A seven-member committee drawn from the Executive Board of the South Carolina Baptist Convention will lead the search for a successor to Carlisle Driggers, who will step down from the position of executive director-treasurer on Feb. 28.
The committee, announced on April 18 during the Executive Board’s spring meeting at White Oak Conference Center, is made up of three pastors, a retired pastor, and three laypersons.
Names of the search committee were revealed the morning after Driggers informed the board of his plans to retire after 15 years as the 16th executive of the first state Baptist convention.
Mike Hamlet of Spartanburg, the second-term chaiman of the Executive Board, appointed the search committee, naming Tim Williams as chairman. Williams is pastor of Roebuck Baptist Church in the Spartanburg County Baptist Network.
Joining him on the select panel are Don Purvis, retired pastor of Lakeview Baptist Church in Welsh Neck Association, where he still is a member; Betty Spradley, a member of First Baptist Church, Rock Hill, in York Association; Tom Swilley, pastor of Cedar Grove Baptist Church in Waccamaw Association; Dennis Wilkins, pastor of First Baptist Church, Bluffton, in Savannah River Association; Tommy Cofield, a member of Lexington Baptist Church, Lexington Association; and David Martin, a member of West Gantt First Baptist Church in Greenville Association.
Hamlet, pastor of North Spartanburg First Baptist Church, in a statement to the Courier, said the committee is a “broad representation of our convention” – divided beween clergy and laity from “churches across the state,” both large and small.
He said that contributions to the Cooperative Program by the churches represented on the committee “average more than 10 percent.”
“I am very excited about the people on the committee,” Hamlet said. “I believe that under the leadership of the Lord, they will find God’s man to lead us into the next era of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.”
Williams, saying he was “honored and humbled” by his appointment as chairman, told the Courier, “God has blessed our convention abundantly through the ministry of Dr. Carlisle Driggers, and all South Carolina Baptists should be grateful for his service to the kingdom of God.”
The Spartanburg pastor said the committee will “move ahead with great confidence that the Lord will direct us to a worthy successor to Dr. Driggers. One whom God has already chosen will lead us well with his own unique gifts and God-shaped vision.”
Williams said the search committee will hold its organizational meeting “within the next couple of weeks,” and he asked South Carolina Baptists and other Christian friends to “pray for God’s specific direction” in the days ahead.
He said the committee welcomes “input from all South Carolina Baptists as we move forward.” The search committee, Williams said, hopes to have its candidate by the Oct. 9-10 Executive Board meeting at White Oak, and, if approved by that group, presented for election at the Nov. 14-15 annual session of the South Carolina Baptist Convention to meet at First Baptist Church in Taylors.