(RNS)—Voddie Baucham Jr., a conservative Black pastor, author and seminary leader known for advocating for restricting women’s roles in the church and critiquing what he saw as “woke” influence on Christianity, has died at 56.

“We are saddened to inform friends that our dear brother, Voddie Baucham Jr., has left the land of the dying and entered the land of the living,” the Founders Ministries announced Thursday (Sept. 25).

Baucham had been leading the ministry’s new seminary in Florida.

“Earlier today, after suffering an emergency medical incident, he entered into his rest and the immediate presence of the Savior whom he loved, trusted and served since he was converted as a college student,” the announcement said.

A graduate of Houston Christian University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Baucham pastored churches in Texas for years before moving to Zambia in 2015 to lead a missionary seminary there.

He returned to the United States in 2021 after dealing with serious health issues.

Earlier this year he was named president of Founders Seminary under the auspices of the Founders Ministries, a nonprofit with ties to Southern Baptists.

“What a privilege it is to invest your life in training the next generation of pastors. And that’s what this is about,” Baucham said in a video announcing the new school.

“We’re committed to training men with sharp minds, warm hearts and steel spines.”

A lion in the pulpit

Tom Buck, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas, called Baucham “a dear friend, a faithful brother and a lion in the pulpit.”

Buck said he was devastated to hear the news of Baucham’s death. The two had found common cause in conservative theology but also were friends.

“He was kind, he was generous, he was just a faithful brother,” Buck said.

Buck said despite his renown as a preacher, Baucham was the same person in the pulpit or talking one to one.

“There was no pretense about him,” said Buck. “He loved the Lord. He was a godly man behind closed doors as well as in public. He was kind and generous.”

Georgia pastor Mike Stone, a former candidate for president of the Southern Baptist Convention, praised Baucham as “just a stalwart for truth and his loss to the body of Christ could not be overstated in this hour,” Stone told Religion News Service.

SBC and CRT

In recent years, Baucham had become allied with a group of conservative pastors who believed the SBC was experiencing a liberal drift.

He ran for president of the SBC’s pastor conference, an influential gathering that occurs in the days before the denomination’s annual meeting, in 2022, but lost the race to North Carolina pastor Daniel Dickard.

Baucham’s 2021 book, Fault Lines, made USA Today’s bestseller list, peaking at No. 7. The book critiqued critical race theory as unchristian and the leading edge of a “looming catastrophe” in evangelical Christian churches.

Baucham recently gave a lecture about standing up for Christian values in American culture at New Saint Andrew’s College, a school founded by the conservative pastor Doug Wilson in Moscow, Idaho.

Baucham quoted from the New Testament’s First Letter of Peter:

“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

As a seminary professor, he told students winning arguments was not enough, gentleness was not weakness and they needed to respect their opponents.

“May it never be they don’t hear you because you actually are sinful in your presentation,” he said, that “you actually are unkind, disingenuous—because then all of a sudden, the rest of your argument loses its sting.”

An announcement of Baucham’s death cited Psalm 116: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

Baucham is survived by his wife, Bridget, whom he married in 1989, their nine children and several grandchildren.

NASHVILLE (BP)—Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee members addressed referrals from messengers to the 2025 SBC annual meeting at their Sept. 22-23 meeting.

The Executive Committee adopted a recommendation to form a task force to study resources for special-needs ministry available to Southern Baptist churches.

A related motion to add a Disability Sunday to the SBC calendar was declined but with the request for the newly formed task force to consider the suggestion.

At the recommendation of Executive Committee officers, members declined to file a countersuit against former SBC President Johnny Hunt.

A motion to attempt to recover legal fees incurred defending a suit brought by Hunt in 2023 was referred to the Executive Committee in June.

The Executive Committee learned Lifeway campers donated their largest missions offering since 2017 this summer. Lifeway Interim President Joe Walker presented checks totaling more than $690,000 to International Mission Board President Paul Chitwood and North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell during the meeting.

Committee members also heard from Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg and SBC President Clint Pressley.

“My dream tonight is that Southern Baptists will recommit to cooperation in all its messy splendor and focus on our overarching mission of getting the gospel to the nations rather than being preoccupied with lesser issues,” Iorg said.

Pressley also called for unity and cooperation in his address, calling for Southern Baptists “to actually think the best of each other.”

“What a good thing when someone extends the benefit of the doubt,” he said.

Relationship severed with Houston church

The Executive Committee approved a recommendation brought by the SBC Credentials Committee to “formally recognize the discontinued relationship” of Fountain of Praise in Houston.

The church has not reported financial participation with the SBC for at least the last 10 years and demonstrated a “lack of intent to cooperate to resolve a question of faith and practice,” the committee said.

Fountain of Praise’s website lists Mia K. Wright, wife of pastor Remus E. Wright, as a co-pastor of the church, putting the church out of alignment with the SBC Constitution, which says “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

At the suggestion of the Convention Missions and Ministry Standing Committee, the Executive Committee declined to amend the SBC Constitution to disallow SBC entity employees or contract workers to serve as trustees, claiming the SBC Bylaws already prohibit such conflicts of interest.

In compliance with a revised version of the SBC Business & Financial Plan passed by messengers in June, Executive Committee members each signed a conflict of interest form Sept. 22.

In response to a motion requesting all SBC entities to “report on actions taken to elevate qualified biblical leaders from diverse backgrounds,” the Executive Committee listed several ways it already is active in this regard, including the work of its office of convention partnerships.

“Additionally, the Executive Committee has, since 2011, reported on its efforts to increase ethnic participation and ethnic leadership in the Convention in its Annual Ministry Report,” the recommendation states.

“Finally, the Executive Committee now publishes a dashboard of reporting data in the
SBC Annual regarding ethnic participation on trustee boards, committees, and standing committees.”

In other business, the Executive Committee:

• Declined to form a study committee to clarify women’s roles in ministry leadership.
• Approved a request from NAMB to form Send Relief Puerto Rico, Inc., a nonprofit subsidiary, to make it easier for the people of Puerto Rico to contribute directly to Send Relief.
• Declined to establish an auxiliary to support and minister to pastors’ wives.
• Approved appointments of new members to various standing committees.
• Recommended a change to SBC Bylaw 19 to extend the time for notification of the makeup of the SBC’s Committee on Committees from 45 to 60 days prior to the SBC annual meeting.
• Declined to amend SBC Bylaw 20 to limit amendments to resolutions as printed in the daily Bulletin at the annual meeting.
• Declined to recommend changes to the SBC ID assignment process, which currently allows for campuses of existing churches to obtain their own SBC ID numbers.
• Approved New Orleans as the proposed host city for the 2034 SBC annual meeting.
• Approved a $12,068,300 SBC Executive Committee and SBC operating budget for 2025-2026.
• Declined to recommend a change to the Business and Financial plan, because the motion requesting the change referred to the previous version of the plan.
• Allocated distributions from the estate of Raymond Cutright to the Montana Southern Baptist Convention through 2030, in accordance with the desires expressed in Cutright’s will.
• Received as information that Executive Committee officers approved various amendments to the personnel policies manual and retirement plan.

