July 14, 1999
Gary Baldridge named
to interim CBF position
___ATLANTA--Gary Baldridge, a native Texan and 20-year veteran of Baptist missions, has been named interim global missions coordinator for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, effective July 1.
___Baldridge is administering the Fellowship's missions program until a successor is found for Keith Parks, who retired June 30 and is moving to Richardson.
BALDRIDGE
___The Fellowship's global missions coordinator search committee had hoped to recommend a candidate to the CBF Coordinating Council at the Fellowship's general assembly in Birmingham this summer, but committee members announced June 21 they were "disappointed but not discouraged" that they must delay their recommendation.
___"All along, our focus has been on finding the right person for this critical leadership position rather than committing ourselves to a specific deadline," the committee said in a statement.
___Baldridge, 47, joined the Fellowship's global missions staff in 1996 as associate coordinator for career personnel, with responsibility for long-term missionary selection, pastoral care of missionaries and issues related to World A, the one-quarter of the globe with little or no access to the gospel.
___"CBF's global missions team will participate in some critical decisions this autumn and launch some important strategic initiatives," Baldridge said. "We all intend to move forward without hesitation while at the same time looking foward to a new global missions coordinator's election later this year."
___Baldridge and his wife, Barbara, both Houston natives, spent 17 years as Southern Baptist Convention missionaries before resigning from the Foreign Mission Board in 1994.
___He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Barbara Brinkley Baldridge is a graduate of Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos.
___Baldridge recently wrote a biography of Parks, which was published by Smyth & Helwys Publishers and presented at the Fellowship's general assembly.
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