By Robert Dilday
Brad Hoffmann, a suburban Richmond, Va., pastor, will be nominated in November as president of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, it was announced Oct. 21.
Hoffmann, pastor of Cool Spring Baptist Church in Mechanicsville, will be nominated by Larry Frakes, who preceded Hoffman as Cool Spring’s pastor. Frakes retired in 2010 after 25 years.
The nomination for president was the second to be announced in the past few days. Also on the ballot will be Nancy Stanton McDaniel, pastor of Rhoadesville (Va.) Baptist Church. Whoever is elected at the BGAV annual meeting, scheduled for Nov. 10-11 in Richmond, will succeed Ann Brown, a Gretna, Va., mission activist.
If both Hoffmann and McDaniel are nominated as expected, it will be the first contested presidential election in nearly two decades.
Hoffmann became pastor at Cool Spring in 2011, following an eight-year pastorate at Memorial Baptist Church in Baytown, Texas. Earlier he was pastor of three Florida congregations: First Baptist Church in Wauchula, First Baptist Church of Tuscawilla in Winter Park and Westchase Community Church in Tampa.
He is a graduate of Palm Beach Atlantic College in West Palm Beach, Fla., and holds a master of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and a doctor of ministry degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
Hoffmann and his wife, Jolanta, have three children.
The last BGAV presidential election featuring two nominees was in 1997. The long string of uncontested elections is usually attributed to two factors.
Years of fiercely fought BGAV elections between moderates and conservatives — a spillover from the larger theological battle in the Southern Baptist Convention — essentially came to an end at the 1994 annual meeting when the BGAV voted to base messenger representation on churches’ contributions to BGAV ministries alone, not on a combination of BGAV and SBC ministries, which had prevailed earlier.
The new policy made it impossible for churches supportive of conservatives candidates to muster the necessary voting messengers to win without making significant contributions to BGAV causes, some of which they found objectionable. Prior to the policy change, churches were able to send the bulk of their financial gifts to the Southern Baptist Convention and still qualify for messenger representation.
In 1995 conservative leaders announced they would no longer field candidates for president, and the following year many conservative churches withdrew from the BGAV to form an alternative convention, the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia.
In 2000 the BGAV began an unofficial practice of electing its first vice president to the top elected post the following year. The practice was established to enhance the experience of BGAV presidents, whose terms are restricted to one year. In the 15 years since, with an anticipated candidate in place well ahead of annual elections, no other nominations for president have emerged.
Though the pattern of electing first vice presidents to the presidency has remained, it has been a matter of consensus; there is no bylaw requiring it.
Hoffmann’s nomination is consistent with a more than 50-year-old practice of rotating the BGAV presidency between ministers and laypersons — another well-established tradition that isn’t required by bylaw. Outgoing president Brown is a layperson and member of First Baptist Church in Gretna.
In a letter announcing plans to nominate Hoffman, Frakes cited the nominee’s concern “about the continued decline within the BGAV.”
“Yet he’s incredibly optimistic about its potential missional future realizing we have a small window by which to act,” Frakes wrote. “We need our strongest leaders and stakeholders working together creating a compelling new reality for the BGAV.”
Hoffmann also has publicly expressed similar concerns, most recently on his blog here, here and here.
Meanwhile, also on Oct. 21, two other nominees for BGAV office were announced: Stu Crow, a layman and member of First Baptist Church of Waynesboro, for first vice president, and Adam Tyler, pastor of Grace Hills Baptist Church in Appomattox, for second vice president.
This story has been modified to correct the spelling of Brad Hoffmann’s name and the name of his wife.