By unanimous vote, trustees of the North American Mission Board elected church planting missionary Geoff Hammond as president of the North American Mission Board today (March 21).
ALPHARETTA, Ga.
(BP) – By unanimous vote, trustees of the North American Mission Board elected
church planting missionary Geoff Hammond as president of the North American
Mission Board today (March 21).
The vote came
after trustees met in executive session Tuesday, March 20, to review Hammond’s nomination and
interact with the candidate and his wife Debbie.
“It’s a long way
from Ogbomosho, Nigeria,
to Atlanta, Ga.,”
Hammond said,
referring to his birth to missionaries in the African nation. “And I am not here
today because of anything I have done, but because of who He is.”
In brief remarks
to the trustees after the vote, Hammond outlined
his vision for NAMB and the need for the Gospel in North
America.
“I grew up as a
kid looking at North America as a place that already had the Gospel,” Hammond said. “That was
until I came here. The longer I am here, the more I am convinced that we need
to see North America as a mission field.”
Hammond is the son and grandson of
missionaries and currently serves as a NAMB church planting missionary with the
Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia (SBCV) convention. He also serves as
senior associate director of the SBCV.
“I am a
missionary,” Hammond
said. “I want NAMB to be a missionary agency in all we do. I want us to be
missionary-minded in all we do. I want us to think like missionaries. I want us
to have a missionary culture in this building. I pray that when you walk in
this building, you will feel like this is a missionary place.”
Hammond joked that when he entered the NAMB
building the day before, he was given a temporary name badge. Upon entering on
Wednesday, he wore the missionary badge issued to him when he became a NAMB
missionary several years ago.
“I know I’ll be
receiving a new badge soon but if you don’t mind, I’m going to hold on to my
missionary badge as well.”
Hammond was recommended March 1 by NAMB’s
president search committee after a nine-month search.
“We were so moved
by the hand of God through the process concerning Dr. Hammond that we are
presenting a recommendation to you unanimously as a committee – a true
unanimous recommendation from our committee,” Greg Faulls, chairman of the
president search committee, told fellow trustees.
“We had no
pre-determined candidate,” Faulls said. “We were looking for someone who was
not just mission-minded but had the mind of a missionary. Someone who could
think like a missiologist and could shape missions work at NAMB and with our
state partners.”
In his address to
trustees after the vote, Hammond
cited Isaiah 6 as a passage of Scripture God used to speak to his heart during
the process of interviewing for the NAMB presidency. In that passage, God asks
the prophet Isaiah, “Whom shall I send?”
“I tried to jump
out of the process several times and God would not let me,” Hammond said. “I wanted to say, ‘Here I am
Lord, in Virginia.’
I thought, ‘We can’t leave this place, we have a son who’s going to be a senior
next year, things are going well with this job, this is the best we’ve ever had
it!’ I thought we had come to our last stop when we went to Virginia.
“And I remember
the day when I had to come face to face with the fact that I was willing to do
anything for God except one thing. So I had to say, ‘Here am I. Send me.’
Perhaps that is a passage God will use to touch you today and to touch Southern
Baptists.”
Hammond asked trustees and Southern Baptists
to pray for spiritual awakening and revival and that revival would start with
NAMB and spread throughout the Southern Baptist Convention.
“I believe today
is a divine moment and God has called me to seize it and He is calling the NAMB
staff and missionaries to seize it.”
Hammond
will officially assume his duties at the trustees’ May 8-9 meeting in Alpharetta, Ga.
Mickey Noah
contributed to this article.