The 2026 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in Orlando generated no shortage of commentary, but much of what is said about the SBC is difficult to understand apart from Baptist polity, parliamentary procedure, and the purpose of an annual meeting. The SBC is not a church with authority over local congregations, but a voluntary association of autonomous churches that cooperate together for the sake of gospel work.

In these reflections, I consider what took place in Orlando, why theological and doctrinal clarity remains both healthy and costly, and why the slow deliberation of the SBC should not necessarily discourage us. Though there is energetic debate among Southern Baptists, there are also encouraging signs of faithfulness, seriousness, and renewed attention to biblical ecclesiology.

I have an odd collection of rocks on the bookshelf in my office. Among the collection are a jagged chunk of concrete, two broken bricks, three red cylinders cut from a brick wall, and a large cement cylinder cut out of a floor.

The first of the collection is the large cement cylinder. It stands about 4 inches tall. The sides are smooth from the blade that cut it. The smooth sides reveal the rock and rebar that were once part of the first floor of Roberts Hall, a men’s dormitory on the Rome, GA campus of Shorter University. During my sophomore year of college, the building was being wired for a new campus phone system and computer network. To provide access to each floor for the needed wiring, holes were drilled through the concrete floors. The new phone system was rendering the payphones on each floor obsolete, so their closets made convenient spaces through which to run the new wiring. The payphone closet was adjacent to the place at the end of the hallway, where I would often go late at night to read scripture and pray. The circular coring blade that cut through the concrete produced smooth-sided cement cylinders that the workmen left on the floor when they finished. One night, as I was reading scripture and praying, I noticed the forsaken remnants of the previous day’s work and decided to take one piece to be a reminder of how the Lord had been so gracious in those days and at that spot to draw me to Himself. It became a treasured reminder to me of God’s grace to convict me of sin and to deepen my obedience to His word.