NASHVILLE (BP)—The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee at their Sept.23 meeting weighed the potential merits and risks of filing countersuits in cases involving what it considers fraudulent claims of responsibility.

The Executive Committee considered a motion presented at June’s SBC annual meeting instructing the SBC’s legal counsel to countersue former SBC President Johnny Hunt to recover legal fees incurred defending a suit Hunt filed against the SBC.

In the suit, Hunt claimed the SBC ruined his reputation by including him in a report on sexual abuse and making public a private moral failing.

The Executive Committee officers made a recommendation to decline to sue Hunt, which the larger body affirmed—but not unanimously.

Look at the benefit of filing a suit

Dani Bryson, a Tennessee attorney and Executive Committee member, came forward prior to the vote to express “some pause that we would pass this through with no discussion.”

“I understand the recommendation to decline,” she said. “I can see both sides of the issue.” However, she added, “I think there is some merit in our committee considering this moving forward.”

One legal strategy recommended “vigorously defend[ing] the Executive Committee by all legal means,” said Bryson, adding that she was paraphrasing. “… I think we should look at the cost-benefit of countersuing here.”

That step would not primarily be a financial one, she explained.

“I don’t think that is a ground on which to make a decision here. I think there is a moral cost-benefit in standing up for what is right,” she said. “And I think that has merit here beyond financial benefit.”

Many referrals from the SBC Credentials Committee dealing with churches that fail to align with the SBC’s “faith and practice” stem from “churches that do not deal with these problems,” Bryson said, and “there is no small potential for future lawsuits.”

“I think we, in our fiduciary capacity, need to look at standing up for the Executive Committee and for the SBC to discourage those future suits, if there is no merit,” she said.

‘No idea how long this matter will take to resolve’

Executive Committee member David Sons asked for clarification on the status of the Hunt lawsuit, the only ongoing part of which relates to a social media post by former SBC President Bart Barber.

“We have no idea how long this matter will take to resolve,” Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg said. “So, to decide not to decide today is not to put it off until [the] February [Executive Committee meeting]. We may be delayed for two or three years. It’s simply to leave it open-ended.”

Iorg called on Robert Pautienus, Executive Committee counsel, to explain two other issues.

Filing would “be governed by Tennessee law,” he noted.

“So, it’s not a countersuit; it’s a new lawsuit,” he said. “You cannot file a lawsuit until all the legal matters are done … [so] what’s in the motion could not be done.”

Second, Pautienus added, future lawsuits would be considered a “malicious prosecution claim, which generally are not very easy to maintain because you have to show there was zero merit. In other words, a judge has to believe there was zero basis to file anything. Those are hard to maintain and [legal costs] would be paid by the hour.”

For those reasons, as well as the fact that nothing could be filed before the resolution of the Hunt case, he recommended not to file anything.

Call to consider 1 Corinthians

The discussion included 1 Corinthians 6’s instructions on lawsuits among believers. Executive Committee member Harold Philips said the passage prompted him when he was in Maryland to advise his then-state executive, Will McRaney, against bringing a lawsuit against the North American Mission Board. An appeals court recently ruled in NAMB’s favor in the case.

“We (the SBC) have yet to pick up a hammer and go after somebody,” Philips said. “If we let the Lord handle it, he’ll fight for us.”

Iorg expressed “profound reservations about violating 1 Corinthians 6 and suing any other believer for any purpose in a civil manner.”

“I’m not saying it can’t be done,” he said. “… [The SBC] has not taken aggressive action … in this matter. And I just have profound reservations about doing so at any time.”

NASHVILLE (BP)—Michael David Sills and his wife Mary no longer are seeking damages against the estate of the late Jennifer Lyell in a lawsuit stemming from Lyell’s accusation of sexual abuse against Sills.

“Plaintiffs elected to not proceed with claims against the decedent’s estate,” attorneys for the Sills said in a Sept. 12 filing in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

The Sillses’ counsel has spoken with Lyell’s father, according to the court filing, who said an estate had not been opened for Lyell since her June death from a stroke.

Sills, a former Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor, and his wife contend in the 2022 lawsuit that he never abused Lyell or forced himself on her.

The Sills family continues to accuse the Southern Baptist Convention, the SBC Executive Committee and eight individuals and entities related to the SBC of “defamation, conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and wantonness concerning untrue claims of sexual abuse.”

In addition to the SBC and its Executive Committee, remaining defendants are former SBC presidents Bart Barber and Ed Litton, Lifeway Christian Resources, former Lifeway executive Eric Geiger, former SBC Executive Committee Interim President Willie McLaurin, former SBC Executive Committee Chairman Rolland Slade, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and its president Albert Mohler, Solutionpoint International, Inc. doing business as Guidepost Solutions and Guidepost Solutions, LLC.

Defendants filed motions Sept. 19 for summary judgment in the lawsuit, the majority consistently stating that the plaintiffs “fail to establish any evidentiary support for their claims of tortious conduct,” according to court documents.

Various documents related to the motions were sealed, including motions for summary judgment filed on behalf of Guidepost Solutions, LLC, and various related motions filed by attorneys for Mohler and Southern Seminary.

The Sills family continues to accuse defendants of “making an example out of SBC member and employee David Sills who, without controversy, had admitted to an affair with Lyell and willingly accepted the SBC requirement that he depart from his position at the Seminary.”

The Executive Committee formally apologized to Lyell on Feb. 22, 2022, for “its failure to adequately listen, protect, and care for Jennifer Lyell when she came forward to share her story of abuse by a seminary professor.”

In addition, the Executive Committee acknowledged “its failure to report Ms. Lyell’s allegations of non-consensual sexual abuse were investigated and unequivocally corroborated by the SBC entities with authority over Ms. Lyell and her abuser.”

ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)—Terminology goes a long way in perception. It’s difficult to get a clear picture if words have different meanings on different sides of a conversation.

Take the phrase “NAMB church plant.” Since the 2010 messenger-approved Great Commission Resurgence Report that redirected the North American Mission Board’s emphasis to church planting, there have been calls to know how many the entity has started and how many are still viable.

The short answer to both questions is “zero.”

“We are careful to say that NAMB does not plant churches,” President Kevin Ezell said in a recent email interview with Baptist Press. “Churches plant churches.

“We have worked hard since 2010 to make sure that every church NAMB helps plant has a sending church. That is a church that will take ownership in the plant and consider it its own, even if it didn’t come directly out of that sending church.”

The language of the Great Commission Resurgence Report does call for a “missional strategy” under NAMB’s responsibility to plant churches, desiring that half of the entity’s “ministry efforts” go toward “assist[ing] churches in planting healthy, multiplying and faithful Baptist congregations in the United States and Canada.”

How are church starts counted?

It began with learning how to count.

