Steve Gaines, an American pastor and president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 2016 to 2018, died on March 20, 2026, at age 68.
Born John Steven Gaines in Corinth, Mississippi, on December 31, 1957, he served as senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tennessee, after earlier leading Gardendale First Baptist Church in suburban Birmingham, Alabama, for 14 years. He resigned as senior pastor on September 22, 2024, to pursue an itinerant preaching ministry.
John Steven Gaines (December 31, 1957 – March 20, 2026) was an American Southern Baptist pastor who had served as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. He resigned as senior pastor on September 22, 2024, to pursue an itinerant preaching ministry at Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova (a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee), one of the largest congregations in the Southern Baptist Convention and had visited Israel 16 times. On Sunday, July 10, 2005, the Pastor Search Committee of Bellevue Baptist Church presented Steve Gaines to the church congregation. At the conclusion of the services, the Bellevue family overwhelmingly voted to call Steve Gaines as the seventh Pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church. Gaines succeeded the longtime Bellevue pastor Adrian Rogers.