2009 SBC Annual Meeting Updates

2009 SBC Annual Meeting
Updated: Messengers overwhelmingly adopt GCR motionTuesday, June 23, 2009 - 8:13:00 PM
Messengers moments ago overwhelmingly passed a motion authorizing the SBC president to appoint a Great Commission task force to bring a report to the annual meeting in 2010 "concerning how Southern Baptists can work more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission." By a show of ballots, the motion passed with approximately 90 percent of messengers supporting it. An attempt to pass a substitute motion asking IMB and NAMB to give the report failed by similar margin.
R. Albert Mohler Jr., a messenger from Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., made the original motion and spoke for it during discussion.
"I believe it is right and fitting," he said, for Southern Baptists "to ask the hard questions," such as, "Is there more we can do?"
"This is not an effort to reinvent the Southern Baptist Convention," Mohler added.
Frank Page, a messenger from and pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., also spoke for the motion. Page and Mohler both spoke from the floor.
James Rodgers, pastor of Poplar Spring Baptist Church, Iva. S.C., spoke against it.
"We have the tool for the Great Commission," he said. "It's called the Bible. Get our people out of the pew. Messengers, pastors, that's what we're called to do. I don't think we need any help from a task force."