The North American Mission Board has appointed David Meacham to the newly-created position of senior strategist for associations. Prior to his new appointment, Meacham served as NAMB’s senior strategist for church planting.
ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP) – The North American Mission Board has appointed David Meacham to the newly-created position of senior strategist for associations. Prior to his new appointment, Meacham served as NAMB’s senior strategist for church planting.
In naming Meacham to the new position, NAMB President Geoff Hammond stated his commitment to ensure greater thinking from Baptist associations throughout the mission board and a higher visibility of associations and their mission efforts.
“I believe associations are an important part of Southern Baptist cooperative missions,” said Hammond, himself a former associational director of missions in northwest Arkansas.
The appointment of Meacham to the newly-created job reflects not only Hammond’s associational experience but follows a NAMB-initiated “think tank” meeting in April during which NAMB/associational relations was discussed and redefined. The session was attended by NAMB representatives, associational missionaries, several state executive directors and state directors of missions.
With the attendees representing a cross-section of younger, older, metro and rural elements of the Southern Baptist Convention, the day was spent praying, visioning and planning in an open dialogue on how NAMB and the associations could better team together to reach North America for Christ.
Hammond said with Meacham in the new post, associations will have a higher profile as NAMB assists Southern Baptists in their task of fulfilling the Great Commission in the United States, Canada and their territories via NAMB’s strategy of sharing Christ, starting churches and sending missionaries in cooperation with its Acts 1:8 partners – state conventions, local associations and churches.
“Every one of NAMB’s Acts 1:8 partners plays a vital role in fulfilling the Great Commission on this continent,” Hammond said. “And that’s why NAMB is ensuring that providing support to all 1,200 Southern Baptist associations continues to have a high priority.”
Hammond called Meacham a “bridge-builder who can forge relationships across generations which could lead to more effective partnerships for the evangelization of North America.”
Meacham, a director of missions in Las Vegas from 1981-92, said, “I am really motivated to use my calling, experience and passion to help Baptist associations assist the local church to fulfill the Great Commission.”
Meacham also led Southern Baptist statewide efforts in Nevada from 1992-2001 as executive director of the Nevada Baptist Convention. He came to NAMB in 2007 from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where he served as director of the Leavell Center for Evangelism and Church Health and professor of church planting.