By Robert Dilday
Rob McCleland has resigned as executive director and CEO of the 400-church North American Baptist Conference to become executive of an Atlanta-based Christian leadership training organization.
McCleland, who had led the 74,000-member NAB since 2007, will assume his new role with EQUIP Leadership Inc. on Feb. 15.
“It has been a great privilege to lead the North American Baptist Conference for more than six years,” McCleland said in a press release. “My greatest energies have focused on being a leader of leaders and bringing significant and necessary changes to a wonderful conference of churches.”
The NAB, headquartered in Folsom, Calif., was founded in the mid-19th century by German immigrants in the United States. With about 74,000 members in the U.S. and Canada, it maintains seminaries in Sioux Falls, S.D., and Edmonton, Alberta, and missionaries in a half dozen countries.
It is a member of the Baptist World Alliance and is one of 26 organizations affiliated with the North American Baptist Fellowship, a BWA regional fellowship. McCleland currently is a vice president of the North American Baptist Fellowship.
EQUIP Leadership was founded by John and Larry Maxwell in 1996.