The recommendation of Ezell, senior pastor of Highview Baptist Church in Louisville and immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Pastors’ Conference, will be considered Sept. 14 at a special called meeting.

Ezell, 48, is the unanimous choice of the eight-person search committee.

“I am humbled and honored by the search committee’s confidence and nomination,” Ezell told the Witness on Sept. 1 “I am looking forward to meeting the NAMB trustees and excited about the future possibilities.”

Trustee chairman Tim Dowdy, an ex officio member of the search committee, informed NAMB trustees of Ezell’s nomination in a letter sent via e-mail the evening of Aug. 31. On Aug. 30, Dowdy announced the special called meeting in an e-mail to trustees. 

In the Aug. 31 letter, which Traylor provided to the Witness, 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.”

Dowdy, pastor of Eagle’s Landing First Baptist Church in McDonough, Ga., noted 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 Highview’s membership has increased by more than 1,000, Dowdy said, “while the church’s investment in missions reached $1.2 million in 2009.”

Under Ezell’s leadership, the congregation has grown to seven campuses spread across metropolitan Louisville, including southern Indiana.

According to Dowdy, Ezell’s previous pastorates in Illinois, Tennessee and Texas all experienced significant growth.

Traylor, senior pastor of Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, said in the letter, “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.

“His family commitment to international adoption will be an inspiration to all Southern Baptists,” Traylor said of Ezell. “He has led Highview Baptist Church, a multi-campus ministry, with 12 percent of their budget being given to Southern Baptist causes. He is a loyal missions supporter.”

Traylor expressed “great joy” that Ezell was unanimously chosen by the search committee.

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,” said SBC President Bryant Wright in the letter.

“[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,” he added.

Wright, pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in suburban Atlanta, 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 “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,” said Merritt, pastor of Cross Pointe Church, in Duluth, Ga.

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.

Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., and David Dockery, president of Union University in Jackson, Tenn., also were quoted in the letter as references who supported Ezell’s nomination.

“This is a great day for NAMB. It is a great day for the SBC,” said Akin, who was a member of Highview for almost eight years of Ezell’s tenure as pastor.

Dockery said of Ezell, a member of his school’s Board of Reference, “is an exemplary pastor, a serious and faithful student of Scripture, and dedicated Christ-follower.”

Dowdy told fellow trustees more information about Ezell will be provided before the Sept. 14 meeting.

Traylor told the Witness the search committee finalized its decision on Aug. 30. There were at least five “face to face major” meetings of the committee, as well as several conference calls, he said.

The committee considered about 20 recommendations for president, “a surprisingly short list,” Traylor said, noting his group also looked “outside of the recommendations that came to us.”

Traylor declined to say how many finalists were considered, only noting the committee “interviewed several candidates.”

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

Information from the 2009 Annual Church Profile for Highview Baptist Church lists 121 baptisms and primary worship service attendance of 3260. The church has 7721 total members and 4740 resident members, it reported in the ACP. Highview gave $140,100, or 2.23 percent, through the Cooperative Program from total undesignated receipts of $6,270,057.

According to a report from the State Convention of Baptists in Indiana, Highview contributed $140,100.04 to CP through SCBI in 2009, making it the largest CP giving church in total giving. Highview has “church at large” status in the SCBI. One of the church’s seven campuses is in Southern Indiana.

Highview also gave through the Kentucky Baptist Convention, according to a KBC report. During 2009-2010, the church contributed $10,000 through the Cooperative Program and $8,784 to the Annie Armstrong Offering.

According to Highview’s ACP, in 2009 the church gave $50,000 to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions and $10,000 to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, with total missions expenditures of $1,350,107.

Highview’s missions giving goal for 2010, according to its website, is $1.3 million, with $400,000 for Cooperative Program, $100,000 for Lottie Moon, and $10,000 for Annie Armstrong. The “Million for 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 Mission to Missions.”

A native of Paducah, Ky., Ezell was born in Germany during his father’s service in the U.S. Air Force.