“Prior to the GCR, there was not a standardized process for assessing, training, coaching and caring for church planters and their families,” Ezell told BP. “There was also not a standard way to count church plants.

“Each state convention did their own assessment and provided their own training. Some of it was great, and some of it not so great.”

Follow-up with church planters varied among state conventions. Ezell noted some planters told him shortly after he arrived in September 2010 how they only heard from NAMB when “something was wrong.”

Training, coaching and care improved, he said, through enlisting local pastors, sending church pastors and local association leaders “with a proven track record in church planting.” There was also the matter of upgrading the methods of tracking churches.

A chart provided by NAMB to Baptist Press reflects how the entity kept a singular record of “New Congregations” before 2010 that included church plants, new affiliates and campuses, but with no distinction for how many of which group.

Even so, there were 953 new congregations in 1988. That figure climbed to 1,781 in 2004 before dipping to 1,364 in 2009.

Another graph provided by NAMB shows new congregations since 2010, designating how many are plants, replants, affiliates and campuses. The highest number came in 2014, with 1,193 new congregations.

No more double-counting

It’s important to note the differences in reporting between the two eras, Ezell pointed out.

“Before 2010, it literally was just a phone call from NAMB to each state convention asking, ‘How many churches did you start last year?’” Ezell said. “Some states misunderstood and gave the number of current plants they had. This led to double-counting of many church plants over the years.

“Since all NAMB requested was the number of plants, we have no way to go back to check and verify. Starting in 2010, we said we won’t count it as a church plant unless we can get the name of the planter, name of the church, address of the church and the SBC ID number.”

The first year requiring SBC ID numbers, 2010, recorded 1,192 new congregations—769 of them plants and 423 as affiliates. The overall figure (1,085) dropped the next year, but with 1,003 plants versus 83 affiliates.

Including an SBC ID number trimmed the number, as different state conventions had different definitions for what counts as a church, Ezell said.

“Now, each one is unique and there is no double-counting. Everything can be verified,” he said.

Valuing quality over quantity

There is also a focus on “quality, not quantity.” A NAMB white paper presented to the Great Commission Resurgence Evaluation Task Force last year looked at the method of 42 state conventions choosing their own methods for assessing, training, coaching and funding church planters. The paper said the result was a focus on churches planted, not the number that survived beyond a few years.

“Yes, we want to see Southern Baptists start as many new churches as possible,” Ezell said. “But we would rather have quality plants that are going to last, and for the last several years we see four-year survival rates at around 90 percent. These are new churches with staying power.”

Typically, churches averaged three years of funding pre-Great Commission Resurgence, he told BP. “We transitioned that to four years, and in some cases, five years,” he said.

‘Planting churches in very difficult places’

The fluctuation was due to another part of the Great Commission Resurgence recommendations calling for church planting “with a priority to reach metropolitan areas and underserved people groups.”

“We are planting churches in very difficult places,” Ezell said. “That includes a lot of large cities as well, where the cost of living is significantly higher than what many parts of the South experience.

“Lostness is everywhere, but we are trying to plant in areas where often the culture is tougher. Sometimes there is even a hostility toward new churches.”

Those factors impact costs.

According to the information presented to the GCR Evaluation Task Force, as of February 2024, NAMB had 148 properties comprising 193 housing units for planters. Those investments are to help with the overall costs in each state, meeting the housing needs of planters. For example:

• Rent in New York City can average $2,900 a month
• Groceries there are 30 percent more expensive than in Chicago.
• Median homes sold for $764,000 in Los Angeles, with an 800-square-foot apartment renting for $2,524.

No data on survival beyond four years

As the multisite model gained traction, reporting was divided further in 2019 to identify campuses. That year, 59 of them joined 297 new affiliates and 552 plants for a total of 908. In 2021, plants and replants were split, as 600 plants joined 135 replants, 201 affiliates and 82 campuses.

In 2024, the most recent numbers available, there were 964 total new congregations. The majority of those, 684, were plants. The next largest number was new affiliates, with 138, followed by 83 replants and 59 campuses.

NAMB doesn’t share survivability data beyond four years because by then, most congregations have moved beyond the funding and endorsement.

Basically, they are like other churches and report through the Annual Church Profile. Like other Southern Baptist churches, some don’t report at all.

COVID made 2020 a bit of an outlier for churches in general, and much more so for congregations taking their first steps. Southern Baptists planted 538 churches that year as the survival rate dipped to 86.6 percent. It was the only year since 2017 that didn’t set an Annie Armstrong Easter Offering record as NAMB had to make cuts and draw from reserves to support missionaries.

New churches contribute financially

Giving to the Annie Armstrong Offering has increased by around 30 percent since 2010. Examples of new churches’ financial contributions through the Cooperative Program are:

• A Michigan church planted in 2017 giving $102,000 last year.
• A 2013 plant in Indiana giving more than $71,000.
• A 2011 Maryland/Delaware convention church start giving over $70,000.

“People ask if our church plants are still around in a few years or if they are still Southern Baptist,” he said. “Not only are they still around and still Southern Baptist, but they are also some of the best giving and biggest baptizing churches in their state conventions.”

He pointed to a 2020 Michigan plant that baptized 186 last year, one in Iowa from 2013 that baptized 176, a Boston plant that baptized 106.

“The recommendations from the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force profoundly transformed NAMB’s operations, emphasizing the critical role of church planting for Southern Baptists,” said Ezell. “Today, NAMB is more focused, efficient and committed to serving our churches than it was pre-2010.

“Although the mission field in North America continues to shift and evolve, the foundation established by the GCR has positioned NAMB to achieve maximum impact.

“Reaching North America for Christ is a monumental challenge that requires the collective efforts of all Southern Baptists—churches, associations and state conventions, as well as national entities. I am confident that NAMB is well-equipped to fulfill its vital role in this mission.”

(RNS)—The Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy agency will go its own way on immigration policy, breaking ties with a coalition of other evangelical Christian bodies focused on the issue.

“We feel we need to take a more independent posture on our immigration-related work,” Miles Mullin, acting president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, told the agency’s trustees in announcing it had severed ties with the Evangelical Immigration Table, Baptist Press reported.

Southern Baptists long advocated for immigration reform that includes secure borders and a path to citizenship for people in the country illegally.

That led former ERLC President Richard Land to join other prominent evangelical leaders to found the Evangelical Immigration Table in 2012 to advocate for immigration reform based on biblical principles.

“The immigration crisis facing the nation touches every level of society,” Land said at the time. “If we as a nation are going to resolve this crisis in fair and equitable ways, we must engage all levels of civic society, perhaps most importantly, people of faith.”

Evangelical Immigration Table criticized

The Evangelical Immigration Table, however, has come under increasing criticism during the Trump era, with critics claiming liberal groups are using it to infiltrate churches. At the SBC’s annual meeting earlier this year, some vocal messengers called for the ERLC to be shut down, in part because of its ties to the Evangelical Immigration Table.

The agency survived, but the ERLC’s most recent president, Brent Leatherwood, resigned this fall, after more than a year of controversy.

