Milwaukee has long been touted as the beer capitol of the world. But, in Bradley center on Friday evening, home to the Admirals, Bucks, and Marquette U sports, it was enthusiasm that was flowing. Men were there to be a part of a Promise Keepers Celebration. And, following the riveting message by Dr. Bob Reccord, over 620 men responded to the invitation to become followers of Jesus Christ.

“I’m having the time of my life!” says speaker, author, consultant and evangelist Dr. Bob Reccord. Reccord is the keynote evangelist for the 2006 18 Promise Keeper events. “I never get over the thrill of watching men run to the front of the arenas to publicly declare their intention to make Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior.”

Reccord has simply returned to his roots. “I came to know Jesus Christ personally while a student at Indiana University. Almost immediately, I found myself preaching evangelistic celebrations across the Midwest while still in college. This continued as I became a graduate student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, the largest seminary in the world. From there, I served as a pastor in 3 different churches, national director of training for a Para church organization, and as vice-president of a Detroit area corporation.

While the opportunities seemed diverse, each of the roles that Reccord has pursued has had a common thread. “People tell me they feel I have the ability to go into an organization, find what needs fixing, fix it…and help it color outside the lines with creative strategies. While there are many things that work, that also means you’ve got to risk doing some things that don’t totally succeed.. After all, that’s why they call it risk!” Reccord’s visionary and entrepreneurial skills were put to the test when he was asked to oversee the massive 21/2 year implementation of restructuring the Southern Baptist Convention—what many called “an impossible task.’. Following his strong leadership and a fully successful implementation, Reccord was asked to be the first and founding president of the North American Mission Board (NAMB) (which was a consolidation of three former agencies and became one of the world’s largest mission’s agencies), where he served for nine years, “With ministries ranging from the inner cities to the UN and Washington DC, coupled with being the nerve center of the third largest disaster relief ministry in North America, we were privileged to see many amazing accomplishments such as over 14,350 new churches begun in conjunction with our SBC partners. World Changers—a ministry of high school students helping to rebuild inner city housing mushroomed from 7000 participants yearly to 25,000+ yearly.” In addition Reccord was thrilled to see the mission agency go move from an approximately 25% administrative overhead at its inception in 1997, to under 12% when he left in 2006—helping to see over $41 million more dollars freed up to front line ministries in the first five years of the agency’s existence. And under Reccord’s leadership, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief stepped into new national prominence as they provided over fifteen million hot meals, 104,000 hot showers and cleared over 17,000 debris sites for hurricane victims in 2005. Accolades for Southern Baptist relief efforts poured in from all quarters, not the least of which was the Red Cross and the White House,.and financial support rose to a record high of over $24 million to NAMB’s relief efforts, with a staggering 1 of every 5 dollars coming from non-Southern Baptists for the first time in .

“But, with all those opportunities came a seemingly endless stream of administrative demands and meetings. I feel as though God has now freed me up to pursue the passion of my soul—of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ—and helping others do the same– and seeing lives transformed. I love to simply spend time one on one with men (all night Friday and all day Saturday) after I leave the platform and hear their stories of how Christ has unleashed them to became all that God meant them to be.”

Apparently, Reccord will get to continue pursuing his passion. He’s already been asked by Tom Fortson, President of Promise Keepers, to speak at the 2007 Promise Keeper events sharing how men are “made to count right where they are, starting now.”

And, as Reccord says, “It just doesn’t get better than this!”

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 28th, 2006 at 10:27 pm and is filed under Bob Reccord. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.