FORT WORTH (BP)—Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s trustees voted to uphold the trustee executive committee’s decision in May to terminate former president Paige Patterson.

Trustees revisited Patterson’s termination at their Oct. 15-17 meeting based on a motion, referred to Southwestern by the Southern Baptist Convention in June, “that the whole board of trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary consider revisiting their original decision concerning Dr. Paige Patterson.”

The board also heard a report from its presidential search committee and affirmed an administration decision to discipline a faculty member—although the faculty member was not named during the board’s one public session.

“I was deeply worried about this meeting,” said trustee Bart Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church in Farmersville, adding he “forbade” his wife and children from attending. “I should have brought them, not only because it wasn’t bad, but because it was good.”

Trustees convened for committee meetings and informal “working sessions” Oct. 16-17 that were closed to the public before holding one public, 45-minute general session Oct. 17, in which they voted without discussion on the matters considered in private sessions.

A 10-percent difference

New Mexico trustee Jonathan Richard moved that the full board ratify “the executive committee actions since the last full board meeting.” The executive committee’s actions included terminating Patterson May 30 after the full board had moved him to president emeritus status a week earlier.

The 34 trustees present at the Oct. 17 general session adopted Richard’s motion on a voice vote with no more than four negative votes.

Following the general session, Barber and South Carolina trustee Wayne Dickard discussed the vote in an interview approved by the board. Barber, a trustee executive committee member, voted for ratifying the committee’s actions. Dickard, not an executive committee member, voted against it.

Dickard said he was “sad” at Patterson’s departure, and Barber fought back tears as he discussed it.

“We’re all Christians, and we’re not angry with each other,” said Dickard, an evangelist and retired pastor. “We differ greatly. Bart and I voted in different directions on a number of different issues. That doesn’t make him my enemy.”

Dickard believes the “process” and the “result” of the executive committee’s dealings with Patterson were flawed, including the committee’s decision during a series of meetings in April and May to waive a requirement of Southwestern’s bylaws that 10-days’ notice be given for all executive committee meetings.

He also believes the executive committee violated a requirement of Robert’s Rules of Order that a committee not “pass motions that conflict with the full board.”

Barber said waiver of notice requirements for meetings is “common practice” for boards and that Patterson skipped “numerous” meetings of the executive committee in April and May where “matters of great significance were discussed,” although he could have attended. Then Patterson declined a formal request that he attend an executive committee meeting, Barber said.

Ultimately the relationship between Patterson and the board became unworkable, in Barber’s view. However, Barber noted “people ought to listen” to Dickard’s concerns as they evaluate whether circumstances “were extenuating enough to justify” the executive committee’s departure from standard operating procedures.

One reason to move forward, Dickard said, is that Patterson “didn’t have the votes on the board to remain here. … In May, I thought he had those votes, and the first vote that was taken in the May 22-23 meeting; he did have them. But today he doesn’t have the votes on the board to still be president.”

Barber said it’s difficult to state one main reason Patterson departed because “we have a 40-member board” and “there are at least 40 answers to the question of why.”

Trustees who vote differently “may agree on 90 percent of what we talked about, but there’s a 10-percent difference that nudges me onto one side of the line and nudges him onto the other,” Barber said.

Trustee chairman Kevin Ueckert said: “We had things to discuss that were difficult and challenging. Everybody experienced a great deal of encouragement because of our common belief that God is leading us forward as a seminary around our core mission.”

In other business

Before the board heard a report from its presidential search committee, trustees voted without opposition to “ratify and affirm” Ueckert’s appointment of the committee and “pledge support and prayer.”

Trustees laid hands on the search committee and spent nearly 10 minutes praying for them.

Danny Roberts, chair of the search committee, reported the committee received “dozens of recommendations” during its initial period for receiving public input. The committee is working through those recommendations and will reopen the opportunity for public input if “we go through the process and we sense God’s man” is not among the initial set of individuals recommended.

“We have made great progress,” Roberts said. “We feel very, very encouraged, and we are firmly convinced the Lord’s going to lead us directly to the man that he has already called. Please continue to pray for us.”

In the only other business matter on which the vote was divided, trustees adopted a motion “to sustain the action of the administration” on a “faculty disciplinary matter.” The faculty member in question was not named, and there seemed to be three or four negative votes on a voice vote.

Interim Southwestern President Jeffrey Bingham described the trustee meeting as “three days of renewal, three days of refreshment, three days of amazing, God-given unity.”

Response around campus

Outside the meeting, students and faculty said the seminary community has exhibited a range of emotions since Patterson’s departure, with some feeling trustees made the right move, others experiencing deep grief and others somewhere in between.

“Overall, the school is still functioning very smoothly,” said Kara Goff, a Bachelor of Music degree student. “I was expecting the transition to be a little more bumpy. I was expecting a little more tension between different groups on campus.”

