HOUSTON – Bruce Frank, lead pastor of the Asheville-area Biltmore Baptist Church in Arden, N.C., will be nominated for president of the Southern Baptist Pastors’ Conference, according to an announcement by Arkansas pastor Ronnie Floyd.
Floyd, a former Pastors’ Conference president, stated in an April 23 announcement to Baptist Press: “As I have had the privilege to get to know Dr. Frank, it is obvious that his life and work are dedicated to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He has served in various leadership positions within Southern Baptist life and has spoken in diverse settings across the country. According to Outreach Magazine, under Dr. Frank’s leadership the Biltmore Church has been one of America’s ‘Fastest Growing Churches’ three of the last four years. They are a multi-campus church that has seen over 1,300 people baptized in the past three years. Additionally, they have a strong commitment to advancing the Gospel globally….
“Dr. Frank is the gifted Pastor-Leader of one of the great churches in the Southern Baptist Convention,” Floyd, pastor of Cross Church in Springdale, Ark., also stated. “I wholeheartedly believe he and the Biltmore Church have the capacity to provide outstanding spiritual leadership to our 2014 Pastors’ Conference. Due to his life, family, leadership, and church, I pray the Lord will give him the privilege to serve our Pastors in this capacity.”
The Pastors’ Conference, which primarily focuses on messages from key leaders and inspirational music and worship, will be June 9-10 in Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center preceding the Southern Baptist Convention’s June 11-12 annual meeting there.
Baltimore will be the site of next year’s Pastors’ Conference and SBC annual meeting.
Frank, 48, has led Biltmore Baptist Church, with campuses in Arden and Swannanoa just east of Asheville, since 2008, having previously served at the Houston-area First Baptist Church in Humble, Texas, from 1999-2008.
According to Southern Baptists’ Annual Church Profile database, Biltmore Baptist Church had a weekly attendance of 4,839 in 2011 (2012 statistics for the church have not yet been posted) and 4,070 in 2010. The church recorded 460 baptisms in 2011 and 445 in 2010. The overall membership of the church stood at 7,196 in 2011 and offerings/gifts to the church that year totaled $8,837,438.
Frank is on the 18-member Bible Studies for Life advisory council, which has helped redesign and enhance the LifeWay Christian Resources curriculum used in more than 30,000 churches. The revised curriculum will debut this fall.
Before serving in Humble, Texas, Frank had been executive pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Houston and pastor of churches in Electra and Bluegrove, Texas.
Frank was born in Atlanta but grew up in Oklahoma and Texas. He came to faith in Christ at age 17 through a basketball coach’s testimony. According to his www.brucefrank.org website, he earned an undergraduate finance degree from Texas Tech University in 1986 and felt called to the ministry during his involvement with Campus Crusade for Christ at the campus. He earned a master of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas in 1991 and a doctor of ministry degree from Luther Rice Seminary in metro Atlanta in 1999.
Frank and his wife Lori have two children: Tyler, a junior at Liberty University, and Conner, a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Frank is on Twitter @BruceFrank1.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Art Toalston is editor of Baptist Press.)