Kevin Ezell elected new NAMB president

ATLANTA ?Kevin Ezell has been elected president of the North American Mission Board. NAMB’s board of trustees approved the nomination in a special called meeting Sept. 14 at an Atlanta-area hotel.

Ezell’s nomination was announced Aug. 31 after NAMB’s seven-member presidential search committee voted unanimously to recommend him as president.

Today’s meeting began at 8 a.m. Eastern time and ended at noon with the announcement of the vote to approve Ezell.

Ezell has pastored Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., since 1996. He served as president of the SBC Pastors’ Conference in June in Orlando, Fla. He and his wife Lynette met with NAMB trustees for about an hour Tuesday morning in a closed session to discuss his nomination.

Bryant Wright, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., attended the meeting. Wright delivered a devotion to NAMB trustees before they entered into executive session to consider the vote.

“Today is an historic day in the life of NAMB,” Wright told trustees. “Today your big decision is to follow God’s will with a man the search committee clearly feels is God’s man for leading our churches as they go about the harvest.”