Despite “some areas of hurt,” Jesus “has been kept the center of attention,” Goff said, noting students and faculty have gathered to pray for the transition at least three or four times this semester.

Goff’s sister Meredith, a Bachelor of Biblical Studies degree student, said students have expressed “minor anxiety as they’re thinking through and praying about who the next leader needs to be.”

Rickesh Patel, a Master of Theology degree graduate who has been accepted into the Ph.D. program, said the “few” changes on campus this fall have been mostly “small.” Still, students by and large are not “100 percent” clear about why Patterson was terminated.

Song Lianmang, a Master of Divinity degree student, said the transition “has left more questions in one way or the other. The information we know usually comes from press releases the trustees have given out. People are … shocked.”

Amid the transition, Patel said, Bingham “is a humble leader who’s helped the seminary through this new semester. The goal of Southwestern still remains the same: to train men and women in their calling.”

The mood on campus, said theology professor Malcolm Yarnell, “is one of sorrow yet anticipation.”

“Nobody on this campus is pleased with how events transpired earlier this year, but every constituency—students, staff, faculty, alumni, trustees, donors, friends—has expressed excitement for the future,” Yarnell said. “We repent with mourning, but we rejoice with providence, for we sense God is guiding our community toward a future characterized by servanthood, humility, freedom, excellence and loyalty to Jesus.”

NASHVILLE (BP)—The LifeWay Christian Resources presidential search committee is accepting nominations for a successor to Thom Rainer.

The search committee met Sept. 24 to develop a process for their search of the new LifeWay president and CEO, Chairman Kent Dacus announced.

The committee, which is accepting nominations at LifeWayCEO@carterbaldwin.com, will work with the executive search firm CarterBaldwin to identify potential candidates.

Dacus asked Southern Baptists to continue to pray for the committee as members seek God’s guidance in choosing LifeWay’s next leader.

“We do not take our task lightly,” Dacus said. “It is a tremendous responsibility God and the trustee board have placed on the search committee.

“We are seeking God’s wisdom and direction as we look for an individual who will lead LifeWay into the future. We would ask Southern Baptists to pray for the committee as well as for the individual whom God has prepared to lead LifeWay.”

On Aug. 27, LifeWay President and CEO Thom S. Rainer announced his plans to retire in the coming year after 13 years in leading the Southern Baptist Convention entity. A seven-person search committee was named to find LifeWay’s next leader during the trustees’ Aug. 27-28 meeting in Nashville.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (RNS)—Paige Patterson, ousted as seminary president in Fort Worth for allegedly dismissing women’s concerns about domestic abuse and rape, will teach a Christian ethics course at the Charlotte, N.C., seminary where Richard Land, former leader of the Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics agency, is president.

Patterson was removed in May from his position as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary after reports that he mishandled rape allegations by students. His lawyer has rebutted those claims.

Patterson plans to co-teach a mid-October weeklong class on “Christian Ethics: The Bible and Moral Issues” with Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary, a school not affiliated with the SBC.

“Dr. Patterson’s one of the most significant figures in evangelicalism in the last 20 years, at least, of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st century,” Land told Religion News Service. “And we believe that there are a lot of people who would like to hear from him about living the Christian life in America. I believe he’s an asset to evangelicalism, and we’re looking forward to it.”

Longtime friends

Land first met Patterson when Land was a student at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and soon became a staff evangelist at the church in the city where Patterson was pastor. Patterson and Paul Pressler, a former judge and prominent Southern Baptist layman who has been the target of sexual abuse allegations, which he denies, both were groomsmen at Land’s wedding.

In the 1980s, Patterson and Pressler together led the denomination’s conservative turn, creating a resurgence—critics called it a fundamentalist takeover—from what they saw as a liberal drift. Land was among those who hailed the move that led to more conservative leadership across the SBC’s seminaries and agencies.

Land has not escaped controversy himself. In 2012, he was the subject of an ethics probe that resulted in his receiving a reprimand for racially charged words on his former radio show and for quoting material without attribution. He retired early as the leader of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission when he took the helm of the seminary now housed on a two-building campus in Charlotte.

Since his departure from Southwestern Seminary, Patterson has been busy with speaking engagements, according to Scott Colter, a spokesperson.

“Dr. Patterson continues to receive frequent speaking invitations both domestically and internationally,” Colter told RNS. “Encouraging God’s people and sharing the saving message of Christ remains his top priority in every engagement. His calendar is quite full in the months ahead, and he is currently booking into late 2019.”

‘Unfit to educate others on … ethics and morality’

This latest juncture in Patterson and Land’s friendship was greeted with disappointment by leaders of the “Such a Time As This Rally,” a protest held outside the SBC meeting in Dallas in June that has continued as a movement urging greater awareness of sexual abuse among pastors and seminarians.

