Former SBC president Steve Gaines dies at 68, remembered for his inspiring focus on evangelism

Steve Gaines, a former Southern Baptist Convention president and longtime pastor of a Tennessee church, died Friday at 68 after a two-year battle with cancer.

Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in the Memphis area, entered hospice care earlier this month after his cancer became more aggressive. He was diagnosed with kidney cancer in November 2023, and scans the following month showed the disease had spread to his lungs. Baptist Press announced his death on Friday.

A March 2024 PET scan brought encouraging results. The spots in Gaines’ lungs had cleared, and the kidney cancer had substantially diminished.

A few months later, he moved out of the senior pastor role at Bellevue and into an itinerant preaching ministry. He later received the honorary title of pastor emeritus after Bellevue called Ben Mandrell as senior pastor last July.

Mandrell wrote to the Bellevue congregation about Gaines’ condition and asked members to pray for him, his wife, Donna, and the rest of their family.

Gaines spent more than four decades in pastoral ministry and became one of the better-known figures in Southern Baptist life. He served two one-year terms as president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, from 2016 to 2018.

Gaines also served on the Baptist Faith and Message Study Committee that produced the 2000 revision of the Southern Baptist Convention’s doctrinal statement. He also served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Conference in 2005 and as president of the Tennessee Baptist Pastors’ Conference in 2015.

At Bellevue, one of the convention’s most influential churches, Gaines became the seventh pastor in 2005. His years there included an expansion of community outreach through “Bellevue Loves Memphis,” an initiative that mobilized thousands of volunteers for service projects across the city.

Before arriving at Bellevue, Gaines served as pastor of First Baptist Church in Gardendale, Alabama, from 1991 to 2005. During his tenure, the church reported more than 3,200 baptisms, reports SBC's official news service. 

Earlier in ministry, he served as pastor of West Jackson Baptist Church in Jackson, Tennessee, and worked in churches in Texas while attending seminary. He began his first ministry assignment as youth pastor of First Baptist Church in Milan, Tennessee.

Gaines initially attended the University of Tennessee at Martin on a football scholarship, then transferred to Union University in 1977 to prepare for ministry. He was licensed to preach that same year, according to Baptist Press.

After graduating from Union in 1979, he continued his studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, earning a Master of Divinity in 1984 and a doctorate in preaching and evangelism in 1991. While there, he received the H.C. Brown Jr. Preaching Award and the W. Fred Swank Evangelism Award.

Gaines also authored books, including Pray Like It Matters, published in 2013, and Revival: When God Comes to Church, released in 2024.

Tributes from Baptist leaders followed news of his death. Former SBC President J.D. Greear called Gaines "a brother in arms," remembering him as "a captain, an older brother, a friend, a mentor."

"He had a relentless, unflagging, inspiring fixation on evangelism," Greear wrote on social media. "It stood at the center of everything he did, every venture he undertook, every fight he engaged in. Many remember his and my intersection in the SBC Presidential election of 2016 in which I pulled out so he could win unopposed. What most people don’t know is that he first insisted it be him to drop out."

"But it was clear that he was God’s choice for that hour. Stepping aside to serve and follow him was one of the easiest decisions I’d ever made," Greear added. "May God give us 10,000 more like him. We certainly need more of him in this hour. You are loved and will be missed, brother."

Former SBC President Bart Barber wrote that he imagines Gaines playing guitar in "bluegrass jam sessions in Heaven" to "just sing the wondrous love of Jesus."

"When you think of Steve, you think of evangelism (not necessary in Heaven), prayer (superseded by the direct presence of Jesus), pastoral ministry (handed over to the Great Shepherd) … Steve has rest from all of these things," Barber stated. "And the fruit of his evangelism, prayer, and pastoral ministry follows him there."

Gaines is survived by his wife, Donna; four married children and 18 grandchildren.