The Future Focus Committee will bring only one recommendation to the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting, but it potentially could reshape the organization’s identity.
Co-chairs Stephen Hatfield and Andy Pittman will present the committee’s unanimous recommendation that the 123-year-old BGCT change its name to the Texas Baptist Convention.
“Our committee’s rationale for the recommendation is that in the present day and time, many people do not identify with and relate to the Baptist General Convention of Texas name as they did years ago,†Hatfield, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lewisville, explained.
“‘BGCT’ is cumbersome. ‘Baptist General Convention of Texas’ tells a story, but there’s no one alive that remembers the story,†said Pittman, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lufkin.
The BGCT took its long—and arguably unwieldy—name from the consolidation of two bodies in the 1880s. The Baptist State Convention, which drew most of its affiliated churches from South and West Texas, and the Baptist General Association of Texas, which was strongest in East and North Texas, met for the first time as the BGCT at the 1886 annual meeting in Waco.