Kentucky pastor Kevin Ezell nominated for NAMB president

Updated 09/02/2010 at 6:59 PM

BP

Kentucky pastor Kevin Ezell has been nominated president of the North American Mission Board and will be voted on by trustees in a special called meeting in Alpharetta on Sept. 14. Ezell, whose members include Southern Seminary President Al Mohler, is pastor of 6,000-member Highview Baptist Church in Louisville.

ALPHARETTA – North American Mission Board trustees will gather in a special called meeting on Sept. 14 to elect Kentucky pastor Kevin Ezell as president of the missions agency.

NAMB Trustee Chairman Tim Dowdy, pastor of Eagles Landing First Baptist Church in McDonough and ex officio member of the search committee, informed NAMB trustees on Ezell’s nomination in an email on Aug. 31.

Ezell, 48, was chosen from among a field of 20 candidates and was informed of the eight-member search committee's decision on Aug. 30. The following day trustees received an email from Dowdy informing them of a special called meeting to elect a president. Ezell was confirmed as the search committee’s nominee at that time. The nomination of NAMB's third president since its June 1997 founding is the culmination of a 10-month search that began in October 2009. Previous presidents included Bob Reccord from 1997-2006 and Geoff Hammond from 2007-2009.

In his email the Georgia pastor said Ezell has led his current church to grow to 6,000 members since becoming pastor in 1996 “when he stepped into a difficult situation to rebuild consensus and lead the church to flourish. In the last three years, Dowdy continued, the church’s membership has grown to seven campuses spread across metropolitan Louisville and spilling into southern Indiana.

During that time the church has tripled its worship attendance – adding 1,000 in the past three years – and doubled in Sunday School. Dowdy also said Ezell’s previous pastorates in Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas all experienced significant growth.

Ezell’s most recent role in Southern Baptist life was his term of service as president of the denomination’s Pastors’ Conference, which concluded during its recent meeting in Orlando.

Ezell was born in Germany during his father’s service in the U.S. Air Force and grew up in Paducah, Ky. He has a bachelor of science degree from Union University in Jackson, Tenn., a M.Div. degree from Southwestern Seminary and a doctor of divinity degree from Southern Seminary.

Dowdy’s letter to NAMB trustees, in which he elaborated on Ezell’s qualifications, was first supplied to the Florida Baptist Witness by search committee chairman Ted Traylor of Pensacola, Fla.

Dowdy told trustees Ezell is a “gifted preacher and teacher and a faithful ambassador of the Lord with a passion for reaching the lost and touching the world for Jesus Christ. His own family embodies this commitment as Kevin and his wife of almost 25 years, Lynette, have three natural children and three adopted children from three different countries: Ethiopia, China, and the Philippines.”

Traylor, senior pastor of Olive Baptist Church in the Florida Panhandle, said in the letter sent to trustees, “Kevin Ezell is a warm, personable leader who can make difficult choices in leading an organization to be laser-focused on the mission at hand.”

Ezell’s “communication and organizational skills” are cause for excitement for NAMB’s future, Traylor added in a story in the Witness.

Ezell’s nomination drew praise from the current president of the Southern Baptist Convention, as well as one of his predecessors.

“It is with great joy and excitement to hear the good news that Kevin Ezell is the unanimous choice of the search committee for the president of NAMB,” SBC President Bryant Wright of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta said in the letter to NAMB trustees.

“[Ezell] is a gifted leader, and so much of the convention was able to see what a great job he did of leading the pastor’s conference in Orlando in June.”

Wright then urged prayer for Ezell “as God prepares him for this new calling of key leadership for Southern Baptists as we seek to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission.”

Former SBC President James Merritt, pastor of Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, “joyfully and enthusiastically endorsed” Ezell.

“I have known Kevin for many years and have long admired his outstanding leadership skills, his pastor’s heart, his ability to work with people, and the tremendous love he has for the Southern Baptist Convention,” Merritt said in the letter obtained by the Witness.

Calling him an “outstanding selection,” Merritt said Ezell’s “unique set of personality traits, leadership abilities, and an understanding of twenty-first century evangelism in a changing culture, I think, give him tremendous qualifications to take the North American Mission Board to newer and higher levels of reaching this country for Christ.”

The letter notes that both Wright and Merritt were references for Ezell.

Ezell’s church – with multiple campuses in two states – has a complicated missions giving profile.

The 2009 Annual Church Profile for Highview lists 121 baptisms and primary worship service attendance of 3,260. The church also reported in the ACP that it has 7,721 total members and 4,740 resident members. Highview gave $140,100, or 2.23 percent, through the Cooperative Program from total undesignated receipts of $6,270,057.That’s where it gets complicated.

Highview Baptist Church has seven locations; six in Louisville, Ky., and one across the Ohio River in Sellersburg, Ind. While the church is located in Kentucky, it funneled the vast majority of its 2009 Cooperative Program dollars through the Indiana convention. Records show that in 2009 it forwarded $140,100 to the Indiana convention but only $10,000 to the Kentucky convention.

The church has been on a steady phase out of its giving to the Kentucky Baptist Convention as far back at 2000-01, when it gave $146,000 to the Cooperative Program, $67,733 to Lottie Moon, and $18,062 to Annie Armstrong for a total of $235,753. It was not immediately clear what a category listing of $1,249 pertained to.

But Kentucky’s gradual loss appears to be Indiana’s steady gain. The Cooperative Program report from the State Convention of Baptists in Indiana shows that, for the 2009 year, Highview Baptist Church of Louisville (Sellersburg, Indiana campus) forwarded $140,100.04 to the state convention.

The Sellersburg congregation, which has “church/mission at large” status since it is not physically located with the state’s boundaries, has the distinction of being the largest CP giving congregation in that convention. It surpassed the next highest giving congregation, Graceland Baptist Church in New Albany, by $20,650. That congregation forwarded $119,450 to the Indiana convention last year.

The $140,100 given to Indiana Baptists in 2009 would translate into about 2.2 percent forwarded to the Cooperative Program based on Highview’s $6,270,057 in total undesignated receipts. According to the Arkansas Baptist state newspaper, that amount is down from the 2008 Annual Church Profile total of $226,467, or 3.5 percent, given to the CP from total designated receipts of $6,529,724.

Through June 30 of this year the Indiana convention is reporting receiving $60,000 from the Sellersburg campus.

Looking to the current year, Highview’s missions giving goal for 2010, according to its website and as reported in the Florida Baptist Witness, is $1.3 million with $400,000 set aside for Cooperative Program, $100,000 for Lottie Moon, and $10,000 for Annie Armstrong. The church’s “Million to Missions” program also has a goal of $582,000 for local missions, including $340,000 for four campus missions, $145,000 for a “mentoring/intern program” at Southern Seminary, and $1,200 for the Long Run Baptist Association in Louisville, Ky.

The website notes, “Actual expenditures will be determined by offerings to ‘Million to Missions’.”

In a May 14, 2009, Baptist Press story, a church spokesman said Highview funded a number of local missions efforts, but that the majority of the funds went to plant churches in Philadelphia, Atlanta, New York City, Boise, Indianapolis and Cleveland. On Sept. 1 a church spokesman declined to provide The Index with any information on the Atlanta church plant, including its name or a local phone number for the pastor.

Highview also directly funded international mission work in Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Zambia, North Africa, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, India, Asia and the Philippines, according to information provided to Baptist Press by the church last year.