Steve Gaines: Biography of the Bellevue Baptist Pastor and Former SBC President
John Steven Gaines (December 31, 1957 – March 20, 2026) was an American Southern Baptist pastor who led Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tennessee, for nearly two decades and served as the 61st President of the Southern Baptist Convention from 2016 to 2018. Known as an evangelist and revival preacher, Gaines succeeded the legendary Adrian Rogers at Bellevue in 2005 and spent more than 40 years in pastoral ministry before his death from kidney cancer in March 2026. His tenure was marked by significant growth in evangelism and outreach, alongside serious and well-documented failures in how he and Bellevue’s leadership handled a sexual abuse disclosure in 2006.
[IMAGE: Pastor Steve Gaines preaching at Bellevue Baptist Church]
At a Glance
| Personal | |
|---|---|
| Full name | John Steven Gaines |
| Born | December 31, 1957, Corinth, Mississippi, USA |
| Died | March 20, 2026, Memphis, Tennessee, USA (age 68) |
| Cause of death | Kidney cancer, diagnosed November 2023 |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse | Donna Dodds Gaines |
| Children | Four, including daughter Bethany Gaines Golding |
| Education | |
| Undergraduate | Union University (B.A., 1979) |
| Graduate | Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div. 1984; Ph.D. in Preaching and Evangelism, 1991) |
| Ministry | |
| Title | Senior Pastor (2005–2024), later Itinerant Preacher |
| Church | Bellevue Baptist Church, Cordova (Memphis), Tennessee |
| Denomination | Baptist (Southern Baptist Convention) |
| Prior pastorate | Gardendale First Baptist Church, Alabama (1991–2005) |
| National role | 61st President, Southern Baptist Convention (2016–2018) |
| Books | |
| Titles | Pray Like It Matters (2013); Revival: When God Comes to Church (2024) |
Early Life and Education
Steve Gaines was born on December 31, 1957, in Corinth, Mississippi, and raised in Dyersburg, Tennessee, where he first sensed a call to ministry. He initially enrolled at the University of Tennessee at Martin on a football scholarship, a path that suggested a very different life than the one he’d eventually lead.
In 1977, he transferred to Union University to prepare for ministry instead and was licensed to preach that same year. He graduated from Union in 1979, then continued his theological training 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 both the H.C. Brown Jr. Preaching Award and the W. Fred Swank Evangelism Award, early signals of the evangelist’s reputation he’d carry for the rest of his career.
Ministry Career
Gardendale First Baptist Church
Before Bellevue, Gaines pastored for 14 years at Gardendale First Baptist Church, an 8,500-member congregation in suburban Birmingham, Alabama, from 1991 to 2005. That stretch built the foundation for the evangelism-focused, revival-oriented preaching style he’d bring with him to Memphis.
Senior Pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church
On July 10, 2005, Bellevue Baptist Church’s Pastor Search Committee presented Gaines to the congregation, and the church voted overwhelmingly to call him as its seventh pastor. He succeeded Adrian Rogers, who had led the roughly 30,000-member congregation for 32 years, one of the most influential pulpits in the entire Southern Baptist Convention.
Under Gaines, Bellevue launched “Bellevue Loves Memphis” in 2007, a church-wide volunteer initiative that mobilized thousands of members for community service projects, including a free mobile dental clinic, a college ministry, and coordinated workdays at schools, parks, and hospitals across the city. The program was formally recognized by proclamation in the Tennessee House of Representatives. Gaines also visited Israel 16 times over the course of his ministry, a detail that reflects how central evangelism and biblical geography were to his preaching.
[IMAGE: Bellevue Baptist Church campus in Cordova, Tennessee]
President of the Southern Baptist Convention
Gaines was elected the 61st President of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2016 and was reelected to a second one-year term in 2017, serving through 2018. During his presidency, he also served on the committee that produced the 2000 revision of the Baptist Faith and Message, the SBC’s doctrinal statement, and led the SBC Pastors’ Conference in 2005 and the Tennessee Baptist Pastors’ Conference in 2015.
