By Tony Martin
Associate Editor
Mississippi native Lee Brand Jr. was elected first vice-president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) earlier this summer at the 2021 Annual Meeting in Nashville. He currently serves Mid-America Seminary in Memphis as vice-president and dean of the seminary, as well aschairman and professor in the Department of Practical Theology.
Brand was born in Nettleton. “As a kid, I was in and out of church,” he said. “The gentleman who was my pastor, my father in ministry, worked at the same factory as my parents. He made a trip to the front of the factory and asked my mom to come back to church. I was about 11 or 12.
“When I was 13, I remember him asking a question in church: ‘If you were to die right now, where would you spend eternity?’ I can remember as a kid feeling like there was no one in that little country church but me. Heavy conviction.
“I came forward and gave my life to Christ at that point. I struggled for a few years; I didn’t have anyone to disciple me. Until about 16, you might’ve thought I was a lost person but the Lord did a work in my life. There was an older pastor who took me under his wing. He and my father in ministry just poured into me, and I was called to preach at 17.”
Brand preached his first sermon at Good Hope M.B. Church in Shannon just prior to graduating high school in 1997. From there, he went to Samford University in Birmingham on a football scholarship.
“I call that my Jonah year,” he said. “I didn’t pray much about going to Birmingham. Being worldly minded, I just had this thought that if they’re paying money, this has to be God’s will.”
Brand was red-shirted his first year on Samford football team, and decided to move on. He transferred to Starkville and enrolled at Mississippi State University (MSU) for his sophomore year. “I didn’t play football there,” he said. “I tell people that football was one of the last big idols I had to sacrifice.”
Brand was called to pastor a local church around the time he graduated from MSU in December 2001. He began serving Beth-el Missionary Baptist Church in Starkville and stayed there until 2019, overseeing the church’s growth and ministry development including campus outreach at MSU and missions partnerships in Philippines and Uganda.
Under his leadership, the church grew in attendance from about 75 to 600. In 2010, he was appointed to the Starkville School District Board of Trustees and selected as a chaplain for the Starkville Police Department.
According to biographical information available from Mid-America Seminary, Brand earned the doctor of philosophy degree from Mid-America in 2013, with a concentration in practical theology and minors in theology and New Testament.
His teaching experience includes an adjunct professorship at East Mississippi Community College in Scooba and assistant instructor at the Starkville Extension of New Orleans Seminary.He and his wife Tiffany were married in 2003 and have five children: Tre’, Megan, Avery, Micah, and Matthew.
Brand recalls visiting Mid-America with a friend. “I knew I had to get there,” he said, “so I drove from Starkville to Memphis four days a week to get my master’s degree.
“I was getting close to the end of my master’s work and another one of those mentors, a professor, Dr. Seale, asked ‘Have you ever considered going into doctoral work?’ I laughed and said, ‘No way!’ but there’s a haunting statement I’ve listened to from a lot of older pastors:‘Well, just go pray about it.’
“So, I prayed about it and the Lord worked it all out. I was satisfied to just go back to Starkville and pastor. I felt my responsibility was to bring a level of scholarship into the pulpit. I believe many of the problems in our churches is because the people are on unhealthy diets. People need the Word.”
Brand was offered the opportunity to return to Mid-America as dean. “I laughed at that, too, but again, I was told to ‘just go pray about it.’” During an afternoon prayer meeting at the church soon after, Brand said he was “hit to the heart” with conviction.
“I didn’t hear an audible voice,” he said, “but there was deep conviction from God that ‘If you don’t leave, I’ll take My hand off you and I’ll take My hand off this church.’ I’d been there since I was 22. I came to Mid-America in 2019.”
“I was in Louisiana preaching for an alumnus of Mid-America,” Brand said, “and I’d been out of pastoral ministry for over a year. I just sensed that there was something else I needed to be doing. My wife and I had been praying through that. I was driving back from my meeting on some backroad in Louisiana, and I told the Lord, ‘I don’t know what You want me to do, but my “yes” is on the table.’
“Then the next day — Monday — I was sitting in my office at Mid-America and a friend called me and asked, ‘Would you be willing to be nominated as first vice-president of the Southern Baptist Convention?’ I laughed at him, too.
“‘Naw, man, I’m good,’ I said. I’m just not into the whole political side of this thing — and don’t get me wrong, I know it’s not all political but I know there’s a structure and a polity to it. I did pray about it. I want to know what the Lord is saying to me, then I seek confirmation with my wife, and the last piece was getting confirmation from Michael Spradlin, president of Mid-America.
He told me, ‘I want you to do what God says do, but if you’re asking me, I want you to feel free to go do it.’ During my prayer time with Dr. Spradlin, the Lord pricked my heart again and said, ‘I didn’t bring you here to hide you.’”
Brand is optimistic about the future of the SBC. He sees his role as praying for the well-being of the SBC president, Ed Litton, and also to have a place at the table to give voice to what people are saying to him.
“I’m encouraged because of the opportunity we’re sitting on to craft ideas for today,” he said. “I hear so many people talking about what the SBC ‘was,’ but we have a unique chance to discover who we are now. Are we going to be the convention that champions sufficiency in Scripture, in proclamation, and in practice?
“Everyone says the Bible is sufficient, but are we moving that way as a Convention? I’m excited to have the opportunity to craft what that identity needs to be.”
