Southern Baptists selected Florida pastor Willy Rice as their new president during the Southern Baptist Convention’s Annual Meeting, while Alabama pastor Craig Carlisle was elected first vice president, filling two of the denomination’s highest leadership roles.
Rice, who serves as senior pastor of Calvary Church in Clearwater, Florida, secured the presidency on the first ballot. He received 5,217 votes, accounting for 57.56% of ballots cast, defeating Josh Powell, lead pastor of Taylors First Baptist Church in Taylors, South Carolina, who garnered 3,821 votes, or 42.16%.
The vote took place during the SBC’s annual gathering in Orlando, where thousands of messengers convened to elect leaders and consider issues affecting the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. Topics discussed throughout the meeting included women’s roles in ministry and broader denominational priorities.
Rice, 62, first entered the presidential race last October, presenting his candidacy as a call for renewal within the convention.
“The Church is always reforming,” Rice said in his announcement last year. “We receive correction, adjust course and embrace renewal. And it is to that end today that I want to share with my Southern Baptist family my desire for renewal in our time.”
Ahead of the election, Rice addressed attendees at the SBC Pastors’ Conference, urging pastors to remain faithful to biblical convictions rather than seeking cultural approval.
“It is not enough to affirm right doctrine,” he said, warning that “if we seek the favor of the world more than the approval of Heaven, if we fear the rejection of men more than we fear the judgment of God, we are already on a dangerous slide.”
Meanwhile, messengers elected Craig Carlisle as first vice president following a runoff election after no candidate obtained a majority during the initial round of voting.
Carlisle advanced to the runoff alongside Paul Purvis, lead pastor of Mission Hill Church in Temple Terrace, Florida, after both emerged as the top vote-getters in a three-candidate race that also included Larry Helms, pastor of Fort Lawn Baptist Church in Fort Lawn, South Carolina.
In the decisive second ballot, 5,064 votes were cast. Carlisle won with 65.92% of the vote, while Purvis received 33.95%. Seven ballots were ruled invalid.
A longtime Alabama pastor, Carlisle was ordained by Twelfth Street Baptist Church in Gadsden in 1987. Over the course of his ministry, he served congregations in Munford, Decatur and Gadsden, including nearly a decade as pastor of Twelfth Street Baptist Church.
His election follows a series of leadership roles within Alabama Baptist life. Carlisle previously served as president of the Alabama Baptist State Convention from 2023 to 2025 and was elected second vice president of the SBC last June with 56.46% of the vote.
