John Yeats, communications director for the Louisiana Baptist Convention, was elected at the 2007 SBC annual meeting in San Antonio to serve for the tenth year as the Southern Baptist Convention’s recording secretary.
ALEXANDRIA –
John Yeats, communications director for the Louisiana Baptist
Convention, was elected at the 2007 SBC annual meeting in San Antonio
to serve for the tenth year as the Southern Baptist Convention’s
recording secretary.
The position of
recording secretary carries with it significant responsibilities
throughout the year, Yeats said. Besides being responsible for the
accurate record of the convention proceedings and the training of
volunteer pages, the recording secretary also performs the final edit
on the SBC Book of Reports and the SBC Annual, and serves ex officio on
the SBC Executive Committee.
“Yeats designed
the process for the flow of information from the convention floor to
the convention platform and distribution to the Order of Business
Committee, a process that has enhanced the accuracy of the official
record,” reported Baptist Press in an article announcing Yeats’
nomination for another term in the position.
“[My wife]
Sharon is next to me 90 percent of the time [at the annual SBC
meeting],” Yeats wrote in an email to the Baptist Message about his
responsibilities as recording secretary. “She works alongside of me to
help us secure the most accurate record as possible. She has a great
sense of detail and that is a wonderful asset.”
As recording
secretary, Yeats multi-tasks through the business sessions of the
convention. He records the motions as they’re being made – usually one
after the other with little pause in between – and makes sure other
officers and entities of the convention are informed of those motions
in a timely manner.
Sharon makes a
hand-written record and burns a CD audio record of all the motions,
while he creates a text version with a laptop, Yeats said.
“Sharon helps
provide different levels of information gathering,” Yeats said of his
wife’s involvement. Yeats edits all the information, which provides
material for the daily bulletins while the convention is in session and
which eventually appears in the SBC Annual.
“Not just
everyone has the skills to fulfill the duties of this office,” Gerald
Smith told Baptist Press in his nomination of Yeats for the position.
“Yet the Lord has uniquely gifted John to serve our convention.”
Smith is executive pastor of First Baptist Church in Katy, Texas.
“For the Lord’s
work to prosper we must have leaders,” Smith continued. “Not just any
leaders, but leaders who passionately love the Lord and serve him with
excellence. John Yeats is that kind of leader. I have watched as John
has exercised the wisdom, gifts and skills the Lord has given to him.
We need his kind of continued leadership.”
God has used
him as an historian in the position of SBC recording secretary, Yeats
said. “Every annual is a historical record of the SBC,” Yeats
explained. “This [is] no different from the work of the prophet Ezra,
who documented the work of God through the people of Israel. The detail
and orderly arrangement of the information … assimilated and published
in the SBC Annual provides a contemporary example of orderliness called
for by the Apostle Paul.”
Yeats was first nominated to the SBC position by Gary Miller, pastor of the Sagamore Baptist Church of Ft. Worth, Texas.
“Most folks
don’t understand the time and energy the Executive Committee staff and
the SBC president and secretaries give to help make each convention a
testimony of our God of order and justice,” Yeats said.
“Let everything
be done in decency and in order,” is the theme for the recording
secretary, Yeats added. “I believe our Lord takes my strengths and
gifts and applies them through this office. My editorial skills are a
must. My administrative and teaching skills are vital. My spiritual
gift of exhortation, ‘encouraging others to pursue God’s ways’ are
maximized. I am grateful Southern Baptists have allowed me to serve the
Lord by serving them as recording secretary.”
Yeats came to
the Lord as a pre-teen, according to his testimony, which is recorded
at themostimportantthing.com. Reared in a godly home, Yeats said, he
heard the Word of God regularly, which led him to ask questions about
his relationship with God.
“My parents
invited the pastor of our church over for Sunday lunch,” he wrote in
his testimony. “As my parents cleared the table, the pastor spoke with
me about how I could be restored to God. That day I made the decision
that changed the course of my life. I have never been the same.
“Every aspect
of my life is affected in a positive way,” he wrote. “That decision
began an awesome adventure. I point to this event as the most important
thing that has ever happened in my life.”
Yeats focuses
his life on making others successful and in helping them understand
their purpose and individual worth, he said. He’s traveled throughout
the world encouraging others to believe that they are not “mere
accidents on a small blue planet but people with a God-ordained
purpose,” he said.
Part of that encouragement comes through in his writing.
“Many Southern
Baptists have read John’s editorials and feature stories and as a
result … know John is a convictional Biblical conservative who loves
the Lord and His church,” said Smith in his nomination.
Yeats, as
director of communications for LBC, also is editor of the
quarterly LBC Live. Yeats is transitional pastor of Ridge Avenue
Baptist Church in West Monroe.
His background
includes being editor of the Oklahoma Baptist Messenger for eight years
and the Indiana Baptist about two years, and a pastor before that. His
first position was as an interim pastor when he was 19.
Yeats received
a B.A. in secondary education – communication arts/English from Dallas
Baptist University in 1972; M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary in 1975; D.D. from the American Christian College
and Seminary in Bethany, Okla., in 2002; and D.Min. from Midwestern
Baptist Theological Seminary in 2006.
He and
Sharon have three sons and four grandchildren. The eldest son is
assistant professor of church history at Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas, while the other two sons are
businessmen in Indianapolis, Indiana and Garland, Texas.