Ezell has served on the board of trustees of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., including as its chairman, and currently serves on the Advisory Board of Boyce College, the undergraduate school of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, as well as Union’s Board of Reference.

He earned a bachelor of science degree from Union University in Jackson, Tenn., a master of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, and a doctor of ministry degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville.

The NAMB presidency was vacated in August 2009 when former president Geoff Hammond resigned under pressure from trustees.

Richard Harris, a NAMB executive with 30 years of experience with the agency and its predecessor entity, the Home Mission Board, has served as acting and interim president since Hammond’s resignation.

The eight-member NAMB presidential search committee was formed in October, with Traylor named chairman. Although Traylor’s term of service as a NAMB trustee concluded in June, the board agreed to allow him to continue to serve as search chairman. Traylor, however, will not have a vote when trustees consider the Ezell nomination.

In addition to Traylor, members of the search committee are Doug Dieterly, executive pastor, Plymouth Baptist Church, Plymouth, Ind.; Larry Gipson, pastor of First Baptist Church, Oneonta, Ala.; Chuck Herring, pastor of Collierville First Baptist Church in Collierville, Tenn.; Lisa Knutsen, a member of Green Valley Baptist Church in Henderson, Nev.; Ryan Palmer, pastor, Seventh Metro Church, Baltimore, Md.; and Tim Patterson, pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church, Jacksonville, and immediate past NAMB trustee chairman.

As chairman of NAMB's trustee board, Tim Dowdy, serves as an ex officio member of the search committee

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On Monday, Aug. 29, at about 6:10 a.m. Hurricane Katrina made its monstrous landfall in southeast Louisiana. Packing 125 mph winds with intense central pressure, Katrina would be the third most powerful storm to ever hit the United States -- and one of the deadliest.

More than 1,800 would perish directly in the hurricane itself or from the unprecedented flooding to follow. Eighty percent of New Orleans and surrounding parishes were flooded when levees broke; the putrid floodwaters -- contaminated with sewage, gasoline, oil and chemicals -- lingered for weeks.

With some 300,000 homes and businesses destroyed or damaged, Katrina left $81 billion in damages in its wake, the costliest hurricane in U.S. history. Mississippi beach towns like Gulfport and Biloxi -- where the surge flooded inland as far as 12 miles -- were devastated. One-third of New Orleans' population moved away and never returned.

Today, Caison will tell you that just as things were never the same after Pearl Harbor, JFK's assassination or 9/11, the Gulf Coast and Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR) have not been the same since Katrina.

Caison and the SBDR team initially thought Katrina would only be a "wind event" -- albeit a serious one -- with destructive wind damage predicted as far north as Jackson, Miss.

Caison and his team had local disaster relief teams hunkered down in Mississippi and Louisiana in addition to using three staging sites -- Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center near Talladega, Ala., Camp Garaywa in Clinton, Miss., and a venue in Marshall, Texas -- for the scores of volunteers en route from 41 of Southern Baptists' state conventions.

"On Tuesday, we saw the levees break and the flooding begin in New Orleans," said Caison, now adult volunteer mobilization team leader at NAMB. "We saw the thousands of people trapped in the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center. We realized how bad New Orleans was going to take it."

Starting on the western side of New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, and moving into southern Jefferson and Plaquemines parishes, and west of the Mississippi River down to Houma, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief finally was able to move in its first feeding and chainsaw units a few days later. "On the initial push, we had 30 feeding units deployed," Caison said.

For 196 continuous days -- from Aug. 29, 2005, until March 12, 2006 -- Southern Baptist Disaster Relief was in full operation. The DOC staff in Alpharetta, Ga., initially worked around the clock and, later, 16-hour days.

While the numbers related to Katrina's death and destruction were staggering so, too, were the numbers put up by the 21,000 Southern Baptist volunteers who came to the Gulf Coast:

-- 196,310 volunteer days.

