ATLANTA (ABP) — Barbara Baldridge, coordinator of global missions for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, will resign effective May 31, citing unspecified personal reasons.
Baldridge, 54, has served in the top CBF missions post since 1999, first jointly with her husband, Gary, and then as sole coordinator since February of this year. Gary Baldridge, 54, retired at the end of December 2004 to pursue a career in writing.
“While I am immensely grateful for the trust placed in me by our [Coordinating] Council, I simply must devote my time to my family for the foreseeable future,” Barbara Baldridge said in a statement April 29. “My years with CBF have been among the most rewarding of my career. I leave [CBF] global missions on solid financial ground and with experienced personnel committed to fulfilling our vision and goals for ministry among the most neglected.”
Baldridge was acting coordinator from December to February, when the Coordinating Council elected her to the post permanently. Baldridge apparently is not leaving CBF for another position. CBF officials said they found out about her intentions to resign only in the last few days.
Neither she nor Daniel Vestal, national CBF coordinator, could be reached for comment April 29.
Vestal said in a statement: “Barbara Baldridge is a person of impeccable Christian character and spiritual maturity. She has been an effective leader for CBF global missions, and we will miss her. She is one of the finest missiologists I know, as well as a consensus builder and team builder. I am grieved at her leaving, but thankful to God for the time we had to serve together.”
Vestal immediately appointed Jack Snell, associate coordinator for missions field ministries, as acting global missions coordinator. Vestal said he will recommend Snell as interim coordinator during the June meeting of the Coordinating Council, which is expected to appoint a committee to seek a permanent coordinator at the same time.
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is a national organization of moderate Baptist individuals and churches that supports its own missions program, along with a variety of other ministries performed by its staff and partner organizations.
Of CBF's $16 million annual budget, approximately $9 million is spent on global missions, with a missionary force of 154, predominantly among the world's most neglected people groups.
The Fellowship surprised many people in 1999 when it selected the Baldridges to share the top missions post, succeeding longtime missions icon Keith Parks. The Baldridges previously worked as Southern Baptist missionaries for 17 years in Zambia and several other countries, resigning in 1994 to become field missionaries for CBF.
Snell told Associated Baptist Press April 29 that Barbara Baldridge's resignation “caught a lot of people by surprise, but we know Barbara well enough to know this was not a quick or easy decision.”
“She said she is resigning for personal reasons after a lot of prayer,” he added. While there is “a great deal of sadness” among her colleagues, he said, “we know she did what she thinks is best for the needs of the organization and her own personal reasons.”
Snell, 64, is a former pastor who led CBF's missions efforts in Asia with his wife, Anita, until six months ago, when he was named associate coordinator responsible for all field personnel.
He said his priority as acting global missions coordinator will be to implement the strategic plan developed by the Baldridges and the rest of the staff. “Daniel [Vestal] has assured me he wants the acting role not to be a caretaker program, but to put the strategic plan in place,” Snell said. “We have an excellent strategic plan that we are right in the middle of.”
Snell said he has not given any consideration to serving in the coordinator's post permanently.
During their five years at the lead of CBF missions, the Baldridges gave the program “shape and form and process and procedure, and led us in some very, very vital strategic planning,” Snell said. “In their typical leadership style, they enlisted leadership from every member of the global missions staff” in developing the strategic plan.
“They had a genuine concern for and care for all the people who serve in global missions,” he added. “They have bent over backwards to make sure our needs were met. They are very caring people.”