Nate Adams’s superpower may be stubbornness. Or said more graciously, persistence. Or spiritually, perseverance.
The tenacity to stick to a daunting task long after others would have surrendered has served him well across these two decades. And as longevity often fuels legacy, it seems appropriate to ask how he weathered 20 years as head of the state’s broad and varied network of Baptist churches.
Adams tells how Pastor Jerry Ford, a member of the search committee that brought him to Illinois in 2006, honed in on the issue: “What I want to know is, do you see yourself with gray hair in Illinois?”
Adams said yes.
A lot has happened in Southern Baptist life and with the network of Illinois Baptist churches in his tenure, and Adams has earned those gray hairs.
As Adams leans into his April 1 retirement as Executive Director of the Illinois Baptist State Association, it’s a good time for an exit interview. We met in his glass-front office at the IBSA Building, where the shelves are suddenly bare of a lifetime’s keepsakes from Christian publishing, missions advancement, and state convention leadership.
Q: I remember a conversation at a coffee shop in Wheaton about 15 years ago where we talked about being Southern Baptists in the North, and Illinois Baptists in particular. We identified some challenges, but we acknowledged advantages. How do you feel about this unique vantage point today?
A: Well, I’m proud of being a Southern Baptist. I do think there are some cultural stereotypes that go with it. When I worked at Christianity Today in Northern Illinois, they would tease me and ask why I didn’t have on my leisure suit and my boots. (I didn’t own a pair of boots, and I had long since gotten rid of my last leisure suit.)
My son Noah pastored in Elgin and is now pastoring in Colorado. He said, I don’t want to pastor where most people and where the big churches are. He said, I want to be on the edge. I want to be out where I’m needed. I agree with him.
Being a Baptist in Illinois ought to remind us that we’re missionaries, and that we’re here to join Jesus in his mission to seek and to save the lost.
Q: You talk about Illinois Baptists with great fondness.
A: It’s a small world, but a big Baptist family. That’s the phrase I use to describe when I go to a gas station in Mt. Vernon, and I’m in my shorts and T-shirt on vacation, and an elderly lady from one of the churches walks in and says, “Aren’t you the executive director of IBSA?”
The idea that I would run into another Southern Baptist from one of our churches in a state of 13 million people in means it’s a small world.
Q: You’ve been cleaning out your office for several months. What is the trip down memory lane been like?
A: It’s been fun and sentimental at the same time. It started a year ago, cleaning out my mother’s house after she died. The basement was like the IBSA archives.
After that, Beth told me don’t bring home the memorabilia. Especially books. I gave away coffee mugs from church anniversaries and pens and medallions. I had a frisbee from a 200th anniversary of a church. Before you let it go, you remember that church—or Disaster Relief or Campers on Mission. Those things remind me of when I was there, and are probably what Paul had in mind when he said, “I thank God for every remembrance of you.”
Q: I’m seeing Paul with a cup he picked up in Ephesus.
A: There’s a map in my closet here that I haven’t taken down yet. One of the search committee members, Roger Marshall, asked me to pray about moving my family back to Illinois 20 years ago. He sent me that map and invited me to pray over it. So once here, I had it framed nicely, and it’s been in my office ever since. It is a reminder every time I step before it.
Q: Your service with IBSA has been a family affair in a lot of ways.
A: My dad’s a big part of the reason that I’m here and felt called here. I joked that some people get to stay in the family business. Some people inherit the family farm. For me, it was Illinois Baptists.
Dad moved our family here from Kentucky when I was five, he became an Illinois Baptist, and stayed one from that point on. He had a unique relationship because of writing the newspaper column for 34 years.
With his reputation and integrity, and the relationships that he had here, the people said, “Let’s give Nate a shot because he’s Tom’s boy.” I felt like my work has been a continuation of our family’s commitment—Dad’s and Mom’s—for more than 50 years.
Q: With his death at the same time you arrived at IBSA, you’ve said you wished you could have turned to him for advice in your ministry here.
A: Yes. I would have. When I was going to the North American Mission Board, he actually was a little bit cautionary. His warning was, I hope the politics of the SBC don’t chew you up. And I remember thinking naively at the time, That’s Baptist. How political can it be?
