(Baptist News) Several Southern Baptist leaders, missionaries and pastors are voicing a unified response to the continuing decline of baptisms across the Southern Baptist Convention: “It’s on me.”
In the face of a steady, 20-year decline, a new video released by the North American Mission Board (NAMB) emphasizes the need for Southern Baptists to take both responsibility and action for sharing the Gospel in North America.
The video begins with Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board (NAMB): “In the past 20 years, North America’s population has risen by 48.2 million people,” Ezell says. After others on the video note the ongoing drop in baptism, Ezell states: “I’m Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board, and when it comes to baptism decline in the SBC, it’s on me.”
Johnny Hunt, NAMB’s senior vice president for evangelism and leadership, and Ezell lead off a chorus of Southern Baptist pastors and leaders who rally around the message that pastors and congregants need to be focused on evangelism personally in their lives and corporately through their churches.