David Platt, the senior pastor of The Church at Brook Hills located in Birmingham, Alabama, and the author of several renowned and mission-themed books such as Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream and Follow Me: A Call to Die. A Call to Live., was elected to be the new president of the International Mission Board (IBM) of the Southern Baptist Convention on Wednesday.
In a press conference via phone, Dr. David Uth, who was the trustee search committee chairman, described that the process of finding the next president had been prayerful and careful.
"We determined we wanted to hear as much as possible because we believe God has great counsel for us if we'll seek it," he said. "So we did, and almost 2,000 people were gracious enough to respond to us, to let us know what the qualities that they look for in the next leader, and then what were some of the issues they needed to be prepared to tackle. So we took all of that and we got it boiled down to what we would call a "profile,' though it wasn't in the true sense a profile because it wasn't about age, it wasn't about experience, it wasn't about whether it's a missionary experience or non-missionary experience. It really was a profile more along the lines of character and leadership."
Dr. Uth went on to say that when David and his wife Heather Platt came in for the interview, he believed David Platt to be "the man that God appointed and anointed for the head of the IMB."
Platt similarly described that God made the calling to this position so clear to him.
"["¦] God"”through a variety of circumstances"”put a deepening, narrowing desire in my mind and heart to spend more of my time and energy and resources in the short life that I've got seeing Christ preached where He's not been named and seeing unreached peoples reached with the Gospel. And I was wrestling actually after some time on a short-term trip with some pastors in Nepal about whether that meant I needed to leave the local church where I was pastoring to go and move overseas.
But a couple months later, David made initial contact with me and began praying about this possibility, and the Lord really, in my own heart, just [made me think], "Why would I be willing to consider moving overseas and not be willing to consider mobilizing and shepherding thousands of more people to go overseas?' "¦ I could go through day after day in my time with the Lord - journal, praying, based on the Word - and just show you the clarity with which God has brought me to this point."
However, some individuals expressed opposition on two main reasons, according to Hershael York, who is part of the board members who elected David Platt to the position. First was his "Calvinistic soteriology," according to a post on his blog, and second was "his church's low giving to the Cooperative Program," a program through which churches in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) could give offerings for overseas missions.
York argued that Platt's "supposed Calvinism is really a balanced and biblical understanding of what salvation is," and when considering the Cooperative Program and its purpose, York argued that he is confident Platt is "not going to question us about which fund we used, but about what we did to reach the world with the gospel for His glory."
Russell D. Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC, also expressed "radical" happiness in Platt's election into the position. In his blog post, he said, "We need leaders radical enough to make changes, but radical in the right, biblical sense. We need a radical, not a revolutionary. Someone radical enough to build up, not radical in order to tear down. That's precisely what David is."
More than 4,800 missionaries are serving all over the world, and the IMB of the Southern Baptist Convention is the "largest denominational missionary-sending body among American evangelicals," according to a statement by the IBM on its website.
