Baptist Briefs
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Wheeler to lead church-starting center. Texas native David Wheeler has been named director of a new church-starting center at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The Nehemiah Project will be jointly operated with the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board, with similar centers on the campuses of all six SBC seminaries. Wheeler, a former pastor in Texas and Tennessee, has been director of evangelism and prayer for the State Convention of Baptists in Indiana since 1993.
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_ Foster leaves Illinois paper. Dallas native Ferrell Foster has announced his resignation from the Illinois Baptist, news journal of the Illinois Baptist State Association, where he has worked 12 years, the last three as editor. Foster, 43, said there were "many factors" in his decision to step down effective May 31, "but ultimately I just believed it was what God wanted me to do." Foster is the third program-staff member, along with three secretaries, to resign or retire since implementation of a new staff structure in the state convention four months ago.
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__ Historic church leaves SBC. First Baptist Church of Greenville, S.C., voted May 2 to sever ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, a denomination it helped found in 1845. The 168-year-old congregation voted 500-47 to "voluntarily and deliberately discontinue our affiliation" with the SBC, following about a dozen moderate churches that have taken similar steps since the SBC has taken a more decidedly conservative focus in recent years. SBC spokesman Herb Hollinger in Nashville said he wasn't surprised by the vote. "The ones that are leaving are the ones we thought were going to leave anyway," he said.
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_ Moran nominated to Executive Committee. Missouri Baptist layman Roger Moran, whose writings and videotaped lectures critical of Texas Baptist leadership and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship leadership have been widely circulated in Texas and elsewhere, has been nominated to serve on the powerful Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. Moran, a member of First Baptist Church of O'Fallon, Mo., was nominated for the four-year term by the SBC committee on nominations.
___ Jackson to lead resolutions. Al Jackson, pastor of Lakeview Baptist Church in Auburn, Ala., has been named chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention's resolutions committee for this year's annual meeting in Atlanta. He was named by SBC President Paige Patterson.
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