“Paige Patterson has proved time and time again that he is unfit to educate others on topics of ethics and morality,” said Ashley Easter, spokesperson for the rally. “Anyone who invites him to speak on these topics is guilty of the same hypocrisy as Patterson himself.”

Karen Swallow Prior, an English professor at Liberty University who helped draft a May letter from thousands of Southern Baptist women to Southwestern Seminary’s trustees questioning Patterson’s leadership, said she hopes the course will include the perspectives of evangelical women.

“I strongly and sincerely encourage them to invite women who have been subject to ethical failures within the evangelical church to come and share their experiences with the students,” Prior said. “Doing this would be a great step forward in advancing these important conversations, particularly around sexual ethics.”

Land said the seminary, whose students mostly take classes online, had an overall enrollment of 210 for the fall semester as of Oct. 1.

Asked about those who may disagree with him on the appropriateness of an ethics course being taught by Patterson or him, Land said: “No one’s forcing them to take the class.”

NEW ORLEANS (BP)—New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary President Chuck Kelley announced his plan to retire at the end of the current academic year during Founders’ Day chapel Oct. 2.

Kelley will continue to lead the seminary through July 31, 2019.

“This is the biggest decision of my life in a lot of ways,” Kelley said in an interview. “I have been a part of almost half of the 100-year existence of NOBTS. It is very much the fabric of my whole life, and it has been a joyful, wondrous journey.

“This is a happy decision for us. We have served the seminary in a variety of ways and are thrilled to do so now in a completely different way.”

The public announcement came during Kelley’s Founders’ Day presentation called “A Walk through the Presidents.” During the chapel service, Kelley noted the highlights of the seven other presidents who have served since the seminary launched 100 years ago. He concluded with the story of his presidency and the announcement about his future.

After much prayer and several years of planning, Kelley said the conclusion of the centennial celebration offered a great opportunity to announce the transition. He expressed his desire to see new leadership in place that will set the course for the next era of ministry.

“As I look back at how intertwined my life has been with nearly half of the first century of the school, it seems appropriate to let the next leader start fresh with the second century” of the seminary’s history, he said.

Kelley notified trustee chairman Frank Cox, senior pastor of North Metro Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga., of his retirement plans in a written statement on Sept. 24. Shortly before the chapel service, Kelley announced his plans to the executive committee of the NOBTS trustee board who were on campus for their regular fall meeting.

“Dr. Kelley has been committed to training and equipping young ministerial students all of his life, first as a professor of evangelism and then serving as the longest-tenured president of our institution. We applaud him,” Cox said on behalf of the board. “I think the future is bright for him and (his wife) Rhonda, and the future is bright for our seminary.”

Cox praised Kelley’s leadership following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the school faced its greatest challenge. Although enrollment declined in the initial aftermath of the hurricane, it rebounded to reach an all-time high enrollment of 3,955 students in 2015.

The board has great appreciation for Kelley’s accomplishments at NOBTS, his commitment to evangelism, and for the many contributions he and his wife Rhonda made to the Southern Baptist Convention as a whole, Cox said.

The trustees will enact the seminary’s presidential search protocol during their fall meeting Oct. 3. The seminary bylaws call for Cox to appoint a committee with 11 voting members—including the board chairman, the immediate past chairman, one faculty member, one student, and seven other board members.

“By making the announcement now the trustees have a reasonable chance to have someone in place by the start of the next academic year,” Kelley said.

The seminary’s board of trustees unanimously elected Kelley as the school’s eighth president in 1996 following a 20-year tenure by Landrum Leavell. A professor of evangelism at New Orleans since August 1983, Kelley assumed the office of president March 1, 1996.

LAS VEGAS (BP)—When Pastor Brett Capaci spoke to his congregation about a mass shooting that stunned his city one year ago, he likened it to a terroristic “9/11 moment” for Las Vegas—and he even evoked the tears Jesus shed at Lazarus’ grave in Bethany 2,000 years earlier.

“Our city in large measure fell into deep sadness, disappointment, disillusionment. … It was a 9/11 moment,” Capaci said, recalling the day Stephen Paddock stood in an upper window of the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino and began firing a gun that could spew hundreds of rounds a minute, killing 58 and injuring about 500 at an outdoor concert.

Instead of questioning Jesus’ presence in his city’s tragedy, as sisters Mary and Martha did in the biblical account of Lazarus’ death, Capaci encouraged Shadow Hills Baptist Church to draw deeper into their faith.

“Disappointments in life can cause us to press deeper into our faith, not to lose faith and not to isolate our disappointments from our faith, but literally to go deeper into who God is,” Capaci said in his Sept. 30 sermon.

‘Jesus is the ultimate answer’

Another Las Vegas pastor, Vance Pitman, said he believes Jesus is the answer to the lingering questions and pain many still feel a year after hundreds of wounded concertgoers were transported to Las Vegas hospitals, and perhaps hundreds of first responders were called into action.

