Baptist Briefs: Another candidate joins SBC 2nd VP race

Another candidate joins SBC 2nd VP race. Doug Mulkey, pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Canton, Ga., will be nominated for second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Wyman Richardson, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dawson, Ga., said he will nominate Mulkey for the post during the SBC’s June 10-11 meeting in Indianapolis. Mulkey has served the Canton congregation for 19 years, the longest tenure of any pastor in the church’s 178-year history. Mulkey previously was pastor of a church for two years while he was a student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. He and his wife, Terry, have three children and two grandchildren. Mulkey is the fourth announced nominee for SBC second vice president this year. The other announced nominees are Jim Hamilton, executive director-treasurer of the Dakota Baptist Convention; Brian Fossett, vocational evangelist from Dalton, Ga.; and John Newland, pastor of Fall Creek Baptist Church in Indianapolis.

NAMB trustees consider evangelism initiative. Trustees of the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board heard plans for a new national evangelism initiative and elected Tim Patterson, pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., as their new chairman during a recent meeting in Portsmouth, Va. Geoff Hammond, elected one year ago as NAMB president, presented the “God’s Plan for Sharing” evangelism initiative, developed in consultation with SBC President Frank Page and several evangelism leaders from state Baptist conventions. “Our dream is to see every Southern Baptist believer sharing the gospel and every person in North America hearing it by 2020,” Hammond said. “Why would we want anything less?”

New online retirement tools launched. GuideStone Financial Resources has launched its new “Preparing for Retirement” webpage to assist participants with their planning needs. The new webpage at www.GuideStone.org/pfr provides comprehensive education and other resources related to decisions leading up to retirement. The website includes modules about various factors affecting retirement and workbooks for retirement planning.

Global warming? Not according to Southern Baptist pastors. Most Southern Baptist pastors hold different views on global warming than average Americans, according to a recent study on national issues by LifeWay Research. A majority of pastors in Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated churches believe the media has overstated the threat of global warming. When asked whether they believe the media has overstated the threat of global warming, 86 percent of Southern Baptist pastors responded in the affirmative. An additional study of 1,201 Americans showed divergent views with Southern Baptist pastors. A representative sample of Americans appeared more convinced than Southern Baptist pastors that humans play a role in global warming, with 77 percent agreeing that the earth is warming and that humans contribute to that warming to some degree, while 36 percent of Southern Baptist pastors agreed with the same statement.