ALEXANDRIA, La. (ABP) – David Hankins, vice president for Cooperative Program for the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, was elected executive director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention Oct. 28.
The former Louisiana pastor will begin his new duties Jan. 1 as director-elect and will assume full duties Feb. 1 after Executive Director Dean Doster retires Jan. 31.
In addressing the Louisiana convention's executive board prior to his election, Hankins reminisced about his earlier career as a pastor in Louisiana. When he was called to Trinity Baptist Church in Lake Charles in 1985, he recalled going “to a place we'd never been, to work with people we didn't know and eat food we couldn't pronounce.
But I want to tell you something, from day one in Louisiana, it was never strange,” he said. “It was as if we were home. Louisiana is our home. I am now a former Texan.”
Hankins told board members what they could expect from his leadership. “I will not stick my finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. I will place it into the holy Word of God [and lead] from the Spirit of God and the written Word. And I will lead not from the left, not from the right, not from the middle. I intend to lead from the front.”
Hankins served at Trinity Baptist for 10 years before becoming vice president for convention policy for the SBC Executive Committee in January1996. In that capacity he guided the process of restructuring the convention and its agencies, adopted by the SBC in 1995. He assumed his present post with the Executive Committee in 1998 and directs the development and promotion of Cooperative Program ministries and giving.
Born in Alameda, Calif., Hankins, 54, grew up in Texas and received his undergraduate degree at Dallas Baptist University. He received both master of divinity and doctor of philosophy degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.
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— Based on reporting by Lacy Thompson of the Louisiana Baptist Message.