IMB Nominates Dr. Paul Chitwood as exec

[Sandy]

https://www.imb.org/2018/11/06/chitwood-candidate/

There was a lot of conversation on some blogs among some Southern Baptists about the IMB getting a minority candidate, someone with mission field experience and a missionary perspective to fill its Presidency. If there's to be a minority tapped for SBC exec service, it won't be the IMB that does it. Nor do they seem inclined to pick someone who spent time on the mission field, or with anyone currently in a leadership position in the organization itself. They nominated a state convention executive director.

Noting that he was once chair of the IMB trustee board, that's about the only prior connection he has to the organization itself. Not that being the exec director of a state convention, especially Kentucky which is a relatively large state convention, isn't good qualification for running a Baptist organization, any organization, but it's not where the conversation seemed to be going.

[Rvaughn]

The discussion at SBC Voices shows some who are disgruntled with the decision.

[Joseph Patrick]

From Gerry Milligan...We were in the field during his being chairman of the trustee board. He would not communicate with the field, even when shutting us out from information we requested. But, this is very similar to the Baptist playbook...look no farther than your friend. It does not matter what field personnel would like in a leader. Nothing is too good for our missionaries, so give them nothing.

[Sandy]

He's a former trustee chair, meaning he had the ability to lobby for this position in a way not many other candidates, if any, could have done. He is the executive director of a large state convention, which is an indication of ascendancy within the SBC bureaucracy. I wouldn't say that those things mean that he wouldn't be a capable leader, but it is not the kind of selection that indicates a change of thinking in a denomination that is seeing declining membership and attendance steepen and in which its flagship mission board is also struggling. Picking people who have influence among those who are responsible for the selection is a long, long, long term M.O. in the SBC. And I've noticed that since this pick was made, the idealistic talk about at least one of the new entity heads to fill multiple vacancies being a minority has died down considerably. This year's convention meeting might have been raucous and progressive comparatively, but most of the current trustees of all of the boards are hand-picked and vetted by the "traditionalist" Patterson-Pressler group and they'll be there for a long time.

[Joseph Patrick]

From Gerry Milligan...
i wonder if anyone has asked Wade Burleson of his thoughts...What about it Wade, are lurking out there?