By Bob Allen
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Coordinating Council will vote in February on a successor to Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal, who retired in June, according to an announcement at the council’s Oct. 25-26 meeting at First Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga.
“The search committee is preparing to bring a candidate to you the next time that we gather here in February,” CBF moderator Keith Herron told council members. “That’s in the mill. There are stages that are still being taken and done.”
Herron said the candidate’s name will be announced Jan. 18, when the recommendation comes to the CBF advisory council. “At that time the identity of that person will become public knowledge,” said Herron, pastor of Holmeswood Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo.
Herron said part of the full council meeting Feb. 21-22 would be to meet and get acquainted with the candidate, “but one of the parts of the business of the Coordinating Council in February will be the approval of a candidate presented by the search committee.”
Herron said he sat in on candidate interviews in June, “and literally I was just stunned at the high quality, the kind of leadership that made me feel as a CBFer that we are in good hands.”
Herron encouraged discretion as the search process enters its final stages.
“Likely you are the vortex of people who are asking, ‘What do you know? What are the rumors? Who are they talking to?’” he said.
“Some of that is quite natural,” he said. “Some of it is not helpful.
“Help us stay healthy and whole in this process as we move forward.”