ATLANTA (ABP) — Rob Nash, nominee for global missions coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, will be the speaker at the annual Associated Baptist Press banquet June 22 at 5 p.m. in Atlanta.
Nash is expected to be elected to lead CBF's global missions program by the CBF Coordinating Council immediately prior to the CBF general assembly. If elected, the ABP banquet will be his first public address in his new role.
Nash's speech, titled “Telling the Whole Story: Information Integrity, Christian Faith and the Media,” will address important communication issues facing Christians from a global perspective.
The son of Baptist missionaries to the Philippines, Nash, 47, lived 13 years in that country and has also studied in, or made extended visits to, more than 30 countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and South America.
Currently dean of the school of religion and international studies at Shorter College in Rome, Ga., Nash is the author of the popular and influential book, An 8-Track Church in a CD World: The Modern Church in the Postmodern World, published in 1997.
Tickets for the ABP banquet, to be held at the Georgia World Congress Center, Room A-412, are $30 per person and can be reserved by calling 800-340-6626, extension 1, or by email to [email protected]. Tickets also can be purchased online through a link on the ABP website, baptistnews.com.
Associated Baptist Press is America's first and only independent news service created by and for Baptists. ABP's mission is to “serve Christ by providing credible and compelling information about matters of faith.
Nash said the task of informing Baptists is an essential part of discipleship and of becoming a global Christian.
“We must discipline ourselves to seek the whole story when we are trying to understand the political/religious/cultural realities that exist around the world,” he said. “It is far too easy to accept or seek out only half the story — the half that makes sense to me and that supports my beliefs, biases and prejudices. Folks who follow in the footsteps of Jesus have an obligation to practice such discipline — to see beyond their own horizons.”
Nash's background includes significant local-church ministry, including the pastorates of North Rolling Fork Baptist Church in Danville, Ky., and Buechel Park Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky. While at Shorter, he has served as interim pastor in a number of influential churches in Georgia and Alabama.
Nash earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Ga. and master of divinity and doctor of philosophy degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. His dissertation was titled “The Influence of American Myth on Southern Baptist Foreign Missions, 1845-1945.”
He and his wife, Guyeth, and children, Lindsay Renee and Douglas Andrew, are members of First Baptist Church, Rome, Ga.
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