-- 500 SBDR units responding from across the United States.

-- 14,613,798 hot meals prepared and served to victims, volunteers and first responders.

-- 21,610 gallons of water purified.

-- 7,817 children cared for.

-- 17,033 chainsaw and mud-out jobs completed.

-- 132,019 showers provided to victims and workers.

-- 27,845 laundry loads washed and dried.

-- 3,107 ham radio messages delivered -- vital because of wireline/wireless phone outages.

In addition to all the SBDR work under way in Louisiana and Mississippi, 13 other conventions also were responding in their own states -- ministering to the 1.2 million homeless evacuees forced to leave the flooded Gulf Coast areas for places like San Antonio, Atlanta, Minneapolis and even New York.

Into the following year, Southern Baptist relief did not stop, but transitioned into Project NOAH (New Orleans Area Homes) Rebuild.

"By November and December of 2005, it was clear to us we needed a long-term rebuild program," Caison said. Project NOAH would be funded by the balance of some $25 million Southern Baptists and others had generously contributed to NAMB and to their state convention offices for Katrina relief.

Kicking off in May 2006, Project NOAH Rebuild would draw another 26,500 volunteers from across America to New Orleans, usually staying a week at a time, sleeping on cots or in sleeping bags in New Orleans' World Trade Center or at a Southern Baptist church in St. Bernard Parish.

These NOAH Rebuild volunteers assisted with the building or re-building of some 500 homes in New Orleans, many located in the flood-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward area where floodwater from the ruptured levees spilled over into neighborhood after neighborhood. Another 26 water-damaged churches, schools and ministry centers also were repaired under Project NOAH Rebuild.

Today, five years later -- with current responses under way in Haiti, American Samoa and in recently flooded Iowa, Texas and Kentucky -- Caison said the real-life lessons and inspiring examples learned from Katrina have paved the way to improvements evident in Southern Baptist Disaster Relief in 2010.

The responsiveness, capability and perseverance of state Baptist conventions showed that Baptists "really do want to serve and stepped up," Caison said.

"And they responded not only in the early emergency phase, but also in the Project NOAH Rebuild and the rebuild in Mississippi," he said. "We saw church-to-church partnerships spring up, and churches adopting churches that had been damaged or destroyed by the hurricane or floods."

Caison said Hurricane Katrina also pointed out and solidified the need for more disaster relief chaplains, to the point that there are now 4,000-5,000 more trained disaster relief chaplains on standby than before Katrina.

"We've seen more and stronger partnerships between NAMB, the state conventions, associations and churches in disaster-affected areas because of Katrina," Caison continued.

"The way we conducted our ministry during Katrina also caused the federal and state governments to stand up and take notice. Our relationships with FEMA and state governments changed because they finally began to understand what Southern Baptist Disaster Relief is about. Washington [D.C.] folks finally realized that we bring more to the table than our relationships with the Red Cross or The Salvation Army. They began to understand who we are and now recognize us as one of the top three disaster relief organizations in the United States."

Caison said Southern Baptist relationships also blossomed after Hurricane Katrina with other evangelical organizations such as Samaritan's Purse, Operation Blessing, Convoy of Hope and other para-church organizations -- leading to the creation of the Christian Relief Cooperative, a group of evangelical organizations involved in disaster relief.

The number of trained Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers has climbed to an all-time high of 95,000, a 46 percent increase over the 51,300 trained volunteers just prior to Katrina. In fact, just in the few months following Katrina in 2005, Caison said 25,000 new volunteers were trained.

Southern Baptist Disaster Relief's fleet -- which numbered about 800 vehicles in 2005 -- has grown to 1,550 units.

The number of recovery units is now 780, including chainsaw, mud-out and repair units, not counting the 124 units used just for feeding. A number of state Baptist conventions have feeding units that can deliver more than 20,000 meals a day and did so after Hurricane Ike in Texas in 2008.

