SCBC Executive Board hears from new executive director-treasurer Gary Hollingsworth

Going forward in 2016, South Carolina Baptists will embrace a vision of seeing “every life saturated and transformed by the hope of the Gospel, beginning in South Carolina” and extending to everyone on the globe.

That was the message of executive director-treasurer Gary Hollingsworth, speaking at his first meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention Executive Board on Monday, April 25, at the convention building in Columbia.

The Monday-evening session of the two-day board meeting was also the last for interim executive director-treasurer Richard Harris, of Albany, Ga., who had led the convention staff since late 2014. Harris is a retired vice president of the North American Mission Board.

Using a mountain as a visual analogy, Hollingsworth told board members: “We are living in a day when we really have to think big. We have a big God. We need to think bigger than we do; we need to think God-sized thoughts. When you get to the top of a mountain, what is it that you really see? [Do we see] a God-sized preferred vision of the future?”

Hollingsworth said that six recent statewide listening sessions with local church leaders included questions about the state convention’s missional vision.

“Our vision to see lives transformed by the Gospel begins within South Carolina and goes to the ends of the earth,” he said. “We won’t rest until we have the opportunity to go to everyone on the globe. That vision drives our mission.”

It was under Harris’s leadership in 2015 that the state convention staff began focusing on four initiatives including evangelism, church health, church planting and missions mobilization, fueled by prayer and leadership. Hollingsworth said the four initiatives and essential catalysts of prayer and leadership will serve as the ongoing mission toward fulfilling the vision.

“I see the mission as the paths that strategically lead Baptists up the mountain, and the paths will have measurable goals along the way with a time sensitivity for measurement,” he said. “The vehicles that move us upward on the paths are efforts like Band of Brothers, SummerSalt, Baptist Collegiate Ministry, multi-housing ministry, and so many others. These are efficient and effective vehicles.

“Passion is the wild card in all of this, and it must come from deep inside, and we pray it’s driven by the Holy Spirit and fueled by biblical principles. What also fuels our journey are the human and financial resources. As Baptist people, we have found in the Cooperative Program a funding source that allows us to provide people and human resources.”

The purpose of the convention and its staff will be “assisting churches to fulfill the Great Commission,” Hollingsworth said. He closed his presentation by saying: “What a joy and privilege it is to come alongside all of our churches that we might pursue vision, mission, and purpose for kingdom advance in the future.”

— Scott Vaughan is interim communications manager for the South Carolina Baptist Convention