I am nominating Dave Miller for pc president this afternoon on the basis of a new idea for 2017. The vote for Pastor’s Conference President will take place shortly after 2:00pm today, at the conclusion of Jack Graham’s message. Here is my nomination speech:
My name is Todd Benkert, messenger from East Lake Baptist Church in Crown point Indiana. I am here to nominate Dave Miller for pastors conference president. Dave is the pastor of Southern Hills Baptist Church in Sioux City Iowa. Dave is a faithful pastor a and has served in various roles in SBC life.
Dave has shown over the years a commitment to the gospel, to cooperative missions, and to unity in our Convention. Dave is committed to broad participation among the various voices that make up the SBC.
I could go on, but I don’t want to focus on Dave’s credentials because what I’m really asking you to do is not just vote for the man David Miller, but for an idea.
I represent a collection of friends who are faithful Southern Baptist pastors in our convention. We come to the convention every year. We attend this Pastors’ Conference every year, and we like to attend. But we have an idea for a different kind of pastor’s conference in 2017.
We are proposing a pastor’s conference of preachers from average-sized churches led by a conference president who himself pastors a small church. The focus would be on faithful expository preaching and by every day pastors.
We’ve talked about this quite a bit, and we’ve shared our ideas with friends all around the country who are pastors of average-sized churches in our convention. We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback.
So, I’ve come today to ask you whether you are willing to try something new for one year.
Faithful pastors who preach the Word are of great value to God and are the life-blood of our Convention. In voting for Dave Miller and our idea for 2017, you will be making a positive statement about the value of average sized churches in the SBC and the diverse landscape that makes up our Convention.
You will be affirming those many faithful servants of Christ pastoring in the variety of places and churches that make up the SBC and who are faithful shepherds and expositors of the Scripture. If you elect Dave Miller as president, next year we will hear from some of these voices.
Yes, I know, “We’ve never done it this way before!” and that probably dooms this proposal for some, but we dare to hope that a lot of you are open to a one-year experiment to do something a little bit different with our Pastors’ Conference. If that’s you, I ask you to vote for Dave Miller.
