Morris Chapman, Leader of Southern Baptists Through Era of Change, Dies at 84
NASHVILLE — Morris H. Chapman, former pastor, former Southern Baptist Convention president, former SBC Executive Committee president and champion of the Cooperative Program, died on Monday at age 84.
The last SBC Conservative Resurgence president to be opposed by a moderate candidate, Chapman led the Convention to remain focused on the Great Commission as moderates broke away. Under his leadership as EC president, CP giving reached a record high that has yet to be matched.
Chapman was given the honorary title of president emeritus of the Executive Committee upon his retirement in 2010.
“Morris Chapman led with passion and integrity,” said current SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg. “He was a champion for cooperation and our global mission. He was also a friend who encouraged me for many years – including after my election as president of the EC. We honor him and pray for his family in their loss.”
Born in Kosciusko, Miss., on Thanksgiving Day, 1940, Chapman professed faith in Christ at age 7 at First Baptist Church in Laurel, Miss., was called to ministry at age 12 and recognized a call to preach at age 21.
After graduating from Mississippi College, Chapman earned master of divinity and doctor of ministry degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was ordained to the ministry at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn., when Ramsey Pollard was pastor.
Chapman served as pastor of four churches during a span of 25 years: First Baptist Church in Rogers, Texas, from 1967-69; First Baptist Church in Woodway, Texas, from 1969-74; First Baptist Church in Albuquerque, N.M., from 1974-79; and First Baptist Church in Wichita Falls, Texas, from 1979-92.
Along the way, Chapman was active in denominational life, serving two terms as president of the Baptist Convention of New Mexico and as a member of the Executive Board of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
In 1984, Chapman felt a growing burden for revival among Southern Baptists and led First Baptist Wichita Falls to pray by name for each of the 36,000 Southern Baptist churches as well as SBC entities. During that five-month period and beyond, the church received hundreds of responses from across the nation testifying to the impact of the effort.
During Chapman’s pastorate in Wichita Falls, First Baptist was consistently in the top 1 percent of Southern Baptist churches for giving through the Cooperative Program as well as for baptisms. Under his leadership there, CP gifts reached 16 percent of total undesignated receipts and baptisms each year averaged more than 160.
SBC presidency
After serving as president of the SBC Pastors’ Conference in 1986 and preaching the convention sermon at the SBC Annual Meeting in 1989, Chapman’s peers looked to him as the conservative nominee for SBC president in 1990.
While Adrian Rogers in 1979 was the first in a string of conservatives elected over moderate candidates during the Conservative Resurgence, Chapman was the last. His election marked the end of moderates’ attempts to win the presidency, and the following year he ran unopposed.
Chapman appointed two task forces as president: one on spiritual awakening and the other on family ministry. He warned that the “moral fiber of our nation will soon be shredded beyond repair” if the erosion of the family was not reversed.
When moderate Southern Baptists began to explore options for redirecting their Cooperative Program gifts to bypass the SBC Executive Committee, Chapman opposed “any deviation from this proven practice of cooperation.”
In a 1990 address to the Executive Committee, Chapman said, “The two great traditions of Southern Baptists are conservative theology and cooperative methodology. We must remain true to both traditions.”
Moderates officially formed the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship while Chapman was SBC president in 1991, but he kept Southern Baptists focused on the mission. It was at that year’s meeting in Atlanta that Chapman pushed for extending Southern Baptist outreach in the host city for the annual meeting each year. It became a week-long effort and was renamed “Crossover” at Chapman’s suggestion.
During an address titled “It’s Time to Move” at the 1992 SBC Annual Meeting, Chapman said, “In moving to the high ground we move beyond moral infidelity, beyond the merely political, beyond doctrinal ambiguity, beyond division within our ranks, all for the sake of the One who called us unto Himself and set us to His work.”
Executive Committee leadership
The “innovative way” Chapman worked as a strategist during his Convention presidency led the SBC Executive Committee presidential search committee to choose him in 1992.
“We were brought to a firm confidence in him as a man of great strength, who as a Christian statesman has demonstrated God-given skills in the initiation and cultivation of enterprising and unifying approaches to Great Commission advance,” the committee said.
Chapman’s vision, diplomacy, commitment to evangelism and world missions as well as his stalwart support of the Cooperative Program were among the traits they heralded.
With Chapman as its champion, the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists’ funding system for national and international missions and ministries, regained the strength needed to push into a new century.
CP allocation budget receipts distributed to Convention entities grew by 44 percent during Chapman’s 18 years as EC president. Receipts exceeded the annual CP allocation budget 15 years in a row from 1994 through 2008, falling off slightly during a global economic crisis.
Total giving through CP to state Baptist conventions reached a record high of $548,205,099 in 2007-08. Even without an adjustment for inflation, that is 23 percent higher than the most recent year.
In his role at the Executive Committee, Chapman led the implementation of the Conservative Resurgence vision, preaching throughout the Convention and emphasizing the full authority, inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible.
To prepare Southern Baptists for the 21st century, Chapman initiated a study committee that led to the Covenant for a New Century in 1995, a plan that streamlined Convention entities for improved effectiveness.
As EC president, Chapman in 2002 launched Empowering Kingdom Growth, a call for Southern Baptists to seek first the Kingdom of God and see the Great Commission fulfilled, and in 2007 he introduced Global Evangelical Relations to strengthen relationships with likeminded groups worldwide.
Throughout his ministry, Chapman preached in more than 40 countries and represented Southern Baptists in Oval Office meetings. He published four books on biblical doctrine and pastoral practice.
Julian Motley, who was chairman of the EC presidential search committee at the time Chapman was elected, said at Chapman’s retirement dinner in 2010, “Any attempt to characterize his leadership must take into account his passion to reach people for Christ.”
During one of his final preaching engagements, Chapman reflected on the start of his ministry.
“I told God early on, ‘I cannot preach.’ I remember a few others telling Him that,” Chapman said at a Southwestern Seminary chapel service in 2022. “Do you know what God did? He said, ‘Well, son, we’ll just look at that.’ He said, ‘I think I will call you to preach.’ I said, ‘Oh, no! I can’t stand up in front of all those people and say anything!’ He said, ‘You will.’”
Chapman added that he was an example of “how God can take the common and do with it the uncommon.”
In an interview with Baptist Press upon his arrival at the Executive Committee, Chapman said he made a decision during his first pastorate in Rogers, Texas, that guided the rest of his life.
He resolved “to never to run ahead of God, to make every effort not to take things into my own hands with regard to my fields of ministry. I would try to be faithful to Him on a daily basis and let Him provide for the future,” he told BP.
“God knows my heart, that I’ve decided to do nothing more and nothing less than His perfect will. I have a strong conviction God has a perfect will for His children, that He will honor and bless us as we seek to be obedient.”
Chapman is survived by his wife Jodi, his son and daughter-in-law Chris and Renee Chapman, his daughter and son-in-law Stephanie and Scott Evans, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
“The best of life is to know wherever you are, whether the world knows your name or not, whether the Convention knows your name or not, whether only your family knows your name and loves you, that God has you exactly where He wants you,” Chapman said at his retirement.
This article has been republished with permission from Baptist Press.
Erin Roach is a correspondent for Southern Baptist Texas.