“We want to try and be involved in the community so that we can have conversations with people that would lead them to Jesus, because we think that Jesus is the ultimate answer to all of the questions that they have,” said Pitman, pastor of Hope Church, in an interview on the anniversary of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

“We think it’s important to serve our city and serve our community, and share the love of Jesus with them, especially in times of crisis like this.”

The Sept. 30 worship service at Hope Church included prayers for first responders who shared the platform, along with the presentation of a $25,000 gift to Sunrise Hospital to remodel a lounge that serves emergency personnel to demonstrate the church’s love and support. The money is what remains of a special fund the church created that has already given $25,000 to help community members affected by the shooting.

The church’s grief counseling has led to professions of faith and salvation among a few medical personnel, Pitman said.

“They’ve come to know the Lord and gotten baptized in our fellowship,” he said in an interview.

The shooting personally affected Hope Church, Pitman said.

“We had some that were shot and wounded. We had some of the police officers that were first on the scene,” he said. “One of the officers that interviewed every victim in the hospital was in our church.”

Remembrance important part of healing

The worship services at Shadow Hills and Hope Church were two among many across the city that included remembrance of the shooting. A sunrise gathering at the Clark County Government Amphitheater included 58 seconds of silence and the release of 58 doves. A City Hall prayer meeting and an evening service at the downtown Community Healing Garden built after the tragedy were among many community events including a 5K run.

Remembrance is important to healing and looking forward, said Capaci, who addressed the anniversary in all of his four weekend worship services. He asked members to wear black and gold, the colors of the Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey team, in support of the city. Several Shadow Hills members were affected by the tragedy, both physically and emotionally.

“Remembering and memorializing this tragic event was important in order to bless the community by taking an active role in the healing process of all those directly or indirectly affected,” Capaci said. “Taking time to remember also provides the church an opportunity to honor and show gratitude toward our city’s first responders who constantly serve us on the front lines.”

Pitman believes the tragedy has strengthened the city and made it a more cohesive community.

“October 1 changed Las Vegas,” Pitman said. “Las Vegas went from being a community of transients to a united city of people that have come together as a real vibrant community. The (Twitter) hashtag originally was Vegas Strong. The one that’s going around today is Vegas Stronger.”

In addition to 58 deaths, the FBI put the official number of individuals wounded by gunshots at 489. Hundreds of others were injured by trampling as crowds fled the scene.

No motive for the shooting ever was uncovered. Paddock shot and killed himself as police approached his hotel room. His estate of nearly $1.4 million will be given to victims, the Associated Press reported Sept. 29.

NASHVILLE (BP)—Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear’s sexual abuse advisory study is “actively involved” in the first phase of its two-year process, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission announced Sept. 19 following appropriation of $250,000 for the study by the SBC Executive Committee.

Greear announced in late July he would form a working study group, in partnership with the ERLC, to “consider how Southern Baptists at every level can take discernable action to respond swiftly and compassionately to incidents of abuse, as well as to foster safe environments within churches and institutions.”

The study will receive the first $250,000 of any money received beyond the 2017-18 Cooperative Program Allocation Budget, the Executive Committee voted. Expenditures for the study will be administered by the ERLC and reimbursed quarterly by the Executive Committee.

The budgeted goal of $192 million for the SBC portion of the Cooperative Program allocation budget was surpassed Sept. 21, said Bill Townes, vice president for convention finance.

“It was a joy to see on display this week at Executive Committee meetings such generosity and unity in mission,” ERLC President Russell Moore. “I am deeply thankful that the SBC Executive Committee showed their commitment to the sexual abuse advisory study by providing these resources.

“Southern Baptists have made it clear that we must address this crisis with the gospel and for the sake of the gospel. And these funds will make it possible for this study group to provide the very best resources and recommendations possible for our churches. I’m thankful for the opportunity to partner with this study group in order to serve our churches every way possible.”

Assessment, development, implementation

ERLC Executive Vice President Phillip Bethancourt wrote in a Sept. 19 update on the ERLC website: “The study group is already actively involved in the assessment phase. The purpose of this phase is to review existing organizations, strategies, experts, and resources in order to better understand the landscape of needs and opportunities when it comes to sexual abuse.”

Next, during the “development phase,” the study group will “develop recommendations, resources, strategies, and partnerships that will address the needs and opportunities that have been identified.”

Then an “implementation phase” will “launch a wide-scale, comprehensive effort to educate, saturate, and motivate Southern Baptist churches, entities, and leaders to embrace and incorporate the recommendations and findings of the study group,” Bethancourt wrote.

Unlike previous task forces in SBC life, the Sexual Abuse Advisory Study will not be limited to one “representative group of leaders and experts,” Bethancourt wrote. Rather, the study will comprise “a constellation of various work groups specializing in particular areas like orbits in a solar system. As the study group progresses, various orbits will be identified and addressed such as resources, church-based strategies, seminary and higher education, state convention and association initiatives, and more.”

