Wicker calls for 100,000 new baptisms

New FBSC president’s ‘audacious, miraculous goal’ part of ambitious agenda to lead Florida Baptists

Nov 23, 2004
JAMES A. SMITH SR.
Executive Editor

NAPLES (FBW)—Florida Baptists’ new leader has an “audacious, miraculous goal” for the state convention: 100,000 baptisms in 2005.

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In his first extensive interview after being elected president of Florida Baptist State Convention, Wicker outlined for Florida Baptist Witness an ambitious agenda. Along with baptisms, other goals Wicker has set as president include acting as an encourager to pastors, emphases on the Great Commission, expository preaching, stronger stands on moral issues and a need for “a sweeping renewal of prayer and repentance in our churches.”

Wicker, pastor of First Baptist Church of Naples, was unopposed for president Nov. 9 at the Prime Osborn Convention Center in Jacksonville where the Florida Baptist State Convention met for its 143rd session, marking its 150th anniversary. He succeeds Tommy Green, pastor of First Baptist Church of Brandon.

“I would love for our Convention to reach an audacious, miraculous goal of baptizing 100,000 people this year! That will never occur with better programs or promotion, but only through revival,” Wicker said. Florida Baptists’ nearly 2,800 congregations baptized 34,274 persons in 2003. The record for most baptisms among Florida Baptists in one year is 37,559, reached in 2000.

Wicker’s baptisms goal should have a ring of familiarity to Southern Baptists. Floridian Bobby Welch was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention this year with a goal of raising the national total of annual baptisms to one million. In 2003, Southern Baptists baptized 377,357, with the previous record of 445,725 in 1972.

Welch, pastor of First Baptist Church of Daytona Beach, toured every state of the nation this fall to kick-off his “Everyone Can Kingdom Challenge” evangelism emphasis and is planning a major evangelistic effort in connection with the 2005 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Nashville.

Asked if he planned to coordinate his efforts with Welch, Wicker told the Witness, “Dr. Welch and I have already chatted briefly. I greatly respect his leadership in his church and in the [Southern Baptist] Convention. We will be talking more later. His zeal is contagious. I look forward to hearing how he senses that the state can be involved with the rest of the [Southern Baptist] Convention.”

In calling for the significant baptism goal, Wicker was careful to add that such a grand objective would not be possible apart from revival.

“I pray for a H.O.T.—Hearing God, Obeying God, Trusting God—atmosphere in the state as we discover what He wants us to do and then adjust to His heart and activity. We need a sweeping renewal of prayer and repentance in our churches,” Wicker said.

Connected to renewal in the churches, Wicker also said he hoped Florida Baptists would have a “stronger, more vocal stand on moral and ethical issues, particularly concerning marriage, abortion and religious liberty.”

Wicker told the Witness he was not surprised by the unanimous adoption by the Florida Baptist State Convention of a motion calling for a state constitutional marriage amendment, adding “we must be crystal clear in our language and laser-focused with our purpose concerning the great moral and ethical matters of our day.”

Asked what role he hoped to play as FBSC president in promoting a call for a state marriage amendment, Wicker said, “Our political leaders must hear the will of the one million Florida Southern Baptists. The pulpits must not be silent or tentative.”

FBC Photo

SBC president and Florida pastor Bobby Welch (right), after his convention sermon, asked newly elected Florida Baptist State Convention president Hayes Wicker, to close the 2004 annual meeting in prayer. Wicker is pastor of First Baptist Church, Naples.

First Baptist Church of Naples, Wicker said, was mobilized this year to lobby their U.S. representative and two U.S. senators in support of the Federal Marriage Amendment, resulting in more than 2,000 letters mailed from church members.

Wicker also commended the Florida Baptist State Convention’s action in calling for greater support of the Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools, and in its decision to decline action on a resolution urging parents to remove their children from public schools.

“I am grateful that our convention affirms the Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools. … It is making a difference in emphasizing Kingdom Education,” he said, noting that his church sponsors a Christian school which strives to teach “the Christian worldview with academic excellence.”

Wicker added, “Though many of our churches do not yet have Christian schools, they are increasingly essential in a decaying society.”

Another goal for his presidency, Wicker told the Witness, is to encourage pastors.

“After 34 years of pastoring all kinds of churches, I have encountered just about every kind of trial and feel that I can empathize with the brothers,” he said. “I want to magnify expository preaching with contemporary application and illustration, as well as Spirit-anointed biblical and varied worship styles. Most of all, I pray that we will have a sweeping spirit of unity and love.”

Asking how he planned to balance the demands of his church with those as FBSC president, Wicker acknowledged the “challenge,” adding, “I will need the prayers of all Baptists for wisdom.” First Baptist Naples is in the midst of a $21 million building and capital stewardship effort.

While he will “work even harder” to spend time with his family, Wicker said that he hoped also to attend the meetings and support the work of the state convention’s agencies.

“I am thrilled to be a part of our nation’s greatest state convention, with the finest denominational leadership anywhere,” Wicker said. “I trust that Florida will set the pace for the rest of the Southern Baptist Convention, but we must realize that we are ‘not adequate in ourselves to consider anything from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God’ (2 Corinthians 3:5).”

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