Southern Baptists Champion Religious Liberty

Crawford Named Executive Director of BCM/D

BY SHARON MAGER

The General Mission Board of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware (BCM/D) unanimously named Michael Crawford as the convention’s executive director Thursday, March 17.

Crawford, who has served with the BCM/D for eight years, succeeds Kevin Smith, who, feeling a call to pastoral ministry, resigned in 2021. BCM/D State Director of Evangelism Mark Dooley became the interim executive director following Smith’s resignation, working with an interim leadership team that included Crawford and Associate Executive Director Tom Stolle.

Previously, Crawford served as SEND Network Director for Maryland/Delaware and planted and served at Freedom Church in Baltimore.

Michael Crawford is the newly-elected executive director for the General Mission Board of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware. Image Courtesy of BCM/D

He co-founded The Banquet Network, a non-profit interdenominational entity designed to assess and equip churches with resources to start and strengthen special needs ministries. He also founded The Subversive Institute, an organization designed to serve the marginalized in Baltimore. Additionally, Crawford is the author of 100 Meditations: An Everyday Book for Everyday People and Don’t Plant, be Planted: Observations About Starting a Church.

“Crawford is a phenomenal leader,” Stolle said. “He is uniquely gifted in the areas of vision and strategy, combined with a pastor’s heart. He not only knows scripture; he lives it out. He is a man of great passion. He cares deeply about the pastors, local associations, and the churches affiliated with the BCM/D. His love, care, and concern for the convention staff are obvious. He’s the right leader at the right time. I truly believe God has called him to serve in this capacity.”

Tim Simpson, pastor of congregational care at Greenridge Baptist Church in Boyds, Maryland, and chair of the executive director search committee thanked those who have been praying for the committee.

“The Lord was gracious and gave us a strong sense of His leadership and teamwork,” Simpson said, adding that after interviewing a group of candidates in January and February, the search team was in agreement.

“We were united that Crawford was the man uniquely gifted to lead our two-state convention,” he said. “Crawford is a passionate follower of Jesus Christ, loves the mission of the local church, and cares deeply for our pastors, church planters, directors of missions, and our BCM/D staff members. He is a rare mix of visionary leadership and collaborative strategy-building wrapped in a shepherd’s heart.”

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I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t have all the gifts. This has to be a collaborative team effort. I hope to bring a sense of a renewed culture of oneness and unity and purpose and calling and a kind of solidification.”

Michael Crawford, executive director Baptist Convention of Maryland/ Delaware

Other committee members were Co-Chair Van-Kim Lin, Village Church Baltimore; Lynn Davis, High Tide Church, Dagsboro, Delaware; Tammy Lashey, wife of Mark Lashey, pastor of LifeHouse Church, Townsend, Delaware; Harold Phillips, senior pastor, Pleasant View Baptist Church, Port Deposit, Maryland; Wanda Minter, wife of Pastor Anthony Minter, First Rock Baptist Church, Washington, DC; Fred Caudle, senior pastor, The Church @ St. Charles, Waldorf, Maryland; Frank Duncan, senior pastor, Paramount Baptist Church, Hagerstown, Maryland; Greg Kame, senior pastor, Glen Burnie Baptist Church, Glen Burnie, Maryland; and Tim Byer, senior pastor, Faith Baptist Church, Glen Burnie, Maryland.

COLLABORATION AND STRATEGY “I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t have all the gifts,” Crawford told staff members during a Q&A time before the mission board’s vote. “This has to be a collaborative team effort. I hope to bring a sense of a renewed culture of oneness and unity and purpose and calling and a kind of solidification.”

Crawford looked ahead and smiled, saying, “The possibilities are what excite me the most. The people in this room with amazing gift sets and experience excite me. It excites me to think about all the pastors all over the region that have a heart for Jesus who are laboring. It excites me to think about what we could do if we had a clear, articulated vision married with strategy and then resourced—what could actually happen! Those things excite me.”

Crawford added that he’s also excited about the future of Skycroft Conference Center—a three hundred-acre, BCM/D-owned retreat center in Middletown, Maryland. He emphasized the need for increased Skycroft promotion and said he envisions a new multi-purpose room at the facility and the possibility of using Skycroft to host the convention’s annual meeting.

“It’s a phenomenal place,” he said. “I think it should be the premiere ministry conference center in the Northeast.”

Asked about some of the concerns in the Southern Baptist Convention, such as “wokeism” and hyper-Calvinism, Crawford responded: “They are just distractions. That’s not a hard question for me.” Crawford emphasized the need to focus on the BCM/D’s mission of starting and strengthening churches.

SPIRITUAL JOURNEY Crawford was born in California in 1968, the youngest of eight children. His mother accepted a new job when he was nine years old, and the family moved from the San Fernando Valley to the affluent Malibu Hills. Following his 1986 graduation from Crossroads High School in Santa Monica, he briefly attended UCLA before God reached into his heart and changed his life forever. During a difficult period, while dealing

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Michael and Dani Crawford Image Courtesy of BCM/D

The possibilities are what excite me the most. The people in this room with amazing gift sets and experience excite me. It excites me to think about all the pastors all over the region that have a heart for Jesus who are laboring. It excites me to think about what we could do if we had a clear, articulated vision married with strategy and then resourced— what could actually happen! Those things excite me.”