One “orbit” in the study, Bethancourt wrote, will involve “a collaborative effort among the (six SBC) seminaries in order to identify common principles and outcomes that can be appropriately implemented in each unique seminary context.”

August Boto, interim president of the SBC Executive Committee, thanked Cooperative Program-funded convention entities for sacrificing funds for the study and others for “offering to contribute needed support and resources.”

“Of course, behind the national ministry demonstration of willingness is the fact that the funding originates at the local church level where believers contribute their tithes and offerings, and then vote to support ministry through the Cooperative Program,” Boto said in written comments. “In other words, this effort is truly one supported by all Southern Baptists.

“Joining together sacrificially, collaboratively and voluntarily to address evil, human failure and the consequences of sin is a Southern Baptist characteristic,” Boto said. “More importantly, it is biblical (as passages such as Matthew 22:36-40 and John 4:23-24 indicate) and as ‘people of the Book,’ Southern Baptists can do no less.”

Questions, comments and suggestions regarding the study can be emailed to studygroup@erlc.com.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (BP)—WorldCrafts, the fair trade division of Woman’s Missionary Union, has launched a new initiative to benefit the work of Lifeline Children’s Services and families adopting domestically or internationally through Lifeline.

Meanwhile, WorldCrafts is continuing its benefit initiative through the Baptist Coalition for Children and Families’ connection with children’s home ministries in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina.

Each of the participating organizations benefits from the sale of handcrafted items ranging from jewelry and accessories to home décor and Christmas-themed craft items to support more than 2,000 artisans and their families around the world.

Any individual or church can host an online WorldCrafts benefit for Lifeline, for families adopting through Lifeline, or for one of the participating Baptist children’s home ministries.

Each benefit lasts one month, and at the end of the month, 20 percent of all sales generated by the benefit will go directly to the host’s selected beneficiary.

To begin the process of hosting a benefit, a prospective host or church simply completes an online registration form. Upon receipt of the form, WorldCrafts will create a unique promotion kit for the host including a webpage, promotion code, media slides and sliders, social media images and a bulletin insert.

Lifeline supports families in their adoption journey, as “a way God gives families to vulnerable children who need to know the love of a family and the love of Christ,” according to the organization.

For families adopting through Lifeline, registration can be done online by completing a form to be entered into WorldCrafts’ system.

Upon receipt of the registration, WorldCrafts creates a webpage and promotional kit for the family. After a family is registered as a beneficiary, their family, friends, coworkers and churches can go to the family’s webpage and sign up to host benefits for their adoption.

Emily Swader, marketing strategist for WorldCrafts, said the WMU ministry “joins Lifeline in its dedication to the rescue and transformation of vulnerable children and families throughout the world.”

“WorldCrafts’ vision is to offer an income with dignity and the hope of everlasting life to every person on earth,” Swader said. “Coming alongside of and offering financial support to families pursuing adoption is a natural connection for us.”

WMU Executive Director Sandy Wisdom-Martin highlighted WorldCrafts’ initiative for Baptist children’s home ministries noting: “Many people have a desire to assist foster children but don’t know how or where to get started. This initiative through WorldCrafts can help create connections between churches and families and their local Baptist children and family ministry.”

Compiled by Baptist Press Senior Editor Art Toalston from reporting by the Woman’s Missionary Union communications staff.

DECATUR, Ga.—The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has asked to join litigation to defend regulation intended to restrict payday lending practices it considers predatory.

CBF is requesting “intervenor” status in a case filed by two payday lending industry associations challenging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule that will strengthen protections for consumers against predatory lending tactics.

The rule is currently set to be implemented by August 19, 2019. However, since the bureau released the rule last October, the agency has changed its approach to consumer protection, including a plan to reconsider the rule as written.

CBF has asked the court to allow it to step into the shoes of a defendant and take the litigation steps necessary to defend the CFPB’s rule against the industry associations’ claims. The Public Citizen Litigation Group and the Equal Justice Center will represent CBF pro bono.

Two industry associations, the Community Financial Services Association of America and the Consumer Service Alliance of Texas filed the case against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in an Austin federal court in April.

The associations claim, among other things, the bureau did not follow proper procedure in issuing the rule; that it improperly deemed certain lending practices unfair and abusive; that the agency’s authority to address unfair and abusive practices is unconstitutional; and that the agency’s structure is unconstitutional.

‘A matter of faith for us’

“Payday lending is an industry that relies on products designed to be most profitable when borrowers fail,” said Suzii Paynter, CBF executive coordinator. “CBF’s leadership among the religious community to oppose predatory lending is a matter of faith for us. We are called to bolster human dignity, not diminish it, and to support people created in the image of God, not undermine their flourishing.”

