Hunt Elected SBC President

Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia, has been elected President of the Southern Baptist Convention. Below are two stories with vote totals, nomination information and quotes from Hunt during a news conference.

Our Blog Poll #27 reflected Hunt in second place with 10 of 28 votes cast. Frank Cox won the unscientific poll with 14 votes.

Hunt elected president on first ballot

INDIANAPOLIS (BP)--Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Ga., was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention June 10, receiving 52.94 percent of votes (3,100) cast on the first ballot.

Five other candidates were nominated. Frank Cox received 1,286 votes (21.96 percent); Avery Willis, 962 votes (16.43 percent); William (Bill) Wagner, 255 votes (4.35 percent); Les Puryear, 188 votes (3.21 percent); and Wiley Drake, 45 votes (.77 percent).

A total of 5,856 ballots were cast, and 20 (.34 percent) were disallowed. At the time of the election, there were 7,196 registered messengers at the annual meeting.

Read more of this story on Baptist Press.

Johnny Hunt Wins Southern Baptist Presidency

INDIANAPOLIS – Georgia pastor Johnny M. Hunt was elected Tuesday to be the next president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Hunt, a Native American who pastors the megachurch First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Ga., received nearly 53 percent of the vote of over 5,000 SBC messengers – representatives of local SBC churches – during SBC’s annual meeting and was enthusiastically received at a time of decline.

“My heart and passion is to see as many people as possible embrace Jesus Christ as their personal savior,” Hunt said at a press conference after his election was announced. He also expressed passion to have churches fully involved in spreading the Gospel.

Read more of this story on The Christian Post.