The news that the search committee looking for the next president of the North American Mission Board had unanimously chosen Dr. Kevin Ezell as their nominee is great news for the Southern Baptist Convention. I have known Kevin Ezell for the last 15 years, and I know why Southern Baptists need him in this crucial role.

FIRST, because Kevin is a man of such stellar character. This comes first, of course, and it is paramount in any leadership position. I have seen Kevin in situations of trial, stress, challenge, and turmoil, and he demonstrates the most genuine Christian character throughout. He is a man who has been tested and tried, and his experience has revealed a strength of character that we all will need and depend upon at the helm of the North American Mission Board. Given my experience with Kevin, I would entrust him with anything — including my wife and family.

SECOND, because Kevin is a truly gifted pastor. The Mohler family joined Highview Baptist Church in Louisville in 1994, soon after our arrival in the city. Those were very troubled times, given the stature of the Seminary in the Louisville community. Highview was a warm congregation that welcomed us generously and graciously. It was really a large neighborhood church in the Fegenbush area of Louisville, and it was well-known for its conservative biblical convictions and passion for evangelism.

In 1996, Kevin came to Highview as pastor in a time of great and unexpected trial for the church. He was very young, but he already had a well-established reputation as pastor of First Baptist Church, Marion, Illinois. Kevin and Lynette and their young family moved to Louisville and quickly became a part of our lives.

Very quickly, we learned that Kevin Ezell is a gifted pastor who gives everything he has to his role and office. He has a wonderful sense of humor, a keen pastoral touch, and a real feel for the congregation. He feeds, leads, and encourages with skill and dedication. I have also seen him do the hard work of ministry, confronting sin and dealing with it biblically.

THIRD, because Kevin is a born leader. Where you find Kevin, you rarely find him alone. He mentors, leads, and energizes constantly. He has tremendous leadership skills that are desperately needed in the Southern Baptist Convention and at the North American Mission Board. A host of younger men all over this denomination will tell you of the impact Kevin has made on their lives and ministries. The evidence of his leadership is not only evident in the remarkable growth of Highview Baptist Church, but also in the growth of the leaders within and beyond the church. Just ask men like Dr. Jimmy Scroggins, senior pastor at First Baptist Church, West Palm Beach, Florida. We need his leadership at the North American Mission Board.

FOURTH, because Kevin is a true visionary. When he came to Highview Baptist Church, Kevin found a large neighborhood church. Within a matter of just a few years, Highview was a large regional church with a ministry to the entire city and beyond. The successful establishment of additional campuses and an entire range of ministries is testimony to his strategic vision — and his ability to turn a vision into a reality. Nothing stays the same for long around Kevin.

FIFTH, Kevin is a man of tremendous Great Commission passion and commitment. He is a personal evangelist, a leader of evangelism, and a pastor of a church that models evangelism. He is a man of world mission vision, having led Highview to see itself as a world congregation. He has led mission trips around the world, and Highview now points with pride to a large number of former members who are now serving around the world with the International Mission Board — with more in the pipeline. Highview has worked with the North American Mission Board in establishing new churches around the United States. A sense of Great Commission zeal permeates Highview as a church.

SIXTH, Kevin is deeply committed to the Southern Baptist Convention and its work. When I first met him, he was serving as President of the Illinois Baptist Pastor’s Conference. Just this last year, he served as President of the SBC Pastor’s Conference. He has served as a trustee at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he is a graduate of both Southwestern [M.Div.] and Southern [D.Min.]. He and his wife Lynette are also graduates of a state Baptist institution, Union University, where two of their daughters are now students. He has mentored many into deeper involvement in the SBC, and his leadership is truly needed now. He has taught many young ministers through his role on the Southern Seminary teaching faculty. You find great loyalty to the SBC in his wake.

SEVENTH, Kevin is a man of great conviction. He has taken stands for the full authority, truthfulness, and inerrancy of the Bible. He has defended the faith, and he holds fast to biblical truth. He can be trusted to do the same at the helm of NAMB.

FINALLY, Kevin and Lynette Ezell are a team. Their marriage glorifies God and encourages all. Lynette is a gifted woman who has committed her life to Christ, her husband, and her family. Their family, rounded out with children Anna, Shelly, Taylor, John Michael, Libby, and Micah Lyn, is a testimony to the redemptive love of God and the example of a family fully devoted to Christ. Southern Baptists will find great pride in them.

I am losing a pastor, but gaining a tremendous SBC colleague. I can’t wait to see what God does through the leadership of Dr. Kevin Ezell as President of the North American Mission Board.

A great sense of historical importance looms as the 2010 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention fast approaches. The messengers to the SBC meeting in Orlando will cast many important votes, but one exceeds all others in significance, and that is the vote on the report of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force.

Southern Baptists have faced such moments before. In 1845, those messengers who founded the SBC took a great step of faith as they created a convention of Baptist churches called by and committed to a Great Commission vision. Southern Baptists faced another moment when they revolutionized the denomination in 1925 by adopting the Cooperative Program as the unified means of supporting our Great Commission efforts, established the Executive Committee, and adopted our first confession of faith, the Baptist Faith & Message.

Throughout the years from 1979 to 1990, Southern Baptists showed up in force to reclaim the denomination for the full authority and integrity of the Bible and the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Each of those conventions was a moment of historical consequence. The same was true in 1995, when Southern Baptists adopted the Covenant for a New Century, streamlining the convention as it celebrated its 150th anniversary.

