Wednesday, September 1, 2010

kevin ezell for president

Florida Baptist Press announced that NAMB's search committee has unanimously agreed on Kevin Ezell as their choice for president.  You can read the article to see all of his qualifications and who he is--I had never heard of him before now, but I am in the dark on a lot of things.  I hate to nay nay something before it has even started but....   Ezell seems like a safe pick.  There is no argument that he has indeed been successful as a pastor and quite faithful as a Southern Baptist most notably in the 1.2 million that the church gives to missions.  My question is not about him as an individual, a pastor, or a leader.  He just seems like a safe pick.  Certainly his success as a pastor will help him to connect with other pastors and, hopefully, generate the much needed buy-in from churches that NAMB has lacked.  Part of the problem with NAMB and the state of stateside evangelistic work is that we are continuing to do what we have always done.  Digging one hole twice as deep is not the same as digging two holes.  NAMB needs a radical paradigm shift in how they operate and whoever is confirmed as president will probably make or break the institution.  I can't get the thought out of the back of my head that denominational loyalty paves the way to institutional advancement.  Granted, we don't want to be guilty of shooting our own side, it just seems that the SBC as a convention views traditional loyalty as a splitting issue.  It does give me some hope that Akin and other GCR members have supported his nomination, this probably means that they know something I do not.  We will just have to wait and see what happens.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You've never heard of him until now yet you can call it a "safe pick"?

Unknown said...

The point is that if you depersonalize the situation and just look at the resume it is certainly impressive. But look at the kind of decision the board is making. It is completely within the realm of the normal. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this. Undoubtedly his successes will help him connect with pastors. From a strategic standpoint however, the board has to change some things. Perhaps he is the man to make such changes. Time will tell. From where I sit, he seems to be too much inside the system--but I have been known to be overly cynical.

Unknown said...

I have been thinking about this one some more: Lets assume that the committee was interested in Mark Driscoll. He is young, hip, contextualized, and edgy. I would call him a safe pick. IMO, it is not how much cultural minutia one leaves behind or how progressive they are as an individual. Driscoll is still very much in line with "traditional" church--even though he looks and sounds different, he has different sensibilities as an individual. We are needing a paradigm shift not someone who is simply better at the old paradigm or who looks cooler pulling it off. Sure it will turn things around for a while, but we will simply have to revisit this in a few years if we don't change things.