Stephen Reeves, associate coordinator of partnerships and advocacy, added: “Advocates in CBF life have worked for years against predatory lending practices, including support of the CFPB. It is wrong to take advantage of others when they’re desperate. This rule is the best hope we have right now to reform these practices nationwide. People of faith should do all we can to stop the abuse of our neighbors for profit. If the CFPB won’t defend its own work, we will.”

CBF Moderator Gary Dollar said the Fellowship’s governing board affirms the national role CBF is playing to stop predatory lending practices and the effort to seek intervenor status.

“I’m proud that the work of our churches, pastors, field personnel and advocates has resulted in this opportunity to intervene,” Dollar said. “We are motivated because of the harm these bad loans do to vulnerable people and communities. In this moment, our faith requires us to stand up and defend the rule created to protect families, even when others will not.”

‘This must change’

Scarlette Jasper, CBF field worker in McCreary and Pulaski counties and other parts of Kentucky, has been an advocate for her neighbors struggling to make ends meet for years. She provides group workshops and one-on-one financial education that focuses on budgeting and other sustainable financial management skills, and warns people about the pitfalls of payday loans, as part of CBF’s rural development coalition, Together for Hope. She also is developing a micro-loan program as an alternative for these families.

“Families need a place to go for financial assistance, but they do not need to be taken advantage of,” Jasper said. “These companies prey on the elderly, disabled, and the working poor. This must change, and with the support of CBF and others who speak out against lenders’ harmful practices, I pray that it will.”

Steven Porter, coordinator of CBF Global Missions, noted he “saw firsthand those victimized by predatory lending” when he was a CBF field worker.

“The Bible condemns the exploitation of poor people,” he said, calling efforts to reform lending practices that target the poor “mission work that takes Jesus at his word.”

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RICHMOND, Va. (BP)—After David Platt resigned as president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, effective Sept. 27, the IMB trustees’ executive committee named Clyde Meador as interim president, subject to full board approval.

IMB trustees will meet Sept. 26-27 in Richmond, Va.

Platt has served as IMB president since Aug. 27, 2014. Since September of last year, he also has served as pastor/teacher of McLean Bible Church in metro Washington, D.C.

In February, Platt asked IMB trustees to begin searching for his successor. While requesting that the search for the mission board’s next president begin immediately, Platt stated his intention to continue serving as president during the search process.

“Recently, however, in light of trustee concerns about me serving as a pastor in a church while finishing my service as president of the IMB, trustee leaders asked me to consider stepping down from my position in the near future rather than waiting for my successor to be in place,” Platt said in a statement announcing his resignation.

“I want to honor the authority God has placed over me in every way I can, and I want to do whatever is best for the IMB,” he said.

‘Need for an organizational transition’

Platt served “with resolute steadfastness and has not wavered in his commitment to the Lord, to the IMB, staff, field personnel and Southern Baptists as a whole.” Board Chair Rick Dunbar said in a statement issued Sept. 14.

“Trustee officers recently discussed with David the possibility of the need for an organizational transition to an interim time as the presidential search continues,” said Dunbar, a member of First Baptist Church in Madison, Miss. “The board’s executive committee met, and after prayer and discussion decided to release David from his commitment to the IMB in order to allow him to focus full time on his new role in gospel ministry at McLean Bible Church, and for the IMB to move forward into a transition period.”

In his tenure as president, Platt “led in the global mission task with impeccable integrity, great wisdom, and a deep passion for God, the church and the lost,” Dunbar said. “He is one of the most gifted preachers of this generation.

“Because of his leadership, the IMB has been streamlined as an organization for greater effectiveness in the 21st century,” Dunbar added. “He has led the IMB to solid financial ground, and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering has been as strong as ever.”

Platt pledged his continued prayer support for the IMB and its work.

“As I give myself to global mission as pastor of a local church, I am praying continually for God’s grace in leading trustees to a good, godly leader for the future of the IMB,” Platt said. “Moreover, I am praying continually for God’s blessing on the incredible staff and missionaries of the IMB who comprise a passionate, potent force for the spread of his gospel and his glory among the nations. I am grateful to God, to these brothers and sisters, and to the churches of the SBC for the humbling privilege, pure joy, and undeserved honor of serving in this role over these years.”

After a year and a half in retirement, Meador returned to his current role as executive adviser to the president in January. In his 42 years of service with the IMB, Meador has worked closely with three presidents as an adviser and executive vice president, and he previously served as IMB’s interim president from August 2010 to March 2011.

He and his wife Elaine were appointed as missionaries to Indonesia in 1974. Their service also included leadership in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Central Asia before joining the IMB’s leadership team in Richmond in 2001.

“Clyde’s walk with the Lord, humility, wisdom, broad experience and steady leadership will prove valuable during the time of transition,” Dunbar said.

FORT WORTH (BP)—Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s presidential search committee formed an advisory committee of faculty, staff and students to support them in their work.

