Geoff Hammond resigned his position as president of the North American Mission Board (NAMB) Aug. 11 following more than seven hours of deliberation by NAMB trustees.
Three of Hammond’s closest associates also resigned — Dennis Culbreth, senior assistant to the president; Steve Reid, senior associate to the president for strategy development; and Brandon Pickett, communications team leader.
Reid and Pickett were on staff with Hammond at the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia convention, where Hammond previously served as senior associate director. Culbreth previously served as a pastor from Virginia and as a NAMB trustee, where he served on the search committee for the new NAMB president that selected Hammond in March 2007.
A call to Hammond was not returned before press time, but Pickett said, “I thank the Lord for bringing me to NAMB and for the work we were able to do. I look forward to what He has for me in the future.”
In recent weeks, an e-mail was distributed from trustee Jason Pettus, of Kentucky, explaining that Hammond had been questioned by trustee leaders over the past 18 months about staffing decisions, his relationship with the board of trustees and the morale of NAMB employees.
When it surfaced that the NAMB board of trustees executive committee planned to address these concerns in its previously scheduled meeting Aug. 11, pressure from other trustees caused the meeting to expand to the full board.
“We should never be afraid of the truth,” trustee Ellie Ficken, of Montgomery, said prior to the board meeting. “There should be full disclosure on what is happening.”
Fifty-five of the 57 trustees participated in the meeting. Four of those were by phone. Also present were NAMB’s corporate attorney, David Doverspike, and SBC parliamentarian Barry McCarty.
Southern Baptist Convention president Johnny Hunt (an ex-officio member of the NAMB board of trustees) participated in part of the meeting.
In announcing Hammond’s resignation, Tim Patterson, chairman of the board of trustees for NAMB, read a statement to the press about 7:30 p.m. Aug. 11.
“Dr. Hammond has resigned as president of the North American Mission Board and his resignation takes effect immediately,” he said. “I want to thank the trustees of the North American Mission Board who have come together today and worked through some very difficult issues. They have carried out their responsibilities today in a way that has been honorable, thorough and fair.”
While Patterson declined to take questions from the media and stated that no details of the meeting would be released because “it is a personnel issue,” he indicated more information would be available in coming days. But as of press time, he had not answered questions sent to him from The Alabama Baptist.
It has been confirmed, however, that the executive session of the trustee meeting started out with division. Reports indicate some trustees had a hard time being recognized to speak.
But after five upper-level staff were called into the meeting to answer questions, the tide turned and it became clear Hammond would not survive. Neither Hammond nor any of the other three who resigned were called into the meeting at any point.
Whether a financial severance package was given to Hammond and/or the others could not be confirmed. Nor could it be confirmed how Hammond’s resignation would impact NAMB in relation to Patterson’s comments in May indicating he supported merging NAMB with the International Mission Board.
Because Patterson made those comments in relation to Hunt’s Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) movement, The Alabama Baptist asked Hunt how GCR might be involved and/or impacted by Hammond’s resignation. “This is the first I’ve heard of either one of those (Hammond’s resignation and Patterson’s statement) having anything to do with this task force (GCR Task Force),” he said during a press conference about the task force Aug. 12.
Ronnie Floyd, chairman of the task force, said in the press conference that Hammond’s resignation “adds to our urgency and our burden.”
“It adds to the challenges we have before us,” he said. “We are going to trust the trustee process. It’s really not our issue to talk about. … We love Southern Baptists and the missionaries being sponsored by the entities. We want to see what is best for the convention.
“Dr. Hammond is a personal friend of mine. … I hurt deeply for them and have prayed with them and for them through this entire process.”
Trustee Larry Gipson, pastor of First Baptist Church, Oneonta, and member of the trustee executive committee, also expressed concern.
“I hurt for Dr. Hammond and his family, and I hurt for trustees, Southern Baptists, everybody involved. It is a tough situation.”
Patterson, who met with NAMB staff the morning of Aug. 12, said of Hammond and the others who resigned, “We love them and pray for them that God would do great works in their lives.”
He also assured staff that “NAMB is going nowhere but forward.”
“The North American Mission Board is one of the most vital agencies in the world today,” he said. “We will continue on. We have been tasked by Southern Baptists to reach North America for Christ. That is our goal and our job. And until Jesus comes back, that’s what we’re going to do.”
But Ficken has decided to let NAMB move forward without her. She turned in her resignation from the board of trustees Aug. 13. She has served as a NAMB trustee for more than seven years and was on the search committee that called Hammond as president.
“It was a very trying meeting and after much heart searching, I have submitted my letter of resignation from the board,” Ficken told The Alabama Baptist.
“The first sin that our Holy Father judged in the church was hypocrisy, and He did not judge it lightly. What I observed would make it impossible for me to serve Alabama effectively as a trustee.”
While Ficken could not provide specifics from the meeting because the trustees were in executive session, she did say that “what I did witness was enough to know that I did not need to be a part of that board any longer.”
“It is my opinion that God will decide when to reveal truth,” she said. “I will just continue to pray that God will not remove His hand from our denomination and give the blessing of carrying out His purposes to others.”
The other two Alabama trustees also declined to comment about the details of the meeting but provided some information about their experiences.
Trustee Ric Camp, pastor of Sonrise Baptist Church, Mobile, and member of the trustee executive committee, said, “The meeting was conducted in a great spirit of cooperation and Christian unity. The trustees were unified in their discussion of providing a godly missions agency centered on the Great Commission for North America.”
Gipson noted that as he and other trustees prepared for and participated in the meeting, they proclaimed James 1:5.
“That was our prayer … that we as trustees of NAMB pray that prayer and ask God for wisdom, that He will give us the wisdom we need,” he said.
“That is also our prayer for Southern Baptists in the days ahead.”
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Longtime NAMB/HMB leader named acting interim president
Richard Harris, senior strategist for missions advancement at the North American Mission Board (NAMB), will serve as the entity’s acting interim president until an interim president is chosen.
This announcement came Aug. 12, less than 24 hours after Geoff Hammond resigned.
Harris has 28 years of combined service at NAMB and its predecessor, the Home Mission Board (HMB). His current missions advancement role is much like that of a vice president.
Harris’ previous service includes 10 years as NAMB’s vice president of church planting and 16 years leading HMB’s mass evangelism efforts.
“It’s a brand new day, and we have an opportunity before us,” Harris told NAMB staff Aug. 13. “I hope as we move forward that God will bind our hearts together and we would accomplish what He put us here to do.” (TAB, NAMB)
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What happened to NAMB’s executive-level controls?
In 2006, Barry Holcomb, pastor of First Baptist Church, Russellville, sweated a lot of blood to make sure the North American Mission Board (NAMB) would never again go through what it had just experienced.
Its president, Bob Reccord, resigned in April after allegations of mismanagement, excessive spending and a laundry list of other concerns.
Prior to that Holcomb, then chairman of the board of trustees for NAMB, led trustees to develop a set of “executive-level controls” for Reccord and ultimately for who would sit in that seat next.
But with the recent resignation of Geoff Hammond, who was elected NAMB president in March 2007, Holcomb is questioning the NAMB board of trustees.
“Why were the executive-level controls not followed in the beginning?” he asked. “It has been a disappointment to watch this happen after all that we put into place.”
Tim Patterson, current chairman of the board of trustees, was a member of the trustee committee that created the executive-level controls in 2006.
The Alabama Baptist tried to ask Patterson about the controls, but he did not respond.
To read the original stories about the controls, visit www.thealabamabaptist.org and type in “executive-level controls” with quotations around the phrase in the search box. (TAB)
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