JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (BP) — Jim Wells, registration secretary for the Southern Baptist Convention, is joining the Missouri Baptist Convention executive board staff as Cooperative Program state missionary for strategic partnerships.
Wells has been director of missions for Missouri’s Tri-County Baptist Association in Nixa for nearly 12 years.
Beginning June 1, Wells will serve as the Missouri convention’s liaison with directors of missions (DOMs); oversee the MBC’s On Mission Celebrations; work with DOMs in partner conventions; act as the executive director’s designee with convention entities and the Missouri National Guard Partners in Care program; and oversee MBC ministries involving chaplaincy.
Strengthening relationships between the Missouri convention and DOMs across the state will be a key focus of his work, Wells told The Pathway, the convention’s newsjournal.
“They are the largest statewide network,” he said. “The state convention and association are partners in helping churches fulfill the Great Commission. A part of that is strengthening the relationship between the state and associations. When churches and associations are strong, the state convention will be strong.”
John Yeats, MBC executive director, has known Wells for 15 years and has served with him on the SBC level where Yeats has been the convention’s recording secretary since 1998.
“This position is about network, network, network,” Yeats told the MBC executive board as he introduced Wells for the new position during their April 10 meeting. “The DOMs know our churches, they love their pastors and they are our strategic partners. We need Jim Wells. He has a great reputation among his colleagues and I can’t think of a brother better equipped to work with DOMs than one of them who knows how they think.”
As a liaison to state convention entities, Wells will represent the Cooperative Program at the trustee meetings of Hannibal-LaGrange University, Southwest Baptist University and the Missouri Baptist Children’s Home.
“Jim and his wife Judy are a wonderful Christian couple and they bring the very best of Missouri Baptist life into our team,” Yeats said.
In his joining the MBC staff, Wells has resigned his seat on the MBC executive board, of which he has been a member since 2006.
Wells first won election as SBC registration secretary in 2002 and plans to run for an 11th term when the convention meets in New Orleans in June.
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Brian Koonce is staff writer at The Pathway (www.mbcpathway.com), newsjournal of the Missouri Baptist Convention.
