wfn.org | BPFNA names new managing director

[bpfna@primeline.com (Baptist Peace Fellowship)]

July 21, 1998
For more information contact:
Ken Sehested, Executive Director, or David Teague, Associate Editor
Phone: 828/456-1881
Fax: 828/456-1883
Internet: bpfna@primeline.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Polaski named new managing director of BPFNA

Lake Junaluska, North Carolina - The Rev. LeDayne McLeese Polaski has
joined the staff of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America as the
new managing director.

A native of Greenville, South Carolina, Polaski has served as Minister of
Youth at Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina since 1993.
She is a 1993 graduate of Duke Divinity School  and was ordained by Watts
Street Baptist Church, both in Durham, North Carolina.

Gene McLeod, chair of the BPFNA Board of Directors personnel committee,
expressed excitement over Polaski's addition to the staff.

"Our Managing Director position seems almost to have been created for
LeDayne Polaski to utilize her extraordinary combination of gifts in
ministry," said McLeod. "She comes to us with a passion for the vision and
work of BPFNA, with excellent communication and inter-personal skills, and
with both the skills for and the enjoyment of the detailed work of
management."

Polaski, who began her new role on July 20, said she felt passionately
committed to the mission of the Baptist Peace Fellowship and looked forward
to the challenge of her new position.

"In our world, the calls to war and violence are so loud and so frequent
that it sometimes seems as if there are no other possibilities," she said.
"The calls to peace and non-violent action must then be persuasive and
convincing, and they must help people of faith to recognize their faith as
a resource and to turn their beliefs and concerns into action. That, as I
understand it, is the mission of the BPFNA, and it is a mission to which I
am passionately committed. I am excited to begin this work and I look
forward to being with others who share my passion for peace and justice and
who will help me to both deepen and sustain that passion."

# # #

Founded in 1984, the BPFNA is a network linking Baptists involved in
justice and peace issues throughout North America. Its board of directors
is composed of members affiliated with 12 Baptist conventions and five
racial/ethnic groups in Canada, the U.S., Puerto Rico and Mexico. The
organization has no official sponsorship of any convention. Its primary
purpose is to encourage greater Baptist involvement-at local, national and
international levels-in justice and peace concerns and to help clarify
understanding of such involvement as essential to Christian discipleship.