In December, the IBSA Board of Directors met and unanimously elected Scott Foshie IBSA Executive Director. He will serve as Executive Director Elect until current IBSA Executive Director Nate Adams retires on April 1. A few days following his election, IBSA Media Editor Eric Reed interviewed Foshie about his thoughts on the challenges ahead of him—and Illinois Baptist churches. Here is that conversation, edited for the available space.
Q: How did your pastorate in Steeleville prepare you for this new position?
A: When we came to Steeleville, it was a time of seeking God. I had been an associate pastor for 15 years in Tennessee, and the Lord gave me a very clear call to prepare to be a lead pastor. He also put in our hearts that he was probably going to require us to move. When the chairman of the Steeleville Baptist search committee called, I really sensed the Holy Spirit saying, “You need to take the next step with them.”
As we drove around Randolph County, Illinois, we felt the Lord bonding us with those people. Those who have answered a call into ministry may understand when God speaks, he gives you a shepherd’s burden. It’s a loving burden. It’s a wonderful burden. It wasn’t easy, but it was a season of renewal and revival.
As I see this new call, I’m just in awe of how God gives us the experiences we need because he knows the things that are in front of us. Getting to walk in those shoes—being a pastor in Southern Illinois—prepared me to be a servant to our pastors today.
Q: You fairly quickly got involved with your local association and with IBSA.
A: One of the reasons that I was called at Steeleville and was the church is passionate about Vacation Bible School. I led VBS in my own churches, but I also led VBS training for Tennessee Baptists. It didn’t take long for Mark Emerson to find out and put me on the Illinois VBS team. I traveled the state on that team.
I got to go to Broadview Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago. I got to experience the beauty of the Illinois Baptist family in its totality for the first time. I remember going to my first IBSA Annual Meeting at First Baptist Marion, and I thought, Man, this place has a lot of love.
I don’t know if there’s a place in Southern Baptist life with as much variety and cultural vibrance and hope and optimism as there is in the Illinois Baptist family.
Q: How did your work with revitalization prepare you for this position?
A: While I was still pastoring at Steeleville, God was stirring in me that I love encouraging churches, encouraging pastors, and helping them live out their vision to the full.
We are called to impact lostness with the light of the gospel together. I think revitalization ministry is a huge part of that. But it was really an awakening process for me when people outside of my life in ministry—like Nate Adams and then Rob Peters who consulted with IBSA on the Refocus process—they said,“Scott, you are a revitalization leader.”
I had never really put that label on myself before. I was just a guy that was saved from my sin and following Jesus and answering his call and leading.
But God blessed our work in revitalization. And I have enjoyed it.
Q: How did your service as ERLC trustee and eventually Board chair prepare you for executive leadership?
A: We had some real concerns that needed to be addressed if the ERLC was going to thrive in the future. After Dr. Moore resigned, I was part of leading a work group to make sure that communication between the President and the Board was enhanced and improved. We also set certain milestones to ensure that the board was able to effectively oversee the ERLC staff in its mission, and also to encourage the staff.
Following Dr. Moore, CEO Brent Leatherwood helped tremendously. He has stepped away now, and it’s created a moment for a new opportunity.
Being on that board, and then when my peers asked me to serve as chairman, I think it’s given me deeper appreciation for our Baptist ecosystem of cooperation and partnership and Great Commission impact.
Q: How did you maintain a sense of hope for the SBC when dealing with some deeply troubling situations and challenging personalities?
A: During the ERLC debate, there were some mean-spirited actors in the midst of it—primarily those people I never interacted with directly because they didn’t want to interact directly. They wanted to fire shots on social media.
When I talked to Southern Baptists in person or on the phone—and some of them who voted to abolish the ERLC—they were kind, they expressed their concerns very diplomatically, and we worked to address them.
One of the most vocal concerned people, [Florida pastor] Willy Rice, who made the motion to abolish ERLC, later commended us for our work and let us know that he does not want the ERLC to be abolished. He was, in a sense, pulling a fire alarm to get the trustees’ attention.
