ATLANTA (ABP) — A graduate of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond who has attended or worked only at churches aligned with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has been nominated as the group's moderator-elect.
If elected as expected Christy McMillin-Goodwin, associate minister for education and missions at Oakland Baptist Church in Rock Hill, S.C., would become the ninth woman to lead the moderate Baptist group formed in 1991. After a year as moderator-elect, she would assume the moderator position in 2010-2011.
McMillin-Goodwin said her exposure to CBF, long after the Southern Baptist Convention conflict of the 1980s that spawned it, gives her a different perspective on the movement from her predecessors.
"While it is important to honor where we have been, I think by following God's leadership, our best days are to come," she said.
Christy McMillan-Goodwin is the ninth woman to be nominated as CBF moderator-elect.
|
McMillin-Goodwin said she is grateful both for CBF's commitment to women in ministry and to involving younger people in the decision-making process.
She said one reason she considered accepting the nomination is that her church channels 98 percent of its mission dollars outside the church through CBF. "I feel that if we are going to commit this much money to a movement, we need to have a voice," she said.
A past moderator of CBF of South Carolina, McMillin-Goodwin is a graduate of Furman University in Greenville, S.C., where she earned a bachelor's degree in business administration. She earned the master of divinity degree from BTSR — one of 15 seminaries, theology schools or Baptist studies programs that partner with CBF — in 1995.
She has served on both state and national CBF coordinating councils. She also has worked in student ministries, and interned at churches in Greenville and St. Louis, Mo.
McMillin-Goodwin grew up in Columbia, S.C. She attended Greenlawn Baptist Church, where she says she was fortunate to grow up in a congregation in which she always had female ministerial role models.
Marion Aldridge, coordinator of CBF of South Carolina, said he has known McMillan-Goodwin since she was in middle school. He described her as a "magnificent human being" and "the real deal."
"Like the prophet Samuel, Christy has had a clear calling from God since she was a child," he said. "It has been a privilege to watch her mature into the competent, wise, impressive person that she now is."
McMillan-Goodwin's nomination will be presented to the CBF General Assembly July 3. Additional nominations for moderator-elect can be made from the floor, but the tradition is to accept the committee's nominee.
The moderator-elect's chief responsibility is to preside over CBF meetings in absence of the moderator. The moderator-elect automatically succeeds the moderator at the conclusion of a one-year term.
Hal Bass, a professor at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas, is the current moderator-elect. He will assume the office of moderator on July 3, at the conclusion of the General Assembly.
North Carolina pastor Jack Glasgow, the Fellowship's current moderator, will then assume the role of immediate past moderator. The chief duty of the immediate past moderator is to chair the nominating committee.
-30-