GREENSBORO, N.C. (ABP) — After a rough spring, the new leader of the Southern Baptist Convention's domestic missionary agency tried to accentuate the positive in his annual report to the Southern Baptist Convention.
Roy Fish, just-named interim president of the North American Mission Board, told messengers that, although the board has experienced some “extremely difficult days” recently, “this past year has been one where our missionaries…have made a tremendous impact in the lives of thousands of people.”
Just days prior to the convention, Fish was named as temporary replacement for Bob Reccord, who resigned April 17 in the wake of a trustee investigation that found evidence of significant mismanagement at the mission board.
Several reports of excessive spending, heavy-handed treatment of employees and other difficulties at the Alpharetta, Ga.-based board had earlier been publicized in Georgia Baptists' Christian Index newspaper.
“Through it all, your trustees have sought to be transparent with our SBC family about where we are, and where we're headed,” said Fish, a retired evangelism professor from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
Fish particularly pointed to thousands of baptisms performed in the past year by NAMB-endorsed chaplains in the armed forces and hospitals.
That prompted a question from a messenger related to a recent controversy at the denomination's other missionary agency, the International Mission Board. Its leaders recently decided to tighten the restrictions on baptism qualifications for missionary candidates.
“Does the North American Mission Board have, or do you plan to have a response to IMB regarding those baptisms, because what the IMB has done is effectively told you that every single one of those chaplain baptisms that were performed…are now null and void should one of those officials at some point later on decide to go to the international mission field,” said William Blosch, a messenger from First Baptist Church in Plantation, Fla.
“I can tell you that we do not have such a policy…nor do we intend, as far as I'm aware, to entertain that sort of policy,” answered Bill Curtis, the board's newly elected chairman. Curtis is pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Florence, S.C.
Messengers then heard reports from two NAMB missionaries touting the board's work in two metropolitan areas that have often proven difficult for Southern Baptist mission work — New York City and New Orleans.
“Contrary to what you might hear on the news or contrary to what you might see on television, God is alive and well in New York City,” said Aaron Coe, a NAMB church planter who has stared The Gallery, a church in the SoHo part of lower Manhattan. The congregation's goal is to reach out to a neighborhood of well-educated artists and professionals who are immersed in a highly secular culture.
“I'm convinced tonight more than any other thing that there are no God-forsaken places in the world tonight,” Coe said. “There are no God-forsaken places; there are just church-forsaken places.”
Missionary Kay Bennett thanked Southern Baptists for the dollars and volunteer hours they have provided in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's destruction of her New Orleans. Bennett runs the city's Baptist Friendship House, located adjacent to the flood-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward.
When Bennett first returned to the city after the storm she said, she rejoiced when she saw that floodwaters stopped a block away from the Friendship House.
“I will tell you that all four of our Baptist centers in New Orleans did not receive any flooding,” she said. “God knew that we would need Southern Baptists to help our city rebuild.”
-30-