After trying to both run a major missions agency and preach on Sundays, the local church won out.
When David Platt became a teaching pastor at a DC-area megachurch last year, onlookers wondered whether the president of the International Mission Board (IMB) could really do both jobs.
Platt answered them this morning, announcing that he will end his four-and-a-half-year tenure at the IMB to work full time at McLean Bible Church as soon as the Southern Baptist missions agency can find his replacement.
“I have come to the realization that it is not viable long-term for me to lead as president of the IMB while serving as teaching pastor in a church,” said Platt, who brought his radical approach to faith to the IMB during a major budget crisis.
“This realization has been sobering, for I don’t believe I can choose between preaching and leading in the local church, and mobilizing and shepherding people in global missions,” he said. “Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that if I am going to serve in this way in the local church, then I need to serve in different ways for the cause of global missions.”
Platt has clarified the news is not an immediate resignation; he has asked trustees to begin the search for a new president, and will resign once his successor is elected.
Prior to being named IMB president in 2014, Platt led the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama, as one of the youngest megachurch pastors in America.
He soon instituted major changes at the IMB, drawing in record missionary offerings and balancing the budget after several years of overspending. The organization—based in Richmond, Virginia—is one of the country’s biggest missionary-sending groups, with a $3 million budget and 3,500 missionaries around the world.
When Platt assumed the presidency, ...
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