Baptist Briefs

Posted: 5/11/07

Baptist Briefs

New Baptist Covenant launches website. The New Baptist Covenant has launched www.newbaptistcovenant.org, a website that provides information about the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant event, slated for Jan. 30-Feb. 1 in Atlanta. In addition to providing general information about the celebration, the website also offers opportunities for volunteer involvement. Information on housing, transportation and needs for large room blocks also will be posted on the site.

Olive named Bluefield president. David Olive will be the next president of Bluefield College, a Virginia Baptist school, effective July 1. Olive, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Pfeiffer University in Charlotte, N.C., will be the ninth president in Bluefield’s 85-year history. Olive has worked at Pfeiffer since 1998. Before Pfeiffer, Olive served three years as director of charitable gift planning at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tenn., two years as a legal advocate for students at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and one year as the coordinator of alumni and development programs at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, Tenn. He is a licensed attorney and an ordained minister with a master of divinity degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

SBC president names Texans to committees. Gary Dyer, pastor of First Baptist Church in Midland, has been named by Southern Baptist Convention President Frank Page to the SBC Committee on Committees, along with Bart Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church in Farmersville, a congregation uniquely aligned with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. The committee will meet in San Antonio immediately prior to the SBC annual meeting, June 12-13, to nominate members of the Committee on Nominations. Members of that committee, in turn, will nominate trustees to serve on boards of SBC entities. Page also named to the SBC Credentials Committee Jerry Raines, pastor of Hampton Road Baptist Church in DeSoto, along with the pastor of two uniquely aligned SBTC churches—Nathan Lorick of Martin’s Mill Baptist Church in Ben Wheeler and Jeremy Green of First Baptist Church in Joshua. Page named to the SBC Tellers Committee Don Wills, pastor of First Baptist Church in Fort Worth, and John Dammon, pastor of Fredonia Hill Baptist Church in Nacogdoches.

S.C. Baptists elect exec. Messengers to a special meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention voted without opposition to elect Jim Austin the new executive director-treasurer of the state convention. The vote, taken at Riverland Hills Baptist Church in Irmo, S.C., moves Austin from his old position as associate executive director for the Missouri Baptist Convention to replace Carlisle Driggers, who retired in February after 15 years as executive director-treasurer. Austin agreed to be nominated to the South Carolina post less than a month before his supervisor—state executive David Clippard—was fired by the Missouri convention. A graduate of Jacksonville State University in Alabama, Austin attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth and Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. Austin formerly was pastor of Morganton Baptist Church in Morganton, Ga., Blackshear Place Baptist Church in Gainesville, Ga., and First Baptist Church, Roanoke, Va. He and his wife have five children.