Certainly, Illinois has not had that acrimony that you sometimes see in the National SBC. I’ve often said, I can count on two hands the number of non-unanimous votes our messengers have had in the annual meeting. There’s a wonderful unity and diversity here that is unique to Illinois, and I’m glad we’ve been able to sustain that.
Q: How has creating a hub of ministry training and leadership development been important to your ministry?
A: There’s a phrase they use in real estate called pride of ownership. When you’re seeking to sell a house, does it demonstrate pride of ownership? To me, this—the Baptist Building—is a symbol of who Illinois Baptists are to some degree.
I came to this building as a teenager and then as a youth minister bringing people to Youth Encounter here. I remember this building, really for most of its life. And so it’s one of those symbols of stewardship for the previous generation.
Many national SBC leaders that come to our building say, “Wow, this is Illinois!” One of the things they say is “I didn’t realize that you had such a nice facility here.” And they comment on the quality of the fellowship.
That’s partly why renovating the Springfield facility, and developing both camps, and expanding our leadership training across the state has been important.
Q: And they built a Starbucks across the street.
A: Yeah. I have a postcard I found in my parents’ house, the building when it was brand new. The back of the postcard says, Illinois Baptist and about 900 churches or whatever, and that was back in the 1970s. It’s about the same number of churches now.
I certainly wish the mission had made more progress.
We’ve faced some hard things, from the recession of 2008 to the so-called Great Commission Resurgence shortly after that, then Covid, and then five, six years of coming out of that.
All the while, the culture has been atrophying and turning much less conservative, just generally, in Illinois. So there’s been a lot of uphill climb to what we do.
Sometimes holding fast and not losing ground is victory.
Q: Take your victories where you find them.
A: As I’ve said to the board, it’s like we’re piloting a plane. For certain conditions, you have to fly at a lower altitude for a while until you can take corrective actions, or land and fix it and take off again. Flying at a slightly lower altitude than I would have wished probably describes the last 20 years.
Q: You and Beth have leaned into several life changes ahead of retirement. What has grandparenting taught you?
A: Grandparenting is great. We went from three to six in one year. It’s everything that everybody always said when you just thought it was silly, until you got there.
I don’t know that you have a deeper impact than you have with the stewardship of your family. These kids are reminding me of that.
Q: What’s your favorite grandparenting activity?
A: The boys play Nerf basketball in our basement with a game we saved from their fathers’ childhood. They shoot all the time, and I get to rebound. But for the girls, we play school. When our oldest granddaughter comes over, we gather all the toys in the house, and the basement becomes a school setting, where those toys get organized into groups, and where those toys are disciplined, and where those toys say silly things.
Q: So you’re taking direction these days?
A: Absolutely. That little girl likes to command me around. And I do what she says.
Q: Finish this sentence: If not for Beth…
A: If not for Beth, I’d go off the rails far more often. She’s stabilizing, directing, perspective keeping, corrective, doesn’t let me take myself or what’s happening to me too seriously. She inspires me with her spiritual life and prayer commitment. She was a teacher until we had kids. Since then, being a wife and mom and helping me do what I do has been her job, as she states it. I’m healthier, spiritually and physically and emotionally, because she’s who I come home to.
Q: As you move into the next season, how are you reflecting on these 20 years?
A: I’m grateful for a long tenure. I hope I haven’t stayed too long. I hope I stayed long enough. I hope it was just right.
There was rapid leadership change before me, with five shorter term executive directors. There was a season when IBSA did not have stability. Like with pastors in churches, a long, healthy pastorate is typically good for the people. I feel gratitude to have done what Jerry asked me to do—turn gray in Illinois.
What I feel like I’m leaving behind is good organizational health, good practices, good finances, good foundation for what God (and Scott) have next. I’m glad someone is coming in after me who knows Illinois and loves our churches.
Q: What do you hope for in your next season?
A: More and more I want my identity in Christ and not in myself. I think the work of your hands can become your identity. Whatever God has planned in the future, without the expectation or encumbrance of a job to tempt me into that, I hope to be more fully who I am in Christ. I’d like to prepare for Jesus’ return more intentionally than the demands of this last season have maybe allowed.
Wayne Watson used to sing a song, “I want to get so close to him that it’s no big change on that day when Jesus calls my name.”
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