The committee will organize several prayer meetings and town hall meetings. At the town hall events, students, staff and faculty will be encouraged “to voice their opinions regarding what characteristics they would like to see in the institution’s next president,” a statement issued by the seminary said.

The first prayer meeting was held Sept. 12 on the Fort Worth campus. Other prayer meetings are scheduled Oct. 10 and Oct. 15.

Town hall meetings will begin Sept. 19, when students will meet in MacGorman Chapel, faculty in Draper Auditorium, and staff in Truett Auditorium. A joint town hall meeting is scheduled Sept. 26.

The nine-member presidential search committee was appointed by Southwestern trustee Chairman Kevin Ueckert and announced to the full board of trustees Aug. 23. The search committee held its first meeting Sept. 10-11, with a focus on prayer.

The committee is seeking a successor to former Southwestern President Paige Patterson.

Nominations and expressions of interest regarding the new president should be submitted to Danny Roberts, trustee presidential search committee chairman, at swbtspresidentialsearch@gmail.com.

TALLADEGA, Ala.—Launching a new era of leadership while celebrating 35 years of ministry, Baptist Nursing Fellowship elected Lori Spikes as the organization’s new executive director.

The fellowship elected Spikes, a longtime missionary to Chile with the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, during its annual meeting Sept. 7-9 at Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center.

Spikes is a registered nurse with 40 years of experience in a variety of settings. She currently is a volunteer triage nurse at Mission First, a primary care clinic for low-income, uninsured individuals and families in Jackson, Miss.

Baptist Nursing Fellowship, established in 1983 as a ministry partner with national Woman’s Missionary Union, provides continuing education, missions opportunities and fellowship for Baptist nurses serving in the United States and on mission fields around the world.

This year’s annual meeting, which highlighted the theme, “Glorifying God with Mind and Voice,” involved more than 50 participants from 16 states.

Missionary experience

Baptist Nursing Fellowship President Kaye Miller announced Spikes’ nomination as executive director, noting the group’s executive committee unanimously endorsed her. The committee had compiled a needs list, a want list and a dream list for determining the new leader, Miller added.

“On that dream list, there was one item, and it was ‘missionary,’” she noted.

Spikes, who holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Samford University, served as an IMB Journeyman nurse in Honduras from 1980 to 1982. She and her husband, Jim Spikes, served 20 years in Chile, where she was a parish nursing volunteer, coordinator of volunteer medical teams and administrative assistant.

They also served with the American Peoples Diaspora in Europe and Canada for five years before returning to the United States in 2015. She most recently served as chair of BNF’s resource development committee.

Miller described Spikes—who is bilingual in Spanish and English—as possessing skills in team leadership, budgeting and finance, verbal communications and global strategy experience.

“It’s been rather daunting to see what the task is ahead, but also knowing it is a God thing, God is going to provide what is necessary in all areas,” Spikes said.

Spikes added she views her new leadership role as “a way I can continue my missionary desire and experience to reach out to those in need and to encourage and help this group go forward.”

She said her goals for the organization include organizing and hosting annual international and stateside medical mission trips, as well as “reaching out to nursing students to give them that desire and dream that God has given them this gift of nursing to help their fellow man and to share the love of Jesus Christ.”

Citing the need to make more nurses and other healthcare professionals aware of the resources and benefits available through the Baptist Nursing Fellowship, Spikes said, “There are a lot of Christian nurses who could benefit from the fellowship and who could change their world where they live.”

Glorifying God

The three-day meeting included a Baptist Nursing Fellowship birthday party, as well as worship and Bible study sessions, missionary field reports, continuing education sessions and hands-on missions projects such as writing notes of encouragement to student nurses, prayer walking and assembling activity books for chemotherapy patients.

Wanda Lee, former president and retired executive director of National WMU, led Bible studies highlighting the meeting theme of glorifying God.

“Your life is a reflection of your thoughts,” Lee said. “What consumes your mind controls your life.”

Affirming that “our minds are wonderful gifts from God,” she added, “They can be used for much good. … We’re commanded to love God with all of our selves, including our minds. You make up your mind about what you believe and then you have to allow it to impact your life.”

Citing Philippians 4:7-8, she said, “The peace of God will guard our hearts and minds when we fill them with the things of Christ.”

Concerning glorifying God with one’s voice, Lee said, “What we allow our minds to dwell on ultimately comes out of our mouths. We are called to glorify God with one voice.”

Emphasizing the need for believers to seek common ground and glorify God in one accord, she said Ephesians 4:5 declares that “the one thing that can bring us together is when we acknowledge this one Lord, one faith, one baptism.”

Marking a milestone

Ellen Tabor, the founding president of BNF, was among participants who gathered to mark the organization’s 35-year ministry milestone. She and her husband, Charles Tabor, served for 20 years as Southern Baptist missionaries to Korea and Macau.

