N.C. executive director nominated

Posted: 2/3/06

N.C. executive director nominated

By Tony Cartledge

North Carolina Biblical Recorder

ASHEBORO, N.C. (ABP)—Leaders of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina have nominated for the convention’s executive post a candidate with support from across the spectrum of the deeply divided statewide body.

The convention’s board of directors voted, without opposition, Jan. 24 to recommend Milton Hollifield Jr. as its new executive director-treasurer. Hollifield currently is executive leader of the convention’s missions growth evangelism group.

His nomination must be ratified by convention messengers at a special called meeting April 11 in Winston-Salem.

A search committee chaired by Robert Jackson, pastor of Peninsula Baptist Church in Mooresville, N.C., first recommended Hollifield to the group’s executive committee. His nomination then was passed on to the board of directors, who gave Hollifield standing ovations after he made remarks and as he returned to the auditorium following the vote.

The executive director-treasurer position became vacant when Jim Royston resigned unexpectedly last July to return to the pastorate. He held the post seven-and-a-half years.

Hollifield, 55, has worked for the convention 12-and-a-half years, coming in 1993 as director of the evangelism division. During a restructuring in 1999, he became executive leader of the newly formed mission growth evangelism group. In that role, he supervised the church growth and evangelism team, the church planting team and the campus ministries team.

Hollifield’s North Carolina Baptist roots go deep. He is a native of Swannanoa, N.C., and a graduate of nearby Mars Hill College and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.

Hollifield previously has served as an associate pastor of West Asheville Baptist Church in Asheville, N.C., and as pastor of First Baptist Church in Stanley, N.C. Hollifield worked two years as director of missions for the Gaston Baptist Association near Charlotte prior to joining the state convention staff.