Chicago area pastor Adron Robinson will repeat as a member of the search team charged with finding the next head of the SBC Executive Committee. Robinson was among seven people elected at the Feb. 22 EC board meeting. EC Chair Rolland Slade is the only other person on the search team who also served during the search that led to the nomination and election of Ronnie Floyd.
EC members voted on a slate of 23 nominations from the floor and required a second ballot for the sixth position because of a three-way tie between Slade, Mike Keahbone of Oklahoma, and John Yeats of Missouri. Keahbone won.
The other members elected were Mollie Duddleston of Arkansas, Jeremy Morton of Georgia, Philip Robertson of Louisiana, and David Sons of North Carolina.
The position of EC chairperson, currently held by Slade, is an ex-officio search committee member with the right to vote. Slade, whose term as chairman and as an EC member ends with the SBC annual meeting in June, will serve on the search committee until a new chairperson is elected by EC members in June. If Slade had been elected to the committee as a regular member, then the ex officio slot would have been filled by him as well until June and then the new chairperson would step into that slot, bringing the committee to seven at that point.
Newly elected presidential search committee members will select their chair and secretary soon. Robinson is one of Illinois’ two representatives on the 86-member panel. He is pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church of Country Club Hills in suburban Chicago.
Former EC President and CEO Ronnie Floyd resigned in October, after several contentious months involving the investigation into the EC’s handling of sex abuse allegations in the denomination, and an SBC Annual Meeting that saw some EC actions rebuffed by messengers.
EC Vice President Willie McLaurin, elected in February as interim EC president, will serve in the role until a new president is elected.
–IB Staff, with information from The Baptist Paper