I am a Southern Baptist. My first memories of church were in a Southern Baptist church, Parkview Baptist Church in Landover, Maryland. I was saved in that church as a child of 8 in 1966. I was discipled in a Southern Baptist church. It was at the Pumpkin Hill Baptist Chapel (later to become Emmanuel Baptist Church) of Laurel, Maryland that I first felt the Lord speaking to me about becoming a pastor.

I admit that, while I was in the Air Force, I attended Independent Baptist churches for a time. I did not know about different kinds of Baptists at the time. The first church I ever pastored was an independent Baptist church. I was ordained in a GARBC church (Victory Baptist Church in Omaha, Nebraska). But when I retired from the Air Force, it was a Southern Baptist pulpit that the Lord opened up to me. And it was then that I realized what it meant to be a Southern Baptist.

There is no question about holding to the Baptist distinctives. I believe in a regenerate church membership and believer's baptism by immersion. I also hold to congregational autonomy and soul liberty in worship. I also believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God and is true and correct in all that it teaches. It is the only binding standard of faith and life for me. I believe we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone. I believe in the literal return of Christ to the earth for His people.

But more, I am a Southern Baptist because I believe in the Cooperative Program. It is the mechanism by which Southern Baptists fund the work of the Convention. Our Executive Committee, our seminaries and most importantly, our missions boards are funded by Cooperative Program money. Thanks to the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists have put over 5000 missionaries into foreign service and another 5000 minssionaries reaching the North American continent. They are all paid from Cooperative Program money so that they are all able to devote all their time to the work of missions they were called to. I believe, with all my heart, that the Southern Baptist Convention is the greatest and most effective vehicle today for reaching a lost world with the blessed gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that being so, I want to be part of that organization. Therefore, I am a Southern Baptist.