IMB names candidate for Executive VP role

[Rvaughn]

[Sandy]

Well, there seemed to be a lot of disappointment with the appointment of the president, focused mainly on the fact that he had no previous field experience other than serving as a trustee and that he appeared to be yet another result of the "good ole boy" system in the SBC where appointments are made as a result of who you know rather than what you have demonstrated you can do. So having someone in the executive office with a lot of field experience appears to be a concession to the critics.

Many of the insider responses to the critics made the statement that narrowing down the qualifications for the president of the IMB to someone who had served on the mission field was limiting because there weren't any potential candidates with field experience who had the qualifications to provide executive leadership on the board. Now they have Todd Lafferty as executive VP, very qualified, and with field experience. Chitwood was executive of one of the large state conventions but I know many Southern Baptists who tend to think of state conventions as overblown bureaucracies that spend a lot and do little. I tend to share that opinion. I'd guess that a lot of the expertise in the decision making will come from Lafferty's perspective.