New Executive Director of Missions

Change comes slowly to New Orleans if it ever comes at all.  Over a year ago, our association, the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans, voted to adopt a new strategy for reaching the area with the gospel.  Known as 2020 Vision, this strategy was a dramatic shift in traditional associational form and function.  Part of the 2020 Vision included redefining the position of Director of Missions, something I think was way overdue.  The new position, called Executive Director of Missions, is more closely akin to an urban strategist and has the responsibility of being a visionary leader who understands the city and works to move churches towards engaging the city on multiple levels in culturally relevant ways.  So who's the lucky guy? 

Duane McDaniel, currently pastor of Hawaii Kai Baptist Church in Honolulu, has accepted the call as our new Executive DOM and I am very excited about serving along side him.  This is a positive move for our association and we welcome Duane, his wife Kathleen and their four children to our great city.  Personally, I can't wait till he gets here.  We've been in a holding pattern for months now with the our only two associational staff members retiring and the new Executive DOM always seeming to be over the next horizon.  Now I'm breathing sighs of relief and songs of thankfulness for what God is doing, and more importantly, what God wants to do in the Greater New Orleans area.