Click for AUDIO; Click for PART 9, 2008-2020: T. B. Maston Foundation for Christian Ethics
Links in this post: 1, Baptist Briefs videos on YouTube; 2, Good Faith Media article about the end of Weekly Baptist Roundup; 3, Baptist News Global Curated page; 4, Baptist Standard article about the end of TBC; 5, Bill Jones remarks at 2016 TBC Breakfast; 6, “When family doesn’t want you anymore,” by Bill Jones (Feb. 21, 2017); 7, 2018 Bill Jones Retirement Dinner; 8, George Gagliardi performing “Big Bad Bill Jones”; 9, Bill Jones remarks at 2018 Retirement Dinner
2006-2017: Texas Baptists Committed
On January 7, 2006, my friend Foy Valentine – who in 2003 had told me emphatically, “You’ll never convert that preacher!” (see part 6) – passed away suddenly. Later that week, I went to Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, where Foy and his wife, Mary Louise, were members, for Foy’s funeral. Before the doors to the sanctuary were opened for us to enter, everyone was gathered in the foyer.
As I was talking to my friend Joe Trull, I saw another friend, David Currie, executive director of Texas Baptists Committed (TBC) walk to a corner of the foyer and motion me over. So I excused myself to Joe and walked over to see what David wanted. He said, “If you want it, the Texas Baptists Committed board elected you as a member yesterday.” This came clear out of the blue – I didn’t even realize I was being considered. This has been the case with many of the opportunities I’ve had over the past 25 years – I didn’t seek them, I just kept doing what I believed God wanted me to do, and one opportunity after another came my way.
Only a month later, Phil Strickland, another dear friend – and a Baptist legend as Foy was – passed away. Phil was on the TBC board; sadly, because of his illness and then his passing, I never got to serve with him on the board. He was the reason Joanna and I had found Wilshire Baptist Church. He had been one of my chief encouragers in our last years at the church in Plano. Phil’s passing was a great loss to me.
Becoming David Currie’s editor
Early in my tenure on the TBC board, David sent an email to the board that was grammar-challenged, spelling-challenged, you name it, it was challenged. Well, as I would find throughout David’s writing in the years ahead, the content was solid . . . but the presentation needed a little work. By this time, I was a technical writer and editor of training materials at Countrywide Home Loans and had spent almost two decades in this role with various companies.
I called David and said, “David, please, before you send any more of these out, let me look them over first.” THAT is how I became David Currie’s editor! In January 2007, David began writing a weekly column titled “A Rancher’s Rumblings,” with each edition emailed to supporters and placed on the TBC website; over the next 2½ years, he wrote over 100 of these essays, and I edited every one of them. By this time, I knew David’s voice very well and was able to edit his writings, even adding things here and there to further bolster his point, without compromising David’s voice.
This “job” has lasted almost two decades; I am still David’s editor today. When he writes an article for the San Angelo newspaper’s website, etc., he sends it to me first, and I consider it a blessing and a privilege to be associated with David in this way, not to mention that he’s one of my dearest friends.
The first year that I filled this role, David paid me the supreme compliment during a board meeting. Phil Strickland had been David’s closest friend for over 30 years and had helped monitor his writings, etc. During a board meeting, David said that I had assumed the role Phil had filled for all those years. Phil would say, “David, you can’t say that,” and shave off the rough edges of some of David’s pronouncements; David said that I was doing the same thing. For David Currie to put me in the same breath as Phil Strickland – in ANY context – was the supreme compliment.
In almost 20 years of editing David’s writings, only once – and that was very early on – did David take issue with any of my edits. David and I have a mutual respect that works well in this relationship. I respect the content of what he writes – David writes courageously and prophetically on issues of religious liberty, justice for the marginalized, and, especially, loving Jesus; and David respects the editing treatment I give to his writings.
