ORLANDO–At the 2025 Florida Baptist annual meeting, Stephen Rummage, executive director-treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention, delivered a call for attendees to proclaim Jesus personally, consistently and together.

In a sermon titled Gospel Demands, Rummage focused on Romans 10:13-17 and said that the Scripture identifies a “chain of gospel demands.”

In these verses, he stated that the Apostle Paul “reverse engineers the gospel.”

Rummage said the Apostle Paul “starts with the picture on the box—people getting saved—and then he works backward to show what it takes for that to happen.”

Florida Baptist churches celebrated more than 30,701 baptisms in 2024, the highest in a decade, he said. Still there are millions of Floridians who do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord.

“The mission is far from finished,” he declared.

The first gospel demand, he said, is “crying out to Jesus (v. 13).” This demand reflects a “specific cry to a specific person. It means crying out to the only One who can make a difference: His name is Jesus,” Rummage said.

The promise accompanying this call is, “Those who cry out to the Lord Jesus will be saved, now and eternally.”

Rummage shared the story of a sailor named Steve Callahan, who lost his sailboat in 1982 and was forced to survive in a raft for 76 days. “That raft was his only hope,” said Rummage. “In the same way, Jesus Christ is the one lifeline God has provided every sinner.”

The second gospel demand, Rummage pointed out, is “trusting Jesus (v. 14).” He explained, “Saving faith is not just believing about something. Saving faith is trusting Someone.”

He encouraged pastors in attendance to commit to “give people an opportunity to trust Jesus for salvation each time I stood to speak in front of them.”

The third gospel demand, Rummage said, is “hearing Jesus (v. 14, 17).” Rummage explained, “In gospel proclamation, people don’t just hear information about Jesus. They hear Jesus Himself speak. Jesus Himself joins the conversation.”

Rummage pointed to Radiant City Church in Boca Raton, a three-year-old church plant that recently baptized 13 people, including eight football players from Florida Atlantic University.

Pastor Cliff McCray, a former college football player and chaplain for the FAU football team “has opened up relationship bridges for players to hear the gospel,” Rummage said.

The fourth gospel demand, Rummage stated, is “preaching Jesus (v. 14).” To preach means “to proclaim a message with authority,” he said.

“Preachers must proclaim the gospel just as God gave it in His Word,” Rummage stated.

Reflecting on Romans 10:15, Rummage admitted his feet are not beautiful in human eyes, but the “feet of gospel messengers are beautiful, not because of how they look, but because of the message they carry.”

Jesus’ feet are “another set of beautiful feet at the heart of the gospel,” he said. Jesus’ feet were beautiful but marred with the stakes that were driven through His feet. “Those ugly wounds became a beautiful sign of love.”

Rummage challenged attendees to proclaim Jesus personally, consistently and together, pointing out that the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, scheduled to be held in June 2026 in Orlando, offers a “significant opportunity to preach Jesus.” Prior to the annual meeting, June 1-7, Crossover Orlando, which he described as “a movement of evangelism,” is being planned and organized.

Florida Baptists are praying for 1,000 churches to participate in Crossover Orlando, 10,000 gospel conversations to be held and 1,000 people to make professions of faith.

The fifth gospel demand, Rummage said, is “sending preachers (v. 15).”

He explained, “The gospel chain begins with the Lord Jesus who sends. And Jesus sends through His body, the Church. That’s why churches must be sending churches. Sending is not optional. It’s essential.”

Rummage concluded, “We can thank God for what He has done,” noting that Southern Baptists’ greatest year of baptisms was 1972, when 445,725 people were baptized.

“Our greatest year for evangelistic missions doesn’t have to be a record in some dusty history book. There’s still more ground to cover, more people to reach, more steps to take if we are going to break through … lostness with the gospel.”

He asked, “Will Baptists ever get back to the harvest?” and he answered, “I believe we can. And, I believe that God has called Florida Baptist churches to lead the way.”