I just received my fall edition of On Mission magazine from NAMB. I can tell that there are already some significant, fundamental changes in our mission board. How can I tell that from a magazine?
I had to get all the way to page 64, the last page of the magazine, to find a picture of the new NAMB president, Geoff Hammond. How refreshing! From all that I have read about Dr. Hammond, he wants to keep our missions and missionaries (not himself) front and center.
I’m looking toward a tremendously positive future for NAMB, and I will continue to pray that we will truly have a mission board … not a “corporate entity.”
Great start, Dr. Hammond!
September 4, 2007 at 7:13 pm
NAMB deserves to brag. Dr. Hammond served the state of VA and the SBCV well; stellar in fact.
September 6, 2007 at 11:42 am
Geoff,
I waited to think about this before I commented. I know the former President fairly well. He has become a mentor of mine and I talk with him regularly. I don’t think it is fair to him to say that he put himself on the front. He is a good man and he would help anyone who asked.
September 6, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Kevin,
I intentionally did not make a comparison with the former administration. I simply pointed out how refreshing it was to see Dr. Hammond’s face in the back of the book, not in the front. And I apologize if you felt my words were an insult to your friend.
But I did have a problem was with the “branding,” book hawking, and such that was going on while he was at NAMB. Perhaps he didn’t put himself in the front of the publications, and on the videos, but it seems that the staff somehow were under the impression that they should. And, from my own experience with NAMB, I hated the “corporate mentality” and the pressure that ensued during those years.
I don’t think you can deny that there was an emphasis upon personality while he was there.
I simply see (albeit from my great distance) a fundamental change in the atmosphere … more a shift toward the actual mission instead of toward personalities or leaders. And I like it.
That was my point. I wish Dr. Reccord the very best. But I am glad that there has been a change.