Mullin, who was not available for comment, told the ERLC’s trustees the agency has been involved in immigration reform because the issue matters to Southern Baptists, according to Baptist Press.

Matt Soerens, a vice president at the humanitarian aid group World Relief and national coordinator for the Evangelical Immigration Table, said in an email that the Evangelical Immigration Table will continue its advocacy and thanked the ERLC for its past help.

Immigration remains a complicated issue for evangelical leaders, especially with the Trump administration’s focus on mass deportations. While white evangelicals are among the most loyal supporters of President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement, rank-and-file evangelicals also want humane immigration policies.

Evangelicals want reform, not mass deportations

Earlier this year, a study from Lifeway Research revealed most evangelicals want immigration reform that secures the border, but they also want to keep families together, respect the dignity of every person and provide a pathway to citizenship for those in the country illegally.

The study, sponsored by the Evangelical Immigration Table, also found Southern Baptists support deporting people who are in the country illegally if they have a history of violent crime or pose a threat to national security.

There was little support, however, for deporting undocumented immigrants who are married to a U.S. citizen, have children who are citizens or are willing to pay a fine for violating immigration law.

“A large majority of evangelicals do not want immigrants unlawfully in the country to be prioritized for deportation except if they have been convicted of violent crimes or pose a threat to national security,” Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, said earlier this year.

Other members of the Evangelical Immigration Table include World Relief and World Vision, along with the National Latino Evangelical Coalition and the National Association of Evangelicals.

Along with advocating for reform, the group has created Bible studies about immigration, run ad campaigns, produced a documentary and sponsored research about evangelical views on immigration.

WASHINGTON (BP)—Retired South Carolina Baptist state convention leader and longtime pastor Gary Hollingsworth has been selected as interim president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, effective Oct. 1.

Hollingsworth was named to the post by ERLC trustees at their meeting Sept. 16.

“I do believe (Southern Baptists) desperately need the voice and the work of the ERLC,” Hollingsworth told Baptist Press. “If I can be just a very small part of that and getting it ready for whoever God will bring next, I’m excited about that to see what he will do and how he’ll do it.”

Hollingsworth, 67, was elected unanimously in 2007 as executive director-treasurer of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. He retired from the role in 2023.

‘A lot of challenges’

He comes to the role following the resignation of Brent Leatherwood in July after leading the commission for two years. In June, messengers to the SBC annual meeting voted by 56.89 percent to hold on to the ERLC.

It was the third time since 2018 that messengers have voted on whether to defund or eliminate the commission. A similar motion in 2023 was ruled out of order.

“I know there are a lot of challenges, certainly in the past, but we’re kind of just looking forward,” he said.

ERLC Trustee Chairman Scott Foshie believes Hollingsworth’s longtime pastoral ministry will help guide the commission.

“Gary brings a unique combination of executive leadership, relational depth, and pastoral heart that will serve Southern Baptists well as he leads the ERLC through this season of transition and opportunity,” Foshie said.

Decades of ministry experience

Before coming to South Carolina, Hollingsworth served at Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark., almost 10 years.

“We’re thankful for his obedience and availability to be used by God and this way to serve and empower churches as we take the gospel to our culture and the public square,” Foshie said.

In his ministry career, the Alabama native has also served as senior director of cultural evangelism for the North American Mission Board. He pastored First Baptist Church of Trussville, Ala., for a decade and also was pastor of churches in Kentucky and Virginia.

He previously served as president of the Arkansas Baptist Convention.

Hollingsworth served as a trustee for the Alabama State Board of Missions from 1999-2005 and as board chairman from 2002-2004. He was president of the Alabama Pastors’ Conference in 2004.

He served as a NAMB trustee from 2002-2005 and on the SBC Committee on Committees in 2004 and 2014.

In Arkansas, he has served as a convention trustee and was board president from 2012 to 2014. He has also served as a trustee of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Pledges to follow God’s direction

He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Alabama, a Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a D.Min. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Hollingsworth told trustees that he doesn’t have all the answers but plans to lead them to seek God’s direction for the ERLC.

“We’re trusting him,” he said. “I promise I’ll give it my very best.”

Miles Mullin, who has served as acting president since Leatherwood’s resignation, will return to his previous role of ERLC chief of staff, Foshie said.

Baptists from varied perspectives denounced political violence and called for prayer after the shooting death of political activist Charlie Kirk. However, they took different postures regarding many aspects of Kirk’s message.

Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission issued a statement Sept. 10 calling the shooting “an assault on the image of God” and saying “gun violence is in direct opposition to the pro-life values Texas Baptist churches hold.”

The CLC asked Texas Baptists to pray for Kirk’s family—“especially his wife and young children, and all who have been touched by this tragedy.”

While not mentioning the specific content of Kirk’s rhetoric, the CLC said his “prove me wrong” events “focused on important issues on which people disagree.”

“Kirk believed the best solution to a dispute was open dialogue, not violence,” the CLC stated. “The Christian Life Commission shared his vision of returning civility to the public square.

“This begins with Christians leading the way. We must love our neighbors as ourselves and recognize that, being made in God’s image, we have more in common than what divides us.”

SBC leaders laud Kirk’s ‘profound impact’

Southern Baptist Convention leaders issued a statement—initially released by SBC President Clint Pressley and endorsed by the convention’s first and second vice presidents and by all 12 SBC entity chief executives—similarly condemning violence, but also expressing gratitude for Kirk’s message.

“Political violence is a grave sin, and it represents a threat to our nation and its government. The murder of Charlie Kirk is a grave warning to us all as we consider the health of our nation and society,” the SBC leaders stated.

“All persons of good will must condemn this premeditated act of violence and see the depth of evil in this murder and in a spirit of violence that will undermine our ability to function as a nation.”

While voicing concern for Kirk’s family and pledging prayers for them, the SBC statement also expressed gratitude for Kirk’s “public witness to Christ and for his courageous defense of the dignity of the unborn and a host of other moral issues.”

“We rightly appreciate the profound impact Charlie Kirk has had on our young people, inspiring them to live with bold conviction and take righteous action,” the SBC leaders stated.

“We call for righteousness and justice and for the lawful prosecution of the assassin and urge Southern Baptists to join us in praying for his repentance and salvation. We also call for Southern Baptists and all Christian brothers and sisters to recommit ourselves to the defense of life, liberty, and biblical morality in our nation, and we pray for an end to political violence in any form. We condemn any retaliatory violence.”

After the SBC leaders released their statement, they allowed other Southern Baptists to endorse it.

Texas Baptists who signed the statement included Joseph Adams, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Mount Pleasant and second vice president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas; Greg Ammons, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Garland; Kevin Burrow, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Eastland; and Jeff Williams, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Denton.

‘Gap between Black and White evangelicals’

While the statement from SBC leaders condemned retaliation, it did not address the issue of gun violence, nor did it mention any of Kirk’s statements regarding race.