Now, once again, Southern Baptists will convene for a meeting that will make history. Messengers to the 2009 convention in Louisville overwhelmingly adopted a motion calling for a task force to report this year concerning how Southern Baptists may work more faithfully and effectively together in service to the Great Commission. A generation of younger Southern Baptists is gripped by a vision for a Great Commission Resurgence, and Southern Baptists of every generation are reminded again of the reality of a lost world and of Christ’s commission to His church — the command to make disciples of all the nations.

The Southern Baptist Convention is a massive denomination. No task force or committee can review the totality of the convention’s work and reach. Nevertheless, the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force dedicated itself to making the greatest Great Commission impact as Southern Baptists face the future.

The Task Force’s report will be presented to the Convention on Tuesday, June 15, and that day will go down as a turning point in this denomination’s life and work. This is true, not only in light of the report and recommendations presented by the Task Force, but in light of the attitude and passions that will be revealed in the deliberation and vote.

I am convinced that the recommendations we are presenting are both right and reasonable. They are not a revolution in themselves, but they point to the future with a statement that we are determined to be far more serious about reaching the nations and our own continent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The report is honest in setting the reality of lostness before us, and calling us to a renewed commitment to make disciples of all the nations. The report respects our Baptist polity and is based in gratitude for all that Southern Baptists have done in generations past. The recommendations are constructed with care to preserve the bonds that hold us together, and also to propel us into the future determined to do more, not less, in faithfulness to Christ.

Change is never easy, and change merely for the sake of change is a charade. Nevertheless, God’s people are called to make whatever changes are necessary in order to obey the commands of Christ. Southern Baptists are a people committed to the Great Commission. That commitment will be shared by every messenger who arrives in Orlando ready to do the Convention’s business. The future of the Southern Baptist Convention will not rest on this vote alone, but who can calculate what it will mean as a watching world and a rising generation watch to see if we are serious about emboldened Great Commission faithfulness in the future?

The looming question in Orlando is this — will Southern Baptists face the future with boldness, eagerness, and faithfulness, or will we choose business as usual? In other words, the real question is whether Southern Baptists will face the future, or flinch. So much rests on the answer to that question.

Reaching the people of North America with the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been a primary purpose of the Southern Baptist Convention since its beginning in 1845. Over the last 150 years and more, Southern Baptists have been working together to evangelize and plant churches throughout this continent.

Of course, reaching North America is a far larger task in terms of both geography and population than it was in 1845 – and far more complex as well.  Looking to the future, Southern Baptists must make the adjustments that will focus our work in order to make maximum impact on this land.

The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force has this very much in mind as we hope to assist Southern Baptists to be even more faithful in this task. With that in mind, we are recommending changes in the assignment of the North American Mission Board and changes in the way the board works with the state conventions.

Beginning in the 1950s, Southern Baptists began working with the state conventions through what were known as “Cooperative Agreements.” These agreements were undoubtedly a good idea, and they served well for many decades. The idea of the Cooperative Agreements is simple – the North American Mission Board (and originally, the Home Mission Board) established agreements with each state convention in order to avoid overlap, confusion, and duplication of work.

So, why is a change needed now? The answer is really very simple – the Cooperative Agreements are now outdated and confusing to Southern Baptists. When the Great Commission Task Force recommends the phased elimination of these agreements, we are calling for the North American Mission Board to rethink how it should relate to the state conventions so that the mission board retains a more focused ministry of assisting Southern Baptist churches to reach North America.

In the year 2009, about $50-million dollars was routed through these Cooperative Agreements. Many of these dollars were spent on the salaries of workers in the state conventions and associations. The monies are allocated and channeled in ways that are difficult to trace, much less to prioritize.

We are calling on the North American Mission Board to focus its energies on reaching North America, with a strategic concentration on unreached and underserved people groups, the cities, and the planting of healthy, reproducing churches. There is simply no way that Southern Baptists can be more effective and faithful in this task if we retain the funding mechanisms of the Cooperative Agreements.

Much of the impetus for this came from leaders of the North American Mission Board and others who have been hard at work in this task. The purpose is not to weaken relationships with the state conventions, nor to cut funding to effective programs and partnerships. The purpose is simple, and well recognized by anyone who leads an enterprise – NAMB must have the ability to focus its energies and strategic mission funds on efforts that truly match the priorities of the board, as it serves Southern Baptists.

We are calling for the North American Mission Board to concentrate on its task assigned by the Southern Baptist Convention – and to do so through the direct appointment of missionaries and church planters who are accountable to NAMB and deployed according to its national priorities. This echoes the call made by the Convention when it adopted the Covenant for a New Century in 1995. This is the necessary next step.

This does not mean that Southern Baptists will abandon pioneer areas and underserved regions. To the contrary, we are calling for even greater efforts in these areas of our mission and work. But we do not believe that Southern Baptists expect NAMB to be primarily engaged in replicating state convention structures and personnel.

The North American Mission Board will continue to work with state conventions, and to do so in partnership. But now is the time for a new partnership structure – a structure that liberates NAMB to do its work, while respecting the important work of the state conventions.

Will this mean change? Of course it will. But this is the kind of change necessary for Southern Baptists to step boldly into the future, and to reach North America with the Gospel. This is not the 1950s, and the challenges of reaching North America in the 21st century will require far more of us than the current structures will allow.

The North American Mission Board and the state conventions both have essential roles to play in this, and we need a new spirit and structure for the partnerships that will take us into the future. With this step, the North American Mission Board will be ready to make the most of these partnerships, and to move into the future with greater flexibility, strategic focus, and stewardship of mission resources.

In other words, we need something better than the Cooperative Agreements if we are to cooperate to the fullest. We are not living in the 1950s, and North America is waiting to see if Southern Baptists are serious about reaching this continent. I believe we are, and I can’t wait to see how the North American Mission Board will lead us in this great task.

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