ORLANDO, Fla. (BP) — First Baptist Church of Orlando, Fla., has paid the full cost of the 2020 Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Conference, leaders said Monday (Feb. 17) in response to disagreement about speakers and performers slated for the June 7-8 event.
“We will not receive any financial support of any kind from any SBC entity or auxiliary,” pastors’ conference leaders said in a statement released by Matthew Robinson, First Orlando pastor of administration. “Our hope is that this will ease conflicts or tensions that exist over the slated program for the conference. The 2020 SBC Pastors’ Conference is in no way being sponsored, controlled or paid for by the SBC, even though its purpose is still to bless and encourage SBC pastors and wives.”
The speakers and performers remain the same as originally announced, the conference said.
Pastors’ Conference President David Uth, pastor of First Baptist Orlando, responded as early as Feb. 11 to concerns voiced among Southern Baptists that not all speakers and performers invited to the event are Southern Baptist, as well as to a scheduled performance by a woman who is a spoken word artist but also a teaching pastor at her non-Southern Baptist church.
Others have also been critical of the inclusion of David Hughes, pastor of Church by the Glades, a Southern Baptist congregation in Coral Springs, Fla. The church has received attention for various performances in its services, as well as sermon series with sensual themes.
“My goal, my prayer was that we could open ourselves up to hear from people that maybe were good friends of ours, but not in our Southern Baptist Convention,” Uth has said. “I feel like they have a message for us. I feel like God wants to speak to us through them. So my goal and my hope was that we could hear their message, we could learn from them, and we could embrace it.”
Uth responded after he received both affirming and disparaging feedback regarding the inclusion of Hosanna Wong as a spoken word artist, with many complaining that Wong is also a network associate teaching pastor at the Chula Vista location of the multisite EastLake Church in the San Diego area. Others pointed out Jim Cymbala, pastor of the evangelical non-denominational Brooklyn Tabernacle in Brooklyn, N.Y.; and Wayne Cordeiro, founding pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship, based in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Source: Baptist Press
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