we dare not say less. While we equally affirm Scripture’s infallibility, necessity, perspicuity, and authority, of particular importance is inerrancy and sufficiency. The Conservative Resurgence of the 1980’s taught us the necessity of holding fast to Scripture’s inerrancy (2 Timothy 3:16) and sufficiency (2 Peter 1:3-4). These words are more than mere slogans—they are formative for all of life. Without apology or reservation, we believe the Bible doesn’t contain any errors and it also contains everything we need for all of life and godliness.
2. We share a common confession.
Southern Baptists in friendly cooperation will always debate and disagree on third tier doctrinal issues. As the joke says, whenever three Baptists gather you have at least four opinions. It’s perfectly fine to disagree on tertiary issues while holding fast to the same confessional convictions. God has been kind to the SBC in giving the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. Though it’s not a perfect document, it helpfully communicates our shared convictions as Southern Baptists. We believe the Bible and we also hold a shared confession that is distinctly Baptistic.
3. We believe we can do more together than separately.
God has called and equipped every local church to proclaim the Gospel and faithfully serve his kingdom. The Cooperative Program ingeniously helps local churches partner together for greater kingdom effectiveness. As local churches cooperate through the Cooperative Program, more kingdom work can be accomplished through shared efforts and resources. Southern Baptist churches of all sizes can partner for Gospel work spanning from creating financially affordable seminaries to supporting missionaries across the world. We cooperate because we care about fulfilling the Great Commission together for the glory of God.
As we prepare to come together in Orlando, Florida for the upcoming 2026 annual meeting, we would do well to remember our similarities over our differences. Though our churches are different in some minor ways, we’re together in what matters most—we believe that Jesus alone is sufficient for salvation and that He’s called us to proclaim with one voice the Gospel to all the nations. That’s a message worth cooperating over.