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FORT WORTH — Messengers to the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Annual Meeting on the campus of Southwestern Seminary, Nov. 10-11, re-elected president Jimmy Pritchard and recording secretary Dante Wright while also electing a new vice president.
Pritchard, pastor of First Baptist Church in Forney, was elected by acclamation to a second term as president after being nominated by his son James, pastor of Robinwood Baptist Church in Seagoville.
Pritchard has served as a trustee of Criswell College, East Texas Baptist University and the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board. He served as chairman of the IMB trustees, and in 2011 he led the presidential search committee that selected recently retired IMB president Tom Elliff.
His son James spoke of his father’s ability to resonate with Texas pastors in churches of any size and emphasized his personal integrity as a quality needed in a president.
“The key to [my father’s] success was not what happened in front of people, but what happened in front of God,” James Pritchard said of his father.
Messengers also elected Sookwan Lee, pastor of Seoul Baptist Church in Houston and SBTC executive board member, as vice president.
A native of Korea, Lee was saved in his early 30s as a businessman living in Houston. He joined Seoul Baptist Church and began as a home group leader. After beginning to preach in 2001 and attending seminary, he came on staff as an associate pastor and then was called as the senior pastor in 2012.
Bart Barber, pastor of FBC Farmersville, said that observing Lee’s “quiet, statesmanlike leadership” on the executive board led him to nominate Lee as vice president.
“Sookwan Lee was born in Korea, but he came to work in Texas, joined a church in Texas, grew as a Christian in Texas, surrendered to ministry in Texas, went to seminary in Texas, took leadership of a great church in Texas, gave leadership to a denomination of Southern Baptists in Texas, and led a whole host of Texans to Jesus last year,” Barber said. “Sookwan Lee is the SBTC, and we would do well to make him our convention vice president for the year to come.”
SBTC messengers re-elected Dante Wright, pastor of Sweet Home Baptist Church in Round Rock, as recording secretary.
Wright spent 10 years as a football coach before surrendering to ministry and coming to pastor Sweet Home Baptist Church. Over the last decade, attendance has grown from less than 50 to over 800. The church, a multiracial congregation, has moved north of its original location into a new 1,200-seat auditorium.
Steve Washburn, pastor of First Baptist Church of Pflugerville, nominated Wright for the second year in a row.
“Last year we elected Dante to be the recording secretary of our convention. Immediately he was called on to also assume the role of vice president. In this past year he had been exemplary in both roles,” Washburn said.
All three men ran unopposed and were elected by single ballot.
