DATE: Monday, April 21, 1997                TAG: 9704210045

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   71 lines

FIRST BAPTIST OF NORFOLK LOSES PASTOR TO NEW MISSION BOARD

Flanked by leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, Robert E. Reccord on Sunday night announced to his congregation that he has been asked to head the denomination's new North American Mission Board.

His departure would leave one of the largest churches in Hampton Roads, the 5,000-member First Baptist Church of Norfolk, without a senior pastor.

Reccord's nomination must be formally accepted by the mission board's trustees on June 19. But his selection has heavy support, as he was joined at Sunday night's service by Morris Chapman, president of the SBC's executive committee, and by C.B. Hogue, the president of the search committee.

``I know I must be obedient to what God is saying to me at this point,'' Reccord said, his voice breaking. ``Tonight I would just ask you a big favor: please love us enough to grant us a release to take that step, because we feel like it's a step we must take.''

Reccord has been senior pastor at First Baptist for five years. His predecessor, Ken Hemphill, also left to take a leadership position in the SBC.

Reccord, 45, has been rumored for months to be the leading contender to head the new mission board, which will be responsible for evangelizing and starting new churches in the United States and Canada. He has worked side by side with SBC leadership to restructure the nation's largest Protestant denomination, which has 15.6 million members.

The North American Mission Board was formed from the merging of three SBC agencies: the Home Mission Board, Brotherhood Commission and Radio and Television Commission. It will be headquartered in Atlanta.

Reccord was chairman of the task force which guided the SBC restructuring, reducing the number of denominational agencies from 19 to 12 and creating the new mission board.

Reccord's wife, Cheryl, joined him before the congregation to say she knew three years ago that her husband might be called to the new position. She told of discussing the restructuring over lunch one day.

``At that table, on that day, it was as though God sat down and said, `This is where you must be ready to go,' '' Cheryl Reccord said. ``It startled me. Since that day, I've prayed, `God, make me willing.' ''

She then recited a line from ``Father of the Bride,'' which she called one of her favorite movies: ``I know I can't stay, but I don't want to go.''

Reccord was born in Norfolk, but raised in Evansville, Ind. He has been known in Hampton Roads for his dramatic style of preaching and for bringing contemporary topics into First Baptist's classes.

``The church of the 21st century is going to be more and more one that can grab hold of traditional anchors without becoming bogged down in traditionalism,'' Reccord said during a December 1996 interview. He said that during his tenure, First Baptist began offering money management seminars, Christian weight loss classes and other sessions that spoke to people's lives today, as well as traditional Bible studies. Class attendance tripled, he said, from 500 to nearly 1,400.

If accepted as president of the North American Mission Board, Reccord will try to increase the number of people in Christianity and, specifically, in the Baptist faith.

Chapman, in his remarks to the congregation, referred to the SBC's renewed emphasis on conversion and evangelization. ``Southern Baptists are dead serious about saying we want to lead North America to Jesus Christ,'' he said. ``We're talking tonight about shaping the history of America.''

Chapman had been invited to a Jewish Passover seder in Virginia Beach tonight, but he cited prior commitments and will send the executive committee's vice president instead. The SBC passed a resolution last summer declaring its intent to convert Jews to Christianity, which raised the ire of many Christian as well as Jewish groups.

But that did not come up Sunday night, as Chapman invited the congregation to join the Reccords at the altar, and people swarmed from the pews. Reccord, in his remarks, downplayed his own importance.

``God does not build his churches on men or women,'' he said. ``God builds his churches on Christ, and that's why they stand.'' KEYWORDS: FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH

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