Two keynote speakers have been announced for the June 28-30 Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in Dallas.
This will be the first in-person General Assembly held since 2019, as both the 2020 and 2021 events were moved to an online-only format due to COVID. This summer’s gathering is slated for the Hyatt Regency Dallas Hotel, where CBF has gathered twice before.
Keynote preachers for this year’s assembly are Courtney Stamey, senior pastor of Northside Baptist Church in Clinton, Miss.; and Ralph Douglas West, pastor of The Church Without Walls in Houston.
The three-day gathering will include plenary sessions, worship sessions, a series of workshop options, as well as special events. One of those special events is a dinner hosted by Baptist News Global on Thursday, June 30. Details on that dinner event are to be announced next week.
Courtney Stamey
Stamey assumed the Northside pastorate in 2018. She came from a pastoral residency at First Baptist Church of Greensboro, N.C., and Peacehaven Community Farm.
She earned a master of divinity degree from Wake Forest University School of Divinity and a bachelor of arts degree from Gardner-Webb University.
Stamey represents a contingent of young clergy within CBF life who primarily were raised and educated after the schism in the Southern Baptist Convention that led to CBF’s creation in 1991. In 2018, she was among 16 young ministers named to the CBF Fellows program for ministers in their “first call” as pastors.
Ralph West
West is a legendary pastor within the Black Baptist tradition and made national headlines last year when he and his church left the SBC due to the six SBC seminary presidents’ statement on race and Critical Race Theory. He is the founding pastor of the church originally known as Brookhollow Baptist Church, which began with 32 members and now includes thousands of congregants.
He earned a doctor of ministry degree from Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School, a master of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a bachelor’s degree in religion and philosophy from Bishop College in Dallas. He also has studied at Cambridge and Oxford Universities in Great Britain.
Registration and hotel reservations are now open for the General Assembly.
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