In December 2017, I had the privilege of being one of the speakers at David’s 65th birthday dinner, held at First Baptist Church, San Angelo. Our mutual pal, musician George Gagliardi, was unable to attend but sent with me a song he had written in tribute to David. So I called David onto the stage, where I did my best to sing George’s song to him. That was a great evening of telling stories of, poking a little fun at (with a lot of laughs), and expressing appreciation for our friend David.
Becoming executive director
In 2009, David stepped down as executive director. Our board met monthly for over a year – mostly at South Main Baptist Church in Houston, where Steve Wells, then chair of the board, was pastor (still is) – to decide where Texas Baptists Committed would go from that point. Had TBC’s mission run its course? Was it time to put it to bed? If not, did we need to make changes in how we carried out our mission, or even in the nature of our mission, to meet the needs of a new era and to attract a new generation? Finally, if we continued, then who would lead TBC?
In the fall of 2010, the board answered those questions. TBC would continue under a new executive director, who would then determine what, if any, changes were needed. But again, who would lead? They answered that question, too. I wasn’t privy to the deliberations that resulted in their decision; in fact, I wasn’t a part of those deliberations at all. All I know is that, ultimately, the board came to me and asked me to succeed David – but not as executive director; rather, as associate executive director. Who would be executive director? That was still up in the air.
In March 2010, I had been laid off of my technical writer/editor job with Bank of America, which had taken over Countrywide Home Loans in 2008. I had been searching for another tech writing/editing position, but had not found anything by that fall. So, when the TBC board came calling, Joanna and I had a decision to make.
Joanna knew that I had a deep passion for the work of Texas Baptists Committed, the work of helping churches and their members stave off the threat of fundamentalism and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. We finally decided I would accept the board’s invitation.
Beginning in January 2011, I assumed the role of associate executive director of Texas Baptists Committed, working out of my home. I had no staff, except for Jill Faragher, finance manager at Steve Wells’s church in Houston, who filled that role for TBC on a part-time basis. So at least I didn’t have to deal with the money. All donations were directed to Jill at South Main. I can’t say enough for what Jill did for TBC – and to make my job easier. She was truly a gift to TBC.
Baptist Briefs videos
The first week of January 2011, I put into action my vision of producing videos on Baptist history and principles. Over the next 3 months, I produced 71 of them, which I called “Baptist Briefs,” putting them on the TBC website. I sourced each video carefully and made ample attribution to my sources in the videos. I tried to cram as much key information into each 2- to 3-minute video as possible. After only a week or so – just a handful of videos had been produced and posted – I received a phone call from Bruce Gourley, then executive director of the Baptist History and Heritage Society (BHHS). Bruce told me that he had been viewing my videos and loved them. Bruce’s affirmation was extremely encouraging to me.
In May 2012, at the BHHS’s annual conference in Raleigh, NC, Bruce gave me time, during the final session, to promote Texas Baptists Committed and the T. B. Maston Foundation (which I was chairing by that time). I mentioned the Baptist Briefs videos, which I had put onto a two-DVD set, and advertised that anyone making a $75 donation to Texas Baptists Committed would receive a DVD set of Baptist Briefs.
Bill Sumners, director of the Southern Baptist Historical Library & Archives, was in the gathering that day. About a week later, I received an email from Bill’s secretary, telling me that Dr. Sumners wanted a DVD set of Baptist Briefs for the archives and asking where she should send the check for $75. This was quite a coup! Texas Baptists Committed – the group that fought the SBC’s fundamentalist leadership in Texas – received $75 from the SBC, and our videos, with TBC’s name and website on screen, are in the Southern Baptist Historical Library & Archives!
TBC Weekly Baptist Roundup
In May 2011, I had put another vision of mine into action, creating an e-newsletter, TBC Weekly Baptist Roundup, in which I linked to news and opinion articles from a wide variety of religious news sites, bloggers, etc. – skewing Baptist but including news & opinion from nonBaptist sources as well. Eventually, the Roundup grew to include over 100 links per week and took over 20 hours to produce every week.