Although SBDR is sometimes spread thin -- especially in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake and the American Samoa tsunami -- Caison said disaster relief workers at NAMB and out in the states are ready if a new disaster strikes. The 2010 hurricane season -- predicted to be one of the most active in years -- is only in its third month.

"While we have plenty of volunteers, we do have a shortage of leadership in disaster relief," Caison said. "It's not the quality of leadership but the quantity of leadership. Our guys out in the states wear multiple hats, and disaster relief is just one of them. We need more unit directors -- 'blue caps' -- who can operate the units day to day.

"Disaster relief continues to evolve," Caison reflected. "The number of state conventions that have come on line have increased over the last 10 years. Some are still emerging. Usually, it boils down to funding. Most state conventions operate on the donations made during a response. If funding does not come, they cannot respond."

Caison said Southern Baptist disaster relief's mantra is "serving Christ in the crisis."

"Disaster relief will continue to be used to kick down the doors of opportunity," Caison said. "After a disaster response, there are people who come up to us and say, 'Please start a Southern Baptist church in our community.' We're working harder to follow up and do just that -- to use disaster relief as a means to plant new churches."

Caison said disaster relief's physical and spiritual ministries are two sides of the same coin.

"Jesus said to the 12: 'Go preach, share the story and heal the sick.' He said to the 70: 'Go heal the sick, share the story and preach.' We have to do both the physical and the spiritual ministries. If we don't, we're just a social organization.

"As people in a disaster ask us who we are, where we came from, etc., we can transition to sharing the Gospel. And while we're harvesting during disaster relief, we're also planting seeds and watering as well. That's who we are. That's our DNA."

Mickey Noah is a writer for the North American Mission Board.
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In case you don’t know much about football, let me explain a little further.  Ethan is 6’1” and around 175 pounds.  The positions he’s played prior to this year require that he either run with the ball, or catch someone else who’s trying to run with the ball.  He’s pretty fast, and pretty light as football players go.  

The center, on the other hand, is the guy who hikes the ball to the quarterback and then blocks the other team’s largest players.  It’s one of several offensive line positions typically occupied by young men heftier than our son.  

I won’t try to enumerate the sequence of events that led to this reassignment.  As you can imagine, high school football players have a way of getting injured, speeding up, slowing down, and even moving away over the summer.  And it’s really a compliment to Ethan’s strength, speed and work ethic that he’s being given this opportunity.  Let’s just say that Ethan’s mother and I are swallowing hard, and praying even harder that our strong but medium-sized son will survive and even succeed, right in the center of all those big guys.  

Of course, one way or another, most students find themselves in that kind of a “position” as they go back to school this fall.  For many the return to campus means being thrust into an environment of both dangers and opportunities.  And as their families and church families, we dare not take those challenges too lightly.  

Now would be a great time to intensify your prayers for the students you know and for the ministries of our churches to those students.  Pray they will have strength to stand on the biblical truth they have learned this summer.  Pray the Holy Spirit will guide them to good decisions, and to peers who can reinforce their Christian commitments.

Pray for the students who received evangelism and leadership training this past summer at IBSA’s Super Summer, and for those who were mentored during IBSA’s All State Youth Choir mission trip to Pennsylvania.  Pray for the students who will gather this fall for “See You at the Pole” prayer meetings, and who will organize and attend Christian club meetings on campus.  Pray that hundreds, even thousands, of students from IBSA churches will boldly invite their friends to the December Youth Encounter in Springfield, and that many there will hear the gospel and respond with faith in Christ.

Pray for IBSA’s Student Evangelism Director Grant Medford and for the network of youth leaders throughout our churches he seeks to assist and equip.  Thank you for making this ministry and others possible through your church’s Cooperative Program and Illinois Mission Offering gifts.  When you give your Illinois Mission Offering gift through your church this month (or online at IBSA.org), ask God to use your gift to help welcome students into the Kingdom of God.  

