I flunked out of accounting 40 years ago, and that’s how I became the new editor of the Baptist and Reflector.
I should explain.
I enrolled at Ouachita Baptist University to study accounting. I wanted to be rich, and I figured accounting was my best shot. I mean, accountants deal in money, so they must all be rich, right? However, apparently one must actually pass accounting to eventually get to any money.
So, after three semesters I scooped up my 1.4 GPA, dropped out of college and joined the Naval Reserves, but determined to eventually get back to – and through — my beloved OBU. I endured boot camp then worked on F-14 Tomcat ejection seats. I spent weekends atop $40 million fighter jets wiring seat explosives and thinking, “These people would never let me anywhere near these planes if they really knew how mechanically inept I am.”
Hey, score high enough on the ASVAB and you too can handle explosives!
I returned to OBU the following fall, this time as a journalism major and my eyes lit up when I saw my first assignment was to create a game story from a baseball box score. Box scores had been my second language since third grade.
My professor, the persistently demanding Dr. William D. Downs Jr., lauded the story in class before God and everyone. Beginning with the second assignment, however, I took my lumps from Dr. Downs for the next three years. It didn’t matter. I found my vocation. Or more accurately, we found each other.
‘God called’
God called me to missions my junior year. I was devastated. I grew up with the impression God called pastors and worship and music ministers, not journalists. I needed to graduate because I couldn’t afford to change majors again.
Fortunately, my video production professor at Ouachita pointed me toward Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary where I completed an MA in Communications in 1992. I graduated with the expectation my wife, Michelle, and I would head overseas with the International Mission Board within two years.
Instead, we wound up in Millington, Tennessee. I’m from Millington, but I had no intention of ever going back when I left for college. I honestly didn’t see how being sports editor for four years at The Millington Star newspaper had anything to do with international missions.
Turns out it had everything to do with it.
Michelle is a missionary kid so we had a subscription to The IMB’s Commission magazine. An issue arrived in 1997 with a compelling cover photo of a Brazilian teenager huffing industrial glue. The stories were amazing, and like cool water given to a parched man.
I immediately called Ms. Bobbie Jackson, president of Millington First Baptist Church’s WMU and an IMB trustee at the time. I asked what ideas she could offer about me working for The Commission. She told me to “Call and find out what you need to do to get a job doing that.”
“Ms. Bobbie,” I responded. “You don’t just call people and tell them you want to come work for them.”
“I’ve been praying for years that God would open that door for you and I told you to call and find out what you need to do to be able to do that.”
Within two months of that conversation, I was sitting at a desk in the IMB’s Richmond offices taking assignments from editorial manager Anita Bowden and Commission editor Mary Jane Welch.
Within four months I was covering Alabama Baptist volunteers sharing the gospel in a park on the northern coast of Spain.
Michelle and I were eventually appointed IMB missionaries to Panama where I traveled Central and South America, the Caribbean and elsewhere in the world as an IMB correspondent. Then it was seven years with LifeWay Christian Resources as corporate media relations manager, followed by a second stint with the IMB as communications director for Eurasia living in England. In total, journalism has carried me to 37 countries and a bunch of states covering stories of God at work in the world through His people.
And now I’ve been here 11 years as the TBMB’s communications director. I knew I’d one day have to find a replacement for my good friend and retired Baptist and Reflector editor Lonnie Wilkey, but not a day in 11 years did it cross my mind that I’d be Lonnie’s successor.
‘Man makes his plans, but …’
I embraced Proverbs 16:9 several years ago. It reads “Man makes his plans, but God orders his steps.” I’ve viewed that verse in terms of what lies ahead.
However, God challenged me four months ago to look back down the path I’ve traveled. God’s stepping stones are evident, from reading baseball box scores in the third grade, to “flunking into” journalism, to this moment right now.
Being editor of the Baptist and Reflector assumes responsibility for extending the legacy of men who for 190 years have faithfully told the story of God working in and through Tennessee Baptists.
This is a historic transition and a massively humbling moment, but one I enthusiastically embrace. I know we won’t always agree on every editorial point, but I do look forward to hearing from you, and along with the rest of our B&R team, to telling your stories.
I flunked out of accounting 40 years ago, and I couldn’t be more thankful I did.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Chris Turner and originally published by Baptist and Reflector.
