wfn.org | Council celebrates Nugent's career as mission board leader

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

April 25, 2002 News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
10-71BP{186}

NOTE: For related coverage of the General Council on Ministries' meeting,
see UMNS stories #183-185 and #187. A photograph of the Rev. Randolph Nugent
is available at http://umns.umc.org/photos/headshots.html online.

OKLAHOMA CITY (UMNS) - A group of United Methodists from countries outside
the United States surrounded the Rev. Randolph Nugent, placing their hands
on him and praying for him.

The moment capped a celebration of Nugent's 21-year career as head of the
United Methodist Board of Global Ministries. The General Council on
Ministries honored him on April 21 during its spring meeting in Oklahoma
City.

Council member Carolyn Johnson, who served on the Board of Global Ministries
for eight years, praised Nugent for "the heart that he has for mission."

"Randy's been an extraordinary model" as a general secretary, said Daniel
Church, who became top GCOM staff executive in 2000. 

Nugent will retire from the Board of Global Ministries at the end of the
year, and a search is under way for a successor.

"The General Board of Global Ministries is an excellent organization," he
told the GCOM and guests. "It does on our behalf what needs to be done at
precisely the moment that it needs to be done."

In his remarks, he emphasized the "task of telling the story over and over.
It changes lives."

Nugent's career has intersected with some of the most salient concerns of
the day, such as the struggle for civil rights in the United States and
opposition to apartheid in South Africa, the campaign for debt relief for
poor countries, and responding to the AIDS pandemic, particularly in Africa.
Under his leadership, the Board of Global Ministries also has embarked on a
program to remove land mines around the world.

Following the 1992 riots in South Central Los Angeles, sparked by the police
beating of African American Rodney King, Nugent helped launch the church's
Shalom Zone program. Shalom Zones are areas where churches and local leaders
work together to strengthen and renew their community.

Under Nugent's watch, the board has gone into Cambodia, Senegal, Vietnam,
Mongolia and other regions with the gospel, Johnson said.

"You should never assume that you should not preach the Gospel some place,"
he told United Methodist News Service. "You should preach it everywhere."

He was ordained an elder in 1959 and served New York churches in the Troy
Annual Conference, beginning with Brooks Memorial in his home community of
Queens. After working in an inner-city ministry in Albany during the early
1960s, he became chief executive of the Metropolitan Urban Service Training
Program in 1965. From 1970 to 1972, he served in the Division of Overseas
Ministry of the National Council of Churches, leaving to take charge of the
former National Division of the Board of Global Ministries. He became top
staff executive in 1981.

Reflecting on his career, he said that wherever he has gone, the church "has
been extraordinary" in its welcome to the Board of Global Ministries and its
support for the agency's work. "I will enjoy looking at the continued growth
of our church all around the world." 

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United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org