St. Louis (ABP)—Messengers to the Missouri Baptist Convention annual meeting Oct. 27-29 once again elected officers sympathetic to a reform movement within the state convention. They also heard a report about the difficult work of an ad hoc “peace committee” formed to broker a truce between warring conservative factions.

For the second year in a row, MBC supporters elected officers identified with the Save Our Convention movement that a year ago pitted itself against another conservative group and won.

A motion from the convention floor sought unsuccessfully to bar first vice president Bruce McCoy and second vice president John Marshall—both elected on the SOC-endorsed ticket a year ago—from being nominated for higher office.

It was their membership on the peace committee that threatened the nominations of McCoy, pastor of Canaan Baptist Church in St. Louis, and Marshall, pastor of Second Baptist Church of Springfield, Mo.

In April, the MBC Executive Board formed the committee. In the last two years, SOC supporters and the Missouri Baptist Laymen’s Association have been at odds over several issues, including the influence of the MBLA and its leader, layman Roger Moran, over the convention’s work. Between 1997 and 2001 the MBLA, under Moran’s leadership, effectively forced moderates out of the convention.

In what he called “background information” prior to the peace committee’s opening-session report, chair Jeff Purvis, pastor of First Baptist Church of Herculaneum-Peveley, Mo., told messengers that it was his opinion that nominating committee members to convention office could undermine the peace process.

McCoy, Marshall and Wesley Hammond, pastor of First Baptist Church of Paris, Mo., represent SOC on the committee. The Laymen’s Association is represented by Purvis, Moran and retired pastor Jay Scribner.

The peace committee’s official report to the convention suggested progress, but acknowledged that the committee had reached an impasse. Committee members said they would invite a Christian arbitration group to mediate their discussions—even though the committee, when beginning its work, had initially decided against such mediation.