New SBC officers are, left to right, First Vice President Lee Brand Jr., Recording Secretary John Yeats, President Ed Litton and Registration Secretary Don Currence. Not pictured is second vice president Ramon Medina.
A slate of elections pushed to June 16 witnessed close votes among three contests as well as one result by acclamation.
Lee Brand Jr., vice president and dean of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, received 327 votes more than California pastor Anthony Dockery – 2,860 to 2,533 – in becoming first vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).
Ramon Medina, lead pastor of the Spanish ministry at Champion Forest Baptist Church in Houston, was elected second vice president. Medina received 3,103 votes to Georgia pastor Javier Chavez’s 2,724 in a runoff.
Brand is a member of the Conservative Baptist Network’s steering council, as is Chavez.
For the 24th time, John Yeats will serve as recording secretary. The Missouri Baptist Convention executive director received 3,545 votes while first-time nominee Adam Blosser, pastor of Goshen Baptist Church in Spotsylvania, Va., received 2,753.
Don Currence, administrative pastor at First Baptist Church in Ozark, Mo. was reelected by acclamation to the post of registration secretary. Kathy Litton, who delivered Currence’s nomination speech, was elected to the position over Currence at the 2019 SBC annual meeting in Birmingham but unable to fulfill it last year after the Orlando gathering was canceled due to COVID-19. Litton stepped down from the position earlier this year when her husband, eventual SBC President Ed Litton, announced his intentions to accept a nomination for the position.
In the first round of voting for second vice president, Medina received 3,187 ballots cast while Chavez had 2,385. California pastor Stephen Feinstein received 1,060 votes and Mississippi pastor Dusty Durbin collected 742.
In other Wednesday announcements, the convention sermon for the 2022 SBC annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif. will be brought by Juan Sanchez, lead pastor of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, with Kevin Smith, executive director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware, as the alternate. Chris Springer and Abbie Maggio of Redemption Church near Mobile, Ala. will be the music directors. Redemption Church is pastored by Ed Litton, who was elected SBC president June 15.
J.D. Greear, the outgoing SBC president, announced that Sanchez will be the first Hispanic to bring a convention sermon.
(EDITOR’S NOTE – Scott Barkley is national correspondent for Baptist Press.)
