McCoy helps lead staff toward tranquility
JEFFERSON CITY – Bruce McCoy, first vice president of the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) Executive Board and chairman of an internal investigative committee that has been looking into personnel matters, addressed the staff Jan. 3 with wisdom from Proverbs 30:24-28.
Little things can be wise, McCoy preached. He said he learned something from Haddon Robinson regarding this passage.
Ants prepare their food in the summer. Rock badgers make their homes in the crags. Locusts advance in ranks. Lizards spend time in king’s palaces. The actions of these tiny creatures—just like the actions of men and women who bear the name MBC—matter.
The pastor of Canaan Baptist Church, who is serving with two of his fellow officers and two past presidents, assured the staff that they have nothing to fear.
“We want you to know we recognize one great, important fact that affects you personally,” McCoy said. “We are not going to function as some sort of super-personnel committee. We have been asked to do a ministry task—a ministry task that we have not chosen for ourselves. (It is) a ministry task that regrettably asks of us to look into, investigate, rumors affecting the character of our executive director, whom we all count as a friend, our Executive Board staff, and our Executive Board members, and the members of our convention committees.”
No performance reviews or job evaluations will be read, McCoy said.
“I heard about a man who took a tour in an asylum for the criminally insane,” McCoy said. “He realized there, when he was out there in an open area, fenced in, there were about 100 inmates to every three unarmed guards. He whispered to one of the older guards, who clearly couldn’t run very fast if trouble were to happen, ‘Aren’t you afraid they’re going to get together and overpower you?’ The old man, (with) no guile and no fear of the criminally insane all around him, looked at him, laughed, and said, ‘Lunatics never unite.’”
McCoy noted from the Bible that it is possible for the locusts, who have no king, to do what lunatics cannot. Locusts are capable of uniting.
McCoy’s meeting in the Baptist Building came immediately after the committee had met for about 90 minutes at Concord Baptist Church, Jefferson City. McCoy described the Concord meeting as primarily organizational in nature.
The five-member committee consists of: McCoy; Jim Cogdill, director of missions, Cape Girardeau Baptist Association and second vice president of the MBC Executive Board; Lisa Albert, wife of Rodney Albert, pastor of Hallsville Baptist Church, and recording secretary of the MBC Executive Board; Monte Shinkle, pastor, Concord Baptist Church, Jefferson City; and Bob Curtis, pastor, Ballwin Baptist Church. Shinkle and Curtis are past MBC presidents.
McCoy, Cogdill and Lisa Albert are focusing on issues related to MBC Executive Director David Clippard, McCoy said. Shinkle will be interviewing MBC staff, McCoy said. Lisa Albert may help. Curtis is charged with interviewing Roger Moran, a layman from First Baptist Church of Troy, concerning any dealings he has had with the Executive Board.
Clippard has issued an email to all MBC staff directing them to be cooperative with the 5-member committee as well as a separate Theological Study Committee headed by Michael Knight, pastor, First Baptist Church, Viburnum. Knight also serves as a member of the MBC Executive Board.