In contrast, Senior Pastor Dwight McKissic of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington denounced Kirk’s murder and affirmed his biblical orthodoxy in a Sept. 10 post on X, formerly Twitter. However, in a series of tweets, he listed multiple quotes by Kirk questioning the ability and intelligence of Black women.

“On the subject of race, and race related matters, I’ve disagreed with every word I’ve heard him speak thus far. I’m beginning to draw the conclusion that White evangelical Christians and Black evangelical Christians are miles and miles apart on racial subject matter,” McKissic wrote.

Three days later, McKissic tweeted: “The gap between Black and White evangelicals surrounding this issue is widening as I tweet. The SBC unqualified endorsement of Charlie Kirk will and already has set race relations back to the 50s. Really unwise move on the part of all White entity heads.”

In the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s shooting death, George Mason, founder of Faith Commons and senior pastor emeritus at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, posted on social media: “Every human life matters. Charlie Kirk’s murder is an assault against God, in whose image he was created.

“Whatever your politics, violence diminishes us all. Just stop it. Nothing good comes of it. It only leads to greater polarization. Now is the time to prove that empathy is strength not weakness.”

(RNS)—As she prepared to preach at the Sept. 9 evening service at the annual session of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc., Tracey L. Brown admitted to feeling the nerves she always has before entering a pulpit and “dealing with people’s souls.”

But the occasion took on other emotions when the New Jersey minister learned from convention leaders that she would be the first woman ever to preach to the 145-year-old, historically Black denomination’s annual meeting.

“I feel humbled and honored,” Brown, 63, founder and pastor of Ruth Fellowship Ministries in Plainfield, told Religion News Service hours before the service at the Kansas City Convention Center in Kansas City, Mo.

‘Tonight will go down in the history books’

Religion scholars said Brown’s preaching was a noteworthy moment, even as women have long been preaching in local Baptist churches, often without much recognition.

When Gina Stewart preached at a meeting of four Black Baptist denominations in 2024, the historic moment temporarily disappeared from the Facebook page of the NBCUSA.

A later post on the page reassured members that the stream of the service was not blocked by its officers or administrators, but there also were claims some attendees chose not to be present when Stewart spoke.

“It’s a long time coming; it’s 2025,” said Bible scholar and retired professor Renita Weems concerning Brown’s sermon. “A lot of local churches are light-years ahead of the executive cabinet of the National Baptist Convention.”

Boise Kimber, who is leading his first annual session as president of the denomination, has talked about his plans to increase the visibility of women leaders in the denomination, along with younger and newer pastors. Earlier this year, he appointed Debbie Strickling-Bullock as the first female chairman of the board of the National Baptists’ Sunday School Publishing Board.

“Tonight will go down in the history books,” he said at the conclusion of the evening worship service. “So, Tracey Brown, we are grateful for you.”

Kimber has had to overcome a contentious process that marred his election last year in which he ended up as the sole candidate on the ballot after officials determined he had received the required 100 endorsements from member churches and other National Baptist entities to qualify to run for president.

He then drew pushback this summer over reports that he and other Black church leaders were involved in accepting a donation from Target for education and economic development initiatives. even as other prominent Black Baptist leaders boycotted Target for pulling back on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

His support for women’s leadership, however, has drawn praise.

“He made some missteps, but on the woman issue he is on the right side of history,” said Weems, former academic dean at American Baptist College, a National Baptist-affiliated institution in Nashville, Tenn. “I have to take my wig off to him.”

Changes in the church and the nation

Brown’s sermon, which lasted about 30 minutes, focused mostly on recent changes in the church. Though she misses some of the traditions lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she said, she noted that the church has benefited from being forced to adapt.

“The pandemic showed us what took maybe two and a half, three hours could be done meaningfully in less time with the Spirit still having his way and without being quenched,” she said. “The pandemic taught us that good church did not mean all-day church. Amen, somebody.”

She turned briefly to what she called the “cruel” Trump administration immigration policies being carried out by U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents, saying, “We are witnessing the legalization of criminal activities by the Ku Klux Klan, which has changed their name to ICE.”

But she expressed faith in a better future. “Even now, in the turbulence of today, we declare that the same God who brought us this far is the same God that will bring us and carry us forward,” she said.

Brown, who has served as a city councilwoman in Plainfield and has led her predominantly Black congregation for more than a quarter century, has achieved other firsts as a woman: She was the first woman elected moderator of the Middlesex Central Baptist Association of New Jersey and the first African American woman to serve as a New Jersey state police chaplain.

Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, professor emerita of African American studies and sociology at Colby College who now teaches at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace, said Brown’s preaching at the National Baptists’ annual session is another marker in a gradual prominence for Black women ministers affiliated with denominations such as the National Baptist Convention USA and the Progressive National Baptist Convention Inc.

“When a door is open, for Black women preaching, whether it be at the Hampton University Ministers’ Conference or the joint board meeting of various National Baptist associations, such as NBC or PNBC, or as will happen tonight at the National Baptist Convention, when those doors are open, they are usually not shut,” she said in an interview hours before Brown’s sermon.

“The other problem for Black women preachers is they have to be twice as good to get half as far.”

Several Baptist leaders will be among the keynote speakers at the inaugural Ascent Summit, March 10-12 at Columbia Church in Falls Church, Va.

Ascent Summit 2026 marks the formal public launch of Ascent—an emerging mission connection point for churches in North America committed to the shared goal of living out the Great Commission locally, regionally and globally.

“A Hopeful Witness for a Joyful Church” is the theme of the summit, featuring presentations by Texas Baptists Executive Director Julio Guarneri, Baptist General Association of Virginia Executive Director Wayne Faison, Chicago pastor Charles E. Dates and Raphael Anzenberger, executive director of the French-speaking Baptist Union of Canada.

Other featured speakers include author and Bible teacher Beth Moore; Ed Stetzer, dean at Biola University’s Talbot School of Theology; Mia Chang, lead pastor and planter of NextGen Church in Princeton Junction West Windsor, N.J.; leadership coach Jorge Acevedo; Jason Persaud, national director of church engagement with Alpha Canada; and Joy Moore, president of Northern Seminary.

‘A new missional movement’

Summit organizers note the Ascent movement has developed over the past nine years.

“In June of 2016, I, along with seven other Baptist leaders from Texas, Virginia and Oklahoma, met at Belmont University to discuss how we might find our way forward in a significant and synergistic missional endeavor that honored our ecclesiology and our theology,” Pastor Dennis Wiles of First Baptist Church in Arlington wrote in an email.

“We immediately recognized that many others were interested in this conversation as well, so we expanded our circle to include several new voices. Over time, we gained momentum and found common bonds across the denominational spectrum in North America.

“We discovered many pastors, denominational leaders, mission organization leaders, seminary presidents/deans, and fellow believers who longed to be a part of a new missional movement that could galvanize our efforts and result in the re-engagement of gospel witness to North America for the glory of God.”

