SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (ABP) — A vice president of the North American Mission Board, who has strong roots in Illinois, has been recommended as the next executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association.
Nate Adams, 47, has been vice president of mission mobilization for NAMB, the Southern Baptist Convention Georgia-based agency, since 1997. He previously worked for Christianity Today in Carol Stream, Ill., for 17 years, concluding his tenure as vice president of corporate publishing operations.
The Illinois search committee unanimously selected Adams from a field of 30 candidates, Jim Rahtjen, the committee's chairman, said. The committee's recommendation goes to the full board, which could vote on Adams as early as next month.
“I am so excited that Nate is our candidate. His walk with the Lord is genuine and contagious,” Rahtjen said in a written statement. “He has a heart for the lost to come to know Jesus personally. He is a strategic thinker, a visionary, a gifted leader. God has blessed him with a great sense of humor, an engaging personality and yet a genuine humility that is refreshing in a man with his abilities.”
“In many ways, returning to Illinois is coming home for me and my family,” Adams said in a written statement. “But even more, I see it as coming to a mission field of more than 8 million people, most of whom don't yet have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”
If approved, Adams will follow Wendell Lang, who resigned in May to become senior pastor of West Jackson Baptist Church of Jackson, Tenn. His resignation stunned many Illinois Baptist leaders and pastors because he had been on the job for a little over two years — one of the shortest tenures of an executive director in IBSA's nearly 100-year history. West Jackson's search committee chairman said he had stayed in contact with Lang, off and on, for much of his IBSA tenure.
Adams' starting date has not yet been determined. The IBSA's executive director earns an annual salary ranging from $86,468 to $125,379, according to the state association's 2006 pay scale.
Adams was one of eight finalists for the job in early November. Three were from Illinois, and five — including Adams — were from outside the state. The three Illinois finalists, sources said, were Larry Richmond, a former IBSA president; Jerry Day, chairman of IBSA's board of directors; and Bob Dickerson, IBSA's associate executive director of the church strengthening team and a former IBSA board chairman. Richmond has been director of ministries for Gateway Baptist Association, near St. Louis, since June 2004; Day is director of missions for Clear Creek Baptist Association in southern Illinois.
At NAMB, Adams oversees a staff of about 80 full-time employees in four departments, managing an annual budget from $15 million to $18 million. He represents NAMB in relationships with other national Southern Baptist agencies, including the International Mission Board, LifeWay Christian Resources and Woman's Missionary Union.
Adams earned a master of science degree in management and development of human resources from National-Louis University in Evanston, Ill., in 1991. Adams is a graduate of Judson College, an American Baptist college in Elgin, Ill., where he received a bachelor of arts degree in communications in 1980 and was valedictorian. He has served on Judson's board of trustees since 1995.
His father, Tom, has been a columnist for the Illinois Baptist, an IBSA publication, for more than three decades. Tom is a retired pastor and former director of missions of Fox Valley Baptist Association in Elgin. His mother, Romelia, is a retired teacher and media center director.
Adams has been interim pastor of Bridgeway Church in Alpharetta, Ga., since January 2005 and has served as an interim pastor at two other Georgia churches while at NAMB. While at Christianity Today, Adams was a founding pastor of a Southern Baptist church in St. Charles, Ill. He also served at First Baptist Church of St. Charles in several roles from 1978 to 1984, including deacon, Sunday School teacher, worship leader and youth minister.
Adams is the author of four books and numerous articles in evangelical publications. Adams and his wife, Beth, have three sons: two in high school and one in middle school.
IBSA's board of directors will be introduced to Adams before the vote at next month's meeting. When Lang had been recommended to the board in January 2003, the vice president of the executive director search committee at that time declined to allow board members to talk to Lang prior to their vote, even though he was in a nearby room. At September's board meeting, board members approved the policy change to ensure that the full board will be able to communicate with future executive director candidates before a vote.
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