This week, SUZII PAYNTER announced she is retiring after 5 years as executive coordinator of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF).
I first met Suzii in the late 1990s during my visits to First Baptist Church, Austin, with my dad, JASE JONES, who was a member there. However, where I truly got to knowing Suzii was in the early 2000s at the Christian Life Commission (CLC) booth at the annual meetings of the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT).
At that time, I had begun to challenge the pastor of the Plano church of which my wife and I had been members since 1987. I perceived actions taken by the pastor as an attempt to move the church toward Fundamentalism. I had fought the “Baptist battles” in that church for years by speaking up for Baptist principles in Sunday School classes, usually getting little response other than blank stares. So the pastor’s efforts didn’t shock me – I had seen the handwriting on the wall in that church for years.
But it was discouraging to see Baptist principles being trampled on in the church’s lurch toward Fundamentalism. I began confronting the pastor about this and taking a more active role in Texas Baptist life. That meant getting more actively involved with Texas Baptists Committed (TBC) and DAVID CURRIE (then TBC executive director) than I had before, and David wound up recommending me for the BGCT Executive Board, to which I was elected in 2002.
So I started attending the BGCT annual meetings regularly and getting to know people there. Every year in those early 2000s, I made a point of stopping by the CLC booth and talking to PHIL STRICKLAND and Suzii Paynter, sharing with them my frustrations over what was going on in my church in Plano. At that time, Phil was CLC director, and Suzii was in charge of public policy for the CLC.
They listened patiently and offered what encouragement they could; their main encouragement was for me to stay the course, continue standing up for historic Baptist principles. Phil ultimately encouraged my wife and me to join Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, where he was a member. We joined in 2004, and Wilshire has been a blessing to us ever since.
After Phil passed away in February 2006, Suzii was chosen to succeed him as CLC director. She continued to be a friend and encourager to me.
Then, in 2011, I was named executive director of Texas Baptists Committed, and the following year, the T. B. Maston Foundation trustees elected me to chair the Foundation. Within barely over a year, I had taken over the leadership of two major Baptist organizations. For a layperson who had never attended seminary, who had spent most of his adult life as a technical writer & editor in the corporate world, these responsibilities were overwhelming. I went to God daily (and still do), saying “Lord, I’m not up to the responsibilities you’ve given me, but you are, so please do your work through me.”
Well, one way that God has done through me far beyond my meager abilities, and absolutely NO training to lead even one – let alone two – organizations, has been to give me good people on whom I can call. I’ve often told people that I’ve had two primary mentors throughout these tenures (6-1/2 years leading TBC, 4 years leading the Maston Foundation): Suzii Paynter and RICK MCCLATCHY (field coordinator, CBF-Texas).
Here are two people who have much more leadership experience than I have and have always been willing to share their experience, knowledge, and wisdom with me. I have been able to call them whenever needed, bounce ideas off of them, ask questions, and ask for advice in my role at TBC & Maston. I couldn’t ask for two better mentors – they are both as gracious as they are wise.
Suzii’s selection as executive coordinator of CBF in 2013 – by a search committee chaired by my pastor, GEORGE MASON – was a God-breathed decision, no doubt about it. She has led CBF creatively, courageously, and graciously.
She has led it to confront the thorny issue of treatment of LGBTQ people, knowing full well that there was no way to make everybody happy but with the conviction that this issue must be addressed. The Illumination Project task force carried out its charge by listening to a wide variety of people, perspectives, and concerns; and being sensitive to the needs of LGBTQ people, the realities of the mission field, and the principles – particularly the autonomy of the local church – that have kept Baptists free and faithful for over 400 years.
Suzii made advocacy a priority and named STEPHEN REEVES to lead in that area. This is what Baptist Christians should be about – advocating for the least of these, as Christ said we must if we truly love him. CBF has led a national effort to stop predatory lending. Recently, CBF has advocated for children and their families being torn apart by the Trump administration’s “no-tolerance” and family separation immigration policy. Suzii joined many others in traveling to locations along the Texas border to protest the policy and to stand in solidarity with the oppressed families.
Speaking of advocacy: in 2015, I watched as Suzii joined BRENT WALKER, then executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, RUSSELL MOORE, president of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and others at Baptist Voices on Religious Liberty: Left, Right, & Center, at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The symposium was sponsored by the seminary’s Institute for Faith and the Public Square, which is led by my friend, LLOYD HARSCH, a professor at the seminary. There, Suzii advocated emphatically for religious liberty for ALL people, a key Baptist distinctive.
The encouragement of friends like Suzii, Phil, and David Currie back in the early 2000s has had an immeasurable impact on my life, as my involvement has grown, and I have had opportunities to lead and minister. I have made friendships too numerous to count, friendships I treasure.
As executive coordinator of CBF, Suzii has spread that same kind of encouragement to women in ministry. She has worked closely with PAM DURSO, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry, to encourage women to follow God’s call on their lives, and to encourage CBF churches to call women as pastors. She has also encouraged young Baptists and given them opportunities to lead. In the years to come, these whom she has encouraged will be able to look back, as I do now, at the remarkable impact Suzii Paynter has had on their lives.
In the days to come, others will add their own tributes to Suzii. What I’ve said here barely begins to illustrate the impact she has had on Baptist life and on the lives of numerous others beyond the Baptist world. Suffice it to say that the seeds she has planted will continue to bear fruit for generations to come in the life of CBF, in the lives of Baptists around the world, in the life of our nation and world, and in the lives of those in need around the globe.
AMEN!!