Mission Accomplished!

Last week the Executive Board of the West Virginia Convention of Southern Baptists voted to call Eric W. Ramsey to serve as our new state convention's Executive Director/Treasurer. The vacancy occurred when our former State Exec,  Dr. Bill Henard answered the call to a pastorate in his home state of Tennessee.  

The official announcement of Ramsey's background and hiring in a recent Baptist Press article can be read here. 

As background, according to the State Convention's Constitution, the task fell to the Administrative Committee to appoint an Interim state exec, and a search committee to seek out a candidate to be Dr. Henard's replacement.  The Administrative Committee met at the end of July to begin the work. Cledith Campbell, pastor of Altizer Baptist Church in Huntington was appointed to serve as the Interim State Executive Director. Cledith is a godly man of integrity and goodwill. He is an exceptional undershepherd to his flock. He is well respected by his peers, locally and around the state.  He has been pastor at Altizer for 46 years and has worked with every State Convention Executive Director in its 49 year history.  Cledith did an excellent job as our interim, providing a smooth transition for our new Director.

The Admin Committee recommended 15 people to the Executive Board to serve as a Search Committee to seek out, and make recommendation to the Executive Board, a qualified candidate to serve as State Executive Director. The Search Committee is mandated to be comprised of a Pastor from each Association in the State Convention "and other persons as shall give representation to various areas and interests" of the WVCSB, and "shall be knowledgeable of the Executive Board and the State Convention".  The Admin Committee nominated the following individuals who consist of Pastors, a Youth Pastor, Association Directors of Missions, and a Pastor's wife who has previously served on the Executive Board, and who has been very active in State Convention activities in the past.

The Executive Board approved each of the following individuals, with no dissenting votes.  Six members of the original Search Committee were the members of the Administration Committee, and two of them, Dallas Smith and Paul Harris later resigned from the committee. The following is a list of the final roster of the Search Committee, approved by the State Executive Board:

• Allegheny Association - Dennis Cherry (Allegheny Association Director of Missions) and Randy Spurgeon (Anstead Baptist)
• Coalfields Association - Rick Gannon (Borderland Baptist)
• Greater Huntington Association -  C.J. Adkins (Westmoreland Baptist & 2nd Vice President)
• Immanuel Association - Jim Messenger (Faith Baptist, West Union & State Recording Secretary) and Lynn Sommerville (layperson & pastor's wife, Southside Southern Baptist)
• Monongahela Association - Jim Strawderman (Southern Baptist of Philippi) and Don Knotts (Salt and Light Church)
• Mountain State Association - Kevin Howerton (Covenant Church, Princeton)
• Pioneer Association - Mason Ballard (Resurrection Church, Charleston, and now President of the WVCSB)
• Potomac Highland - Nathan Ertel (Old Fields Baptist & State Convention 1st Vice President) and David Duckworth (First Baptist Fort Ashby)
• Tri-County Association - Bryan Dugger (Westview, Martinsburg)
• Upper Ohio Valley Association - Ed Goodman (UOVA Director of Missions & Jim Higginson (Temple Baptist)

At our first Committee meeting in Flatwoods, I was elected chairman of this group. Ed Goodman, DOM of Upper Ohio Valley Association was elected Vice Chair, and Jim Messenger served as our Secretary.  I was humbled by their confidence and I considered it an honor to serve our State Convention in this way.  For the purposes of this blog, I just want to say thank you to this lady and the other gentlemen who served faithfully on this committee. It was not an easy task and it required a good bit of time and travel to serve.

Having worked closely with this group, I want to assure the Southern Baptists in West Virginia that they were well represented in the Search Process.  Each member prayerfully approached this task with no personal agendas.  There were no pre-concieved favorite candidates brought to the table.  We met seven times (six in person and one by conference call) and considered 19 resumes received via email through a system set up by our State Convention Communications Director, Cleve Persinger.  We appreciate Cleve's valuable assistance in this task. The Committee considered each resume carefully. We had a number of excellent candidates and it was difficult to narrow them down to six "semi finalists".  We interviewed what we deemed to be our top four and then came to the difficult task of selecting one candidate for recommendation to the Executive Board.  Eric Ramsey was selected by an 80% vote of our committee and he graciously accepted our recommendation. 

I am thankful that the Executive Committee voted to call Eric and I am truly excited to have Eric and his lovely wife, Gaye coming to join us here in the Mountain State. He needs our support, as challenges lie ahead for him. He is up to the challenges, and knows that "With God, all things are possible". I hope each pastor and every Southern Baptist in West Virginia will pray for and support Eric in his work of helping to lead us in accomplishing the Great Commission - starting here in "Wild and Wonderful" West Virginia, and reaching around the globe.  

In my next post to "For What It's Worth" I will share what I believe were several positive lessons we learned during this search process.

20 Year Old "Letter to My Newborn Grandson"

I am thankful for Jay Adkins posting in SBC Voices the "Letter to My Newborn Grandson" that I wrote 20 years ago on the birth of our first grandson.  Read it here   His post brought tears to my eyes.  I am thankful for what that grandson, Caudle Jerry Adkins V, is doing for the Lord now and I can only imagine what the future holds for him.  Happy birthday Quint.  I am proud of the young man you have become.  He is the first of five grandsons. I am thankful that all of them are followers of Christ.