Transition to Itinerant Ministry
In 2024, Gaines announced plans to step away from the senior pastor role at Bellevue to pursue an itinerant preaching ministry, a transition he said was not directly tied to his cancer diagnosis. He formally resigned as senior pastor on September 22, 2024, continuing to preach and travel until his health declined further.
The 2006 Abuse Disclosure and Bellevue’s Response
Gaines’s legacy includes a serious and well-documented failure that deserves a direct, honest account rather than a passing mention. In 2006, a longtime Bellevue staff member, later identified as Paul Williams, disclosed to Gaines that he had sexually abused a child 17 years earlier. Gaines has acknowledged that he did not report this disclosure to civil authorities at the time, a legal obligation for pastors as mandated reporters in most states. Williams was placed on leave that December and was ultimately fired six months later.
The situation drew renewed national attention in May 2022, when Guidepost Solutions released a nearly 300-page independent investigation, commissioned by the SBC itself, into how the denomination handled sexual abuse allegations between 2000 and 2021. The report named Gaines specifically among SBC leaders described as having protected or supported abusers, and stated that to survivors, his 2016 election as SBC President had conveyed the message that a clergy sex abuse cover-up was not considered a serious problem within the convention. The report also found Bellevue had been “ill-prepared” to handle sexual abuse cases.
Gaines responded publicly at the time, saying that when he was first informed in 2006, he believed the matter was being properly addressed and did not fully understand his legal obligation to report it. He said plainly that he had not handled the situation correctly. The president of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, Michael Spradlin, publicly called for Gaines’s resignation over the six-month delay in removing Williams, though Gaines remained in his role at Bellevue. A separate 2019 incident, involving a paid Bellevue volunteer who pleaded guilty to sexual battery of a minor, led to a 2020 civil lawsuit against the church; Bellevue denied the allegations in that case. Following the Guidepost report, Bellevue stated it had implemented mandatory annual training for staff and leaders to identify and report suspected abuse.
This is a serious and consequential part of Gaines’s public record, and it sits alongside his decades of evangelistic work rather than erasing it. Readers deserve both pieces of the story.
Books and Published Works
Gaines wrote several books reflecting his lifelong emphasis on evangelism and revival, including “Pray Like It Matters” (2013) and “Revival: When God Comes to Church” (2024), released the same year he stepped away from Bellevue’s senior pastor role.
Personal Life
Gaines was married to Donna Dodds Gaines, who was honored at a Ministers’ Wives Luncheon during his years of SBC leadership and stood by his side throughout his public ministry and later his cancer treatment. The couple had four children, including a daughter, Bethany Gaines Golding, a singer whom Gaines spoke about warmly in public settings, including comparing her voice to Patsy Cline’s.
Health Battle and Death
Gaines was diagnosed with kidney cancer in November 2023. Scans the following month showed the disease had spread to his lungs. A March 2024 PET scan brought encouraging news, showing the spots in his lungs had cleared and the kidney cancer had substantially diminished, and he moved into itinerant ministry a few months later. The cancer later became more aggressive, and Gaines entered hospice care in March 2026. Bellevue’s current pastor, Ben Mandrell, asked the congregation to pray for Gaines and his family in the days before his death. Steve Gaines died on March 20, 2026, in Memphis, Tennessee, at age 68, after a roughly two-year battle with the disease.
Influence and Legacy
Jeff Iorg, President and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee, described Gaines as a notable example of pastoral effectiveness, preaching power, and evangelistic zeal following his death. Across more than four decades in ministry, Gaines became one of the more recognizable names in Southern Baptist life, leading two of the convention’s larger congregations and serving two terms at the denomination’s highest elected office.
His legacy carries real tension. “Bellevue Loves Memphis” mobilized thousands of volunteers and drew formal recognition from state lawmakers, a genuine expression of the community-outreach values he preached. At the same time, the Guidepost investigation’s findings about his handling of the 2006 abuse disclosure remain part of the broader reckoning the SBC has faced over its historical treatment of abuse survivors, a reckoning Gaines himself was directly named in.