Before long, I found that over 800 people were opening the Roundup every week. At every conference I attended – BGCT, CBF, BHHS, whatever – I could count on at least four or five people coming up to me and thanking me for the Roundup. I was stunned at one CBF assembly when Otniel Buniacu from Romania – who was then serving as president of the European Baptist Federation – introduced himself to me and told me he read the Roundup every week!
Not only was TBC Weekly Baptist Roundup read around the world; it was published around the world. In September 2011, I published it from Hong Kong during our trip to see Joanna’s family there; in April 2012, I published it from Israel during our trip there with Wilshire Baptist Church and Temple Emanu-El; in April 2015, I published it from Italy during our wonderful vacation there! The Roundup traveled well!
I continued publishing Weekly Baptist Roundup until TBC ceased operations at the end of July 2017. However, the following year I went to Joanna one day and told her that I felt that had been a mistake – that God wanted me to continue publishing it. So I resumed it in May 2018 and continued publishing it until December 2021. Joanna had passed away in February. In her last months, she had asked me to consider ending the Roundup so I would have more time to spend on things around the house that needed doing and were going unattended. Even after she was gone, her voice remained in my head, and I finally decided in December 2021 to bring the Roundup to an end. My friends at Good Faith Media graciously published a very complimentary article about me and about the impact of the Roundup over the previous 10 years.
As the end of the Roundup approached, I met with Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood of the Word&Way newsjournal via Zoom. They were interested in continuing the mission of Weekly Baptist Roundup, though on a much smaller scale, and wanted to discuss that with me. I have a lot of trust for them and their stewardship of Word&Way and was more than happy to give them my blessing, and help pave the way for that initiative.
In the spring of 2020, however, while I was still publishing Weekly Baptist Roundup, I received an opportunity to do something similar myself. My friend Mark Wingfield had recently left the staff of Wilshire Baptist Church, where he had served as associate pastor since 2004, to become executive editor and publisher of Baptist News Global (BNG). Shortly after assuming that position, Mark called me to see whether I was interested in providing content, as a contractor, for BNG’s Curated page – much the same as I was doing for my Roundup, except fewer links and much less effort required on my part. Mark was asking me to provide, four to five days a week, links to religious news and opinion from other sources. All I had to do was email the links to him and his staff, and they would put them on the website. I talked it over with Joanna, and we decided this would be a good way of keeping me involved, especially when the time came for me to end the Roundup. I’ve really enjoyed doing this, and in a few months I’ll mark 5 years of providing Curated content as a BNG contractor.
A promotion?
But back to my work with TBC. In 2011 and 2012, I worked with the title of associate executive director, and there had not even been a whisper from the board about searching for an executive director. So, in December 2012, I went to the board and said, “I’ve worked this job for two years as associate executive director. Either you’re happy with the work I’ve done, or you’re not. If you’re not, then we should part ways, and there will be no hard feelings on my part. But if you’re pleased with what I’ve done, then you should name me executive director. I don’t know what to tell people anymore when they ask, ‘So you’re the ASSOCIATE executive director? Who’s the executive director?”
I’m glad I asked! There was no discussion, no dissent. They said I was right, that it was time to make that decision, so they changed my title to executive director.
TBC Breakfasts at the BGCT annual meeting
I presided over the TBC Breakfast at each of the six BGCT annual meetings held during my tenure, and spent considerable time, usually beginning in the middle of summer, preparing for that event. One important responsibility I had was to choose a keynote speaker. I think I chose well, and they never disappointed:
- 2011 – Ellis Orozco, pastor, First Baptist Church, Richardson
- 2012 – Wesley Shotwell, pastor, Ash Creek Baptist Church, Azle, and chair of our TBC board
- David Hardage was originally scheduled as speaker, in his first year as BGCT executive director. However, when I arrived for the Monday afternoon BGCT business session, I heard Steve Vernon, BGCT associate executive director, announce that David had taken ill. Alarm bells sounded within my brain – uh-oh, we may not have a speaker for tomorrow morning’s breakfast! Then I saw Wesley Shotwell walk in and take a seat across the aisle from me.
