GCR task force to meet twice in August; listening session to precede Ark. meeting

ROGERS, Ark.?The Southern Baptist Convention’s newly minted Great Commission Task Force will meet twice next month, once in Atlanta, Ga. and once in Rogers, Ark.

SBC President Johnny Hunt confirmed for The Illinois Baptist on July 15 that the task force will meet Aug. 11-12 at the Renaissance Hotel near the Atlanta Airport, and again Aug. 26-27 at the Embassy Suites Northwest Arkansas in Rogers. Hunt is pastor of First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Ga., north of the metro Atlanta area, and task force chairman Ronnie Floyd is pastor of First Baptist Church, Springdale, Ark. and the Church at Pinnacle Hills in Rogers.

The Arkansas meeting will be preceded, according to Floyd, by a luncheon for area pastors and staff, laypersons serving on SBC entities and “anyone who wants to come.”

“I have asked Dr. Hunt to come in early (for the meeting), and he and I will address these leaders about the GCR and the future of the SBC,” Floyd wrote in an e-mail to the Illinois Baptist. “We will open it up for questions and try to provide an entrée for them to interact with us ? I want this to be one of our listening sessions and an opportunity to speak to the people about the SBC.”

Floyd said invitations to the luncheon, which will be held at The Church At Pinnacle Hills’ campus, will be mailed in early August to SBC leaders within a two-hour driving radius of Rogers, including eastern Oklahoma and southern Missouri, but offered to all. “If anyone wants to come, just call our office at 479-751-4523 and RSVP to Debby Swart,” he said.

Hunt appointed the 19-member task force during the SBC annual meeting in Louisville, Ky. last month, then added four members in early July to broaden its representation. The vote authorizing the task force charges it with studying how Southern Baptists can work “more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.”

Floyd also reminded Southern Baptists that “in early August we are going to launch a major prayer website where we enlist people to pray for the GCR and all involved in it.”