February 17, 1999
Parks coming home to Texas
for second retirement
___By Robert O'Brien
___Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
___ATLANTA--Keith Parks learned how to ride and to "shoot straight" with people on a ranch in Texas.
___Now the cowhand-turned missionary-turned missions leader is "riding off into the sunset" and back to Texas after a 45-year journey over the exciting but often treacherousBaptist missions trail.
COMMISSIONING MISSIONARIES with a personal touch has been one of the hallmarks of Keith Parks' career as a Baptist missions administrator, as shown in this file photo. Through the years, Parks developed a reputation as a compelling preacher of missions commitment sermons and a compassionate frirend to missionaries on the field.
___Thirty-eight years at the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board ended in 1992 when, amid massive denominational changes, he retired early after 12 years as president. He later signed on as the first global missions coordinator for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
___The impact of Parks' ministry will be felt long after he ends his second career in June, at age 71, and moves to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
___Some missiologists believe his greatest contribution has been the adamant conviction that more resources should be directed to "World A"--the one-fourth of the world's population with little or no access to the gospel.
___"Keith championed deployment of specially trained missionaries to reach closed or restricted access countries when others opposed it," said Gary Baldridge, CBF's associate missions coordinator, who also worked with Parks at the Foreign Mission Board.
___"By the time he left the FMB, at least 100 unreached people groups, with more than 1 million members each, had multiple advocates to share the gospel after years of neglect."
___Reaching the hard-to-reach continued as Parks' theme in launching CBF's global missions program. The organization of Baptist moderates has focused its missionary resources almost exclusively on unreached people groups rather than duplicating work already being done by the Southern Baptist Convention or other evangelical Christians.
___CBF colleagues say Parks has more energy--even at 71--than people half his age. He can work long hours and spend long days on the road while maintaining a sense of humor, an open mind, a deep sense of integrity and innovative ideas that he encourages in others.
___"Though many missionaries are new to cross-cultural ministry, they've come with old ideas about missions," explained missionary "T" Thomas. "Keith has been the young one in his thinking and has led veteran and debutante missionaries in innovative ways of thinking and ministering."
___Thomas and his wife, Kathie, recalled the days after they had resigned as SBC missionaries and, with a handful of others, were struggling to envision a CBF global missions strategy.
___"CBF brought Keith on board, and within six years we had a respected global missions organization" that his very presence infused with prestige and influence far beyond its years and numbers, Thomas said.
___Throughout his career, Parks has been known for leadership and preaching that helped people profess faith in Christ and respond to missions needs.
___CBF Coordinator Daniel Vestal said the first time he heard Parks preach was a turning point in his life. "It awakened in me a missions consciousness that has been a central part of my ministry," Vestal said.
___But another Baptist, caught up in the denominational controversy that led Parks to resign as FMB president, heard him preach at a missionary appointment service and exclaimed: "I don't understand how a man can preach like that and not agree with us!"
___Parks has not lived out his missions career in the clear-cut world of black and white. He has made his mark as a man who sifts through gray areas, thinks through complexities and unravels ambiguities.
___"Keith will admit when he's wrong, a rare commodity these days, and he's one of the best thinkers and missiologists I ever worked with," said Sam Pittman, retired executive director of public affairs with the SBC Foreign Mission Board.
___Parks' reputation for honesty and spiritual leadership began in his Texas home, family members said.
___When Parks was 6, doctors in Memphis, Texas, told his parents that their son, stricken with rheumatic fever, wouldn't live beyond age 13. Bob and Allie Parks didn't burden their son with that information, but they knelt by his bed and prayed, "Lord, if you will spare him, we'll do all we can to prepare him to serve you."
___God did what they asked, and they did what they promised. Parks responded to God's call to ministry as a senior in high school and was overwhelmed when his sister told him of his parents' prayer.
___Bob Parks, who raised and traded cattle in Texas and Arkansas, bears the responsibility for his son's rock-like commitment to "shoot straight" with truth and integrity.
___"Daddy wanted to show people that an honest man could out-trade the shysters in the business," said Keith Parks. "Daddy was known for his integrity. If a man died and left a widow with cattle, she would call Bob Parks and say, 'I know I can trust you to sell these for me.'"
___A self-described "missions illiterate" in his younger years, Parks didn't consider missions until he was a Texas Baptist Student Union summer missionary to the island of San Andreas and saw many people respond to Jesus Christ.
___"I came back wanting to be a missionary but feeling that I could never qualify to join that holy band," he said.
___But the missions call came anyway--at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, where he met his wife, Helen Jean Bond, and earned a doctorate in theology.
___"Most classes had a missions tone, and missions seemed to permeate the entire school," Parks recalled.
___ "I came to realize that it was grace that had saved me, and it was grace that would qualify me for missions."
___He responded to the call as Jack McGorman, then professor of New Testament, preached about the needs of a lost world.
___This passion for missions was imparted to the Parkses' own children.
___"God led us into ministry," explained Stan Parks, one of four children born to Keith and Helen Jean.
___ "But it didn't hurt that Dad was such an excellent role model, selling missions at home as well as in public."
___Stan and his brother, Kent, are CBF international coordinators in Asia. The Parkses' oldest son, Randall, was a missionary to Egypt and now works as an international development and management consultant there. Eloise, the couple's only daughter, is a chaplain at Parkland Hospital in Dallas.
___Frontpage / Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!