ATLANTA (ABP) — The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship officers have named a nine-member search committee to find a replacement for Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal, who will retire June 30, 2012.
Chaired by George Mason, senior pastor at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, the committee members are as follows:
• Jack Glasgow, senior pastor of Zebulon Baptist Church, Zebulon, N.C., and former national moderator of CBF.
• Wendell Griffen, pastor of New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Ark., and a former Arkansas Court of Appeals judge.
• LeAnn Gunter Johns, of Macon, Ga., former church staff member at churches in Georgia and California and current steering committee member of Baptist Women in Ministry of Georgia.
• Cynthia Holmes, attorney in private practice in St. Louis, Mo., and former national moderator of CBF. She is a current member of the Coordinating Council’s Personnel Committee.
• Kyle Reese, senior pastor of Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla.
• Artemia Tamayo, church administrator of Memorial Baptist Church, Arlington, Va.
• Tony Vincent, minister of Christian education at Trinity Baptist Church, Seneca, S.C., and current member of the CBF Coordinating Council.
• Joy Yee, pastor of Nineteenth Avenue Baptist Church in San Francisco, Calif., and former national CBF moderator.
The officers worked hard at prayerfully putting together this impressive group of people,” said moderator Colleen Burroughs, who will serve on the committee as an ex officio member. “They represent a capacity for deep wisdom and for visionary decisions. This committee has the institutional memory to remain committed to our Baptist distinctives and enough creative edge to dream big dreams. I trust that God will light the path from here.”
The officers worked to make the committee as representative as possible with five women, five men, ethnic diversity, age range of 28 to 60 years old, four laity, seven clergy and geographic representation from California, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.
The search committee will begin a conversation about a process for meeting and communication in the coming days. Nominations for the executive coordinator can be sent to CBFsearchcommittee@gmail.com.
“I am humbled by the opportunity to work with such a qualified, diverse and representative committee in this important effort,” Mason said. “Finding a successor to Daniel Vestal will take enormous prayerfulness and thoughtfulness. We will have to rely both upon the Spirit of God and the entire CBF community. CBF has been blessed with spiritually profound leadership to this point, and we are trusting God for nothing less in the years ahead.”
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Lance Wallace is director of communications for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.