COLUMBUS, Ohio (BP) — Kansas pastor Steve Dighton will be nominated for first vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Texas pastor and former SBC president Jack Graham announced May 12.
Dighton is senior pastoral advisor at the Kansas City-area Lenexa Baptist Church in Lenexa, Kan., a church he founded 25 years ago and where he served as senior pastor until this past spring. Previously, he pastored two churches in Oklahoma after being called to ministry out of the men’s clothing business.
“I am privileged to nominate my good friend Steve Dighton as first vice president,” said Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas. “I have known Steve for 40 years — first as a young layman in Ada, Okla., and then as a pastor when God called him to the pulpit.
“I have long admired Steve’s steadfast love and commitment to preaching the Gospel and his passion for people and for leading the church. He is a wonderful friend to pastors and a humble servant leader. He is truly everything that a Southern Baptist pastor and leader should be,” Graham said.
When Dighton founded Lenexa in 1990, the church had less than 100 members. It has since grown to more than 6,000, with three satellite campuses in Missouri and two in Kansas. Dighton has served as president of the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists and as vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Conference.
Lenexa, which was named a “breakout church” in Thom Rainer’s 2005 book of the same title, cooperates with both the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists and the Missouri Baptist Convention. The congregation is among the top givers through the Cooperative Program in both conventions, according to a news release from Graham. The church’s total missions expenditures exceeded $1 million in 2014.
Dighton holds both an associate of divinity degree and a master of arts in religious education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
He and his wife Mary, married for 44 years, have two children and four grandchildren.
Dighton is the first announced nominee for first vice president. Ohio pastor Cad Keck has been announced as a second vice presidential nominee. President Ronnie Floyd and Recording Secretary John Yeats both will be re-nominated.