- As soon as the business session ended, I went over to Wesley and asked him if he could be ready, in case Hardage had to cancel, to fill-in as our keynote speaker and deliver the address he had presented – on the purpose and mission of Texas Baptists Committed – at his church a few years earlier. Following that event, I had uploaded his message to the TBC website. Wesley was happy to help.
- That evening, I received a call from Kathleen, David’s wife, telling me that he was still sick and would be unable to speak at our breakfast. So I went down to the hotel’s business center, pulled Wesley’s message up on the computer, printed it off, and gave it to Wesley, who met me in the hotel lobby.
- Wesley, of course, did a wonderful job the next morning, and his address was well-received.
- 2013 – David Hardage, BGCT executive director
- 2014 – Gus Reyes, newly appointed director of the BGCT’s Christian Life Commission (CLC) and his CLC colleagues, Ferrell Foster and Kathryn Freeman
- 2015 – Jennifer Leigh Hawks, general counsel, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty
- 2016 – Charlie Johnson, executive director, Pastors for Texas Children
Board members living the love of Jesus
On April 1, 2013, our son, Travis, at the age of 27, suffered a massive stroke. After the doctors examined him that night, they gave him a 50-50 chance to survive it. Thank God, Travis is still with us today.
Travis was in hospitals for 2½ months following his stroke. Joanna and I spent most of our waking hours (and a few nights as well) at the hospital with our son. During those 2½ months, I didn’t do any work, with one exception. I brought Joanna’s laptop to the hospital and published TBC Weekly Baptist Roundup almost every week. Truth be told, it was my therapy – my little island of normalcy in the midst of chaos and worry.
In June, our TBC board held its monthly conference call, and I took it in my car, in the parking lot of Baylor Institute of Rehabilitation in Dallas, which would turn out to be the last of Travis’s three hospitals during this period (he would be released on June 18). During the call, I apologized to the board for not doing any work during all of this time and thanked them for their patience with me. Wesley Shotwell, then chair of the TBC board, said, “We’re just privileged to walk through this time with you.” That board didn’t just talk faith, they lived it. They didn’t just talk Jesus, they lived Him.
Initiatives
Through those 6½ years leading TBC, though Baptist Briefs and TBC Weekly Baptist Roundup gave TBC visibility, what people didn’t see was the focus I put on helping churches that were under attack by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC). The fundamentalist state convention, created in 1998, was working to undermine the BGCT and steal its churches. They slandered the BGCT, accusing it of being LGBTQ-friendly, whereas the BGCT had always staunchly declared homosexual behavior a sin. David Hardage led the campaign to root out any churches that sought to minister to LGBTQ people (without, that is, trying to “convert” them, and I’m not talking about salvation here).
But truth didn’t matter to the SBTC. They would infiltrate churches with their pastoral candidates, who claimed to be “apolitical.” Once such a candidate was called as pastor, he would ride roughshod over the rest of the staff, act as dictator, and destroy the harmony and fellowship of the church. During my tenure as executive director of TBC, my primary focus was helping churches avoid such tragedy. The battle had moved from the convention level in the 1990s to the church level in the 2000s and beyond. This was one reason TBC no longer enjoyed the level of financial support it enjoyed in the 1990s – the battle for convention president was visible to everyone, but the battle for churches tended to be waged underground, out of the sight of the average Texas Baptist.
I also tried to reach out to a new generation of Texas Baptists. Most young people were unaware of the history of the Baptist battles and the role Texas Baptists Committed had played in them. I once met with a group of Dallas Baptist University students. At my request, my dear friend Gary Cook – then president of DBU and a strong TBC supporter – invited a group of a dozen or so students, whom he believed would be receptive, to meet with me on the campus. We met for an hour or so, and I asked them questions to help me understand better how to reach their generation for TBC. I wish I had the time and resources to do more of this; unfortunately, I didn’t. These DBU students gave great responses, and I appreciated my time with them. But, because of TBC’s limitations – I alone was the staff – that meeting didn’t bear any fruit.
