Today, at the Southern Baptist Convention’s 2026 Annual Meeting, Pastor Willy Rice of Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Florida, was elected to serve as the next president of the SBC. He won with over 57% of the vote, defeating South Carolina pastor Josh Powell, who received approximately 42% of the votes cast.

Shortly after his election, Willy Rice released this statement on social media.

Our Executive Director, William Wolfe, had this to say about Willy Rice’s victory:

“Institutional reform is hard and often thankless work. But it can be done. It must be done.

It must be done as an act of joyful stewardship. It must be done even when critics and detractors promise false peace and shout down everyone who attempts to offer honest solutions to real problems in good faith. Despite the challenges and opposition faced by those seeking to revitalize Christian institutions—such as the SBC—in an age of managerialism and bureaucratic entrenchment, the task still must be done.

And sometimes, by God’s grace, it can succeed.

Today, Willy Rice’s election just might be the spark needed to secure true revitalization across the SBC in the years to come. In many ways, the fight has just begun. But the SBC is worth fighting for.

Willy Rice ran on a courageous, convictional, and hopeful platform of bringing needed renewal to the SBC. He didn’t ignore the issues—he took them head-on and offered Baptist solutions to strengthen our doctrine and practice as a Convention.

His victory is a much-needed breath of fresh air for the SBC after a protracted period of denominational decline and doctrinal compromise. In Rice’s campaign and successful election, thousands of conservative Baptists who feel like they are slowly but surely losing the Convention that they love have been given hope.

Over the last few years, and in the months leading up to the annual meeting, Rice repeatedly and strongly rejected woke ideologies that have hurt our Great Commission efforts. He championed increased transparency and accountability from our SBC entities to our local churches. He both listened to and gave a voice to the forgotten “Billy Baptists” of the SBC, who have increasingly felt like the system ignores their churches, voices, and concerns.

He not only called for repentance and doctrinal fidelity but also for a Baptist renewal. He encouraged Baptists to harness our evangelistic zeal to reach more of our nation and the world than ever before over the next 7 years.

Willy Rice’s successful election as the next president of the SBC proves there is a real appetite for courageous, uncompromising leadership that can both honestly address the problems facing our Convention and champion our gospel work. These two aspects of leadership are never in tension, but are required for a healthy, conservative, and theologically sound SBC.

At the Center for Baptist Leadership, we enthusiastically supported Willy Rice’s candidacy and are grateful to the Lord for this outcome. As he warned during his sermon at the Pastors Conference, “Faithfulness today will bring fruitfulness tomorrow. But success today, if rooted in compromise, will foreshadow a greater defeat to come.”

The best days of the SBC may still be ahead of us if we reject compromise now. Decline is a choice. Renewal is a choice as well. Today, Southern Baptists chose renewal for the sake of future Baptist generations, our witness to the world, and our Great Commission together.”

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