(ABP) — Gary Baldridge, who with his wife has led the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s global missions effort for five years, will leave the CBF at the end of the year to return to a career in writing.
Daniel Vestal, CBF coordinator, told the group’s Coordinating Council Oct. 14 that Barbara Baldridge will become interim coordinator Jan. 1, assuming the duties she shared with her husband. And Vestal added, “Hopefully, this council will in time elect her as [sole] coordinator of missions.”
Gary Baldridge, 53, who was a newspaper reporter before becoming a missionary 25 years ago, told ABP he has been “moving toward writing full-time” for about a decade. “The timing never has been right until now.” He plans to do free-lance magazine journalism and will try to publish a novel and screenplay he has written.
The Coordinating Council has not been asked to start a search process, but its personnel committee will be asked to consider Barbara Baldridge as sole missions leader, said CBF moderator Bob Setzer.