When dealing with areas where we disagree, I think we need to be mindful and just be discerning. Let’s make sure we’re loving and kind.
Q: What is the biggest challenge facing IBSA and Illinois Baptist churches?
A: I’m an optimist, but I’m also a realist. I think an alarm is a blessing when God sounds an alarm about the trajectory of our churches.
Let’s face it, if we don’t have a change in our trajectory, Illinois Baptist Life is in for a crisis within about 10 years—a major crisis. Now, I don’t say that to try to scare us, but we need to be honest. However, we have hope: his name is Jesus, and we have got a lot of resources the Lord has blessed us with.
Thanks to Nate Adams and the Board and our Illinois Baptist leadership over the last 20 years, we’re in a strong financial position. We need to be realistic about the challenges we have, but depend on God and be filled with hope at the same time.
Q: You have spoken often about relationships. You’re traveling a lot at the outset of your tenure. What is your goal?
A: We have more resources and technology and helps than ever before. But what those things cannot provide is genuine relationship. We need to build up our brotherhood of pastors. We want to serve in relationship with our local associations. Local association life is just primed for a resurgence around our state.
We have 32 local associations. (I’ve worked with 23 of them on revitalization processes.) IBSA is committed to partnering with local associations and building that ecosystem. Deepening relationships is something Nate was already focused on, but I want to double down on that. And I want to lead our team to really build those relationships. Deepening of relationships is priority number one for me.
Q: Speaking of priorities, what is the place of Chicago on your list?
A: With 8 milllion people in Chicago and the Illinois counties around the city, the region represents our greatest mission opportunity. It’s also our most challenging mission endeavor.
I think first, we need to spend time listening to the pastors and key lay people that the Lord has already placed in Chicagoland. I think it’s unwise for us to prescribe how to reach Chicagoland until we listen to those leaders because we need to partner with them.
I also think there’s a need for us to show our Southern churches the opportunity that’s in Chicagoland.
IBSA can give them powerful experiences where they can come and experience all that Jesus is doing. Just come on a mission trip to Uptown Baptist Church, and I guarantee that your group will return home challenged, encouraged about missions, and spiritually fed from leading people to Jesus. In the same way, there is also opportunity for our northern churches to come do missions in Central and Southern Illinois.
We need to awaken a fresh vision among our Illinois Baptist churches. Are we going to be Jonah or Isaiah? God said go, and Jonah said no. Then God said Oh?
But when God said go, Isaiah said, Here I am, send me. I think if we’re like Isaiah, tremendous blessing awaits us if we will have a vision and a heart.
Q: IBSA has outlined renewed vision for reaching college campuses. What is your view of the revised strategy for collegiate ministry?
A: I’m deeply encouraged by the renewed focus on college ministry. Over this last year, our teams have put a lot of time into developing a new strategy.
I believe that the right strategy is church-based. The way to do that is through partnering with thriving churches that have college students on their hearts and empowering those churches to accomplish the mission of the gospel together. We provide some catalytic funding and support for those churches.
Our need to reach college students is all-hands-on-deck, that all Illinois Baptist churches can participate in somehow. It’s not a matter of if we participate in reaching college students for Christ—but how, and now.
Q: What are your goals for the first year—or five years?
A: I think reversing the trajectory of decline is what’s on all of our hearts that we hope to see in five years. We’re praying for a sustained season of revival in Illinois life. That’s what we’re really praying for.
So I would say in five years, I hope that we reverse the trajectory of churches that are closing, that more churches will be opening and be planted. I would love to see us back over a thousand churches in Illinois, with continued increases of baptisms.
And we need to address Cooperative Program giving.
I led Steeleville to give 15% to CP because I believe we’re better together when we put resources together and fund over 3,700 full-time missionaries, when we have church planting happening all over North America, and when we field the IBSA team to build up churches and associations across Illinois.
There’s no better way that I have found to impact lostness with the light of the gospel than to give cooperatively and serve together as part of the Illinois Baptist family.