ALPHARETTA, Ga. (ABP) — Two months after passing a resolution unanimously praising the direction of the North American Mission Board and affirming President Geoff Hammond for "exemplary, unique leadership and vision," NAMB trustees will meet Aug. 11 to consider removing him from office.
Geoff Hammond
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Two Baptist state newspapers reported contents of an e-mail listing leadership issues to be discussed at a regular meeting of NAMB's 21-member executive committee. After word of the meeting spread, all 57 board members were polled about calling a special meeting.
Bruce Franklin, a trustee from North Carolina, told the Biblical Recorder that such an important decision should not be handled by a committee alone.
Trustee Jack Pettus, pastor of Living Hope Baptist Church in Bowling Green, Ky., circulated an e-mail July 29 describing a conversation he had with board chairman Tim Patterson.
Pettus said Patterson identified several "serious issues" that board leaders wanted to discuss with Hammond. He listed three most pressing concerns as Hammond's failure to meet with an executive leadership coach that had been hired to help him refine his leadership and management skills, his hiring of a chief operation officer without prior approval of the executive committee and staff morale at an all-time low.
Pettus told the Christian Index he was not taking sides and had full confidence in the executive committee, but he wrote other board members so they could be praying for the agency.
Patterson told the Georgia Baptist paper he would preside over the executive committee meeting but would not bring up integrity or leadership issues, so that no one would perceive the issues were result of a personality conflict between him and the president.
In May NAMB trustees passed a resolution describing the agency as "crucial" to Southern Baptist mission work and expressing unified support for Hammond, who took over as president of the agency in 2007.
That came after Patterson, pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., was quoted in the Florida Baptist Witness as saying he would support consolidating the Southern Baptist Convention's two mission boards in context of a discussion about a "Great Commission Resurgence" task force appointed by SBC President Johnny Hunt.
Patterson apologized to fellow board members May 20 for making it appear he was speaking on their behalf.
Trustees elected Hammond in March 2007 to replace Bob Reccord, the former president forced to resign in 2006 amid reports that he mismanaged the agency.
Things went well for a six-month "honeymoon" period, the Christian Index reported, until Hammond began to be criticized as an autocratic leader who rejected counsel of trustees and others.
The Biblical Recorder said Hammond has chafed under unusual constraints on his office put in place by trustees after Reccord's departure and reported morale at NAMB lower now than it was during the tumultuous days before Reccord resigned.
Last November the Christian Index published a news analysis questioning Hammond's handling of a national evangelism campaign called God's Plan for Sharing, or GPS.