Another vision of mine that never panned out was to create a TBC Endowment Fund to secure the future of the organization. I don’t remember the exact timing, but I think it was around 2013 or 2014. I talked to the Baptist Foundation of Texas and was advised that we should have $10,000 seed money to establish the Endowment. I drove up to Norman, Oklahoma, to meet Bob Stephenson for lunch. Bob was an Oklahoma oilman who had been a TBC supporter since the early days, at least since the early 1990s.
During my tenure as executive director, Bob was a member of the board AND was our financial lifeline. In January 2011, Bob pledged $80,000 a year for 5 years, paying my salary and Jill’s, with money left over for expenses. When the BGCT annual meeting was approaching, and we needed money for our TBC breakfast and booth, I’d call Bob, and he’d say, “How much do you need?” Then he’d send a check for more than the amount I requested. One time, I drove up to Norman just to bring Bob up-to-date on our latest activities. I felt that, since Bob was keeping TBC alive, he had a right to be informed. But I got Bob’s typical response: “Bill, you don’t have to do this. I trust you to do what’s right.” I enjoyed calling Bob just to talk about what was going on in the country (Bob was a staunch Democrat, just one of the many things we had in common) or about what was going on in the SBC world, and so forth.
So I drove up to Norman to talk to Bob about the Endowment Fund, which the Board had voted to establish. I told Bob that we needed $10,000 for seed money. I respected Bob too much to put him on the spot. I just told him what the situation was. He said, “Well, Bill, I always give money that’s going to be used now, but I don’t do endowments. I’m not leaving any money in my will for these organizations, either. I give money for now, but not for the future.”
I respected Bob too much to argue with him, and I was ready to move the conversation onto other matters and forget about depending on Bob for the endowment money. Then he said, “Well, tell you what, Bill, let me think about it and talk it over with Norma.” Then, before I could reply, he said, “Oh, hell, Bill, I don’t have to think about it. I’ll do it.” And he did!
Months later, Bruce Prescott – Bob’s best friend – told me that I was the first one who had ever gotten Bob to give money to an endowment. He had even turned down Associated Baptist Press (now Baptist News Global) after they had given him an award! So how did this happen? I have no idea. I didn’t do anything to persuade Bob or cajole him. We enjoyed a mutual respect and trust, and he knew I would never treat him that way. In the end, I think it was a combination of our relationship and his love for TBC.
As it turned out, since I didn’t have a staff, I never had the time or resources to promote the Endowment Fund, so we never got another penny donated to it. It did draw a few hundred dollars interest in its Baptist Foundation account, but that was it.
A merciful end for TBC
However, it did come in handy in the fall of 2016, when Jill Faragher surprised me with the news that we had only a few thousand dollars remaining in the bank. I called the Baptist Foundation, and we were able to cash-in that Endowment Fund money to keep operating for the time being.
However, the handwriting was on the wall, and it was obvious that the board and I needed to start thinking about bringing TBC to an end. I was hopeful, though, that we would be able to make that decision instead of being forced into it.
I planned to call another of our faithful TBC friends, Babs Baugh, and ask her for some money to keep us operating for another few months. Babs had been extremely generous to TBC over the years. Babs is another person, like Bob, who I loved to call and talk with about what was going on in the SBC, as well as the BGCT, and Baptist principles in general. At my retirement dinner at Wilshire in 2018, I said that Babs was the most Baptist Baptist I ever knew. I thought I was strong on Baptist principles until I got to knowing Babs, but she put even me to shame. She was also as gracious as anyone I’ve known.