‘Deep fellowship as centrist, orthodox Christians’

Todd Still, dean of Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary, has been part of the group that has met, prayed and envisioned “what a missional, multi-denominational movement centered upon the proclamation and incarnation of the gospel of Jesus Christ through local churches might look and be like in our day.”

“The answer toward which we have been led is Ascent,” Still said.

The initial 2016 gathering in Nashville has “grown to include a myriad of churches, numerous missional organizations, several theological institutions, and denominational judicatories across North America,” Wiles said.

“We have found deep fellowship as centrist, orthodox Christians who can affirm the Lausanne Cape Town Commitment and who desire to partner together in gospel witness, church planting, theological education, and various other missional endeavors,” he said.

The initial group has hosted two “invitation-only” gatherings—including an event last year in Virginia—“where leaders from across our continent have met to worship, plan, pray, learn and partner together in ministry,” Wiles noted.

‘A historic gathering’

Wiles called the Ascent Summit next March a “historic gathering of fellow believers.”

“There will be inspiring worship, informative workshops, opportunities to learn about the ongoing work of Ascent, and the chance to discover new connections in mission and ministry,” Wiles said. “Numerous Texas Baptist churches and leaders are already a part of this movement.”

Summit sponsors include Truett Theological Seminary, Arlington-based Restore Hope and the On Mission Network.

“I look very much forward to seeing a goodly number of Texas Baptists, as well as Truett alumni and friends, there and to witnessing what the Lord will continue to do through Ascent in the days and years to come,” Still said.

Wiles similarly encouraged Texas Baptists to consider attending the Ascent Summit.

“It promises to a signal event, where we turn the page in the witness of the church in North America,” he said.

Early registration for the event is open online. For more information, click here. To register, click here. In addition to discounts for early registration, the tiered pricing structure offers further discounts to registrants who incur the additional expense of air travel.

NEW ORLEANS (BP)—The church doors would remain open, Pastor David Crosby decided after the levees failed New Orleans in Hurricane Katrina.

Someone from the Midwest sent a huge generator to First Baptist Church of New Orleans, Crosby’s pastorate at the time, enabling the church to reopen as soon as the law allowed.

Near constant news coverage flashed scenes of bodies floating atop floodwaters, hungry babies crying, families handling the dead bodies of their loved ones with whatever dignity the chaos allowed.

Water still lingered in whole neighborhoods as First Baptist began helping with relief efforts in October 2005, aided by the generator and thousands of volunteers who rushed to help.

“All the churches had to turn outward, toward the community, during the recovery,” Crosby told Baptist Press 20 years after the storm.

“Katrina washed us out of our pews and into our communities. Nobody locked any doors for four months in all of the flood zone. What was the point?”

More diverse, more united

As Southern Baptist churches in Metro New Orleans commemorate Katrina, they’ll do so with a New Orleans Baptist Association of churches that is more diverse and more united than it was when the waters dirtied the city, leaders told Baptist Press.

Churches outside the levee protection system were washed away and never reopened, but other churches were planted in areas where population returned, and several churches that were not Southern Baptist have joined the fellowship, said Jack Hunter, executive director of New Orleans Baptist Association.

“The aftermath of Katrina had a way of reshaping the association, not just in terms of its composition, though that’s true,” said Hunter, a member of First Baptist Church of New Orleans who began leading the local assocation five years after the storm.

“Our association is more African American now than it was pre-Katrina. It’s more Hispanic now than it was pre-Katrina. And it’s that way because our embrace has widened and our community has become richer.

“And I think in many ways, we look more like the church. And there’s a high appreciation for that among our churches. We’re a diverse association. But we feel a great unity in our diversity.”

Working across denominational lines

Southern Baptists embraced multidenominational cooperation in recovery, Dennis Watson, senior pastor of Celebration Church said.

“Two months after Katrina, I called together the pastors of our city. A lot of pastors still had not returned because their homes have been destroyed, campuses have been destroyed.” Watson said.

“But we had 120 pastors return, and we formed the Greater New Orleans Pastors Coalition and we began to work together across denomination lines, racial lines, community lines. … For those first five years after Katrina, we had sometimes close to 300 pastors and churches working together to serve the people in the communities around us in some capacity.”

During recovery in 2005, Watson distributed loads of goods to those in need, spending the millions of dollars he received in donations on relief efforts because he thought he wouldn’t be able to rebuild Celebration. The $1.5 million the church had in flood insurance wouldn’t cover the $16.5 million repair bill.

“And so we really just started giving away the monies that were coming in,” Watson said. “We were feeding about 5,000 people a day hot meals. And a thousand people a day were coming to receive food, water, medical supplies, baby supplies. … Whatever people sent us from the nation, we gave out and distributed.”

A smaller, second Metairie location the church acquired only weeks before the storm—the former Crescent City Baptist Church—had less flooding, accommodating worship for the quarter of Celebration’s members who were able to return in the months following Katrina.

Shepherding a scattered flock

Franklin Avenue Baptist Church sat under 9 feet of water before Pastor Fred Luter was able to survey the damage. The campus was damaged beyond occupation.

Luter called his friend Crosby for a meeting venue to accommodate worship for Franklin Avenue members who began returning to the city in October. Luter held worship at First Baptist for nearly three years after the storm, while also shepherding members who scattered across the U.S. for safety under the mandatory evacuation.

Remembering Katrina is always difficult for Luter. Days before this year’s anniversary, he was praying with a local business owner who had an entire wall of photos of his business destroyed under Katrina’s waters.

“When you see things like that, your mind just goes back and reflects on how bad that really was. So, you always think about all the things that you went through, how you had to evacuate and lost so many people, so many people who relocated to other cities and they’re now there and not ever coming back,” Luter said. “They come back to visit, but that’s about it.”

But Luter appreciates the city’s resilience.

“To be able to build back—what we’ve done, that’s been a blessing,” he said.

Marking the 20th anniversary

The three pastors—Luter, Crosby and Watson—planned to gather with the greater Southern Baptist family in a Hurricane Katrina 20th anniversary service Aug. 29 at First Baptist New Orleans, hosted by Senior Pastor Chad Gilbert.

Crosby retired from the church in 2018. In retirement, he serves First Baptist Church of Goldthwaite as pastor on a part-time basis.

Hunter and other New Orleans Baptist pastors will attend the service, including many pastors of the 18 Hispanic churches and 41 African American churches that are now among the local association’s approximately 130 congregations.

By the numbers, the association has just as many congregations as it had before Katrina, according to then-Director of Missions Joe McKeever, who tallied 135 churches and missions, or 140 including the Plaquemines Baptist Association that merged with New Orleans Baptist Association after the storm.

Just two years after Katrina, New Orleans Baptist congregations had dropped to 82 churches and missions, McKeever wrote in the association’s 2005-2007 annual directory.

“The fellowship between our ministers has been forever changed,” McKeever wrote in the annual.

“Pre-Katrina, we had a Spanish fellowship of pastors, the African American pastors pretty much did their own thing, the Anglos tried unsuccessfully to involve everyone, and the Asian pastors were fairly well isolated.

