LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – On November 1, Nick Burt, Director of Communications at the Arkansas Baptist State Convention (ABSC) will officially transition to The Church at Rock Creek as their new Executive Director of Communications.
“I’ve always loved church media – and this position at the Convention has afforded me the opportunity to do media ministry, both serving the Convention and serving local churches with media needs and has really fulfilled my passion and desire to serve in a church media capacity,” Burt said.
Burt graduated from Ouachita Baptist University and began working at THV11 before becoming connected with the ABSC through former Associate Executive Director Greg Addison.
“Through a connection at Ouachita, Addison found my name and we connected and worked on a couple of projects related to the Cooperative Program – actually CP Share in its infancy – together on a freelance basis,” Burt said. “After doing a couple projects, Addison asked if I wanted to come on board and it seemed like a perfect position for me.”
In the past, a number of people have served in related positions and roles but until recently, there had not been a defined strategy or team tasked with communicating the story of Arkansas Baptists. Over the last five years, Burt has seen his vision grow for the media and communications components at the ABSC.
“In the early days, when I first started, I tried a little bit of everything. We tried to grow our social media reach, we increased the user friendliness of the website and tried to make it as accessible as possible. We worked with a high-quality designer to ensure our print materials we were using were going to be high quality and then we just started chasing down a lot of different lanes and things to see what works,” Burt said. “One of my early initiatives was developing a podcast. Partnering with the Church Planting team, I helped start The Grind podcast to get into the space of podcasting which was somewhere we hadn’t been before. We did a lot of different things to increase our outreach on social media as far as developing different video campaigns and series like Church Help Desk and Ministry in a Minute and just a variety of different media outlets like that to attract more people to our platforms.”
Whenever someone steps out of a leadership role, there are always things they wish they had done differently or had hoped to accomplish before their time was up, but Nick says that in the grand scheme of things his goal was to try as much as possible and see what sticks and create growth and a desire for people to follow along with what is happening at the ABSC and in large part, he succeeded in that.
When asked about one thing he will miss at the Convention, Nick said the team he has helped create.
“What I’ll miss is the team, that’s a number one thing, the [Communications] team we’ve developed here at the Convention is really like no other. We’re small with a really big range of responsibilities and I don’t think we’ll find another team like this.”
“It has been the highest honor for me to work with Nick Burt. Not only is he great at his job, he is a great person,” Executive Director of the ABSC, Dr. J.D. “Sonny” Tucker said. “He has led our communications team to be inspiringly award-winning on the national level. We will miss him deeply, but also rejoice at this next step in God‘s will for him.”
Burt’s last day with the Convention is October 29, following the end of the Annual Meeting.
“At Rock Creek, my title is Executive Director of Communications and is comparable to my role at the ABSC,” Burt said. “I’ll serve in a similar capacity overseeing video, visual initiatives and expanding our production abilities in an effort to reach the lost and those out of church.”
“It has been a tremendous honor and privilege to serve the churches in Arkansas for the last five years. The ministry work that I witnessed happening across our state makes me so proud to be an Arkansas Baptist,” Burt went on to say. “Additionally, I’m so grateful to the staff at the ABSC for taking a chance on me so early in my professional career and giving me the trust and tools needed to communicate the remarkable things happening in our state. In the days ahead, I know I will look back on this chapter in my life with fond memories and long-lasting relationships made over this time. Thank you, Arkansas Baptists, for allowing me the chance to share a small part of your story.”