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A CHURCH FAMILY MAKES A DIFFERENCE

February 20, 2019

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org

A church family can make the difference in someone’s life. If you don’t believe it, just read the story of Paul Chitwood, new president of the International Mission Board, Southern Baptists’ largest missions-sending institution.

Chitwood grew up in a single-parent home for much of his childhood. He readily admits that members of First Baptist Church in Jellico “helped raise” him.

He flat out says that he would not be the president of the International Mission Board had it not been for deacons from First Baptist Church in Jellico, near the Kentucky-Tennessee line, who knocked on his door and invited his father to church. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Opinion Column Tagged With: IMB, missions

TENNESSEE TIES

February 19, 2019

Editor’s Note: New IMB President Paul Chitwood spoke to Baptist editors during their meeting last week in Charleston, S.C. Following his presentation, the Tennessee native sat down for an interview with the Baptist and Reflector.

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org

Paul Chitwood, seen here during a recent press conference, was elected president of the IMB last November. Chitwood is a Tennessee native and was reared in First Baptist Church, Jellico.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — It’s been quite awhile since Paul Chitwood left Tennessee, but his roots still run deep.

Chitwood, who became president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board in November, was born in LaFollette in 1970.

At the age of 2, his parents divorced and Thomas Chitwood and his three sons moved to Jellico to live with his grandparents for awhile. Later, his dad found a nearby place for him and his sons to live.

Jellico, located on the state line of Kentucky and Tennessee, was home to Chitwood until he moved to Louisville, Ky., to attend seminary. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Featured, News, Tennessee Tagged With: IMB, missions

IMB’S CHITWOOD TAPS LAFFERTY

February 8, 2019

Baptist Press

Todd and Susan Lafferty visit the Taj Mahal in the Indian city of Agra in 2012. The Laffertys served as International Mission Board personnel in a nearby country, sharing the gospel among South Asia’s 1.5 billion people who have no personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

RICHMOND — International Mission Board President Paul Chitwood announced Jan. 30 that Todd Lafferty will be presented to the entity’s board of trustees as his recommendation for the IMB’s next executive vice president. IMB trustees, who meet Feb. 6-7 in Richmond, are responsible for electing the person who serves in that role.

Lafferty currently serves as pastor of mobilization for Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. He and his wife Susan previously served with the IMB for nearly 29 years. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: News, SBC Tagged With: IMB, missions

TOGETHERNESS, UNITY MARK IMB PRESIDENTIAL INSTALLATION

February 7, 2019

By Ann Lovell
IMB communications office

Paul and Michelle Chitwood enjoy a moment with newly appointed IMB missionaries at the IMB installation and sending celebration Feb. 6 at Grove Avenue Baptist Church in Richmond. Chitwood was installed as the 13th president of the IMB during the Sending Celebration of 19 new missionaries. — IMB Photo by Roy Burroughs

RICHMOND, Va. — Unity, fellowship and promises of mutual support characterized the installation of International Mission Board President Paul Chitwood, a native of Jellico, Tenn., and the Sending Celebration of 19 newly appointed international missionaries at Grove Avenue Baptist Church, in Richmond, Wednesday, Feb. 6. Chitwood is the 13th president of the 173-year-old International Mission Board, the largest denominational missionary-sending body among American evangelicals.  [Read more…]

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Filed Under: News, SBC Tagged With: IMB

TENNESSEAN PAUL CHITWOOD ELECTED UNANIMOUSLY AS IMB PRESIDENT

November 16, 2018

By David Roach
Baptist Press

Paul Chitwood has been elected the International Mission Board’s 13th president by a unanimous vote of the IMB trustees. Photo by David Roach / Baptist Press

RICHMOND, Va. — About a decade ago, Paul Chitwood became convinced God was calling him to mobilize missions and missionaries, he told International Mission Board trustees. That call culminated today (Nov. 15), he said, with his election as IMB president.

“Being a member of this board for eight years changed my ministry and it changed my life, so much so that [my wife] Michelle and I questioned whether God had called us to overseas missions,” Chitwood, who served as an IMB trustee from 2002-10 and chaired the board from 2008-10, said upon his election. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Featured, News, Tennessee Tagged With: IMB

TENNESSEAN NOMINATED TO LEAD IMB

November 6, 2018

By Lonnie Wilkey & Julie McGowan
Baptist & Reflector

Tennessee native Paul Chitwood and other short-term missionaries in South Africa pray for a terminally ill AIDS patient on July 2, 2015. The trip was conducted through a partnership between the Kentucky Baptist Convention and Baptist Global Response, a primary ministry partner of the IMB. Participants delivered buckets filled with supplies to AIDS patients. — Kentucky Baptist Convention photo

RICHMOND — Paul Chitwood, executive director of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, will be nominated as the 13th president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board.

The IMB’s presidential search committee announced Nov. 6 that Chitwood, 48, will be presented to the full trustee board for a vote during their Nov. 14-15 meeting in Richmond. If elected during the plenary session on Nov. 15, Chitwood will take office immediately. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Featured, News, SBC Tagged With: IMB

LOTTIE MOON OFFERING TOTALS NEARLY $159 MILLION

October 10, 2018

By Julie McGowan
IMB

IMB missionary Larry Pepper (center) has spent more than two decades offering hope to the hurting in Africa.
— IMB Photo

RICHMOND, Va. — On the 100th anniversary since Southern Baptists named their global mission offering in honor of esteemed missionary Lottie Moon, church members gave $158.9 million to sustain their international missionaries worldwide — the second-highest Lottie Moon Christmas Offering® for International Missions ever received.

