TOPEKA, Kan. (BP)–The Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists’ mission board has elected Bob Mills as the new KNCSB executive director, effective Jan. 1, 2010.
Mills, 60, currently the convention’s director of missions, will serve as executive director-elect until the current exec, Peck Lindsay, retires Dec. 31 after more than 30 years in the position.
The search committee for a new executive director was formed after the 2008 KNCSB annual meeting when Lindsay announced his plans to step down. After a nine-month search, the committee presented Mills to the KNCSB mission board as its choice to succeed Lindsay.
The board spent more than an hour deliberating in executive session Sept. 4 in Topeka. After going back into regular session, board members voted by ballot 40-3 to elect Mills to the post.
After the vote was announced, Mills thanked board members for their confidence in him to serve as the next KNCSB executive director.
Mills told of his desire to see healthy, outward-focused, reproducing churches across Nebraska and Kansas. He also introduced his wife Lynne, saying, “The best thing about me is my dear wife Lynne. We’ve been married 25 and a half years.” He and his wife have two grown daughters and a son.
Mills came to Kansas-Nebraska convention in 1998 from the North American Mission Board, where he had been director of the Mission Service Corps program since 1986 and coordinator for supervision training and leadership development. He joined the staff of the then-Home Mission Board in 1981.
Mills was pastor of First Baptist Church of Bethel in Kansas City, Kan., from 1978-81; director of church and community ministries for the Kansas City (Kan.) Baptist Association from 1976-79; and director of youth and family services for the association and coordinator of weekday ministries from 1974-76.
He holds doctor of ministry and master of divinity degrees from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., and an undergraduate degree from William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Miss. He has served as an adjunct professor at Midwestern and several other seminaries.
Mills also is a past president of Midwestern Seminary’s alumni association and the State Missions Directors Fellowship.
Steve Holdaway, KNCSB president and pastor of LifeSpring Church in Bellevue, Neb., explained the committee’s nine-month search in a letter to mission board members.
“We took this task quite seriously, started our search with a clean slate, and honestly evaluated each candidate based on his own merit,” wrote Holdaway, who chaired the search committee.
“After the initial deadline for receiving resumes had expired, we felt that we did not have enough resumes to conduct the most comprehensive search possible. Therefore we extended the deadline and received several more good resumes from qualified candidates from all over the country.
“We then prayed, examined resumes, deliberated, and compared candidates to the qualifications set forth by pastors, directors of missions, and leaders across Kansas and Nebraska.
“Under the Lord’s leadership, we then whittled down the list to just a few candidates and began to check references. We then spoke with these candidates and carried out interviews.
“As this was happening, the Lord began to remove from our consideration good candidates one by one. The result: the Search Committee came to a point of Spirit-led clarity on whom to recommend. We therefore recommend to the Executive Board that they vote to call Dr. Bob Mills as our next Executive Director.”
Holdaway continued, “Bob’s competence, leadership, giftedness, integrity, marriage, family and ministry resume have all been tested and approved on many levels including the Home Mission Board, the North American Mission Board, the KNCSB when he was elected our State Director of Missions in 1998, and now with the current Search Committee.”
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Compiled by Baptist Press editor Art Toalston from reports by the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists.