“No more,” McKeever wrote. “These days, our weekly ministers’ meetings welcome everyone. … Pastors have learned each other’s names and lasting bonds of friendship have been formed.”

Embraced the Honduran community

Those relationships have endured and grown, said Hunter, who gives much credit to Luter, Crosby and Watson for helping rebuild the church community after the storm.

He credits in part Luter’s graciousness for the association’s success in drawing African American pastors, and notes the association embraced the Honduran community that swelled in helping Metro New Orleans rebuild after the storm. Of the 18 Hispanic churches in the association, 15 are majority Honduran.

Metro New Orleans became a hub for Hondurans after the storm. As recently as 2023, Hondurans comprised 29 percent of Hispanics in Metro New Orleans, the U.S. Census Bureau reported, compared to 2 percent of Hispanics nationwide, the Data Research Center reported, based on U.S. Census numbers.

Churches in the New Orleans Baptist Association shared the gospel with the new population.

“We want to be strategic, planting the churches where the need is,” said Geovany Gomez, pastor of Iglesia Bautista La Viña in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner, the association’s church health strategist, who is of Honduran descent.

When Katrina struck, Gomez’s pastorate was one of two dozen language mission congregations in the association embracing not only Spanish but Asian Indian, Haitian, Indian, Korean, Middle Eastern, Filipino and Deaf groups.

Many of the language missions were discontinued after Katrina but others are now churches, including Gomez’s pastorate that has since planted two majority-Honduran churches of its own, namely Iglesia Bautista Bethel in Kenner and Iglesia Bautista La Viña in Westwego.

Going where the people are

New Orleans Baptist churches have followed the population, Hunter said, serving people where redevelopment has given them opportunity to live. Many former home lots are now green spaces, and much of the Lower Ninth Ward remains undeveloped, leaving no need for churches in parts of the city. Dozens of churches no longer exist.

“There are a few churches we have that were maybe stronger pre-Katrina than they are now, but we have a lot of churches that are stronger now than they were pre-Katrina,” he said. “But there are 50 congregations that we have, by my count, that we did not have pre-Katrina.”

Some of the 50 new congregations are church plants, but Hunter estimates most are pre-existing churches that joined the local assocation, or churches that began after the storm.

Celebration Church, for instance, not only rebuilt at its Airline Drive location, but has seven additional locations that are thriving. In the past two months, the Celebration network has baptized about 300 people, Watson said.

“We actually gave away the first several million dollars that came to us, because we didn’t think we could rebuild our Airline campus. So, we just invested it in helping the people of communities around us,” Watson said.

“But the more we gave away, the more the Lord blessed us with. And so at five years after Katrina, we were able to rebuild our campus on Airline Drive and to continue launching campuses.”

‘Discovered the joy and value of helping each other’

First Baptist continues as a majority Anglo yet ethnically diverse congregation, enriched by the relationships forged during the time Franklin Avenue worshiped there, Crosby told Baptist Press.

“When you have a flood, you have a fire that affects the community and people work together. They set aside their differences, prejudices and preconceptions about others and they work together,” Crosby said. “And that happened in our community.

“The world seemed chaotic, unmanageable, in the aftermath of the storm. Thousands of people left in great waves of depopulation, many of them simply unable to see a way forward,” Crosby said. “We were forced into awareness of one another. We rediscovered the value and joy of helping each other. We experienced the loss of all things, so to speak, and found true joy and riches in our relationships with one another and with God.”

Crosby nominated Luter for SBC president in 2012, a position Luter held two terms. He remains the only African American to have held the post.

Major changes for Franklin Avenue

Luter’s church renovated its campus at 2515 Franklin Ave. before rebuilding and relocating to New Orleans East in December 2018.

A location launched in Baton Rouge to serve more than 600 Franklin Avenue members who moved there after Katrina continues as United Believers Baptist Church, averaging 122 in Sunday worship, according to the 2024 Annual Church Profile.

Houston’s Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, launched to serve members who relocated to Houston, also continues, Luter said. The congregation averaged 425 members in Sunday morning worship when it last completed an ACP in 2017.

The original Franklin Avenue location now houses Rock of Ages Baptist Church, a non-Southern Baptist congregation acquiring the property on a lease-to-buy agreement. So many churches lost members, Luter said, the property sat vacant for years, with no one able to purchase it.

Luter helped plan a month of activities commemorating Katrina as a member of New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s K20 Advisory Commission. On the calendar are various interfaith events among others embracing the New Orleans community.

“One of the things I’ve learned is that we no longer can be complacent if a hurricane is in the Gulf coming towards New Orleans, or Mississippi or Alabama,” Luter said. “We did it for years, just knowing that the hurricane would pass and we might be without electricity or lights for a while. But we’d never flooded like it did with Katrina.”

The National Weather Service attributed 1,833 deaths to Katrina, as well as $108 billion in damage, amounting to $200 billion when adjusted for inflation.

“So one of the lessons we’ve learned, and I’ve learned, is don’t take hurricanes lightly,” Luter said. “If it comes near us, if it gets up to a Category 3, then you do need to seriously consider evacuating—because so many people lost their lives.”

R. Keith Parks, international missions leader of both the Southern Baptist Convention and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, died Aug. 26. He was 97.

Parks spent 45 years in international missions, serving as ninth president of the SBC Foreign Mission Board—now International Mission Board—from 1980 to 1992.

He and his wife, Helen Jean, were missionaries to Indonesia for 14 years before he joined the Foreign Mission Board home office staff, where he served in several administrative roles.

He went on to become the first coordinator of CBF Global Missions, serving in that role from 1993 to 1999.

When asked by the Baptist Standard in 2018 his favorite aspect of ministry, Parks responded: “Relating to and working with missionaries and local Christians all around the world. ‘Missionary’ is still my dominant DNA.”

Remembering the legacy of Keith Parks

IMB President Paul Chitwood expressed his gratitude for Parks’ legacy.

“We celebrate that Keith Parks and his wife gave decades of their lives to serving Southern Baptists in our cooperative mission work to get the gospel to the nations,” Chitwood said.

“While Keith served as president during a complicated time in Southern Baptist life, his intentional focus on taking the gospel to the unengaged is a lasting legacy that still marks IMB strategy to this day. I am grateful for that legacy.”

Todd Lafferty, IMB executive vice president and chief operating officer, also served on the mission field in Indonesia, in addition to other countries, before joining the U.S. staff. Lafferty said: “Keith Parks’ visionary and strategic leadership led us from familiar mission stations to unmarked roads in the missionary task to reach the least reached. His legacy lives on as we continue to seek to reach the remaining unengaged, unreached peoples in the world today.”

CBF Executive Director Paul Baxley similarly reflected on Parks’ legacy and contributions to the CBF Global Missions.

“Dr. Keith Parks was deeply committed to the global mission of Jesus Christ throughout his life,” Baxley said. “He provided visionary and transformational leadership in the establishment of CBF Global Missions. His experience, missiology and strategic clarity laid a strong foundation for our Fellowship’s participation in Global Missions.”