“We praise the Lord and thank Southern Baptist churches who have again generously demonstrated their faithfulness in undergirding the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth,” said Clyde Meador, interim president of the International Mission Board. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: News, SBC Tagged With: IMB, missions

PLATT TO STEP DOWN FROM IMB; MEADOR NAMED INTERIM PRESIDENT

September 14, 2018

By Julie McGowan
IMB office

Editorial note: Statements from Platt and Dunbar follow this release. 

Platt

RICHMOND, Virginia — After receiving the resignation of Dr. David Platt, IMB president, to be effective at the Sept. 27, 2018, trustee meeting, the Executive Committee of the board of trustees of the International Mission Board voted in a special meeting Sept. 13 to approve Dr. Clyde Meador as interim president starting Sept. 27, subject to full board approval.  [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Featured, News, SBC Tagged With: IMB

FORMER BUDDHIST GRATEFUL FOR BAPTISTS, CP

August 21, 2018

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org

Dixie Hausser shares her story with Joe Sorah, compassion ministries specialist with the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board and interim pastor at First Baptist Church, LaFollette, where Hausser is an active member at the age of 93.

LAFOLLETTE — At the age of 93, Dixie Hausser tells it like it is.

“If the missionaries had not come, I’d probably not be a Christian today,” said Hausser, who later moved to Tennessee as an adult and is an active member of First Baptist Church, LaFollette.

The missionaries she refers to were appointed by the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) and serving in the Orient prior to World War II. Once tensions increased worldwide, the IMB evacuated missionaries from China, Japan and other locations to Hawaii which was then a United States territory. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Featured, News, Tennessee Tagged With: evangelism, IMB, missions

IMB’S PLATT INITIATES SEXUAL ABUSE INVESTIGATIONS

July 27, 2018

By Art Toalston
Baptist Press

RICHMOND, Va. — Two “thorough, outside, independent” investigations have been initiated by International Mission Board President David Platt into the IMB’s handling of any past sexual abuse allegations and into its policies of zero tolerance for such abuse.

Platt also stated a public apology to Anne Marie Miller, who has alleged sexual abuse by an individual who subsequently became an IMB missionary yet was not reported to authorities following a 2007 IMB inquiry into the matter.

Platt’s actions and apology were relayed to Baptist Press in a statement today (July 25), which is posted at the IMB’s website.

Platt spoke with Miller before releasing the statement to Baptist Press, according to an IMB spokesperson. Miller subsequently sent an affirmation of Platt’s actions.

“[Many] facets of this situation are extremely disturbing,” Platt said of charges filed against Mark Aderholt for sexual assault of a child under 17 stemming from a 1996-1997 relationship when he was 25 and of the 2007 IMB investigation. Aderholt, who later served at two Arkansas churches and with the South Carolina Baptist Convention, was arrested July 3 in Fort Worth, Texas, and released on bond.

Platt

Platt stated he is “commencing a thorough, outside, independent examination of IMB’s handling of past actions — including this case and any other similar situations. In addition, I am commencing a thorough, outside, independent examination of IMB’s present policies to ensure that our current commitment to zero tolerance for child abuse, sexual abuse, and sexual harassment is completely and consistently enforced across IMB today.

“Further, I am presently in conversations with leaders of other churches and ministries, particularly within the SBC, to establish practical ways we can and must prevent situations like this in the future,” Platt stated. “Any attempts to minimize, ignore, cover up, or overlook child abuse, sexual abuse, or sexual harassment are absolutely intolerable, and we must take action together now to ensure safety and support for every person employed or affected by a church or ministry.”

Platt, addressing Miller, stated, “I want to publicly apologize for the pain and hurt that Anne Miller has specifically suffered in this situation. I will not presume to know the variety of other emotions and challenges that she, those around her, and others who have walked through similar situations have experienced. Further, I want to apologize for various ways we in the IMB have contributed to such hurt and pain through our response to this point.

“In addition, I want to publicly thank Anne Miller for the courage she showed in approaching IMB in 2007, and the courage she is showing even now. I realize the actions I have outlined above cannot remove her hurt and pain, or the hurt and pain of others who have experienced similar situations. But I am committed to doing all that I can so that her courage, and the courage of others like her, will prevent hurt and pain among others in the future.”

Miller, in a response emailed to BP, said, “I am grateful for David Platt’s immediate and thorough response upon his return from Africa today. His apology and the action of obtaining third-party investigations into my case and all other similar cases demonstrates his commitment to not tolerating sexual abuse or misconduct in any capacity. Furthermore, the conversations happening in the IMB and in convention leadership encourage me that abuse survivors will finally have an ally in the Church as we pursue healing. It’s my prayer that past and present survivors receive the support we need and the policies which result from these changes will prevent future victims from becoming so. I am excited and hopeful for the future of the SBC and am thankful for the many voices who are encouraging and inciting change along the way.”

Platt concluded his statement asserting that “we must do better. In the IMB. In the SBC. In any church and any ministry, we must do everything we can to protect children and adults from abuse and harassment, and we must do everything we can to hold anyone who is guilty of these things fully accountable.”

Platt, at the outset of his statement, recounted that “I just returned from the last couple of weeks in sub-Saharan Africa” and had met “immediately with IMB trustee leaders.” Because there is an ongoing criminal investigation “with which IMB is committed to full cooperation,” Platt said “it is wise, for the sake of everyone involved, for me to refrain from commenting on specific details in this case.”

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Filed Under: News, SBC Tagged With: IMB

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