Missouri Baptist Convention executive director John L. Yeats will be nominated for a 22nd term as the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) recording secretary, Texas pastor Bart Barber announced April 23.

Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church in Farmersville, Texas, said in a news release, “Our annual meetings are the largest exercise of inter-congregational polity in the world. The experience spans the gamut from boilerplate actions of formality to moments of breathtaking near-chaos. For it all to matter, we need someone to whom we can entrust the task of recording and publishing the fruit of our actions on the convention floor.

“For more than two decades, John Yeats has been that man,” Barber noted, “and our cooperative work will be best served by his continuing in this role.”

The SBC recording secretary is responsible for the record of the proceedings of the Southern Baptist Convention, training volunteers for convention business sessions and the final edit of the SBC Book of Reports and the SBC Annual.

Yeats designed the process currently used for the flow of information from the convention floor to the platform and distribution to the Committee on Order of Business, a process that has enhanced the accuracy of the official record.

As recording secretary, Yeats also is an ex officio member of the SBC Executive Committee, where he has served as vice chairman and Administrative Committee chairman.

During a three-year span in Missouri, Yeats led the state convention to increase its Cooperative Program (CP) giving to SBC causes by 3.5 percentage points of its $14 million budget, to the current 60-40 percentage allocation of CP funds between Missouri and SBC missions and ministries.

Deer Creek Baptist Church in Cuba, Mo., where Yeats is a member, reported giving 10 percent of its undesignated receipts through the Cooperative Program last year, a total confirmed by the Missouri Baptist Convention and data from the SBC’s Annual Church Profile (ACP).

Deer Creek baptized four people in 2017 and had an average worship attendance of 107, according to ACP.

Prior to his work with the Missouri convention, Yeats was director of communications/public policy for the Louisiana Baptist Convention, editor of state Baptist papers in Oklahoma and Indiana and pastor of churches in six states during 40-plus years of pastoral ministry. He was at South Park Baptist Church in Grand Prairie, Texas, from 1991-95 and Shawnee Heights Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., from 1978-91.

Yeats holds a doctor of ministry degree from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a master of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and an undergraduate degree from Dallas Baptist University.

Yeats, a native of Caddo, Okla., and his wife Sharon, who serves beside him on the convention platform, have three sons and nine grandchildren.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Compiled by David Roach, chief national correspondent for Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Convention’s news service.)

Joshua Hedger, a pastor and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary administrator, will nominate John L. Yeats for a 19th term as recording secretary of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) at the June 16-17 annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio.

As executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention since 2011, Yeats has demonstrated leadership and invested in pastors’ lives, said Hedger, pastor of preaching and vision at Emmaus Church in the Kansas City, Mo., area and director of the Center for Church Planting and Partnering at Midwestern.

“I had the privilege of serving with John for two years when I was the second vice president of the Missouri Baptist Convention,” Hedger said. “It is my joy to say that you would be hard pressed to find a more gracious, humble and shepherding leader than John Yeats. His leadership has been used by God to bring vision and unity to the Missouri Baptist Convention, and as a young pastor of that convention, I am thankful for his investment in my family, our church and our convention.”

This spring, Yeats proposed forwarding an additional two percent of Cooperative Program gifts received through the Missouri convention to SBC missions and ministries. If approved by messengers to the MBC annual meeting in the fall, Yeats’ proposed allocation of CP funds would move the convention to a 42.5/57.5 percent split of CP funds between Missouri and SBC causes after shared expenses.

“It is my honor to nominate John L. Yeats as recording secretary of the Southern Baptist Convention,” Hedger said. “He has proven to serve our convention faithfully, and I have no doubt he will continue to do so.”

Yeats was first elected as SBC recording secretary in 1997. He designed the annual meeting’s process of communicating from the convention floor to the platform and to the Committee on Order of Business, an achievement credited with enhancing the accuracy of the official record.

The SBC recording secretary records proceedings of the Southern Baptist Convention, trains volunteers for convention business sessions and submits the final edit of the SBC Book of Reports and the SBC Annual. Yeats is an ex-officio member of the SBC Executive Committee (EC) and served this past year as the EC’s vice chairman.

Yeats has overseen communications and public policy for the Louisiana Baptist Convention and is a former editor of state Baptist papers in Oklahoma and Indiana. He has served churches in six states during 40-plus years of pastoral ministry.

He received an undergraduate degree from Dallas Baptist University, a master of divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and a doctor of ministry from Midwestern Seminary in Kansas City.

His wife Sharon serves beside him on the annual meeting platform. The couple lives in Lohman, Mo., and has three sons and nine grandchildren.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Compiled by David Roach, chief national correspondent for Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Convention’s news service.)