 #BlessedBeyondMeasure  #ProudPapaw

Thank God and the Insurance Company!!!

On November 27 about 4:45 PM I was sitting at my desk in my study which is at the far west end of the educational wing of Westmoreland Baptist Church.  The secretary and youth pastor were both gone for the day.  I was trying to wrap things up so I could get home to help Linda start preparations for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.  But that is when the phone call came.

Our neighbor across Hughes Street was on the line. She said,"I wasn't sure if anyone was there or not, but did you know your column is out in the street?"

What???  I ran out the door at the Welcome Center at the far west end of the building and could hardly believe my eyes.  One of the four huge 20 foot columns that had graced the front of our building since 1956 had actually blown over!

It had been a wild day to say the least.  We had been warned by Tony Cavalier (the News Channel 3 meterologist) that it was going to be a day of high winds. Boy oh boy!  That was an understatement. The wind had howled all day long blowing from the west to the east.  Some gusts were going to be as high as 65-75 mph Tony had warned us.  That is near the threshold of hurricane force. I was worried about my roof holding up back at the house, and fearful that some more of the siding would be blown off the side of my home.  Losing one of those massive columns was the last thing I expected that day!

For several months large cracks in the surface covering of two of the columns had been noted by several of our folks.  One of the long time members who had long been involved in church maintenance activities assured us "I've always been told that there are steel beams inside each column and the columns, themselves, are only decorative."  Our Stewardship Committee (who were just finishing up their proposed budget for 2020) had noted the need for repair work on the columns. Due to the size of the things, and our limited budget, it went on the "wish list" for 2020, knowing that eventually we would need to take care of the problems.  We had no idea that it would jump from the wish list to the "gotta deal with it now" list at any time so soon.

With the column down - as can be seen in the upper right photo, it was easy to see there was NO steel beam inside as was once thought. Understandably there is no one at the church now who was old enough to be involved in the construction of this building back in 1956, so the steel beam theory turned out to be mythology.  Knowing this, it put a much higher priority on the badly cracked column next to the fallen one - and the one on the far west of the portico, which was beginning to show some cracking, itself.

It turns out that the wooden columns had begun to deteriorate from standing water trapped inside them. Drain holes had been calked up at some time long ago when the columns had gone through a painting project. Now - nearly rotted out at the base, the columns had actually "dropped down"  - not enough to be visible to the untrained eye - but enough to weaken the fallen one enough that the high winds just knocked it over.

Having worked as a Nationwide Insurance Company agent for 22 years - I had little hope that we would get much help from our insurance company due to the nature of the damage. "Call Church Mutual" I advised our Trustees and we need to get someone to get in here quickly to secure it from further damage.  Ryan Smith (our bi-youth pastor and contractor, himself) suggested Classic Construction Co, with whom he had previous dealings.  He said, "They would be equipped to handle something of this scale". So we gave them a call and they were there the next morning to shore up the portico roof with scaffolding and steel beams for a temporary fix.

The Christmas holidays were coming up quickly and it was going to take a while for the adjusters and the construction company - which had several other jobs in progress - to be able to get much done before the end of the year.  The area was secured and protected from further damage, but it was certainly unsightly as well as inconvenient.

We knew that the security work was going to be costly, but what really concerned us was how we would ever be able to afford to replace the down'd column, as well as how we would be able to replace or repair the others.  Estimates began to come in and the prices were frightening.  The estimated cost to replace the columns would be about $25,000 and we were looking at three more who were in bad shape.This was going to be a huge undertaking for an average sized congregation.

We didn't break out into a panic, but the trustees and stewardship committees were frantically discussing what possible options we might have.  We had inherited some money from an estate bequeath several years ago, but some of that was in a trust fund and some was in bonds that had not yet come to maturity.  Would we have to go into heavy debt after getting out from under our mortgage just a few years ago.  We still hadn't heard back from the insurance company and every day the concern got a little greater.  My head was telling me that we had a real problem here, but there was a strange peace in my heart that things would be ok.  I urged our congregation to be in earnest prayer for the situation and to remember the promise of Philippians 4:19, "My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory, through Christ Jesus."

Well, to make a long story shorter, let me cut to the chase.  When we finally heard from the Insurance Company, it was in a letter that said they had mailed us a check in the amount of $109,000.  This would actually be enough to pay for the replacement cost of ALL FOUR columns! That was wonderful news. However, we knew that there would be other expenses, not the least of which being the emergency work that had been done immediately following.  In just a couple of days we got another letter from the insurance company stating they had recalculated and another check was on the way.  In the final analysis, the cost of replacing all four columns were covered by our insurance. Furthermore, the new columns would have almost identical capstones and bases as those which graced the old columns since I was a six year old!

Now I can hear you saying, "Well, that's what insurance is for". But I'm telling you that from my experience, that with our situation I was basically hoping that the insurance might pay for debris removal and emergency work but I truly had doubts that it would be much more than that. But thanks be to God (and Church Mutual Insurance Company) the new columns have been ordered and should be in place by Easter!