Mobile-area pastor Ed Litton will be nominated for president of the Southern Baptist Convention at the 2021 SBC annual meeting in June.
Former SBC President Fred Luter made the announcement today (Jan. 19), and Litton confirmed his nomination in a video on YouTube.
“Kathy and I have prayed about it and considered the impact of this decision upon our lives and on our church,” Litton said. “We sense God is leading us to allow our name to be placed into nomination this coming June.”
Since 1994 Litton has been pastor of Redemption Church in Saraland — known as North Mobile Baptist Church until 2014. A Southwestern Seminary graduate, Litton served at First Baptist Church, Euless, Texas, in the college and career ministry and in the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention evangelism department. In 1987 he planted Mountain View Baptist Church, Tucson, Arizona.
He has also served in numerous roles in SBC denominational leadership, including the Resolutions Committee, Committee on Committees, as president of the SBC Pastors Conference and on the boards of various seminaries.
Litton is the third nominee made public for SBC president, joining Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. and Georgia pastor Mike Stone.
Declining numbers
In accepting the upcoming nomination, Ed Litton nodded toward the concern of declining numbers among Southern Baptists, while in turn pointing toward the trait that should be witnessed by the world.
“John 13:35 reminds us that ‘By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’ Our love would be the critical ethic and apologetic to all people,” he said.
“As a convention of churches, we need a greater vision than merely slowing a decline. What if the SBC would become known for how radically we love God, love one another and love the world? Genuine, transforming love is the credibility and the fuel of a believer, a church and a convention on mission. I’m allowing my name to be put forward because I want us to be the convention God has called us to be.”
‘Divisions grow’
In 2001, Luter gave the nomination speech that led to Litton’s becoming SBC first vice president. Twenty years later, he feels Litton is the right leader at the right time for a new role.
“Ed has a deep love for God and for people,” Luter said. “I truly believe he can help ease divisions that are happening among us and point us toward our mission.”
For the last six years — following the riots in Ferguson, Missouri — Litton has been involved in The Pledge Group of Mobile, a diverse group of area pastors seeking to further racial reconciliation. In late October, he helped write the “Deep South Joint Statement on the Gospel, Racial Reconciliation, and Justice.”
Those early meetings took place with area clergy, judges and civic leaders over lunch in the conference room of a local car dealership. Litton remembered them as uncomfortable, but necessary to lay the groundwork for progress.
“There were tense and painful moments,” he said. “We began to listen and learn about perspectives. In time and through the work of the Holy Spirit, God began to build genuine love and respect for each other. We began spending time with one another apart from our conversations.”
Litton said that amid a spirit of division in the country, Southern Baptists should be leading the way toward unity.
“Recently, I shared with my church, ‘A deeply divided nation needs a deeply united church,’” he said. “Simply and honestly, we are not there as a convention of churches. I fear our credibility is faltering. While the world waits deeply in need of Jesus, we have seen division grow in our SBC family.
“We have been blessed as Southern Baptists with strong churches, strong pastors, leaders and theologians, but what we need is a broken and contrite heart. We need to reemphasize our common mission, committed together and following Jesus. Being yoked with Jesus will do something even greater for the soul of our convention and it will fuel the fire for the Great Commission, our primary purpose in being united.”
During Litton’s pastorate at Redemption, the church has averaged nearly 152 baptisms annually since 1994 with resident membership growing by 27.3 percent over the last 10 years. From 2018 to 2020, the church averaged 3.66 percent of undesignated gifts given through the Cooperative Program. From September 2019 through August 2020, it also contributed 12.33 percent of its undesignated budget through Great Commission Giving.
Litton’s wife, Kathy, currently serves as director of planter spouse development for the North American Mission Board. Kathy Litton was elected registration secretary at the 2019 SBC Annual Meeting. Citing a desire to “help maintain the highest standards of integrity in our voting processes,” she sent a letter of resignation from that position earlier today to SBC Executive Committee President and CEO Ronnie Floyd and SBC President J.D. Greear.
(Reprinted from Baptist Press, www.baptistpress.com, news service of the Southern Baptist Convention; TAB contributed)
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