Baptist Briefs: Ghana Baptists induct new president

Ghana Baptists induct executive president. Baptists in Ghana inducted a pastor as their first executive president, the culmination of a five-year process of reorganizing the convention in the West African country. Ernest Adu-Gyamfi, for 25 years senior pastor of Charismatic Baptist Church in Accra, the capital, was inducted as the Ghana Baptist Convention’s top elected leader in a Feb. 1 ceremony. He was elected in November during the convention’s 50th annual session. Adu-Gyamfi holds a master of divinity degree in Christian education from Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond and currently is pursuing a doctor of ministry degree there, concentrating on justice and peace building. The convention’s reorganization eliminated the offices of president and general secretary, combining them in an executive president, and created several vice presidential positions. The Ghana Baptist Convention has about 1,680 churches with about 134,000 members, according to the Baptist World Alliance.

Missouri mediation fails. Attempted mediation of a 12-year-old legal battle pitting the Missouri Baptist Convention against four breakaway agencies failed to produce an agreement. Convention leaders met with representatives of the Missouri Baptist Foundation, The Baptist Home, Missouri Baptist University and Windermere Baptist Conference Center Jan. 14-16 and again Jan. 29, according to statements released through The Pathway newspaper. Messengers to the Missouri Baptist Convention annual meeting voted in November to authorize a mediation attempt requested by the convention’s insurance carrier. Although Missouri Baptist officials characterized the discussions as “civil and conducted in a spirit of openness,” participants reached no agreement. So, the courts must clarify corporate relationship between the Missouri Baptist Convention and the Missouri Baptist Foundation, The Baptist Home, Missouri Baptist University and Windermere. The convention originally filed lawsuits Aug. 13, 2002, against five institutions that changed their governing documents so the convention no longer could elect their boards of trustees but dropped the complaint against the newspaper Word & Way in 2010.