Months after announcing his battle with kidney cancer, former Southern Baptist Convention President Steve Gaines says he is stepping down as senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. But the move has nothing to do with his health.
“I want you to know two things. First, no one has asked us to do this. We have not felt any pressure from any person to make this transition. Donna and I began talking several years ago and we agree that this is the right time,” Gaines said in an address to his church on Sunday with his wife, Donna, by his side.
“Second, … While I received a cancer diagnosis 10 months ago, this transition is not connected with that. My treatments are going well. I received a good PET scan report this last week, but regardless of what tests show, my faith is in the Lord and in His Word where he has told me from Psalm 118: 17, ‘I will not die,” Gaines said. “Now I’m going to die one of these days, but not from this.”
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Gaines, who served as SBC president from 2016 to 2018, announced he is stepping down as senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church to become an itinerant preacher.
“We can never put into words how grateful we are for Bellevue Baptist Church. It’s been a great honor to serve as a pastor in four churches over the past 41 years, but many years ago, the Lord spoke to my heart that he would one day want me to serve as an itinerant preacher,” Gaines said. “That simply means that I would travel and minister at different churches instead of serving as the pastor of one church.”
After serving at Bellevue Baptist Church for 19 years, the pastor said God is now leading him into a new season.
While he did not provide an exact date on when he would step down completely as senior pastor, Gaines said he would remain in leadership until the church has selected his successor. He said there would be a months-long transition period once the new senior pastor is selected.
“The Bible says there’s an appointed time for everything, and there’s a time for every event under Heaven. That’s Ecclesiastes. Ninteeen years ago, the Lord began a season for us here at Bellevue and now we’ve heard his voice that it’s time for a new season,” Gaines said.
The former SBC president, who is known as a “man of prayer,” according to Bellevue Baptist Church’s website, has pastored churches in Texas, Tennessee and Alabama since 1983. He became the senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in 2005.
The American Cancer Society, which relies on information from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database maintained by the National Cancer Institute, states that if kidney cancer is localized, meaning there is no sign that the cancer has spread outside of the kidney, the five-year survival rate is 93%.
If the cancer is regional, meaning the cancer has spread outside the kidney to nearby structures or lymph nodes, the five-year survival rate is 72%. If the cancer is considered distant or spreads to distant body parts, such as the lungs, brain, or bones, the five-year survival rate drops to 15%.
Earlier this year, Gaines said the cancer had spread to his lungs but mostly seems to be “going away.” He said he was “grateful to God for miracles and medicine.”
“I’m so grateful for your prayers,” he said. At one point during his treatment, a PET scan revealed “multiple polyps” in his lungs.
“The last PET scan that I had showed that there were no more polyps of cancer in my lungs,” he said.
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