'Learn to hate pride': Outgoing SBC Pres. Clint Pressley delivers final challenge to Southern Baptists
Outgoing Southern Baptist Convention President Clint Pressley urged Southern Baptists to “learn to hate pride” in his final presidential address, warning that pride can damage relationships, weaken churches and undermine Christian witness.
Pressley, who is completing his second one-year term as SBC president, delivered the address Tuesday morning to messengers gathered in Orlando, Florida, for the SBC Annual Meeting.
“We need to learn to hate pride,” Pressley said, clarifying that he was speaking of “pride in yourself.”
“I think it would help with some of the issues we face,” he said. “Maybe it would help with how we address one another. One of the things that has helped me, being the Southern Baptist Convention president, is it’s helped me not be as prideful as I might would be.
“Because you find out that everybody don’t [sic] love you. A matter of fact, they dislike you. They dislike Southern Baptists, they dislike you, they dislike things you’ve said, they dislike the suit you got on. They dislike you. That’ll help you with pride.”
Drawing from Ephesians 4:1-3, Pressley called on Southern Baptists to walk with “all lowliness and meekness,” saying humility should shape how Christians speak, lead and respond to criticism.
Pressley listed several ways Christians can battle pride, beginning with self-awareness, which he described as “a real honest, unadorned look at yourself” that recognizes oneself as “the foremost sinner.”
He also urged messengers to cultivate “Christ-awareness,” or a deeper understanding of who Jesus Christ is in relation to themselves, and “God-awareness,” which he described as recognizing that God is sovereign.
“God is the Potter and we are the clay,” Pressley said. “God has the right to do whatever He wants with us whenever He wants to. ... God has the sovereign right to do with us His will and with other people His will.”
Pressley also stressed the importance of self-control, pointing again to Paul’s call for gentleness and meekness.
He noted that the phrase used in the Scripture passage was comparable to domesticating a wild animal, “better understood as taking the strength of something and without losing the strength of that animal, being able to train it for something useful.”
“Taking that which God has made you, the natural ability that you have, and having it trained into something that is useful for the Kingdom,” Pressley said. “Something that is focused, something that is directed and intentional and good and useful and Christian.”
Pressley then offered one of his sharpest warnings of the address.
“If you are a man who calls yourself a Christian, but you don’t have self-control over your foul mouth or your bad attitude or your temper, then don’t tell people you’re a Christian,” he said. “It embarrasses us.”
Pressley, senior pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, was first elected SBC president in 2024 after defeating Dan Spencer, pastor of First Baptist Church in Sevierville, Tennessee, on a runoff ballot.
He was reelected last year with 5,567 votes, or 92.64% of ballots cast, defeating a last-minute challenge from Protestia publisher David Morrill.
Michael Criner, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Rockwall, Texas, nominated Pressley for reelection, saying that he "has earned our trust for another year as our president."
"Clint loves being a Southern Baptist," Criner said. "This past year, Clint Pressley has represented Southern Baptists so well. His greatest contribution has been the stability he has brought our Convention by championing what makes us great, and not seeking to be the center of attention."
"He simply went to work, and what a year it's been. This last year at our Convention, average worship service attendance is up. Average Sunday School attendance is up, baptisms are up. Church plants, 767 of them. We've hit a third year in a row of record giving through our Lottie Moon offering, and we just hit a 20-year milestone of missionary pipeline waiting to be commissioned."
In keeping with SBC rules, Pressley cannot run for a third consecutive term as president.
