COLUMBIA, S. C. (ABP) – After spending less than two years as associate executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention, Jim Austin is expected to become new executive director-treasurer of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.
A South Carolina search committee announced March 19 that Austin, 53, is its choice to replace Carlisle Driggers in the chief executive position. Driggers left last month to retire to Georgia after 15 years in the position.
If approved by the convention's Executive Board March 27, Austin must then be approved by convention messengers when they meet next in Columbia, S.C. — probably in April, organizers said.
Search committee chairman Tim Williams told the Baptist Courier, newsjournal of the S.C. convention, the panel was unanimous in its decision to recommend Austin.
Austin's current employer, the Missouri Baptist Convention, has faced a growing rift among conservatives in the state that the convention president described as “unrest, dissension, distrust, disunity, questions, and contentions.” Convention factions have been at loggerheads for months over the alleged “autocratic” leadership of chief executive David Clippard, who is under investigation by a special committee. Clippard also made national headlines last fall with an anti-Muslim speech.
Austin was born in Charlotte, N.C., and graduated from Jacksonville State University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. He has served as pastor of churches in Georgia and Virginia and was a vice president of the Georgia Baptist Convention. He also served two terms as a trustee of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board.
Overseas, Austin worked as a mission-team recruiter and a leader for short-term trips in North and South America, Europe and Asia.
He has five children with his wife, Debbie.
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Rift among Missouri conservatives boils over at convention meeting