Ronnie Floyd

Archive for the 'Southern Baptist Convention' Category

June 1st, 2016

How to Pray for Our 2016 Southern Baptist Convention

Join the Movement, SBC Annual Meeting, Southern Baptist Convention

As we enter the final stretch toward our Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis on June 14-15, I want to call upon each individual and every Southern Baptist church to set aside time to pray. For several weeks, I have prayed very specifically and intentionally each day.

Let me share with you how I am praying and perhaps it will encourage you to create your own prayer list for the Southern Baptist Convention. The main thing is pray.

1. PRAY THROUGH THE ENTIRE SCHEDULE

It may seem cumbersome to pray through the schedule, but it does not need to be that way at all. In fact, it is informative and gives you the names of those participating and their related assignments. The entire two-day schedule is located here. Call out each name to God, asking for wisdom and anointing upon each one.

Slow down and give specific attention to praying for each report to be given by our eleven entity Presidents and the President-CEO of our Executive Committee. Additionally, give focus to praying for Dr. Ted Traylor, who will be bringing our convention sermon this year.

2. PRAY THROUGH OUR RACIAL UNITY PANEL

The graphic below is an easy way to see the faces of the people involved and call their names out to God. Give specific attention to both Dr. Jerry Young and Pastor Marshall Blalock. They will each be speaking for 12-15 minutes, then the entire panel will engage in conversation on racial unity in America. Our prayer is that this will be historic and pivotal toward racial unity in America.

3. PRAY THROUGH OUR NATIONAL CALL TO PRAY

The graphic below is another visible way you can pray through the entire group who will lead us in our National Call to Prayer for Spiritual Leadership, Revived Churches, and Nationwide & Global Awakening. Please give specific prayer focus to Matt Chandler, Johnny Hunt, John Avant, Jerry Young, Senator James Lankford, and Greg Laurie. They will be presenting brief segments from the Scriptures to prepare us to call out to God together. I appeal to you to pray not only for these, but all involved in the evening, including our worship leaders for the evening.

4. PRAY THROUGH OUR PASTORS AND THE CHURCH PANEL

This strategic panel on Pastors and the Church in American Politics Today is of critical concern for each of us. The graphic below can show you the persons who need our prayer as they help us navigate through this challenging and sensitive terrain. Pray for us to hear and see what God will say to us through them.

5. PRAY FOR ME

Over these past two months, everything has been converging simultaneously. The details are overwhelming and the preparation is endless. God really accelerated His work through me through a recent 21-day period of fasting and prayer, all focused upon this upcoming Southern Baptist Convention.

The Presidential Address is always critical and God has been faithful to give me His words to share with you. Over the next several days, I will finalize the address, panel discussions, and work with our committees in preparation for the annual meeting. Once we arrive in St. Louis, I have the privilege to speak to churches and other ministries, engage in Crossover St. Louis, and much more. I am blessed beyond words, but deeply burdened to carry out all these things in God’s power. Please pray for me.

God is Taking our SBC Meeting Across the World

Do not forget, if you are not able to join us in St. Louis, you can livestream the Southern Baptist Convention on sbc.net. Additionally, our Tuesday night National Call to Prayer will be broadcast across the world live via the Daystar Christian Television Network. There are also other media considering carrying the service via radio. The Lord is blessing and taking the message throughout the world. We give Him glory!

Therefore, we have much to pray about.

Set Aside a Few Minutes the Next Two Sundays in Your Worship Services to Pray for 2016 SBC

Yes, lead your church to pray for our 2016 SBC in St. Louis. There is so much to pray about and our churches need to be engaged in doing so. Last week, we allocated ten minutes in each worship service to pray and will be doing the same on June 5 and June 12. This helps our churches get outside of themselves and gives us as leaders the opportunity to share about the SBC with our people. If we are truly a Kingdom of God people, let’s talk about what God is doing around the country and the world, praying through all for His glory.

Thank you for praying. We already anticipate a great attendance in St. Louis. It is going to be fabulous!

Now is the Time to Lead,

Ronnie W. Floyd

Senior Pastor, Cross Church
President, Southern Baptist Convention

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Dr. Ronnie Floyd is currently serving as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest Protestant denomination with more than 15.7 million members in over 51,094 churches nationwide.

To request an interview with Dr. Ronnie Floyd
contact Gayla Oldham at (479) 751-4523 or email gaylao@crosschurch.com.

Visit our website at http://ronniefloyd.com
Follow Dr. Floyd on Twitter and Instagram @ronniefloyd

Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.

