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Seminary luncheons draw alumni, guests

PHOENIX (BP)--Fellowship and campus updates highlighted the alumni luncheons hosted by Southern Baptist Convention seminaries June 15 during the SBC annual meeting in Phoenix.

Following are reports from the luncheons:

GOLDEN GATE -- Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary honored Bobby Evans and Naomi Paget with Distinguished Alumni Awards at the seminary's Alumni and Friends luncheon June 15 during the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in Phoenix.

Jeff Iorg, the seminary's president, said Evans and Paget were being honored due to the significance of their contributions in furthering the Gospel.

Evans is a Rome, Ga., native who graduated from Golden Gate in 1961 with a bachelor of divinity degree. He served as a pastor in Northern California before the International Mission Board appointed Evans and his wife Dorothy in 1964 to assignments in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. Evans spent 37 years as a church planter, pastor, urban evangelism trainer, church growth consultant and theological training leader.

In 2000, Evans and his wife co-authored "Great Things He Has Done," a 50-year history of the Malaysian Baptist Convention. Since retiring in 2002, Evans has made nine mission trips to nine different countries; founded and served in a casino ministry in Kansas City, Mo., for four years; and currently lives in Independence, Mo., where he serves his local church, Coventry Estates Baptist Church.

Iorg also acknowledged Distinguished Alum Naomi Paget, who received the award May 28 during the commencement ceremony at the seminary's Arizona Campus.

Paget graduated from Golden Gate Seminary with a master of divinity degree in 1995 and a doctor of ministry in 2003. She serves with the North American Mission Board as Red Cross Liaison, chaplaincy consultant for the Red Cross and chaplain for the FBI; she also travels extensively throughout the world providing comfort and training in disaster situations. Paget recently returned from serving as a disaster relief chaplain in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami. In 2003, Paget and her husband John established the Neva Burk Scholarship for Women in Ministry, which has provided financial assistance to more than 70 students at the Arizona and Rocky Mountain campuses of Golden Gate.

Biblical Recorder - So. Baptists approve historic ethnic measure

PHOENIX — Sensitive to the need for greater diversity in leadership and increased participation of ethnics, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) voted overwhelmingly June 14 to ask for greater accountability regarding their involvement in SBC life.

During a news conference after the vote, Paul Kim, pastor emeritus of Antioch Baptist Church in Cambridge, Mass., said: “I want ethnic pastors and leaders to also have the opportunity to express their love for Southern Baptists in Christ. We have to work together.”

It was Kim who asked messengers at the 2009 SBC annual meeting to study how ethnic churches and leaders could better partner with others to serve the SBC. After a two-year workgroup study of the motion, the SBC Executive Committee approved a 10-part recommendation for the Phoenix meeting, citing the “need to be proactive and intentional in the inclusion of individuals from all ethnical and racial identities within Southern Baptist life.”

For the first time in history, the convention will ask its entities to provide “a descriptive report of participation of ethnic churches and church leaders in the life and ministry of the respective SBC entity;” the SBC president to “give special attention to appointing individuals who represent the diversity within the Convention” to committees under his purview; and a subcommittee of the EC to provide a report each year in February with an update on how each of the recommendations has been addressed.

Members of the Executive Committee’s communications workgroup joined Kim for a news conference after the vote. They were Darrell Orman, pastor of First Baptist Church in Stuart, Fla.; Robert Anderson, pastor of Colonial Baptist Church in Randallstown, Md.; and workgroup chairman Scott Kilgore, senior pastor of Crossland Community Church in Bowling Green, Ky.

For decades, Southern Baptists have passed resolutions and motions on the inclusion of minorities and ethnics — and elected a few to various positions at the state and national level, Orman said. The action at the annual meeting, however, took things a step further.

“The real power of this report is actually that it is now inculcated into the machinery of the Southern Baptist Convention, a (new) level of accountability,” Orman said.

The recommendation does not establish a practice of affirmative action, Orman said.

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