This article was written by Robert Dilday, editor in chief of ABPnews/Herald, with additional reporting by Leslie Copeland-Tune, director of communications and resource development for the DCBC, and was used with permission. To view the full article, click here.
Ricky Creech will step down as executive director/minister of the District of Columbia Baptist Convention April 24 to take the helm of a faith-based nonprofit in Kentucky which provides services to troubled youths in parts of Appalachia.
Creech, who has been the DCBC’s chief executive since 2011, announced his plans April 3 to the convention’s board of directors — the first meeting of the group created in a major governance restructuring adopted in February.
In an interview Creech said adoption of the restructuring proposal — which reduced the governing body from 163 members to 25 and streamlined committees — offered a natural time to consider his own future.
Creech shepherded the proposal, which he described as a “radical departure” in governance for the 150-church DCBC, through a months-long process. It was presented last October, but a vote was postponed when delegates asked for more time to consider it. Final approval was given Feb. 24.
“Ever since October I had been thinking that when you pass this proposal, you end one chapter and start another,” Creech said. “Either I would continue to walk with the convention and help write their future story, or I would step aside for someone who is fresh and let them write the future story.”
If he stayed, he added, he would have made a long-term commitment — “and I had to ask whether I was willing to make that and whether that was where God wanted me.”
It was while grappling with those questions that Creech said he received the offer to be president and CEO of the Kentucky-based ministry, which he declined to name until that organization has released the information. The offer was an opportunity to return to his social work roots — he began his career as a church and community missionary in Alabama — and to be closer to family, he said.
“This is a 360 move. I’ll end professionally where I started.”