“Dr. Parks was deeply respected not only by our Fellowship at large, but also by our first generation of field personnel who were touched by his leadership, integrity and vision

“Our Cooperative Baptist Fellowship family joins me in offering prayers of gratitude for his life, leadership and personal participation in inviting people to faith in Jesus Christ and his mission of transforming love in the world.”

Field personnel recall Parks’ personal care

Jim Smith, retired field personnel and CBF Global Missions staff leader, remembered Parks as “sharp, friendly and unafraid to operate from the edges.”

“His vision for reaching the most unreached and most neglected around the globe made a difference in global missions. He visited works in a multitude of circumstances where he spoke very little and listened a lot,” he said.

Smith also fondly recalled Parks’ ministry at a person level.

“He called my mother just before she was operated on for spinal surgery. They actually waited to take her into the operation so he could pray for her. He never stopped learning and loving others,” Smith said.

Nell Green, retired CBF field personnel, likewise appreciated Parks’ care for the families of missions personnel.

“Dr. Keith Parks was our mentor, an inspiring leader, but simply ‘Uncle Keith’ to our children. He said once, ‘God does not call without a knowledge of your children.’ That helped us through some difficult times as we raised children overseas,” Green said.

 Both Keith and Helen Jean Parks considered field personnel as family, she added.

“Keith was always ready to think through a problem with you. Helen Jean would drop everything and take time to pray with you,” Green said. “They were caring, thoughtful leaders ready to invest themselves personally in the lives of those sent out.”

‘Passionate about reaching the unreached’

Karen Morrow, retired CBF field personnel, called Parks “one of my heroes of the faith, who embodied the Christian mission to reach the nations with the gospel message.”

“He was passionate about reaching the unreached and those with limited access to the gospel and established CBF Global Missions to that end,” she said.

Keith and Helen Jane Parks’ participation in a prayerwalk she led in Turkey was “one of the highlights of my ministry,” Morrow said. She recalled Parks overlooking the city of Antioch “with tears in his eyes,” reflecting on how Christians there sent out Paul and Barnabas as the first gospel missionaries and praying “with gratitude for all God had done.”

“Because of Keith’s life, service and leadership, countless people around the globe have come to have a personal relationship with Christ,” Morrow said.

Parks, a native of Memphis in the Texas Panhandle, got his first taste of international missions as a student summer missionary to Colombia’s San Andrés Island.

Thirty years later, when Toby Druin of the Baptist Standard asked the newly named president of the Foreign Mission Board to describe himself, Parks responded, “I am a missionary.” That remained his identity until the end.

An era of new dangers and opportunities

“Parks’ leadership thrust the IMB into an unprecedented era of effectiveness toward fulfilling the Great Commission,” said Jerry Rankin, who succeeded Parks as the mission board president.

“Missionary deployment around the world exploded under Parks’ predecessor, Dr. Baker James Cauthen,” Rankin said. “But Parks looked beyond successful growth to see that part of the world still unreached and closed to missionary presence.”

Parks’ time as Foreign Mission Board president coincided with world-changing events that brought new dangers—and opportunities—for Christian missionaries: the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS, growing numbers of terrorist attacks and assassinations, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Tiananmen Square protests, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the proliferation of new technologies and birth of the internet.

Parks’ leadership was a match for the times. Southern Baptists in 1976 had adopted a goal of preaching the gospel to everyone in the world by the end of the century. It fell to Parks to determine what it would take to reach that goal.

The goal has yet to be reached, but research into what it would take yielded “crushing statistical evidence that without an enlarged vision of the world, Southern Baptists would never contribute their full share to global evangelization,” wrote Leland Webb, editor of the FMB’s The Commission magazine at Parks’ retirement.

What the research revealed was more than 6,000 unreached peoples, ethnolinguistic groups who lived with few, if any, Christians among them, had little or no access to Scripture and did not welcome missionaries. The 1.9 billion people in those groups likely never would hear the name of Jesus.

‘New strategies to reach the unreached’

“Keith Parks was a missiologist par excellence,” Clyde Meador—who worked with four mission board presidents—once said of Parks. “He would do what he saw as right whether it was popular or not.”

Meador filled several key roles, including executive vice president, at the IMB before his death in 2024.

What Parks did was urge missionaries to develop daring new strategies to reach the unreached. This gave birth in 1985 to Cooperative Services International, which assigned teachers, doctors, businessmen and humanitarian workers to countries closed to traditional missionaries.

Later, the nonresidential missionary program was born for missionaries to develop creative ways to reach unreached people they could not live among.

“Parks’ vision positioned Southern Baptists to respond to the fall of the Soviet Union and laid the groundwork for changes that followed his tenure to focus on people groups instead of countries and engaging the unreached,” Rankin said.

Parks also challenged Southern Baptists to consider countries where missionaries had long worked as partners in reaching the world. On his last overseas trip as FMB president, to participate in a meeting of Baptist leaders from across the Americas, Parks challenged participants to begin sending their own missionaries as partners in God’s mission.

“Too many Christians in this world are convinced their responsibility is only to the people of their culture and language,” Parks said.

“We’ll never reach the world for Christ if we restrict ourselves to our own language and culture. Local interest always wins when culture dominates Christianity. Global interest wins when Christianity dominates culture.”

Native Texan and faithful missionary

After serving as pastor of Red Springs Baptist Church in Seymour, and as an instructor in Bible at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Parks and his wife, the former Helen Jean Bond, were appointed in 1954 as career missionaries to Indonesia, where they served until 1968.

There he served at the Baptist Theological Seminary of Indonesia in Semarang, Java. He also did evangelistic work in Semarang, was mission treasurer in Jakarta and spent a furlough as an associate secretary in the missionary personnel department at the FMB’s home office in Richmond, Va.

Parks joined the home office staff in 1968, leading work in Southeast Asia from 1968 to 1975; directing the mission support division from 1975 to 1979; serving as executive director-elect, September through December 1979; and executive director (title changed to president in May 1980) from Jan. 1, 1980, to Oct. 31, 1992.

Parks earned the Bachelor of Arts degree from North Texas State College (now University of North Texas) in Denton, and the Bachelor of Divinity and Doctor of Theology degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.

The Parks joined First Baptist Church in Richardson in 2000, where they taught the International Bible Class.

His wife of 69 years, Helen Jean, and their daughter, Eloise, both died in 2021.

He survived by: son Randall and his wife Nancy; son Kent and his wife Erika; son Stanley and his wife Kay; grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Parks was the author of Crosscurrents (Convention Press, 1966), World in View, A.D. 2000 Series (New Hope Press, 1987) and numerous articles and columns. He is the subject of Keith Parks: Breaking Barriers & Opening Frontiers, a biography by Gary Baldridge.

Compiled by Managing Editor Ken Camp from information provided by Mary Jane Welch of the International Mission Board and Aaron Weaver of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.