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NAMB, SEBTS join efforts in church-planting initiative


ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)–The North American Mission Board and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., have jointly named William E. “Bill” Brown to head the seminary’s new NAMB church-planting center, which is part of the board’s Nehemiah Project.
The Nehemiah Project ultimately will establish a church-planting center on each SBC seminary campus in the United States and Canada. The center at Southeastern is the third designed to produce church planters with both academic preparation and practical, field-based experience in church planting.
“[Brown] is a real pioneer church developer with a priceless academic component and we are delighted to have him,” said SEBTS President Paige Patterson.
Robert E. “Bob” Reccord, NAMB president, said the recruitment, training and mentoring of new church planters through the Nehemiah Project will reach new levels of excellence. “The fruit of this historic new partnership, coupled with the strength of the existing partnerships between NAMB and its state convention partners, will result in hundreds of new church planters each year who have been specifically trained in seminary and have served as apprentices with pastoral mentors,” Reccord said.
For SEBTS, the agreement will have the entire eastern seaboard as a priority area for new church starts, focusing first on New Hampshire, an area where the seminary is already committed to working through an agreement with the New Hampshire Baptist Association.
“At Southeastern, I’m not having to lay the groundwork and cultivate interest in church planting because of our commitment with the New Hampshire Baptist Association to plant churches,” Brown said. “I am not going to have to spend time trying to get people interested or excited because it’s there in place.”
Brown began teaching at the seminary Jan. 1, coming to Southeastern from Bay Leaf Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C., where he had been assistant pastor since 1997. He has also been an adjunct professor and a teaching fellow at Southeastern since 1996.
Prior to moving to North Carolina, Brown served with various churches and schools in Alaska.
“A number of different church planting programs and elements have been in place at Southeastern Seminary, but I believe the Nehemiah Project will be the tool to bring them all together,” Brown said.

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  • Lynne Jones