Daniel Vestal succeeded
the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s (CBF) founding coordinator Cecil Sherman,
who died April 17, and called Sherman “a modern Baptist prophet.”
“He’s irreplaceable and
irreplicable,” Vestal said. “I’ve never known a more principled person than
Cecil. When it came to matters of conscience he was uncompromising. He resisted
fundamentalism and legalism with tenacity. He was a prophetic preacher, and a
prophetic leader before there was a CBF.”
Sherman served two
years as Baptist State Convention of North Carolina president and was pastor
for 20 years of First Baptist Church in Asheville before returning to his
hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, to lead Broadway Baptist Church as pastor. He
left Broadway to become CBF’s first coordinator in 1991.
“Cecil was a very
effective congregational pastor,” Vestal said. “He cared about people. He
mentored students with a pastoral spirit. Maybe one of his most lasting
legacies will be his Sunday School lessons, which he did for years with Baptist
Sunday School Board, then with Smyth and Helwys.
“It’s ironic that one
of his lasting legacies will be his love of scripture and exposition of
scripture. What fundamentalists have said all these years is that we don’t love
the Bible. He spent hours studying and teaching the Bible.”
Vestal said his wife
once told him she can “soar as a Sunday School teacher because of the
fundamentals of Cecil’s lessons.”
“His influence
continues to live on and he will continue to have impact,” Vestal said.
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