With two officers declining re-election, messengers will elect new first and second vice presidents.

Ed Yount, pastor of Woodlawn Baptist Church in Conover for 16 years, will be nominated as first vice president.

Mark Harris, pastor of First Baptist Church, Charlotte, will be nominated as second vice president.

Current President Rick Speas, pastor of Old Town Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, will be nominated by Kevin Brown, pastor of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Wilkesboro, to serve a second one-year term. Speas was pastor of Mount Pleasant nine years.

Current Second Vice President Phil Ortego, pastor of Scotts Hill Baptist Church in Wilmington, and First Vice President Leland Kerr, pastor of Eastside Baptist Church in Shelby, both are eligible for second one-year terms but have opted not to run.

Yount, chair of the Giving Plans Study Committee which will report at the meeting, will be nominated by Greg Mathis, pastor of Mud Creek Baptist Church in Hendersonville.

Yount, 53, has served on the BSC Executive Committee, was moderator of Catawba Valley Baptist Association and has been a trustee of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board.

Woodlawn, with 2,000 members, reported $1.55 million in undesignated receipts in 2008 and gave 10 percent, or $154,862, to missions through the Cooperative Program. It also gave $31,205 in state and national missions offerings and $29,485 in other missions giving.

Richard Hicks, pastor of Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church in Supply, will nominate Harris, who felt called to the ministry and away from law school while serving as a semester youth minister at the church where Hicks was pastor in 1987.

Harris was pastor of Center Grove Baptist Church in Clemons 11 years, pastor of Curtis Baptist Church in Augusta, Ga., for almost six years and has been pastor in Charlotte since May 2005.

Harris, a member of the Biblical Recorder Board of Directors, this fall will finish both his second five-year term on the board of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and his second term as moderator of Metrolina Baptist Association.

First Baptist Charlotte, with 3,400 members, in 2007 gave $250,000 of its $3.5 million in undesignated receipts to missions through the Cooperative Program. It reported gifts of $211,451 through the state and SBC missions offerings, and an additional $303,606 in other missions giving.

Harris delivered the convention sermon in 2007 in which he declared the BSC was at “the dawning of a new day.”

“We’ve got to commit ourselves to work together until Jesus comes,” Harris said.
 
Speas’ great year
Speas, who was BSC first vice president for two years before being elected president in 2007 has “had a great year,” he said.

“I’ve traveled a lot, and have met a lot of wonderful people in churches and associations,” he said. “It’s been busy and time consuming, but I’ve really had a fun time. It’s been wonderful.”

Speas said he’s been in churches big and small, east and west. He’s found people in every instance “who love the Lord and are doing their best to do His work, share the gospel, encourage each other and meet the needs of people,” he said.

Speas’ president’s address at 11:20 a.m. Tuesday will be titled, “God’s call to North Carolina Baptists,” and he said his prayer is that when messengers leave the annual session,
“We will know that we’ve met with God. We’ll do the business we need to do but we will leave knowing God was in our midst and we touched lives.”