So when TBC hit this financial crisis in the fall of 2016, I planned to call Babs. In fact, if I recall correctly, I did try to call her on a Friday afternoon, but she didn’t answer. So I let it go until Monday. That Monday, I had to be at Dallas Baptist University for the annual Maston Foundation Lecture at DBU. On my way home from DBU that afternoon, I was planning to call Babs; however, before I could call Babs, my phone rang. It was Jill Faragher telling me that we had just received a check from Babs Baugh for $25,000! If you’ve never seen God at work, well, that’s what it looks like. God moved Babs Baugh to send us a generous check at the time we most needed it, yet Babs had no way of knowing that.
That $25,000 bought us time, but in the first months of 2017, it became obvious that we didn’t have sufficient funds to continue. I ultimately recommended that TBC cease operations at the end of July and that we give what few funds we had on hand at that time – and, more importantly, our mailing list – to CBF’s new Fellowship Southwest, led by Marv Knox, which would begin operations on August 1, the very day TBC ceased operations. The board approved my recommendations.
When we announced that TBC would be ceasing operations, our friends at the Baptist Standard wrote a very gracious article about TBC.
TBC key to election of BGCT officers
During most of my tenure as TBC executive director, we continued to play a key role in recommending and vetting BGCT officers (president and 1st & 2nd VPs). Hard to believe, but during that time, I was THE key person in getting BGCT presidents elected. When Kathy Hillman ran for president in 2014, a male pastor announced his candidacy in the closing weeks. I arranged with the leaders of the African-American and Hispanic fellowships for Kathy to be introduced at their rallies held the night before the Annual Meeting. Kathy and I both rushed from one to the other that evening, and she spoke to both groups. When she was elected in a close vote the next day – as only the second woman to be elected BGCT president – Kathy texted me, “Thank you so much for all your help. It would not have happened without you.” I invited her to address the TBC breakfast the next day to share her vision of her presidency with the gathering, which she did.
Dealing with David Hardage
After David Hardage was elected BGCT executive director in January 2012, I began meeting with him in his office three or four times a year, just to touch base, talk about BGCT officers, and address issues concerning the BGCT. After Suzii Paynter resigned as CLC director in 2013 to go to CBF, I met with David twice to talk about prospective successors. I think he saw my suggestions – particularly Mitch Randall – as too “edgy.” Mitch said he got an interview, but it was obvious it was only a courtesy call.
After David sent a threatening letter to all BGCT pastors (2014, if I remember correctly) warning them not to “cross the line” into accepting or affirming LGBTQ people, I had lunch with my pastor, George Mason, who was very concerned about BGCT churches’ ability to minister to the LGBTQ people in their churches and communities. In the coming months, I met with David on at least two occasions and pressed him on this issue. He said that the BGCT would lose hundreds of churches if it affirmed LGBTQ people. I replied that I wasn’t asking him to do that, only to simply not make it an issue, to give pastors and churches the space to minister to LGBTQ people as they felt God leading them to do. He said that he wasn’t sure he could do that; it’s obvious that he never had any intention of doing that.
In the spring of 2015, David accepted an invitation from Paige Patterson, then president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, to speak to Southwestern students during their chapel service. That fall, David reciprocated, inviting Patterson to speak to the BGCT staff. This was not publicized, but I was told by a source at one of the Texas Baptist universities. In fact, when I called my friends at the Baptist Standard, it turned out they had not heard about it. It turns out that the BGCT staff had been instructed not to tell anyone about Patterson’s presence at their weekly prayer time.
My board chair, Lance Currie, and I met with David in his office the week before the BGCT annual meeting in November. I questioned David about the Patterson connection – why was he being so friendly with someone who had done everything he could to undermine the BGCT? David got angry, said he resented my questioning him about this. The following Monday, when I was at the TBC booth at the BGCT annual meeting, I got the message from Steve Vernon, BGCT associate executive director, that David Hardage warned that, if Bill makes an issue of David’s relationship with Paige Patterson at the TBC Breakfast tomorrow, it will forever damage the relationship between the BGCT and TBC.
