It is a sad time in the history of the North American Mission Board. I should say it’s another sad time. Following the forced resignation of Bob Reccord as NAMB president in 2006, the organization needed someone to bring all the fractured pieces together. Geoff Hammond, because of his experience in missions, was counted on to be that person. According to NAMB trustees, Hammond’s exit occurred because he not only failed to bring reconciliation but also because his leadership contributed to the all-time low morale that exists within NAMB.
When he was tapped to serve as the president of the North American Mission Board Hammond was senior associate director of the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia. At that time, one of my concerns was whether he could be impartial, objective and fair when distributing NAMB funds to the Baptist General Association of Virginia.
Jim White
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When his nomination was announced, I called the SBCV headquarters and asked for an interview. After all, his office was just up West Broad from the Virginia Baptist Resource Center in Richmond. I was told he was too busy to talk with me. I kept trying. He did not return my calls. His office said he was spending so much time in the NAMB offices in Alpharetta, Ga., that they didn’t know when he could be available. I understood that. He had a lot to learn, I supposed.
I finally wrote identical letters and sent them to both his NAMB office and his SBCV office offering to travel to either place at any time he could meet me. He never responded.
I had nothing to do, of course, with Hammond’s misfortune. I did not pursue the matter other than to express my disappointment to the NAMB communications office, where I found sympathetic colleagues. When he and I finally did meet face-to-face at an editors’ meeting last February, he was cordial. So was I. Neither of us brought up the past.
Apparently, however, I was not the only person whose concerns were indifferently ignored by Hammond. According to sources inside NAMB, he almost immediately began to alienate staff there. He wouldn’t listen to anybody, they said.
The trustees, too, began to sense trouble. Believing that his problem was simply inexperience and an inability to lead an organization the size of NAMB, they hired an executive coach to teach him. He reportedly refused to meet with their coach and insisted on naming his own — presumably one who would say, “You need to do exactly what you are doing!”
Finally, after only two years, the trustees decided he had to go. This created a dilemma for the trustees, of course, since they had so recently pronounced Hammond’s appointment as God-led.
“We were so moved by the hand of God through the process concerning Dr. Hammond that we are presenting a recommendation to you unanimously as a committee — a true unanimous recommendation from our committee,” Greg Faulls, chairman of the president search committee, told fellow trustees. They agreed and elected him unanimously.
Now, anyone who has been part of a group that recommended a person to a ministry position knows that the process is fallible. The best we can do is pray, seek the Lord’s guidance, check references, interview intuitively and hope that the person we recommend turns out to be who we believe him or her to be.
The process of choosing the head of such an essential ministry as NAMB must be difficult. I sympathize — and I am praying for the group that will choose Hammond’s successor.
But the problems they discovered in their man Hammond reflect a far more pervasive attitude. The problem, in a nutshell, is arrogance.
We Southern Baptists not only had the largest seminary in the world, we had six of the largest in the world. Because we were the biggest, richest, most influential Protestant body on the planet, we succumbed to the self-importance virus. This deadly strain can infect any religious body. Because of its far-reaching success in missions and evangelism, the SBC was particularly susceptible. Although SBC pride predates the conservative resurgence, the engineers of that movement took arrogance to new heights.
NAMB trustees have not been immune. A decade or so ago, a deeply committed Baptist servant was chosen by the Peninsula Baptist Association to continue an urban ministry. His predecessor had been supported jointly by NAMB and the PBA and everyone involved assumed that the arrangement would continue as it had. The minister and his wife journeyed to NAMB to be interviewed but were turned down because somewhere in her past his wife had spoken in tongues.
In my opinion, nothing but rank arrogance says, “We don’t want people like you working with us!” And further, only gross spiritual retardation says, “We don’t need people like you to help us win the world to Jesus!” The arrogance that sacrifices our missionary calling on the altar of lock-step theological agreement is deadly. We have only just begun to see its affects.
We need the North American Mission Board to be a spiritually healthy, highly effective, fully functioning force for Christ’s Kingdom. Instead, its leadership has reduced it to a discouraged work force. Sadly, reports are that NAMB is handicapped further by infighting among the professional staff. Unfortunately, a convention vote on the Great Commission Resurgence — or any other human vote, for that matter — will do little to cure what ails this agency.
NAMB needs leaders who will humble themselves, who will walk with and work with brothers and sisters to accomplish the Great Commission even if some of us are not identical twins.
There is hope, of course, for NAMB and the SBC. Not because I say so but because the Lord is gracious and full of compassion.
If they are interested, I have a suggestion for NAMB trustees. Since the last two NAMB presidents came from the ranks of the SBCV, I think they should come this time to the BGAV. Within our fellowship are several excellent people I would like to recommend. I am not, however, holding my breath.