Of course our mission to reach students doesn’t end with high school.  Pray also for Serena Butler, who directs IBSA’s collegiate ministries, and seeks to help churches and campus ministers evangelize and disciple college students, and mobilize them for missions and church planting.  IBSA’s goal this year is to start new campus ministries on at least ten college campuses.  That would bring the total to about 40, and yet 130 Illinois college campuses still have no Southern Baptist witness.  

As our students go back to school this fall, they are being thrust into the center of some pretty dangerous temptations, many of which they haven’t faced before.  But my son Ethan’s response to his new football position has encouraged me.  Instead of focusing on the size of his opponents or the immensity of his task, he speaks with excitement about the opportunity to be in the game, and to help his team win.  He reminds me with a twinkle in his eye that he touches the ball on every play, and that nothing happens unless he starts it.  

This fall let’s pray for the students and student leaders from our churches.  With the Lord’s help, who knows what they may start from right there in the center of things, no matter what the odds.

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Every week, Gray and his wife Tedra open their home to members of The Connection, a church they planted four years ago. The rain that fell that Saturday in July resulted in several feverish hours of work for the Grays, but church members arrived right on time on Sunday, filling the basement to capacity.

Gray grew up less than five miles from the neighborhood on Chicago’s south side where he and his family live now. After attending Illinois State University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, he returned to Chicago and worked as a teacher at a nearby middle school. Experiences early in his ministry  disillusioned him about church life, but he still accepted occasional invitations from seminary friends to preach at conferences or events. Mostly, though, Gray focused on his teaching job. Eventually, God began to lay on his heart the idea of a church that would focus on authenticity and genuine worship, instead of the trappings and material benefits of ministry. Deciding on a location was simple.

“We started on the South Side because that’s where we lived,” Gray said. “We had just bought a house, and we had room in our basement. That’s all we needed – a room and some people.”

Eight people attended the first worship service of The Connection Community Church in April 2006. Gray said that number soon fell to four, forcing him to confront the differences between his old role as a conference speaker and his new calling as a pastor.

In the basement, he said, “You didn’t have a crowd, you didn’t have lights. Your name wasn’t up anywhere.

“That was a time of my humbling,” he said. “But I made a commitment to honor what God had called me to, and to be faithful to it. That’s when I started growing as a man of God, and the church started growing numerically.”

Now, The Connection runs from 35 to 50 on Sunday mornings, with a small group Bible study on Thursday evenings. Like many church plants, they’ve had to be flexible with their location. After two years in the basement, they moved to a local restaurant. They’re back in the Grays’ home now, and looking at potential rental properties that would give them extra room to grow. The search for a place to meet has been a lesson in itself, Gray said.

“It’s not about having a place that’s ours, but a place where we can affect the people for God. A building means nothing to me; we have to be effective for ministry.

“But,” Gray added with a laugh, “That doesn’t mean I don’t want one.”

As a first-time pastor, he has grown with his young church, learning how important it is to build relationships and value the individuals in his congregation. In the beginning, he prayed for “new growth,” meaning The Connection would reach people who either hadn’t spent a lot of time in church, or who, like Gray, felt pushed to the periphery of church life in more traditional settings.

“We don’t have any professional Christians,” Gray said. The church encourages a casual dress code, and sticks as closely as possible to a one-hour service, so that families can spend the rest of the day together. They also look for opportunities to meet real needs within the church and community. Each year, The Connection sponsors a school supply giveaway after a Sunday morning service. The Grays and other church leaders read Bible questions pre-planned for each child in the church, and the kids receive backpacks, pencils, and other supplies for the upcoming school year. The giveaway is just one way Gray is leading his church to impact their neighbors, with the ultimate goal of sharing the Gospel.

“We are about helping people, and we’ll be doing that at a greater level as our capacity grows,” Gray said. “It’s all about reaching people for Christ, and we look forward to having a greater impact, and seeing lives changed by the power of the Gospel.”

For more information about church planting in Illinois, call (217) 391-3140 or e-mail charlescampbell@IBSA.org.

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