The Southern Baptist Convention elected Frank Page its new president Tuesday, choosing a pastor who had said that it would take a "miracle" for him to win and heralding a new direction for the denomination.

Page's surprising win over two higher-profile candidates follows years of tightly scripted politics and intolerance for internal dissent. He called his victory evidence that Southern Baptists believe "we could do together a lot more and a lot better than what we can do separately."

"I'm a little taken aback by this," Page said. "Because I have not been known across the nation, ... I truly believe (the election) is God's people saying we want to see broadened involvement."

Winning just over 50 percent of the vote on the first ballot, Page bested Ronnie Floyd, a megachurch pastor from Springdale, Ark., and Jerry Sutton, pastor at Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville, Tenn., and currently the SBC's first vice president.

The 53-year-old Page is pastor at First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., a small, upstate community north of Greenville. During his campaign, he emphasized the importance of giving to the Southern Baptists' cooperative program, in which autonomous congregations pool money to fund overseas and domestic missions. That seemed to strike a chord with delegates to the SBC's annual meeting.

In the years since moderates stopped participating in SBC politics, candidates for the SBC presidency have typically run unopposed or faced only token opposition. But this year, concerns about stagnating memberships, declining baptism rates and the future of the cooperative program led to the first contested presidential race in recent memory.

Johnny Hunt, a pastor from Woodstock, Ga., was the leadership's choice for president but unexpectedly dropped out of the race in late April. He was replaced by Floyd, head of the First Baptist Church in Springdale, Ark., and the nearby Church at Pinnacle Hills.

Then Page entered the race, leading a group that criticized the low levels of cooperative program giving at Floyd's churches. Page's church, by contrast, gives 12 percent of its undesignated offerings to the program.

Many smaller Southern Baptist congregations see the cooperative program as a crucial collective effort for the denomination and the best way for them to carry out influential missionary and evangelistic work.

Rallying around Page were a group of younger pastors and others who have felt marginalized by an older generation that led the conservative takeover of the SBC in the 1970s and 1980s. Some have dissented on theological issues like whether strict Calvinists and charismatic Christians should be welcome in the denomination, while at least one has been reprimanded for airing concerns on his Internet blog.

But Page said he didn't believe he owed his election to any one group.

"I owe no allegiance to anyone — that's why I didn't think I'd win," he said. "I'm just a normal pastor of a somewhat normal church."

Though Page will serve a one-year term, SBC tradition holds that presidents are given a second one-year term if they desire.

Page was quick to dismiss any suggestion that his election signals a moderation of SBC theology. He described himself as a conservative who believes in the literal truth of the Bible. But he said he hopes to present a gentler face than past SBC leaders.

"I believe in the word of God," he said. "I'm just not mad about it."

He said he hopes to use his presidency to broaden the range of Southern Baptists who participate in leadership, expand support for cooperative missions and evangelism, and help churches whose membership has plateaued or is declining.

Attendance at Page's church in Taylors averages more than 2,500 a week. Since taking over the congregation in 2001, Page said, he has doubled membership.

Page said he hopes to increase denominational participation "from younger leaders, older leaders, small churches, medium churches and — yes — larger churches from across this nation who perhaps have been overlooked."

Page was on home turf for the vote; born in Robbins, he grew up in Greensboro and became a Southern Baptist at one of the city's churches. His election likely was helped by a strong "drive-in" vote from church delegates in the Carolinas.

A graduate of Gardner-Webb, a Baptist college in Boiling Springs, Page studied at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and pastored churches in Texas, North Carolina and Georgia before arriving at Taylors.