Hardage obviously didn’t know me very well – that’s not the way I operate. I don’t go out of my way to embarrass people. This was a matter that had been kept secret, and I never intended to be the one to expose it. That wasn’t my place to do that. And I didn’t. However, I decided then and there that David’s warning had already destroyed TBC’s relationship with the BGCT, and I determined that there was no further purpose of my meeting with David ever again. And I didn’t.
In November 2016, Wilshire voted, about 60%-40%, to have one class of members. This was the culmination of at least a year-and-a-half of intense study, education, and conversation involving all Wilshire members. Joanna and I voted to approve the change – we agreed that it was time that LGBTQ people be treated as Wilshire family and no longer be treated as “others.”
From that time forward, LGBTQ people would not be treated separately from other Wilshire church members. They would now be eligible – as any other member – to be baptized, married, ordained, serve as Sunday School teachers, serve on committees, serve as deacons, have their children dedicated, and so forth. We had crossed the line. George Mason announced the results of our vote, which had been completed the day before, on the Monday that the BGCT annual meeting began. Our TBC Breakfast was scheduled, as usual, for Tuesday morning, and the vote to remove Wilshire and FBC Austin would take place at the business meeting a couple of hours after our breakfast ended.
In my remarks at the breakfast that morning, I took David Hardage and the BGCT leadership to task for violating the autonomy of these churches. It wasn’t TBC’s place to argue theology, but it WAS our place to hold the BGCT accountable for adhering to historic Baptist principles, of which local church autonomy was one of the most treasured, and to call them on the carpet for violating them. That’s what I did that morning. Throughout the day, several BGCT staffers came to me privately to thank me. They couldn’t do so publicly, of course, without losing their jobs. We lost the vote that day, but it was close – so close that they had to take it THREE times. Raise your ballots . . . voice vote . . . stand up . . . it was a circus, but Hardage finally got the result he wanted. The vote instructed the BGCT executive board to make the final, official discernment – at their next meeting in February 2017 – regarding the fates of specific churches.
It was helped along when Kyndall Rae Rothaus, waiting to speak against the motion, was denied a chance to speak. Speakers were recognized in rotation – one for, then one against. It was time for someone speaking for the motion, and that man ungraciously called for the question so that Kyndall could not speak. Kyndall had been my guest at the TBC Breakfast that morning, as I had asked her to give our invocation and had hosted her at my table. After the vote, several of us gathered around a tearful Kyndall in the hallway to support her. Once again, Baptists had mistreated a woman, then celebrated their “victory.”
In February 2017, I attended the BGCT executive board meeting as a visitor. I had been invited regularly to observe these meetings by virtue of my position with TBC. This time, as the board voted to end my church’s relationship with the BGCT, I sat at the back of the room, writing a post for my blog, entitled “When family doesn’t want you anymore.” Two days later, Travis was back in the hospital with seizures, and George Mason came out to visit him. At the end of George’s visit, I walked with him back to the front door of the hospital, telling him that I had been at that executive board meeting earlier in the week. George turned to me, and his face lit up as he said, “But you know what, Bill? Now we’re free to be who God wants us to be!” Indeed! Thanks be to God.
Abundant blessings
I got to know so many wonderful people through my work with TBC – pastors and other leaders, as well as laypersons like me. Many of the BGCT staff were family to me. Back in the ’90s, when I was following the activities of David Currie and TBC from the “sidelines,” I could have never imagined that I would succeed him as executive director, and I never sought it. But I’m thankful for the opportunity. I wish I could have accomplished more and even found a way to revive our support and refocus our mission in a way that made more of a difference in Texas Baptist life. But I’m satisfied that I did my best, and I’m thankful for the opportunity to work with a group of people on the TBC board who were unfailingly faithful and supportive.
In August 2018, the TBC board and Wilshire Baptist Church partnered to give me a retirement dinner in Wilshire’s Community Hall. Our missions and advocacy pastor, Heather Mustain, did yeoman work in arranging the dinner. Lance Currie, the last chair of the TBC board, emceed the event and did a wonderful job. In his opening remarks, he made one dubious claim that I’ll never forget. He called me “a great man.” Hyperbole, Lance, gross hyperbole, but thank you. It’s the first – and I’m sure the last – time I ever heard myself called that!
