Southern Baptist ethnic research director dies in North Carolina drowning accident • Biblical Recorder

RICHMOND, Va. (BP) — The increasing diversity of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) became a passion for Minh Ha Nguyen, leading him to help create and update a state-of-the-art portal and resource that has had a major impact on the SBC’s work of sharing the gospel in its ethnically diverse community.

Nguyen, 57, drowned on a North Carolina beach on July 15. Colleagues learned of the tragedy through news reports and a message from Paul Chitwood, president of the International Mission Board (IMB), who called Nguyen a “loyal and gifted team member.”

His influence grew as he used his role as director of donor support and data management for the International Mission Board’s Ministry Advancement Team to provide statistics and research that influenced Southern Baptists’ perspective on ethnic growth and biblical generosity. At the SBC’s annual meeting last month, Nguyen presented an update to BaptistResearch.com as president of the Ethnic Research Network core team.

“Minh Ha was an incredibly gifted colleague who served in key positions at the IMB for 24 years supporting our work and staff around the world,” Chitwood said in a statement to Baptist Press. “He helped shape our stewardship strategies and efforts to evangelize the world’s largest cities, but he also served our SBC family in ethnic ministry in the United States. We rejoice in his eternal reward, even as we mourn with his family but are hopeful.”

Victor Chayasirisobhon, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Anaheim, California, and interim director of the SBC Asian Collective, remembered Nguyen’s “wonderful smile, kind heart and unmatched research work helping churches, especially Asian churches,” in an email.

“There will be no replacement for him,” Chayasirisobhon wrote. “Let us pray for his family, friends and church as they get through this sad time. Life is short, heaven is eternal, so let us continue to serve God together until the day we are united forever.”

Nguyen was 12 years old when he met Jesus. He was in a boat designed for a few dozen but packed with over 100 refugees from the Vietnam War, roasting under a merciless sun with the South China Sea stretching to the horizon in every direction.

“It was unbearable,” he said in a recently released video of his testimony. “This is the story of the life I was born to live. It is a story of struggle, survival and rescue, even in the midst of suffering, shootings, storms and hunger.”

In Vietnam, his father was a church founder who was imprisoned and tortured for a year. After escaping, he returned home after weeks of walking through dangerous jungles and minefields. The country’s transition to communism forced the family to flee.

During the days at sea, there was a storm that forced them to throw supplies and even navigation equipment overboard to stay above the waves. While the crew of an oil rig did not offer safe harbor, it did give them food, water and direction to the nearest island. Nguyen’s 12,000-mile journey to the U.S. would include a refugee camp in Malaysia and a Bible school in Switzerland, where he met his wife, Corrinne, before coming to the U.S.

His work has been featured in several Baptist Press articles. The 2022 unveiling of BaptistResearch.com showed how the SBC had entered a new age of diversity. The following year, the Ethnic Research Network was formed. Research presented at that year’s annual meeting included that nearly a quarter of Southern Baptist churches are ethnically or racially diverse and that nearly 100 languages ​​can be heard in Southern Baptist churches every Sunday. In addition, 60% of church plants reach people of non-Anglo-American origin.

Other work outside the SBC, such as through the Radius Global Cities Network, illustrated Nguyen’s commitment to refugees and ethnic groups. Statistics do not reduce people to faceless numbers, he believed, but serve as evidence of the far-reaching impact of the gospel.

“If our goal is the Kingdom of God, even the wrong boat can take us there,” he said in his video testimony. “The Lord is close to his people in exile. He is the refuge for refugees. He is the asylum for all who seek shelter and protection.”

“In Christ, God is on the move. He became poor so that even the poorest could follow him. He became a migrant so that refugees and asylum seekers could travel with him.”

(EDITORIAL NOTE – This story has been updated.)