DALLAS (ABP) — Whatever the outcome, the 2007 presidential race in the Baptist General Convention of Texas will be historic: Texas Baptists will either elect their first female president or choose their first president in more than 20 years not endorsed by Texas Baptists Committed.
Joy Fenner, the convention's current first vice president and executive director emeritus of Texas Woman's Missionary Union, and David Lowrie, pastor of First Baptist Church in Canyon, Texas, will be nominated for the BGCT's highest office.
Since 2004, BGCT presidents have served one term, and the first vice presidents have succeeded them. In that span, the convention has made history by electing its first Hispanic and African-American presidents. And, for more than two decades, Texas Baptists Committed, a grass-roots moderate group, has endorsed the winning presidential candidates; this year it is endorsing Fenner.
Lowrie said his candidacy is about opening up the BGCT election process. “I can assure you this [nomination] has nothing to do with Joy Fenner,” Lowrie said. “We're not running against a woman president.”
Bill Wright, pastor of First Baptist Church in Plains, Texas, said he will nominate Lowrie because of Lowrie's vision, acceptance of all Baptists, leadership style and experience as a pastor.
Both Canyon and Plains are in the Texas Panhandle, as is Amarillo, site of the Oct. 29-30 BGCT meeting.
Steve Wells, pastor of South Main Baptist Church in Houston, will nominate Fenner. He said the BGCT has been served well in recent years by electing presidents who reflect the convention's diversity — an agency president, a Hispanic, an African-American and the pastor of a small-town West Texas church. “But so far, we have neglected more than 50 percent of our state,” he said, referring to Fenner's gender.
Wells said Fenner's background as a missionary and executive director of a missions education organization make her “imminently qualified” for the presidency, he said.
Fenner led Woman's Missionary Union of Texas from 1981 to 2001. Previously, she and her husband, Charlie, were Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board missionaries to Japan from 1967 through 1980. She was the BGCT's second vice president in 2000-01.
Lowrie graduated from Baylor University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He received a doctorate from Bethel University.
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