SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (BP)–The Southern Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Resurgence Task Force will meet twice in August, once in Atlanta and once in Rogers, Ark.
SBC President Johnny Hunt confirmed to The Illinois Baptist July 15 that the GCR task force will meet Aug. 11-12 at the Renaissance Hotel near the Atlanta airport and again Aug. 26-27 at the Embassy Suites Northwest Arkansas in Rogers. Hunt is senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Woodstock, north of the metro Atlanta area. The task force chairman is Ronnie Floyd, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Springdale, Ark., and the Church at Pinnacle Hills in Rogers.
Floyd said the Arkansas meeting will be preceded by a luncheon for area pastors and staff, laypersons serving on SBC entities and “anyone who wants to come.”
“I have asked Dr. Hunt to come in early [for the meeting], and he and I will address these leaders about the GCR and the future of the SBC,” Floyd wrote in an e-mail to The Illinois Baptist. “We will open it up for questions and try to provide an entrée for them to interact with us…. I want this to be one of our listening sessions and an opportunity to speak to the people about the SBC.”
Floyd said invitations to the luncheon, which will be held at The Church at Pinnacle Hills’ campus, will be mailed in early August to SBC leaders within a two-hour driving radius of Rogers, including eastern Oklahoma and southern Missouri, but Floyd also offered, “If anyone wants to come, just call our office at 479-751-4523 and RSVP to Debby Swart.”
Hunt appointed the 19-member task force during the SBC annual meeting in Louisville, Ky. in June, then added four more members July 8 to broaden its representation. The vote authorizing the task force charges them with studying how Southern Baptists can work “more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.”
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Martin King is editor of The Illinois Baptist, newsjournal of the Illinois Baptist State Association.
