Shortly after being unanimously elected president by the North American Mission Board’s trustees, Geoff Hammond spoke with editors and reporters from a dozen state Baptist newspapers. Hammond responded to a broad range of questions including his vision for NAMB, his selection process, how he will relate to state conventions, his background as a missionary, and his views on the emerging/emergent church.
Geoff Hammond addresses trustees and others after a unanimous trustee vote as president of the North American Mission Board.p>Hammond was joined by Bill Curtis, chairman of NAMB’s board of trustees, and Greg Faulls, chairman of the trustees’ president search committee.
Q. Dr. Hammond, could you talk about your church-planting experience?
Hammond: My first experience with church planting was at a large church in Harare, Zimbabwe. I studied church planting at Spurgeon College (London), worked at a mission with the First Baptist Church-Dallas, was a church-planting missionary and professor in Brazil, and a director of missions and a church planter in northwest Arkansas. For some reason, God has blessed me to be involved in church planting on four continents throughout the world.
Q. Based on your role with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia convention, what is your thinking about openness when dealing with all Southern Baptists and across the political and philosophical spectrum?
Hammond: NAMB partners with all state conventions, and I remind folks that my experience with Southern Baptists is from birth, in churches, on staffs, and representing all Baptists as both a NAMB and IMB missionary. I look forward to doing that as I have the privilege of leading NAMB.
Q. There was a motion at last year’s SBC annual meeting focusing on how NAMB and IMB can better partner with each other. Are there specific ways to do that?
Hammond: I’ve always believed there could be a closer relationship between IMB and NAMB. This is becoming even more obvious here in 2007 as the U.S. becomes more of a melting and mixing pot. For instance, there are so many things that IMB missionaries have discovered and introduced overseas that NAMB people can use as we reach ethnic groups and unreached people groups here in the United States.
Also, NAMB and IMB are working on joint projects like the recent People Groups website and database. I know church planters who served IMB in Egypt, Asia and Latin America who are returning to the U.S. and bringing back their IMB experiences and ideas.
Q. Of all the challenges facing NAMB, what is the single greatest challenge you face?
Hammond: We must understand the huge potential we have with our partners to multiply our ministry. I see that as a positive thing. We must build relationships with local associations, state conventions and local churches – with the person in the pew. We must tie the person in the pew back to our missionaries. And we must keep the NAMB story always out there.
Q. Before your election, you were an executive in a state convention. What do you bring as a state executive to NAMB?
Hammond: Having sat on the other side of the table, I hope I’ll remember that side of the equation. My state convention in Virginia has had a good relationship with NAMB. Of course, there are areas where communications could be better from both sides. We at NAMB have to remember that state conventions are different and don’t all go about the work in the same way and don’t all relate to NAMB in the same way.
Q. How do you better understand the needs of church planters since you are one?
Hammond: Our church planters are our “special forces.” They’re on the front lines, out on the frontier. It’s tough. Church planting does not always go along a straight line. Sometimes they don’t see people saved every week and see more people in their churches. You go through hard times. I’ve told our church planters in Virginia that some of our best planters have come close to failure. I urge church planters to be learners in the field – to keep in fellowship with other people. I would tell state associations and church planters that church-planting networks are important for encouraging, equipping and mentoring planters so they don’t feel so isolated.
Q. What is the role of NAMB in church plants that are non-traditional and reject the Baptist label?
Hammond: We want church planting to be creative but sound theologically. And as Southern Baptists, we are autonomous local churches but we cooperate on missions. We’re based on the Bible. The Baptist Faith and Message of 2000 holds us together. A church must feel it’s a part of the greater whole. There are a lot of folks who may look and be different, and express themselves differently in church life, but we’re all Southern Baptists.
Q. What is your view of the so-called emerging church movement, and what should NAMB’s posture be toward emerging churches?
Hammond: I understand that it’s a new stream of influence in modern-day churches. What I’m grateful for is that at least they are wrestling with how to make the church relevant in modern-day society. There’s an article out in the most recent issue of Christianity Today that talks about five streams that flow in the emerging church, and not all of them would we probably want to identify with as Southern Baptists. But some of them are asking, “How do we reach post-moderns?” This is going to be a continuing factor and will have influence on us in the years to come.
Curtis: At NAMB, our position in the past has been that while we certainly do not embrace all aspects of the emerging church movement – and just getting the issues defined is a big problem – there’s a place for NAMB to seek to exert influence and to encourage many of these young church planters on reaching culture, but reaching it in such a way that will be faithful and consistent to where we are theologically. We’re looking for opportunities to be an influence among our young pastors and planters as they seek to be culturally relevant.
Q. NAMB went through quite a crisis in leadership last year. How will you avoid that?
Hammond: I believe that integrity of Christian disciples can, and must, be guarded at all times. It takes a lifetime to build a reputation of integrity, but that can be lost in a moment. I’m committed to accountability and transparency – with me, what you see is what I am. Openness is important.
Q. Any final words, Dr. Hammond?
Hammond: I’d like to thank my fellow Southern Baptists for what they’ve done for me. They’ve embraced a guy who was born in a Southern Baptist mission hospital in Africa, sent to a Southern Baptist seminary, worked in SBC churches, and been a Southern Baptist missionary overseas.
Now I have this opportunity. I want to do it in God’s strength, in humility, and I thank him for his grace in my life and the ways he’s led me. Now I’ll lean on the Lord Jesus for support and guidance as we move into this next chapter of our lives.
Q. Dr. Curtis, talk about your tenure as chairman of trustees.
Curtis: We have been through a challenging year as an agency. But it gave us the opportunity to re-focus on our vision and clarify the role of NAMB and what God has called us to do for these amazing folks called Southern Baptists. Through the search process and development of new policies at NAMB, God has grown the trustees together in amazing ways. Dr. Hammond’s unanimous election by the trustees is evidence of how far God has brought us.
Q. Dr. Curtis, what about the future relationship between the NAMB president and the board of trustees?
Curtis: Our board is absolutely committed to giving Dr. Hammond our wholehearted support. We have an authentic desire to come alongside him and entrust him with the position, and equip and enable him to succeed in what God has called him to do. Southern Baptists can have a great deal of confidence in the work of the board over the past year and in our commitment to follow Dr. Hammond as he leads us.