The election of Kentucky pastor Kevin Ezell as president of the North American Mission Board has agitated the rarely-calm-anyway waters of the Southern Baptist Convention.
KirklandThose waters were set to churning even earlier when it was announced that Ezell was the search committee’s unanimous choice to lead NAMB, whose lack of effective leadership in recent years is well documented.
At the heart of the controversy that has surrounded the nomination and election of Ezell is the giving record of his church, Highview in Louisville. The 6,000-member, multi-campus megachurch has a poor record of giving to Southern Baptist work through the Cooperative Program and even to NAMB through the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. A page one story in this edition of the Courier presents those sobering and even alarming statistics, made available from LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville.
Criticism of the choice of Ezell surfaced early from two executive directors of state Baptist conventions — David Hankins in Louisiana and Emil Turner in Arkansas. Their comments are included also in the Courier’s front page story.
The reasons for the objections to Ezell’s nomination by the two state Baptist convention leaders are worthy of filing away for future reference: Why consider a nominee whose church falls short of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report affirming the Cooperative Program “as the most effective means of mobilizing our churches and extending our outreach”? Why recommend someone for the NAMB presidency whose church’s 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.”
After all had been said and done during the closed-door session of the board in a hotel near Atlanta, Kevin Ezell got the nod from NAMB’s board to be the new president, but not all agreed with the search committee’s choice; the vote was 37-12.
The election of Kevin Ezell to head NAMB is not, at this point, a promising development for the future effectiveness of the CP as the primary fund-raising tool for Southern Baptist ministry. The outlook for extended vitality of the CP will be particularly bleak if Ezell follows his own example and if a growing number of Southern Baptist churches follow Highview’s.
A larger, and potentially more threatening, issue is the gathering momentum of the megachurches with an independent spirit, and their disproportionate influence in SBC life. The megachurches such as Highview deserve praise for every dollar they spend in response to the requirements of the Great Commission, and this is true wherever and however they spend it. And it also is true — and needs to be pointed out — that not every megachurch is uncooperative or that every small church is cooperative. That said, it does not alter the fact, though, that the independent model showcased by many of the megachurches is discouraging, and even insulting, to the smaller churches who constitute the supportive backbone of the Southern Baptist Convention. The smaller churches that fill the SBC give generously, and often sacrificially, through the Cooperative Program and the special missions offerings to do collectively what none could do without the others.
The day after the trustees elected Kevin Ezell as president of the North American Mission Board, the employees of NAMB had a surprise visitor as they arrived for work at the Alpharetta, Ga., headquarters; Ezell himself was there to greet employees as they entered the door.
The new president is fully aware of criticisms directed toward him and his church. He knows, too, that as he prepares to move into the president’s office at NAMB, he has a past that precedes him. Many wonder whether his past will repeat itself at NAMB, where support through the Cooperative Program and the Annie Armstrong Offering is essential for the entity’s effective ministry. Moving from the pastorate of Highview to the presidency of NAMB, Ezell is in the awkward position of trying to tell rank-and-file Southern Baptists to contribute generously now to a ministry that he and Highview gave little more than lip service to then.
During that day-after-election visit to NAMB’s headquarters, Ezell, who insisted that his co-workers call him “Kevin” and not “Dr. Ezell,” raised the issue of trust, and assured them of his desire to “earn your trust.” He also said this: “Just give me a chance. Let’s test each other and let the results be our grading card.”
That is a fair enough request on the part of NAMB’s new president, and it is not too much to ask of his fellow Southern Baptists. The period of testings will begin at the very outset of his leadership at NAMB. It will take some time for a reasonable assessment of his work on behalf of our Lord and of Southern Baptists. As for the grading card, we should all hope and pray for an “A.”