Criticism and Controversies
The central controversy of Gaines’s ministry is the 2006 Bellevue abuse case detailed above: a six-month delay in removing a confessed abuser from staff, and Gaines’s own acknowledgment that he failed to report the disclosure to civil authorities as required. The 2022 Guidepost Solutions report named him directly among SBC leaders whose handling of abuse cases damaged survivors’ trust in the denomination’s leadership. Gaines publicly acknowledged the failure and said the church had since implemented mandatory abuse-recognition training, but he did not resign from his position at Bellevue as a result of the report, a decision some, including a seminary president who publicly called for his resignation in 2006, found insufficient given the severity of the failure.
Awards and Recognition
- H.C. Brown Jr. Preaching Award, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
- W. Fred Swank Evangelism Award, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
- Elected 61st President of the Southern Baptist Convention (2016), reelected 2017
- “Bellevue Loves Memphis” formally recognized by proclamation in the Tennessee House of Representatives
Interesting Facts
- He attended the University of Tennessee at Martin on a football scholarship before transferring to pursue ministry instead.
- He visited Israel 16 times over the course of his ministry.
- Adrian Rogers, his predecessor at Bellevue, washed Gaines’s feet during the handoff service in 2005, a striking image of the transition between the two pastors.
- He released a book on revival, “Revival: When God Comes to Church,” the same year he stepped down from Bellevue’s senior pastor role.
- His daughter Bethany Gaines Golding is a singer, and Gaines often spoke publicly about her musical talent.
Timeline of Key Events
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1957 | Born December 31 in Corinth, Mississippi |
| 1979 | Graduates from Union University |
| 1984 | Earns Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary |
| 1991 | Completes Ph.D. in Preaching and Evangelism; becomes pastor of Gardendale First Baptist Church, Alabama |
| 2005 | Becomes seventh pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church, succeeding Adrian Rogers |
| 2006 | Learns of a staff member’s past abuse of a child; does not report it to authorities |
| 2007 | Launches “Bellevue Loves Memphis” community outreach initiative |
| 2016 | Elected 61st President of the Southern Baptist Convention |
| 2017 | Reelected to a second term as SBC President |
| 2022 | Named in the Guidepost Solutions independent investigation into SBC sexual abuse handling |
| 2023 | Diagnosed with kidney cancer in November |
| 2024 | Steps down as senior pastor of Bellevue; publishes “Revival: When God Comes to Church” |
| 2026 | Enters hospice care in March; dies March 20 at age 68 |
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened to Pastor Steve Gaines?
Steve Gaines died on March 20, 2026, at age 68, after a roughly two-year battle with kidney cancer. He had stepped down as senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in 2024 to pursue itinerant preaching ministry.
What was Steve Gaines’s cause of death?
He died from kidney cancer, first diagnosed in November 2023, which later spread and became more aggressive despite a period of improvement in 2024.
Did Steve Gaines have children? Who is his daughter?
Yes. Steve and Donna Gaines had four children, including a daughter, Bethany Gaines Golding, who is a singer.
Who was Pastor Steve Gaines’s wife?
He was married to Donna Dodds Gaines, who was by his side throughout his ministry, his SBC presidency, and his cancer treatment.
Where was Pastor Steve Gaines from?
He was born in Corinth, Mississippi, and raised in Dyersburg, Tennessee.
What was Pastor Steve Gaines’s net worth?
No reliable, publicly disclosed figure exists for Gaines’s personal net worth. As with most denominational pastors, his compensation from Bellevue Baptist Church was not made public.
A Note on Related Searches
Some searches for “Steve Gaines” turn up results about a different person entirely: Steven Earl Gaines (1949–1977), the lead guitarist for the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. That Steve Gaines joined the band in 1976, co-wrote songs including “I Know a Little,” “Ain’t No Good Life,” and the co-written hit “You Got That Right,” and died alongside bandmates Ronnie Van Zant and his own sister, Cassie Gaines, in the band’s fatal October 1977 plane crash. He has no connection to Pastor Steve Gaines of Bellevue Baptist Church. A separate music biography would better serve readers searching for the guitarist’s story.
