Virginia Baptist Bible Conference

                                                                                                                                                                  Vol. II, No. 4, September 1989

For several years conservative Southern Baptists around our state have been talking of providing an alternative to the Pastors' Conference held each year on Monday just prior to the annual November BGAV convention. We have been reluctant through the years to begin such an alternative meeting because we did not want to appear divisive. However, after last year's Pastors' Conference many pastors and laymen felt we should wait no longer.

During a luncheon meeting of approximately 170 conservatives last November in Virginia Beach a motion was unanimously adopted to form a committee of seven pastors to develop an alternative pastors' conference for the next two years. Following the two-year start-up period we expect to elect a new committee each year. The committee has met on several occasions and is now ready to make a public announcement concerning the first meeting of the Virginia Baptist Bible Conference.

Many important matters were considered in developing this conference. For instance, what is the purpose of a conference for pastors each year? The committee felt, without exception, that a pastors' conference should be a time of spiritual renewal and encouragement for the men and women who labor for the Lord throughout the year. It should be something that deacons, Sunday School teachers, music directors, and other church leaders would want to attend, and it should lift them before the throne of grace. It should be a special annual event that Virginia pastors would be confident of and proud to promote among their church leaders and membership. Secondly, a meeting of this nature is not the time or place for politics. This year your committee has made this point clearly to each speaker and specified that they are simply to "preach the Word." Finally, the music should be uplifting and encouraging, full of the Spirit of God, and saturated with the name of Jesus.

With these and other guidelines in mind, the first annual meeting of the Virginia Baptist Bible Conference will take place at the Airport Sheraton Inn, Roanoke, beginning at 6:30 P.M. on November 13, 1989. Four speakers will bring messages on the theme "Renewal Now." Bible preaching, soul-winning, and glorifying God will be the focus of the evening. The speakers are Dr. Gary Burden of Deerpark Baptist Church, Newport News; Rev. Art Ballard of Largo, Florida; Rev. Vander Warner of Grove Avenue Baptist Church, Richmond; and our special guest, Dr. Jimmy Draper, former President of the Southern Baptist Convention and Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Euliss, Texas.

The music will be of the same nature. Pam and McKenneth King, known throughout our state as "King and Company," will be our featured guests. Both Pam and McKenneth are graduates of Southern Seminary, and God is using them across this nation as full-time music evangelists. The Adult Choir of the Northside Baptist Church in Charlottesville, directed by David Johnson, will be our choir for the evening. All the music will present Jesus and will be sung to prepare our hearts for the preached Word.

Your committee feels that this meeting will be a time of spiritual renewal for pastors, pastors' wives, and other local church leadership. It is our prayer that God will bless this first annual meeting of the Virginia Baptist Bible Conference and that conservatives in our state will find it to be a meeting in which they are spiritually fed.