Veteran missions leader Fenner to be nominated for VP

Posted: 9/29/06

Veteran missions leader
Fenner to be nominated for VP

By Marv Knox

Editor

DALLAS—Veteran missions leader Joy Fenner will be nominated for first vice president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas when the BGCT holds its annual meeting in Dallas Nov. 13-14.

Fenner, a former missionary to Japan who later served 20 years as executive director-treasurer of Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas, will be nominated by Ed Hogan, pastor of Jersey Village Baptist Church in Houston.

“I’m nominating Joy Fenner for first vice president because I’ve known her for a long time, and the issues that unite Baptists the most are evangelism and missions,” Hogan said.

“It’s imperative that we set missions and evangelism as our priority, and Joy clearly represents that emphasis.

“As a lifetime missionary and Woman’s Missionary Union leader, she represents the very best of what it means to be involved in missions.” Fenner also possesses leadership qualities required to guide the BGCT in a “post-conflict era,” Hogan said, noting the convention has set its course toward missions, evangelism, church-starting and other ministries in the wake of a bruising split almost a decade ago.

“Increasingly, it’s important for officers to understand the convention—how it functions—and Joy understands very well the convention and how to effectively get things done,” he noted. “Joy also has a great deal of maturity. She has earned trust and respect of Texas Baptists through decades of work.”

With Fenner’s track record for leadership, Texas Baptists will know exactly what they’re getting when they elect her first vice president, Hogan added.

“The best indicator of future behavior is previous behavior,” he said. “Joy always has been a leader. She’s currently a leader, so I have confidence she will lead well in the future.”

In addition to her convention leadership, Fenner also is committed to the local church, Hogan stressed. “She has been very involved in her church, Gaston Oaks in Dallas. And even though she’s been very involved in denominational work, she’s never lost sight of the importance of church at the local level.”

Reflecting on her nomination, Fenner said she resonates with Texas Baptists’ missions spirit.

“I have never sought any nomination for anything. Yet I am willing to serve, should Texas Baptists so choose,” she said. “I’m very grateful to Texas Baptists (for) their support of missions, and basically, that’s why I am willing to serve.”

Through her influence as a convention officer, Fenner said, she would seek to strengthen the BGCT’s missions involvement.

“My passion is for our churches to reach beyond themselves in missions and ministry, globally and locally. Ministry validates our witness,” she said. “Today, there are so many ways churches can be intimately involved in missions—to touch the world. I don’t have an agenda, but that’s my passion.”

At one level, Texas Baptists’ commitment to missions reflects good stewardship, she added.

“Texas Baptists have been blessed, very blessed, with personnel, finances and the giftedness of our people. I want to see these used beyond ourselves. That is not to say we’re not doing this, but we need more intensity and intentionality.”

The task of convention leaders is to “lift the challenge,” she said. “Texas Baptists need to see something that’s bigger than we are, something we can get excited about.”

As a convention officer, Fenner would seek to involve the diversity of Texas Baptists—representing “gender, culture and persuasions of theology”—in their common tasks and commitments, she noted.

Such an emphasis would complement the missions agenda outlined by Steve Vernon, the only announced candidate for BGCT president, she said.

Vernon, the convention’s current first vice president and pastor of First Baptist Church in Levelland, has said he wants to focus Texas Baptists’ vision on missions, she recalled.

The BGCT’s recent reorganization, which has captivated the attention of convention officers for about the past three years, will have the net impact of strengthening missions, Fenner predicted, noting, “The restructuring emphasis will enable us to do this greater thing.”

Fenner led Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas from 1981 to 2001, when she became executive director emeritus.

Previously, she and her husband, Charlie, were Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board missionaries to Japan from 1967 through 1980. Before that, she was Girls Auxiliary director of Texas WMU and secretary at First Baptist Church in Marshall. In retirement, she was interim executive director-treasurer of Tennessee Woman’s Missionary Union.

Fenner was the BGCT’s second vice president in 2000-01.

She is a member of the Baylor University School of Social Work board of advocates, Woman’s Missionary Union Foundation board of trustees, East Texas Baptist University board of trustees, Seinan Gakuin 4-L Foundation board of directors and Helping Hands Ministries board of directors.

Fenner is a native of Avinger in Cass County and attended Paris Junior College and East Texas Baptist College. She received an honorary doctorate from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and was named an honorary alumnus of Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary. She served on the president’s advisory council at Baptist University of the Americas.

She is WMU director at Gaston Oaks Baptist Church. The church’s resident membership last year was 551, and it baptized seven new Christians. Total receipts were $659,109, and the church contributed $61,598 to the Cooperative Program unified budget. Its total missions allocation was $107,875.