For twenty-six years I have served on the staff of Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists (Church Forward), including the last five years as your Executive Director Treasurer. Prior to that, I served for thirteen years in one of our Kansas Churches. So, for the past thirty-nine years, I have had the blessing of serving alongside some of the most gifted and giving pastors, ministry leaders, and state Convention staff in the Southern Baptist Convention.

I believe God Calls us to Ministry for specific seasons and we must be sensitive to His prompting when it is time for one season to end and another to begin. With that conviction, and after several months of prayer with my wife, Karen, we sense that my season of serving on the Church Forward staff is nearing its conclusion. I am sharing today, therefore, that I will be retiring as your Executive Director Treasurer at or before the Church Forward Annual Meeting this October 2026.

After nearly a million miles driven and approximately 1,000 hotel nights over the past twenty-six years, I look forward to spending time with and investing in my wife, daughter, son in law, grandson, and soon-to-arrive granddaughter. I also hope to continue writing and serving in part-time ministry.

Because the churches and ministries of Church Forward are unified in their mission of advancing the gospel and pushing back the darkness, this next ministry season provides an opportunity for your new Executive Director to lead both our existing and future discipleship and leadership initiative into the next decade.

The role of the Church Forward Executive Committee and Mission Board will be vital in the search process and calling of a new Executive Director Treasurer. I will continue to work with them and pray throughout this process, confident that God has uniquely called them to serve for such a time and place as this. Since God has divinely guided our convention of churches for the past eighty-one years, we can rest in the confidence that he will continue to lead us into this next season.

Thank you for allowing me to serve the churches of our great convention. Thank you for allowing me to serve the churches of our great convention. Thank you for loving me, protecting me from my own stupidity, encouraging me, and praying for me. I love you and am eternally grateful for your trust over these past twenty-six years.

Sincerely,

Dr. David W. Manner

Executive Director Treasurer

Church Forward