[1]ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)–Phillip Davis, an African American pastor from North Carolina, has accepted a key position with the church planting group of the new North American Mission Board.
Davis will become NAMB’s director of new church implementation, with responsibilities for coordinating the starting of new Southern Baptist churches across the United States and Canada.
Richard Harris, NAMB vice president of church planting, said Davis is “a gifted, visionary leader, and a great pulpiteer with a deep commitment to Christ. He is a proven church planter with a wealth of experience and success in starting new churches. We are so pleased the Lord has led him here.”
Davis is pastor of Nations Ford Baptist Church, Charlotte, N.C., a congregation he started 10 years ago. The multiethnic congregation now averages more than 900 in Sunday morning worship services. The church also has started two additional churches.
“My life’s vision is to reach people of all races with the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Davis said. “I believe this new position will give us the opportunity to do that and train others to do it.”
Last fall Davis was elected first vice president of the North Carolina Baptist Convention — the first African American to hold an office in the state convention. He will begin his new position following completion of that term of office Nov. 15, although he will attend several planning and orientation meetings at NAMB’s offices in Alpharetta, Ga., the next several weeks.
In announcing Davis’ selection, along with four additional new staff members, NAMB President Bob Reccord said, “We continue to seek and find competent, experienced leadership with compassionate hearts and a kingdom perspective.
“As the NAMB team comes together, I am so pleased it is reflective of the diversity of the continent we are called to reach,” Reccord said.
Also joining NAMB are Christopher Schofield, spiritual renewal leadership manager; James “Butch” Henderson, student volunteer mobilization associate; Jerry Conner, hardware/network specialist in the Fort Worth office; and Tricia Ragsdale, producer of the television program, “Home Life.”
Schofield has an itinerant preaching and teaching ministry based in Wake Forest, N.C., where he served as adjunct professor of evangelism and teaching fellow at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He earned a master of divinity from SEBTS and is pursuing a Ph.D. in evangelism there. Schofield has pastored several churches in North Carolina and written and lectured extensively on prayer and evangelism. In his new position, Schofield will lead NAMB’s spiritual and laity renewal programs, which are part of the church evangelism team. He will begin Oct. 1.
Henderson will assist in coordinating the agency’s vast student volunteer program. He is a native of Alabama with a master’s degree in religious education from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and an undergraduate degree in education from the University of North Alabama. Henderson has served as minister of education at First Baptist Church, Birmingham, Ala., since 1990, having previously served as minister of youth at churches in Alabama and Louisiana. He has served as a project coordinator for World Changers, a volunteer program developed by the former SBC Brotherhood Commission, which is now part of NAMB.
As hardware and network specialist at NAMB’s Fort Worth, Texas, office, Conner will provide computer support for the agency’s media technology team. He comes to NAMB with 19 years of business management experience, the last 10 with The Boeing Company’s information systems department in Wichita, Kan.
Ragsdale spent the past seven years as a media producer for the SBC’s International Mission Board based in Richmond, Va. She has worked in nearly 30 countries producing missions education programs for use in Southern Baptist churches. “HomeLife” is a weekly half-hour television program available on NAMB’s two networks, FamilyNet and ACTS.