South Carolina Pastor Elected President

Page Narrowly Avoids Runoff With Floyd

Last updated Tuesday, June 13, 2006 10:37 PM CDT in News

By Debbie Miller
The Morning News

He later said he was taken aback by the vote as he fielded a question about how he might use the "bully pulpit" of the presidency.

He rejected the term "bully pulpit," but said he honestly hadn't formulated plans that far ahead. He hadn't thought he would be chosen, he said.

Initially, he suggested he might pull from fellow candidate Floyd's ideas. Floyd had repeatedly mentioned the need for spiritual renewal among the convention, and Page said he agreed.

Floyd also had sought an affirmation that the local church is the heartbeat of the denomination and lies at its center. The Northwest Arkansas pastor also had wanted a focused plan to prepare the convention for the future.

Reached by telephone Tuesday at the convention, Alan Damron, associate pastor for strategic communication for First Baptist in Springdale, said the church's goal remains reaching Northwest Arkansas, America and the world for Jesus Christ. "That's our DNA," he said. "That hasn't changed."

Floyd had recently written on his Web log about his revisiting the steps that led to his allowing his name to be placed in nomination.

He cited his commitment to the church and to the denomination and noted his passion is for churches and the denomination to embrace the future with orthodoxy packaged in innovation. He ended the blog by noting, "We must pray for the will of God in these matters. In this, I resolve to rest."

Page was almost competing on home turf by being nominated at the Greensboro convention. He was born in Robbins, S.C., but grew up in Greensboro.

Giving to denominational causes also appeared to be a more central factor in how the vote played out.

Page's church was the only one of the three that met a proposed standard for giving to the Cooperative Program. That's the denomination's mechanism for local churches to pool money to support programs such as foreign and domestic mission work.

Page's church contributes more than 12 percent to the program.

First Baptist Church in Springdale contributed less than 1 percent through the Arkansas Baptist State Convention last year, but its pastor noted on several occasions that the percentage wasn't reflective of the congregation's denominational support. The church for some time has bypassed the state convention and given directly, he said.

It contributed $489,862 for Southern Baptist causes last year, and its members have given their own money to fund volunteer mission trips and efforts around the globe.

In 2005, Sutton's church sent 4.47 percent of the church's $4.1 million in undesignated offerings to the Tennessee Baptist Convention and Southern Baptist Convention.

Representatives of local churches, called "messengers," turned back a motion Tuesday morning that would have required convention officers to come from churches contributing at least 10 percent to the Cooperative Program.

Although messengers did not favor setting an absolute percentage, nomination speeches reflected the ongoing discussion.

"You can't spell 'SBC president' without a 'C' and a 'P,'" said Forrest Pollock, pastor of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Fla. Pollock nominated Page.

Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Ga., nominated Floyd. Hunt termed Floyd a seasoned leader committed to the work of the church and denomination nationally, locally and globally. He said Floyd is a man of integrity and character, and that, if elected, would lead the denomination to new heights in mission.

Blog postings intensified the discussion about denominational issues in the weeks leading to the election.

Page said he wasn't certain what role the blogs played in the events of the day.

Some leaders, including the candidates and religion experts, saw this as an important time in charting the denomination's future course.

Andrew Walsh, a student of contemporary American Protestantism, foresees challenges ahead as Southern Baptists seek to reach new people when many people see denominational labels as a kind of unnecessary burden. Walsh is associate director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

"My general sense is that the SBC is struggling to come to terms with stagnation, or, perhaps, bumping into limits," Walsh said.

That's not to say that the denomination's in crisis, he said, but he indicated Southern Baptists find themselves competing in a more complex faith marketplace.

Page said he hoped to broaden involvement in convention matters. He cited a variety of church starts with which his congregation has been involved. However, he also noted he wanted to see the convention help plateaued for declining churches.

Asked whether his presidency signaled a kinder, gentler convention, he said that he hoped so. He characterized himself as a conservative and a Biblical inerrantist, but said, "I'm just not mad about it."

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