Michael Crawford

with severe mental health challenges, Crawford remembered his brother’s testimony, read the “red letters” in a Bible and gave his life to Jesus. He transferred to The Master’s College in Santa Clarita, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science, with an emphasis in philosophy in 1991. In 1997, he earned a Master of Divinity from The Master’s Seminary in Los Angeles.

PERSONAL LIFE Crawford is an avid athlete who has completed seven triathlons, including three sprints, two Olympics, one Eagle, and one Iron Man.

He and his wife, Dani, have been married for twenty-eight years and have five young adult children: Claudia, Tabitha, Nehemiah, Keturah, and Ezra.

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on March 17, 2022.

SHARON MAGER is communications specialist and BaptistLIFE correspondent at the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware.

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Bigger Crowds Lead to Tough, Necessary Decision for the SBC

BY JONATHAN HOWE

The 2021 SBC Annual Meeting was the largest crowd we have hosted at an SBC annual meeting in a generation. This June’s meeting in Anaheim is shaping up to draw close to 10,000 for a gathering on the West Coast— nearly doubling the number of messengers from our gathering in Phoenix in 2017.

This started in 2018 when more than 9,600 messengers came to Dallas. After adding in guests, exhibitors, credentialed press, and others, the official attendance was 16,032. Then in 2019, 8,183 messengers and 13,502 total attendees made their way to Birmingham, Alabama.

And 2021 blew past those totals with 15,726 messengers and 21,474 total attendees making Music City their home for the week.

It’s safe to say a new generation of Southern Baptists has engaged with the Convention, and attendance at our annual meetings has ballooned. As the entity in charge of planning and promoting the annual meeting, the SBC Executive Committee is ecstatic over the response we’ve seen in recent years.

But that leaves us with a major problem for 2023.

When Charlotte, North Carolina, was selected in 2016 as the host city for the 2023 SBC Annual Meeting, the plans allowed for a maximum of 8,000 messengers and guests in the 280,000 square feet of available space at the Charlotte Convention Center.

Simply put, Charlotte simply does not have adequate space to host the SBC Annual Meeting in 2023.

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We inquired of every major city and convention center in the southeast United States. In the end, only one city was able to meet our four major needs for 2023: geographic proximity to Southern Baptists, hotel availability, available dates, and available space.

That city is New Orleans, Louisiana.

The space now required to host an annual meeting exceeds 400,000 square feet—225,000 for the main hall, 150,000 for the exhibit hall, and 50,000 for registration and storage. This year in Anaheim, we will utilize more than 500,000 square feet. Last year in Nashville, we required more than 400,000 square feet—and truly needed more.

Charlotte has only 280,000 square feet of meeting space—less than 75 percent of what is needed to meet the current demands of our annual gathering.

Several conversations have taken place with meeting organizers and city officials in Charlotte over the past few months. Our team visited the city in February to see if any workable solution could be found. Ultimately, we were unable to find a way to keep the meeting in Charlotte— there simply was nowhere for us to hold the meeting as needed in the Queen City.

We also began researching options and earnestly praying for an alternative to Charlotte that would meet the current needs of our Convention for the 2023 SBC Annual Meeting. We inquired of every major city and convention center in the southeast United States. In the end, only one city was able to meet our four major needs for 2023: geographic proximity to Southern Baptists, hotel availability, available dates, and available space.

That city is New Orleans, Louisiana.

The annual meeting was last held in New Orleans in 2012—a historic gathering that saw Fred Luter elected SBC president. After meeting with city and convention center officials in New Orleans as well as with SBC Executive Committee officers, SBC EC Chairman Rolland Slade has called a special meeting of the EC in order for EC members to vote to relocate the 2023 Annual Meeting. This is in accordance with SBC Constitution Article 11.3, since the city of Charlotte is unable to fulfill its commitments to host the event—they simply do not have space for us to meet as needed.

Please understand this move comes at no fault to Charlotte other than the space they have available. The city wants to host Southern Baptists, but simply cannot. Our meeting has grown beyond the city’s capability and usable space. We will do everything in our power to honor the Queen City as this move is made, and it is our prayer that Southern Baptists will honor Charlotte for its willingness to host us.

As for New Orleans, several updates have been made to the city and the convention center since Southern Baptists last met on the bayou, and we are getting ready for an annual meeting unlike any the Crescent City has seen.

See you in Anaheim . . . and then—prayerfully—New Orleans!

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on April 18, 2022.

JONATHAN HOWE is vice president for communications at the SBC Executive Committee.

Kyle Wilson (left), associate pastor of student ministries at University Baptist Church in Houston, speaks with Bob and Kelli Hines on March 26. Hines is an astronaut who pilots the SpaceX Crew-4 mission to the International Space Station. Image Courtesy of University Baptist Church

Texas Church Commissions SpaceX Astronaut for Upcoming Mission

BY BONNIE SHAW

On March 27, University Baptist Church in Houston commissioned one of their own to go out to the furthest mission fields.

Astronaut Bob Hines, a member of UBC, is scheduled to launch into space on April 19. There, he will spend 144 days on the International Space Station and be the pilot on the SpaceX Crew-4 mission, a four-person team that will launch out of Cape Canaveral.

March 27 was the last Sunday before Hines went into a three-week quarantine as preparation for launch. Associate Pastor of Student Ministries Kyle Wilson led the congregation in a prayer over the Hines family, including Bob’s wife, Kelli, and his three daughters. In addition to praying for safety during the mission, Wilson also emphasized that it was the church’s duty to take care of the family during Hines’ absence.