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May 27th, 2016

If I Had More Time

Great Commission/Evangelism, SBC Annual Meeting, Southern Baptist Convention

A reporter recently asked me a very thought provoking question: If you had two more years as President of the Southern Baptist Convention, what would you do? I was not intimidated by the question; in fact, I have thought about it since the beginning of the year.

Every president in the past and every president in the future must lead the convention in the direction he believes God has put on his heart. Yet, he must also ensure it coincides with what the Lord is doing among the people and is done in the Lord’s timing. Additionally, the president must be more than prepared because the Lord may open unique doors for him during his term.

A Personal Moment

I have no idea how past presidents felt as they concluded their journey in this leadership responsibility. I am sure the emotions are plentiful. I am often asked, “Won’t you be glad to see this conclude?” I can honestly say that while I am humbled deeply and grateful to God for it, I have loved it all and will miss it.

I entered this year with these emotions and the vision of the needs that are so great before us. Therefore, I want to speak to two of our major needs today.

Because these are such major needs in Southern Baptist life, I have already been addressing them both. Yet, as we draw closer to this journey’s end, I feel the need to continually speak to their importance.

Prioritizing Evangelism Again

I will speak to some of this in my Presidential Address in our upcoming Southern Baptist Convention. I have already been speaking about this subject in writing and in leadership. A couple of months after being elected in 2014, I began conducting conference calls with large groups of leaders, challenging ministers to lead the way in seeing a change in our present negative trajectory.

Prioritizing evangelism again in our lives and churches is imperative. We need to emphasize personal evangelism as well as church evangelism.

We must hold high the dynamic need of reaching our own town, community, or city for Jesus Christ. We need to recapture the vision that God has taken us into our specific towns or regions to invest our lives until every person hears the gospel and comes to Christ.

Our pastors and churches must not just be equipped with evangelistic tools, but must adjust their thinking about their region and strategy.

Pastors and church leaders must begin to see their community as lost and in dire need of Jesus Christ. We must know our area demographically. If we are called to reach the people of our communities, we must first know who is there so we can develop a strategy to reach them.

Therefore, we must see each church as being on mission with God to reach their community with the gospel, and the pastor must see himself as a missional strategist, thinking and mobilizing people on this grand mission. This will take a major transition in our thinking as leaders.

Until personal evangelism and evangelism through the Church is our priority, we will continue to see what we have seen — mediocrity. Pastor and Church, re-prioritize your life and church for evangelism: sharing Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit with the sole intentionality of leading each person to Christ.

Bring Laypeople Back into Southern Baptist Life

The conservative resurgence would have never happened without laypeople leading and participating. Judge Paul Pressler, a layman, and a tribe like him were side-by-side with our pastors in leading this needed return to the Bible. They were vigilant in the battle, which was so needed. They were only beholden to the Lord they served, the Word of God they loved, the Church God used to bring them to Jesus Christ, and the convention they believed God had raised up to reach the world.

While pastors were always in leadership, these strong laypeople were holding up the arms of our leaders, praying and serving admirably and unselfishly. When the resurgence was completed, many of these laypeople eventually ceased coming to our convention.

While this was understandable, today I really believe it is important to our future to re-engage our laypeople. It would take us from where we are to where God wants to see us go. We cannot get there without them.

Being in Northwest Arkansas at Cross Church, our region is flooded with the promise and hope of laypeople. As the Global Headquarters of Walmart, J.B. Hunt, Tyson Foods, and the home of the University of Arkansas, business giants and leaders fill this region. With at least 1,200 to 1,400 national and global companies that have some level of presence here, laypeople are robust in our area. I Thank God for the involvement of many laypeople in our fellowship and what they teach me continually.

Southern Baptist laypeople have so much to offer our convention. We need them more than they need us. Thank God for those who are still engaged with our meetings and for those who serve as trustees of our eleven national entities and Executive Committee.

Next year’s convention is in Phoenix, Arizona. Two summers from now, our convention will be in Dallas, Texas. Since thousands of churches are within driving distance of Dallas from surrounding states, if I had two more years to serve as president I would begin promoting this immediately. Unquestionably, I am convicted about it.

I Will Be Handing the Gavel to the Next Leader

When the gavel rings through St. Louis’ America Center at the close of our convention on Wednesday afternoon, I will no longer be serving as president. It is important for each of us now to pray diligently about the next leader God is raising up to serve.

I am praying with you for the Lord to raise up His next leader for us. I am overwhelmed with gratitude to God and to you for this generous privilege and responsibility extended to me.