Executive Committee members and leaders of Southern Baptist Convention entities celebrated Morris Chapman’s 15th anniversary as president of the Executive Committee during a reception in his honor Sept. 17 in Nashville, Tenn.
Morris Chapman enjoys a light moment at the reception with Georgia pastor William Harrell, the EC’s chairman. In the background is Jim Wells, the SBC’s registration secretary.“I never imagined having the privilege of serving in a position like this for Southern Baptists, and I can hardly believe it has been 15 years,” Chapman told Baptist Press. “It’s not an easy task. It’s a responsibility with a lot of challenges, but I have come to one deep conviction and that is, God’s hand is upon Southern Baptists.
“I’m grateful for that, and he just helps us along in all we’re trying to do and keeps encouraging us and blessing us,” Chapman added. “We have a lot for which to be thankful.”
During the Executive Committee meeting, William Harrell, pastor of Abilene Baptist Church in Evans, Ga., and chairman of the Executive Committee, presented Chapman with gifts to mark the occasion.
The first was a Tennessee flag that flew over the capitol building in Nashville in Chapman’s honor Sept. 12 and the second was what Harrell described as “the Cadillac of golf carts,” a Club Car made in Augusta, Ga.
Chapman was selected president of the Executive Committee in 1992 after serving two terms as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. During that time, he had emphasized the need for spiritual awakening through renewed prayer efforts, and the Crossover evangelistic emphasis accompanying each SBC annual meeting began under his leadership.
Julian Motley, a former North Carolina pastor, was chairman of the search committee that brought Chapman to the Executive Committee, and he told BP that Chapman’s accomplishments as SBC president made him the man for the EC job.
“I thought he would be just an excellent person to move into this position because he had been one of the best presidents we had had in the Southern Baptist Convention, in my opinion,” Motley said. “He had initiative in the area of evangelism, global evangelism and missions, and so forth. That was some of the motivation that I had. I admired him personally as a Christian statesman.”
David Hankins, executive director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention, was chairman of the Executive Committee when Chapman was hired in 1992, and then “was privileged to join Dr. Chapman’s staff as he led Southern Baptists in some of the most far-reaching endeavors of the convention’s history” while Hankins served as an Executive Committee vice president from 1996 to 2004.
“The implementation of the Covenant for a New Century was carried out with precision and greatly improved the effectiveness and efficiency of the SBC,” Hankins said of the convention’s restructuring in the mid-1990s. “Dr. Chapman also was a driving force in the emphasis on spiritual renewal through Empowering Kingdom Growth and on denominational renewal through revitalizing the Cooperative Program.
“Dr. Chapman has helped Southern Baptists remember that their work rests on the twin pillars of sound biblical theology and cooperative missions,” Hankins told BP.