Tuesday, August 11, 2009

NAMB President Geoff Hammond resigns

Dr. Geoff Hammond resigned as president of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, according to a report in online edition of The Christian Index.
The resignation happened after a day-long meeting of the full trustee board today, August 11.
The future of the board leadership is uncertain. Please pray for the North American Mission Board.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

It pains to see Geoff and others being subjected to such heartless and baseless accusations. I have worked and known Geoff for several years and has proved himself a man of integrity and reputation. He has a big heart for missions and missionaries. How comes the trustees endorsed his leadership a few months ago, only to wake up one morning and realized that he is surrounded by his “cronies”? When Geoff assumed office, he immediately hired Steve, Brandon and Dennis who have been part of his staff for all this time. This is a campaign by some people who did not like the good changes that have been going on at NAMB. Now the trustees have voted to go back to the old days, the familiar days, the comfortable days instead of moving the agency to a higher level where the mission is to lead Southern Baptists to conquer the world for Christ. The next President and his team, be wary for the same axe which fell Geoff is still swinging.

Dr. Bob Rogers said...

Kirwa,
I am no longer a trustee, but when I was on the board, I saw some things in Geoff's leadership style that bothered me. In particular, he required staff to report to him verbatim anything they said to a trustee. Now that is way too heavy handed. According to news reports, the trustees tried to get Geoff to work on his management style, which was considered micro-managing, and he refused to cooperate.

Kenny said...

Brother Bob:
As a NAMB missionary on the field for the past decade, news of resignations and such are doubly disturbing. Since you were on the trustee board, perhaps you can dispel a myth for me. The impression those of us who serve in small churches(say under 125 in Sunday morning worship), and those who serve in rural areas, is that precious few trustees of any SBC agency are from that kind of church.
Is there sufficient representation, based upon your past experience, from that kind of church? Thanks!

Dr. Bob Rogers said...

Kenny,
There was more diversity on NAMB's board of trustees than I expected, as there were women as well as men, and laypeople, not just ministers. Some came from small churches; I knew an African-American pastor on the board whose church had less than 100. But most of the trustees were pastors at large churches.
I also felt that there should have been more ethnic diversity. The black pastor I mentioned was the only black member of the board at the time, and we had one Asian member and I don't think we had any Hispanics. About 20% were women.