TUCKER, Ga. (ABP) — Officers of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship are sorting through some 200 names submitted by rank-and-file CBF supporters to appoint a nine-member search committee to nominate a successor to Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal, who retires after 15 years in June.
Speaking to the group's Coordinating Council Oct. 20, Moderator Colleen Burroughs said during the opening plenary session of a regularly scheduled meeting at First Baptist Church in Tucker, Ga., that the officers — who are assigned by policy the task of naming the committee that will lead the search process — sought broader input by creating a designated e-mail address for nominations to the search committee for two reasons.
One was to create a search process that is as open as possible. The other, she said, is: “We didn’t want to miss the obvious name. We wanted to make sure we didn’t in six months say, ‘Oh, I wish we had thought of that person.’”
Burroughs said every name on the working list would be a good pick. “You have given us a wonderful and hard job to do,” she said.
She said the officers would try to put together a search committee that takes into account findings of a blue-ribbon task force currently looking at the organization’s structure, and to follow the advice of a past moderator that when looking for a CEO to chart the future of CBF, to “listen to where the 30-year-olds want to go and lead in that direction.”
Burroughs said after the search committee is named, probably in November, the CBFsearchcommittee@gmail.com e-mail address will be turned over to that committee to receive nominations for the executive coordinator position.
Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.