Charles Wade: nominee for president

Charles Wade, pastor of First Baptist Church, Arlington, will be nominated for president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Wade will be nominated by Russell Dilday, former-president of Southwestern Seminary and now acting dean at Truett Seminary.

Dilday said he has known Wade as a fellow pastor and that Wade’s church is known for evangelism, missions support and worship. The church’s program of multihousing ministry, Mission Arlington, has become a model for other ministries nationwide.

“I think it is important that Baptist in Texas preserve and apply Baptist identity for the next century.” Dilday said. “I feel like the BGCT is a crucial embodiment of historic, true Baptist principles and needs to be preserved.

“There are so many distorted expressions of denominational life that claim to be Baptist but aren’t. Many are trying to rewrite or reinterpret our Baptist history and heritage.

“Charles Wade is an authentic Baptist, and as I have mentioned his name (as a nominee for president) I have felt a strong consensus that he would do an excellent job of maintaining our current direction.”

Wade acknowledged that he had given Dilday permission to nominate him.

“When I think of how Texans have provided for me and my family and how Texas Baptists have made a difference in the lives of people across 150 years, you have to want to do what you can to help. And when someone says I can help, I must respond to it,” Wade said.

“Texas Baptists have been a standard for what it means to be Baptist through the years,” he said, “and I want to do my best to preserve it and move it forward.”

Wade has been pastor of the Arlington church since 1976. He previously was pastor of First Church, Enid, Okla.; Central Church, Italy, and other churches in Germany and Oklahoma.

He is a graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University and Southwestern Seminary, where he WADE… earned master of divinity and doctor of theology degrees.

Wade has served in many denominational roles, on the state level as a member of the State Missions Commission and on the boards of Hispanic Seminary, Dallas Baptist University and the Baptist Standard.

He has served on the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission, the Southern Baptist Foundation, and has been president of the Texas chapter of the Southwestern Seminary Alumni Association.

October 1995