NGU Alum Plans to Unify as SBC Pastors’ Conference President
Posted on: June 20, 2022
Tigerville, SC (June 20, 2022) Dr. Daniel Dickard, a 2012 North Greenville University graduate was elected president of the 2023 Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Pastors’ Conference during the 2022 Pastors’ Conference this month in Anaheim, CA.
Dr. Dickard said he will seek to unify SBC pastors during his presidency.
“I want to pull people together because we are better together,” Dickard told Baptist Press writer Tobin Perry in a recent interview. “It’s not just that churches are to come together; a convention is to come together under the truth of the inerrancy and sufficiency of scripture.
“We are a conservative convention that believes the Bible, preaches the Bible. And I believe that most people who are a part of our congregations desire to live out the Bible. I believe the Southern Baptist Convention is a family, and as a family we should look for every opportunity to bring more people together for a time of encouragement. That would be my goal for the pastors’ conference.”
Dickard has served as the pastor of Friendly Avenue Baptist Church in Greensboro, NC, since May 2018. He previously served in multiple roles at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS), including dean of students, preaching instructor, and church-ministry relations.
After graduating from NGU in 2012, he received his M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees from SWBTS.
Dickard said he would like to make the conference a two-day event and add additional breakout tracks applicable to all Southern Baptists, including women, youth, college students, and those pursuing a ministry call.
He said he had no ambition to run for the SBC Pastors’ Conference president until a group of pastors came to him and asked him to consider allowing his name to be nominated.
“After a time of prayer, I let a group of pastors know that I would and that if elected, it would be an honor to serve Southern Baptists because I love Southern Baptists,” Dickard said. “I’ve grown up in a Southern Baptist house, been in Southern Baptist churches, and I am a Southern Baptist pastor. I love what our denomination stands for—our commitment to evangelism and missions—but also the emphasis on the primacy of preaching. If I could be of any help to a denomination that I love, I would be honored to serve in this capacity.”
Dickard says the 2023 conference will focus on “Character matters in ministry: Beatitudes of a pastor from Matthew 5:3-12.” He says he would work with the speaker selection council to determine the pastors who would preach at the conference.
“It is my belief that the pastors’ conference should be a unifying event in which all Southern Baptists have confidence in the selected speakers,” Dickard said. “Each pastor that I will select to serve on the speaker selection council will have a love for the Southern Baptist Convention and unwavering fidelity to the scriptures, and a strong commitment to biblical expositional preaching.”
Dickard said his vision for the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Conference would be to “highlight a wide swath of faithful SBC pastors, regardless of church size, age, shape, and geographical scope, as we focus on the idea that character matters in ministry.”
Dickard and his wife, Cassie, have three children – Conrad, Kesyd, and Carolina.
Information for this article was obtained from interviews by Tobin Perry and Laura Erlanson, managing editor of Baptist Press.
About North Greenville University
NGU offers more than 125 areas of study across certificate, bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral, and early college opportunities. Online. In-person. At our main campus in Tigerville, SC, the Tim Brashier Campus in Greer, SC, or several educational centers around the U.S. One university, many locations. Every day. Epic. Learn more.
