Greear picked as next leader

J.D. Greear, pastor of The Summit Church of Raleigh and Durham, N.C., was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention on Tuesday at the denomination’s annual meeting.

He succeeds Steve Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis.

Greear, 45, won with 68.62 percent of the annual meeting’s 7,884 ballots that were cast. Ken Hemphill, a longtime leader within the Southern Baptist denomination who has an administrative role at North Greenville University in South Carolina, received 31.19 percent of the votes.

Fifteen votes were disallowed.

Greear said in a blog post Tuesday that he was “at once honored and humbled to step into this role.” Hemphill posted a note of congratulations on Twitter, saying Greear “will be a fine president.”