Kevin Ezell, pastor of Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., was elected president of the North American Mission Board in a special called meeting of NAMB trustees Sept. 14.
Kevin Ezell, newly elected president of NAMB in Alpharetta, Ga., addresses the 250-member staff Sept. 15.Ezell’s nomination was announced Aug. 31 after NAMB’s seven-member presidential search committee voted unanimously to recommend him as president.
Associated Baptist Press reported that the trustees’ vote to affirm Ezell as NAMB’s president was 37-12.
“I am honored and humbled that the trustees put this confidence in me,” Ezell said immediately following the meeting. “I will do everything I possibly can to honor the Lord in this and to lead the board to a place where it is as effective as it possibly can be.”
Ezell said he sensed God’s call to the role partly because of what can be accomplished through the North American Mission Board.
“I see the potential NAMB has if its energies and resources are focused in the right direction,” Ezell said. “I am looking forward to being able to give a very clear vision for it. You rarely have the opportunity to have this big of a kingdom impact.”
Tim Dowdy, chairman of the entity’s board of trustees, said the vote was the culmination of a 10-month process. “It has at times been discouraging and at times encouraging, but along the way God has been faithful to give us guidance,” Dowdy said. “When he introduced us to Kevin, it was evident through the interview process that this was the man.”
Dowdy said Ezell’s leadership abilities, integrity and passion for church planting and missions are what led trustees to him.
“He has demonstrated faithful leadership and character, and he has a passion for reaching the world,” Dowdy said. “One banner he will consistently wave is that our greatest resource in the SBC is not money, but people. We want to help mobilize our people and partner with them to reach North America for Christ.”
Ezell has served as pastor of Highview Baptist Church since 1996 and was president of the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Conference in Orlando this past June.
The choice by NAMB’s search committee was not without controversy. Two state Baptist executives voiced concern over the choice of Ezell.
David Hankins, executive director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention, issued a three-page open letter to trustees of the North American Mission Board on Sept. 9, voicing opposition to any nominee for NAMB president with a “poor record” of support for Southern Baptists’ Cooperative Program channel of missions and ministry along with another key source of NAMB funding, the annual Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions.
Hankins, former vice president for Cooperative Program with the SBC Executive Committee, also wrote that Ezell, as pastor of the multi-campus Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, leads a congregation that falls short of the Great Commission Resurgence report as adopted during the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in June, which included affirmation of the Cooperative Program “as the most effective means of mobilizing our churches and extending our outreach.”
Emil Turner, executive director of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, affirmed Hankins’ call for NAMB trustees to reconsider the search committee’s recommendation.
“It seems surprising to me that the search committee would recommend someone whose level of support for the North American Mission Board through the CP and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering could not sustain the work of NAMB were it to be duplicated widely across the convention,” Turner said in a Sept. 10 news article in the Arkansas Baptist News.
Information from the 2009 Annual Church Profile maintained by LifeWay Christian Resources lists 121 baptisms at Highview Baptist Church and primary worship service attendance of 3,260. Highview gave $140,100, or 2.23 percent, through the Cooperative Program from undesignated receipts of $6,270,057. Its total missions expenditures of $1,350,107 includes $50,000 for the Lottie Moon Christian Offering for International Missions and $10,000 for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions.
– Compiled from Baptist Press and Associated Baptist Press reports.