Tabor, who will celebrate her 90^th birthday in October, noted her initial dream for Baptist Nursing Fellowship, “which we have kept the whole time, was that we would invite nurses who have a calling from God to use their nursing skills to advance his work whether in America or on the mission field.”

“My approach is see wherever you’re working with your health skills, see where you can help that person’s life be better in managing their health and being able to live healthy lives,” she explained. “Also, if they do not have the dimension of spiritual health, that they will want to be connected to the salvation experience of knowing Christ.”

Future Baptist Nursing Fellowship ministry projects include a medical missions trip to “God’s Love from a Diaper Bag” ministry to single mothers and families in Jenkins, Ky., in May 2019 and an international missions trip to Thailand in October 2019. For more information about Baptist Nursing Fellowship, click here. (http://www.wmu.com/?q=article/national-wmu/baptist-nursing-fellowship)

Trennis Henderson is national correspondent for Woman’s Missionary Union of the Southern Baptist Convention.

By Roger Alford/Kentucky Today

CORBIN, Ky. (BP)—A series of bad decisions left James Price’s life in shambles. He had no money, no car, no home and no hope. But a seemingly chance encounter with retired businessman Ronnie Neal is changing the trajectory of his life.

Living under a bridge on the outskirts of Corbin, Ky., Price, 24, had taken a walk along a rural stretch of highway when he saw Neal loading sheet metal onto a truck. Perhaps, Price thought, that man would be willing to hire him to help.

Neal, 64, saw in Price a young man who needed a hand up, and he was willing to provide it.

“James kind of reminded me a lot of me when I was young,” Neal said. “The only reason I wasn’t homeless after my parents divorced is that my sister married into a family who took me in and let me stay with them when I was a teenager. … I could have very well been under a bridge myself.”

On the right path

Neal’s quality of life had improved since those early years. He and his wife Janet, members of West Corbin Baptist Church, credit Christ for that. For Neal, getting on the right path led to a loving wife, a successful career in grocery store management and, most importantly, a close relationship with God.

Neal accepted Price’s offer to work for him that day. They talked as they worked, and Neal learned Price’s circumstances. When the workday ended, Price thought he would get a few dollars and they would go their separate ways, never to meet again.

“He looked at me and said, ‘There isn’t any man working for me going to live under a bridge,’” Price recalled. “He said, ‘Go get your stuff, because you’re going home with me.’ I broke down right there. I had never had anyone be so kind to me.”

For Ronnie and Janet Neal, talking about Jesus is as natural as talking about their two sons. At the Neals’ home, Price got heaping helpings of the gospel along with country cooking that would pack weight back on the hungry young man.

When the first Sunday rolled around, the Neals didn’t have to ask Price if he’d like to go to church. Price asked if he could go along.

“It hit home with me,” Price said. “I went back with them on Wednesday. The following Sunday is when I got in my heart to go up to the altar and give my life to Christ.”

‘Start over again’

Price, who has an extensive rap sheet, was baptized Sunday, Sept. 1, during the 100th anniversary celebration of West Corbin Baptist Church. Now he says he regrets all his wasted years when, in his words, he laid around drunk, not knowing there was a better way.

“I know now there’s more to life than that; I learned it from that man,” Price said, pointing to Neal as the two of them stood beneath the bridge where a mixture of rocks, dirt, beer cans, campfire ashes, weeds and poison ivy mingled together.

Price’s parents died when he was a teen. He dropped out of school and has been living on his own since he was 16, working at whatever jobs he could find.

“James was basically dropped off in the world and told to do the best you can,” Neal said. “The conversation James and I have had is this: ‘You chose the wrong fork in the road years ago. You have to go back to the fork where you lost your way and start over again.’”

A year before he met Neal, Price crashed a motorcycle and spent weeks in the hospital. During that time, he was evicted from his rental home.

“When I left the hospital, I didn’t really have anywhere to go,” he said. “I had various friends I could stay with from day to day. But I had no transportation. No way to get back to work.”

Through the winter, he lived in a motel in Corbin that offered cheap weekly rates. When his money ran out, he moved in under the bridge.

‘I’m not going to give up on him’

Neal said the details of Price’s life are heartbreaking.

“I’m not going to give up on him,” Neal said, looking squarely at the young man wearing new clothes and a smile.

West Corbin Pastor Albert Jones said his church has seen a redemption story play out in the life of Price, and they’ve watched the Neals live out the gospel message.

“God reached out by his grace, and a life was changed,” Jones said. “Ronnie and Janet Neal are living out the gospel in vivid color.”

Price said he’s pondered his meeting with Neal on Friday, July 13, his “lucky” day. Price said he arrived at a firm conclusion: “We met by the grace of God.”

Helping Price was simply the right thing to do, Neal said.

“The Lord could have sent anybody James’ way,” Neal said. “I just happened to be the one.”