Before the dinner, I was handed an envelope containing a letter of congratulations and appreciation from my good friend Elijah Brown, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance. Through an oversight, this letter was not read at the dinner, but it pleased me so much that Elijah would recognize my accomplishments in this way. The appreciation is mutual – I have a deep respect, admiration, and affection for my friend Elijah.
My pal George Gagliardi – who passed away just this past November – wrote a song in my honor, “Big Bad Bill Jones,” to the tune of Jimmy Dean’s old hit song, “Big Bad John.” George was a consummate songwriter and performer. We had met each other in 2007, when George performed at a Mainstream Baptist Network/Texas Baptists Committed Convocation, and quickly became close friends. George is my favorite Christian singer of all time, hands down. I love his music, because every line comes straight from George’s heart and goes straight to the heart of the listener. George had a way of understanding and connecting with people’s deepest pain, fear, and ponderings.
But, as he showed that night in 2018, George also had a delightful sense of humor that could infuse his music just as deeply. So we had a hoot that night as George asked the audience to join in whenever the line “Big Bad Jones” appeared. I was honored, to say the least.
That evening, six Baptist “heavyweights” paid tribute to me. To say I feel humbled – to this day – is a distinct understatement. Who in the world is Bill Jones for these folks to be paying ME tribute? It should be the other way around! Wilshire’s senior pastor, George Mason, moderated a panel discussion between Suzii Paynter, then executive coordinator of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship; David Currie, retired executive director of Texas Baptists Committed; and Charlie Johnson, longtime Texas Baptist pastor and executive director of Pastors for Texas Children. I feel privileged beyond words just to be able to call all four of these Baptist heavyweights my friends . . . but to hear them pay tribute to me, well, let’s just say I still feel overwhelmed by their kind words.
As if that wasn’t enough, two other Baptist heavyweights appeared via video to pay tribute to me: my dear friends Babs Baugh, who with her family has long been at the forefront of supporting the causes of authentic Baptists; and Marv Knox, longtime editor of Texas’s Baptist Standard newsjournal, who had left that post in 2017 to lead CBF’s new Fellowship Southwest initiative.
It was a wonderful, memorable evening. There were – if memory serves – around 85 people in attendance, and I was moved by their presence, so grateful for their love. There were gifts presented to me by Lance and David on behalf of the TBC board, including an authentic Baseball Hall of Fame baseball signed by my favorite ballplayer (and favorite athlete) of all time, Lou Brock (whom I met in 2001); and a biography of David Currie’s favorite professor at Howard Payne, Nat Tracy, autographed by the author, Robert A. Williams, who was present that evening.
I was especially pleased by the presence of many of my Epiphany Class friends, who came to support me. My sister, Patsy, her husband, Palmer, and their daughter, Stephanie, were there. Joanna, our daughter Alison and her husband Adam, and our son Travis. made it an extra-special night. I’ll never forget seeing Travis get emotional and teary-eyed as he heard all those nice things said about his dad . . . that meant a lot to me.
I used my remarks that evening mainly to thank a number of people who had been important to me along the way, in my life and in this particular journey of mine in Baptist leadership, especially TBC, and, of course, to remind everyone that the principles for which TBC fought were still at issue and challenge them to remain vigilant in defending those principles.
My favorite part of my remarks, though, came at the end. After thanking many people, I saved my family for last – and Joanna for the very last. I think that was the only time I got choked up – when I talked about how important her love and support had been to me in everything I had done. I’m so glad I did that. Little could I imagine that she would go home to be with the Lord only 2½ years later. I’m so glad I said that with her sitting there listening. She was my wife, my life companion, for 44½ years, and if you want to go back to when we started dating, 48 years. Truth be told, I still feel a little lost without her, and it’s not getting any better. The best I can do is just try my best to be faithful to whatever the Lord has for me until He calls me home.