Southern Baptists of Texas

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The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC) is an association of conservative Southern Baptist churches in Texas. It is supportive of the national Southern Baptist Convention.

SBTC was organized in 1991 as the Conservative Baptist Fellowship of Texas, and changed its name to Southern Baptists of Texas in 1995.

The group initially operated within the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT), and sought closer cooperation between the BGCT and the SBC, resulting from the "conservative-moderate" dissension taking place within both groups. However, the BGCT's formal disassociation from the SBC and alignment with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship led SBT to organize into a separate state convention in November of 1998, at which time it took its present name and formally affiliated with the SBC.

SBTC believes in the inerrancy of Scripture, salvation only in Jesus Christ, and the primacy of the local church. SBTC established missions and evangelism as its major emphases. SBTC holds to the 2000 SBC Baptist Faith and Message. SBTC's purpose is to provide a medium for greater cooperation in missions and ministry within Texas and beyond, and to provide for relational fellowship and accountability for conservative Southern Baptists in Texas.

SBTC's headquarters are in a 30,000 ft² (2,800 m²) facility, opened in 2004, in Grapevine, Texas. Jim Richards serves as the Executive Director. Its official publication is the Southern Baptist Texan and Gary Ledbetter currently serves as its editor.

As of June 2006, 1,776 churches were affiliated with the SBTC. SBTC affiliated churches may be either "uniquely affiliated" (solely affiliated with SBTC) or "dually affiliated" (affiliated with both SBTC and BGCT).

Several new Baptist associations have formed by SBTC churches (one being the North Texas Baptist Association, serving the DFW area), though the SBTC itself does not promote their formation. Most SBTC churches choose to remain in longtime associations.

[edit] Support of non-SBC Baptist Entities

SBTC currently supports two entities, Jacksonville College (a two-year college located in Jacksonville, Texas) and Texas Baptist Home (a home for unwed mothers located in Waxahachie, Texas), which although affiliated with SBTC are not SBC affiliates, but are aligned with the Texas arm of the Baptist Missionary Association of America (BMAA). BMAA is a separate and distinct national Baptist denomination with no formal affiliation to the SBC.