LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)?The C.H. Spurgeon Awards ceremony and conference debuted last year, and this year two churches with ties to the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention are among those honored. The awards are sponsored by the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth and was conceived by the school’s dean, Thom Rainer.

The Spurgeon Awards honor top churches in 12 categories, such as global missions, evangelism, prayer and innovative ministry. Rainer had been sending certificates of recognition to top SBC churches for several years prior to his founding of the Spurgeon Awards.

The Country Church SBC in Marion, an SBTC congregation, garnered a Spurgeon Award in the Innovative Approaches category. The pastor is Butch Ibels and the church is a plant that is now planting other churches, said Robby Partain, SBTC evangelism and missions senior associate.

Also honored was Holgate Baptist Church in Portland, Ore., where the SBTC has a missions partnership with the Interstate Baptist Association. The church was awarded in the Sunday School/Small Group category and is successfully doing the FAITH Sunday School evangelism strategy, Partain said.

“The purpose of the Charles Haddon Spurgeon Awards is to bring glory to God by recognizing His work in His churches,” Rainer said. “Although the churches do get rightful recognition, we are very clear that we do not seek glory for the churches, but to encourage and exhort them in the manner of the Apostle Paul.”

Both objective and subjective criteria determine finalists and award recipients in each category. All finalists receive a recognition letter from Rainer and the Graham School. A winner is selected from among the finalists.

The Spurgeon Awards have broadened their scope since their inaugural year. Last year, only Southern Baptist churches in the Midwest were eligible for the awards. This year, nominees came from SBC churches nationwide and the event will continue on a national scope in the years to come, Rainer said.

This year’s top church, Englewood Baptist Church in Rocky Mount, N.C., has experienced profound growth in recent years. The church averages 1,250 in attendance for Sunday morning worship and 800 for Sunday School. Sunday School attendees have increased by nearly 200 in the past two years and have climbed by a greater percentage of late.

The Spurgeon Awards are named in honor of the famous British Baptist pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who lived from 1834-92. In London, Spurgeon served as pastor of Metropolitan Tabernacle that underwent such meteoric growth during his ministry that the church built a 5,000-seat sanctuary.

“We use Spurgeon’s name for these awards for several reasons,” Rainer said. “He was a Baptist who had a high view of Scripture and believed that no church could be healthy without firm theological convictions. He had an evangelistic passion as clearly evident in his book, “The Soul Winner.”

“He was a pastor’s pastor, evident in the pastor’s school he started at Metropolitan Tabernacle…. He insisted on churches having some type of accountability beyond themselves. That is why he urged churches to report records of attendance and baptisms. He had no interest in numbers for numbers’ sake, but he did believe in congregational accountability through numbers.”

Rainer said the response from participating churches has shown that the Spurgeon Awards are accomplishing their goal of celebrating God’s work and encouraging congregations and leaders.

“We have had countless church leaders, staff and laypersons, tell us that they rarely, if ever, have received encouragement as they did through the Spurgeon Awards. They tell us that they are now more motivated than ever to press on for the sake of the Gospel and the glory of God.”

Winners in the 12 awards categories were:

• Church of the Year, Englewood Baptist Church, Rocky Mount, N.C.; first runner-up, Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, Marietta, Ga.; second runner-up, Long Heights Baptist Church, McKenzie, Tenn.

• Evangelism, Canaan Baptist Church, Bessemer, Ala.

• Prayer, Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, Marietta, Ga.

• Worship, Valley View Church, Louisville, Ky.

• Discipleship

FORT WORTH?Paige Patterson, a key architect in the conservative theological resurgence among Southern Baptists, was inaugurated Oct. 21 as the eighth president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary amid family, students, friends and colleagues. Majestic hymns and fiery exhortations from Baptist leaders?rife with historical references to past champions of biblical integrity?characterized the service.

The son of the late T.A. Patterson, a pastor and leader among Texas Baptists, Patterson and his platform guests entered the formal environs of Travis Avenue Baptist Church adorned in academic robes and regalia.

New Orleans Seminary President Charles Kelley and O.S. Hawkins, Southern Baptist Convention Annuity Board president, charged Patterson with presidential responsibilities. Patterson’s son-in-law, Mark Howell, delivered the inaugural message.

The program included Baptist leaders such as SBC President Jack Graham and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s Executive Director, Jim Richards, who greeted Patterson on behalf of the SBTC’s 1,370 congregations.

“The churches of the SBTC believe in you, Dr. Patterson, and believe in Southwestern. Our shared core values make us spiritual partners,” Richards said.

Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler, citing the faith of the church fathers and later Baptist forebears, exhorted Patterson in his signing of the Baptist Faith and Message confessional statement. Kenneth Hemphill, Patterson’s predecessor, presented Patterson the seminary’s Presidential Medallion.

Hawkins’ charge to Patterson drew applause and was defined by a rousing historical account of seminary founding President B.H. Carroll’s doctrinal beliefs.

“President Carroll, Bible in hand, did more than standardize orthodoxy in Texas; he rallied the host of Baptists to the Bible doctrines of the Holy Scripture,” Hawkins said in quoting J.B. Gambrell, Carroll’s friend and contemporary.

“Southwestern has always been known as a conservative place. Why? Because we have always sought to conserve something: the trustworthiness of the word of God, the dreams and visions of those founders.

“So we come this evening to celebrate a president of Southwestern Seminary” characterized by the courage to fight for the inerrancy of Scripture, the conviction to use confessional accountability, the consistency to hold to the Bible amid cultural change and a belief in denominational cooperation.

Hawkins then quipped, “And lest anyone in here this evening misunderstand, and lest you (Patterson) get too puffed up, I’m not speaking of Dr. Paige Patterson. I’m speaking of Dr. B.H. Carroll, the founder of Southwestern Seminary.”

Hawkins said Carroll’s writings are documented in “hundreds of printed pages that leave us the answer” as to how Carroll might respond to current theological debates.

“B.H. Carroll, though he is dead, still speaks.”

Patterson said Carroll believed in the “verbal, plenary (complete) inspiration” of Scripture.

” ‘One part is no more inspired than any other part,'” Hawkins said, quoting from Carroll’s book “The Inspiration of Scripture.” “‘It is perfectly foolish to talk about degrees of inspiration. What Jesus said in the flesh as we find it in the four gospels is no more his word than what the inspired prophets or inspired apostles said.

” ‘In other words,’ Carroll said, ‘we cannot pit the words of Christ over the words of Paul, as some seek to do today.'”

Continuing his quoting of Carroll, Hawkins said, “‘The modern cry (of) less creed and more liberty is a degeneration from the vertebrate to the jellyfish and it means less unity and less morality and it means more heresy. It is a hurtful sin to magnify liberty at the expense of doctrine.’

Alluding to debate about SBC views on female pastors, Hawkins said Carroll believed in women’s ministry and even had deaconesses who served women at First Baptist Church, Waco. But, Hawkins said in quoting Carroll, “The custom in some congregations of having a woman as pastor is a flat contradiction to the apostolic teaching and is an open rebellion against Christ our king and is high treason against his sovereignty.”

Hawkins said Carroll immersed himself in denominational controversy, in Carroll’s words, “for one purpose ? to promote unity.”

Hawkins continued. “It’s not hard when we take time to read our forefathers in their own words to see who the real denominational loyalists and preservers of Baptist heritage truly are. One must ask, ‘Who has moved from Baptist roots?'”

Howell, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Little Rock, Ark., delivered the inaugural sermon, “Why Do We Do What We Do?” from Acts 20:17-38.

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