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  (Photo: SBC / Bill Bangham)
  Bryant Wright, senior pastor of the 7,600 member Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., won the run-off election for president of the Southern Baptist Convention with 55 percent of the vote. More than 7,660 messengers voted during the June 15 election at the 153rd annual meeting of the SBC at the Orange Country Convention Center in Orlando, Fla.

Atlanta-area pastor Bryant Wright was elected Tuesday to serve as the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the country.

Wright won on the second ballot, defeating Florida pastor Ted Traylor.

Pastor of Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Wright has a strong missions emphasis. His church has sponsored seven mission churches in Cobb County and north Atlanta and co-sponsored five church plants over the past few years.

Also, more than 1,500 members from his congregation went on 70 mission trips to 27 nations last year.

After his election, he said he wants to see every Southern Baptist pastor and church take at least one mission trip and experience what it's like to be in another culture, sharing the Gospel, according to Florida Baptist Witness.

Wright supported adopting recommendations brought by the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force to move the denomination toward fulfilling the Great Commission more faithfully and more effectively. The task force report, which was approved Tuesday, enhances and shifts more funding toward reaching the lost in North America and around the world where some 6 billion of the 6.8 billion people in the world are without Christ.

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"The task force leadership has led the convention in taking a very courageous step, but it is really just a beginning," he commented after his election, as reported by Florida Baptist Witness.

Wright succeeds Georgia pastor Johnny Hunt, who served two one-year terms.