Nominating Committee chair: No minority report

By Allen Palmeri
Associate Editor

JEFFERSON CITY—Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) Nominating Committee Chairman Jim Barnhart brought forth words of peace June 19 at the Baptist Building when he told committee members that he would speak on their behalf in his October report to the MBC annual meeting in St. Louis.

“I’m not going to submit a minority report,” he said.

After the meeting, Barnhart was asked to explain his statement.

“If we’re to have peace, we can’t go and have a minority report,” he said. “I just want to give that whole process a chance, and I don’t want to do anything to disrupt it.”

Both last year and this year, leaders advocating Save Our Convention (SOC) positions have raised the possibility/probability of a minority report as a means of correcting what they say is undue influence by Missouri Baptist Laymen’s Association (MBLA) / Right to Know. Barnhart is tied to SOC through his ministry as associate pastor at Miner Baptist Church, Sikeston, where he is under Mitch Jackson, senior pastor and one of the 11 founding leaders of SOC.

The tension concerning a minority report and other issues was evident in the March 27 meeting of the Nominating Committee when MBC President Gerald Davidson, a SOC advocate, delivered a 36-minute address where he declared that Missouri Baptists “trust me as a whole.” He was introduced by Barnhart, who said that Davidson was leading a movement that has a mandate for change.

The rhetoric from the front of the Gold Room on June 19 was more conciliatory, with Barnhart pointing to the work of the MBC Peace Committee as a fresh move in Missouri Baptist life.

“We’re a part of that peace process,” he told members of the Nominating Committee.

Instead of hearing from Davidson, committee members got to hear from Wesley Hammond, another one of the 11 founding SOC leaders who serves as vice chairman of both the Peace Committee and the Nominating Committee. Hammond, pastor of First Baptist Church of Paris, spoke about the Peace Committee’s first meeting June 17 after reading a joint statement agreed to by all six members that indicates a good beginning.

“I do believe the efforts of the Peace Committee are going to be rubbing off on everything—every area of our state,” Hammond said.

Emerging from the June 17 and June 19 meetings is a sense that both political groups have taken a step toward something new in that SOC and MBLA / Right to Know labels are not necessarily front and center in many discussions. The six men of the Peace Committee are trying not to brand each other as partisans as they talk in closed session, listening to each other’s perspectives on the important events of the last few years.

One of the more coveted political prizes for both groups has been the MBC Executive Board. Six seats were recommended June 19 out of the Administrative Subcommittee of the Nominating Committee and approved unanimously by the whole committee. Those recommendations are: Robert Stevens, laity, Ballwin Baptist Church; Boyd Gray, minister, High Gate Baptist Church, St. James; Cliff Case, laity, First Baptist Church, Warsaw; Philip Melahn, laity, Bethel Baptist Church, Independence; Paul Pope, minister, Sonrise Baptist Church, Bonne Terre; and Stephen Ward, minister, First Baptist Church, Republic.

A seventh nominee for the Executive Board was approved by the committee pending the submittal of his profile sheet.

There are 16 vacancies on other MBC entity boards to be filled. Those are: Missouri Baptist University (6); Missouri Baptist Foundation (5); Windermere Baptist Conference Center (2); Hannibal-LaGrange College (1); Missouri Baptist Historical Commission (1); and MBC Executive Board (1).

Barnhart introduced two new members of the Nominating Committee. They are Dwight Blankenship, pastor, Parkway Baptist Church, St. Louis, and Boone Middleton, pastor, Golden Avenue Baptist Church, Springfield. Blankenship is one of 11 founding leaders of SOC.

The committee’s next meeting is scheduled for Aug. 28.