Leaders of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina have nominated a candidate with support from both moderates and conservatives to the fractious statewide body's executive post.
The convention's board of directors voted, without opposition, Jan. 24 to recommend Milton Hollifield Jr. as its new executive director-treasurer. Hollifield is currently executive leader of the convention's missions growth evangelism group.
His nomination must be ratified by convention messengers at a special called meeting of the group that will be held April 11 in Winston-Salem. The state convention is divided over issues of leadership, homosexuality and institutional control.
A search committee chaired by Robert Jackson, pastor of Peninsula Baptist Church in Mooresville, N.C., first recommended Hollifield to the group's executive committee. His nomination was then passed on to the board of directors, who gave Hollifield standing ovations after he made remarks and as he returned to the auditorium following the vote.
Hollifield, 55, has worked for the convention for 12-and-a-half years, coming in 1993 as director of the evangelism division. During a restructuring in 1999, he became executive leader of the newly formed mission growth evangelism group. In that role, Hollifield supervised the church growth and evangelism team, the church planting team and the campus ministries team.
Hollifield's North Carolina Baptist roots go deep. He is a native of Swannanoa, N.C., and a graduate of nearby Mars Hill (N.C.) College and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas.
Hollifield has served previously as an associate pastor of West Asheville Baptist Church in Asheville, N.C., and as pastor of First Baptist Church in Stanley, N.C. Hollifield worked as director of missions for the Gaston Baptist Association near Charlotte for two years prior to joining the state convention staff.
Associated Baptist Press