EDITOR’S NOTE — The Baptist Paper staff members continue their review of the audio files from the 2009–2010 meetings of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. (See other articles in series here.) Staff members are currently working through audio files from the remaining meetings and will release highlights from those meetings in the coming weeks.
Here are a few more highlights from the meeting in Atlanta (Nov. 30-Dec. 1, 2009):
Morris Chapman, then president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, was a guest presenter and shared his thoughts on the Southern Baptist Convention’s future and the EC’s role as an “arm of the SBC” that provides “checks and balances.” Much of his report focused on a need for more cooperation, a united spirit and a need to address funding redundancy and waste, while maximizing resources. Chapman had recently announced his plans to retire from EC at the end of September 2010.
Among Chapman’s concerns, he pointed to the need for International Mission Board leadership to work with the Woman’s Missionary Union to set more “realistically, obtainable” Lottie Moon Christmas Offering goals.
Chapman noted the goal had only been met four times since 1981. “Though unmet in the 1980s and the 1990s, gifts were frequently within one to four percentage points short of the goal,” he said.
Competition vs. cooperation
Since meeting its goal in 1997, Chapman noted, “seven of the next 11 years saw shortfalls of 8% or more.” The previous year’s goal was nearly 17% short of the goal, he reported. The SBC, he said, had entered into an “era of competition for resources rather than cooperation with resources, and gifts continue to decline.”
Chapman agreed with North American Mission Board leaders, who had previously presented, that NAMB had become overloaded with tasks. They need four or five assignments at most, he said, highlighting evangelism, church planting, disaster relief and Christian education.
The task force later discussed the Executive Committee’s ministry assignments and what could be streamlined to help the EC be more effective and avoid redundancy. The task force specifically discussed moving Cooperative Program promotion and stewardship under the responsibility of state conventions.
‘Anxiety about the West’
Discussion returned to NAMB and tightening its ministry assignments. The task force also discussed best approaches on NAMB eliminating cooperative agreements with state conventions, specifically the negative financial impact it would have on state conventions outside the South in “pioneer areas.”
Bob White, then executive director of the Georgia Baptist Convention, shared how he “woke up with some anxiety about the West.”
“I understand we don’t need to be in the business of propping up state conventions, but I’m also deeply concerned about saying to California and Arizona — and some of these other states out here, that are doing good work — ‘You’ve got three years. Are you gonna be closing your doors?’” White asked if the task force could adjust the wording in the report to allow the North American Mission Board to provide some flexibility as they worked with the conventions.
The task force discussed cooperative agreements phasing out over a three-to-five year period. “I can’t imagine us wanting to go beyond five years if we’re trying to help them become independent,” task force chair Ronnie Floyd, then senior pastor of First Baptist Church Springdale, Arkansas, noted.
Discussion on this issue would continue into the new year at the group’s meeting in San Antonio.
Highlights from San Antonio meeting, Jan. 26–28, 2010
A few highlights of the meeting in San Antonio, Texas, held at the end of January 2010, include the following:
The task force continued its discussion on cooperative agreements, specifically ending them within four years, decreasing the amount of Cooperative Program dollars that go back to each state by 25% annually until each agreement concluded. The task force discussed how certain states may need to retain resources to continue particular ministries. Floyd acknowledged the concern, and then added, “And what we’re saying is these agreements are over after four years, period.”
Frank Page, who at the time served as vice president of evangelization for NAMB, and would be a future president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee, expressed concerns that states retaining resources for particular ministries would ultimately reduce the amount of funds that make it outside the state, to the nations.
“If the wording that we’re dealing with now says we’re saying to states, ‘You can keep more,’ I’m telling you it’s going to end up sending less to the nations than more to the nations,” Page said. “Because we just opened Pandora’s box. … They’re probably going to do that anyway, but we have now given official sanction to keeping more in states, sending less out of state. And that is contrary to what I — and I think the vast majority of us, the heart of this — wants. That’s my prediction, may it be wrong.”
White — and others on the task force — responded to Page’s concern, noting that in conversations he had with other state convention executives they seemed focused on getting more funding to the nations, not conserving funds.
Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, noted at one point that there is no way for the task force’s report to control how much money actually makes it to the nations.
“There is no way this committee can dictate that,” he said. “At the implementation level, we’re going to have to trust that good, godly people will lead the way.”
‘Hottest issue in the SBC’
Page also at one point addressed potential concerns that some Southern Baptists may wonder why the task force put so much focus on “micromanaging” NAMB and the EC — and not enough on other areas of the convention.
Floyd responded to Page’s assessment about NAMB and the EC being “micromanaged”:
“That hasn’t been my agenda,” he said. “I don’t receive that statement personally. If it’s somebody else’s agenda I’d like to know.”
Page noted those two groups have been the primary focus of their recent meetings.
Floyd responded, “That’s probably because it’s the big issues.”
Page acknowledged they are big issues.
Floyd noted, “The North American Mission Board. They left these issues to be issues. It’s the hottest issue in the SBC. Everything has come back to NAMB. Constantly. More than I would even prefer.
“But when we get into the specificity issues, to say that we want NAMB to be the leader, NAMB should be fired up about that,” he added. “I don’t think NAMB is necessarily the leader now. I think that’s really a debate.”
Addressing the task force’s attention to NAMB, Ken Whitten, then pastor of the Tampa-area Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz, Florida, noted at one point, “I think what we have here is — keep in mind — we’re pulling gum out of an angora sweater here.
“We’re not picking on one particular group,” he said. “We have found just like a surgeon getting in there … we are trying to help a convention and communicate to a convention that we are not just some bureaucratic anomaly that we’re not just talking missions.
“We’re talking motivation, and we’re trying to get them excited about their own denomination. … I do believe what’s going to happen is the churches are going to rally and more money is going to come back in because (NAMB is) going to be a better defined animal.”
Addressing changes to NAMB’s ministry assignment and cooperative agreements, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, described the work of the task force as being a “traumatic change agent for NAMB.”
“Surgery is trauma. Not all trauma was bad. I think this is a reminder we’re really going to have to contextualize this, introduce it well, let people know we worked with NAMB to develop this,” he explained.
“This is not something imposed upon NAMB. This is the kind of strategic direction NAMB wants, to have control of their initiative and to be mobile to reach North America,” he added. “We’re not telling them where they can’t spend a dime. We’re going to have to come up with our talking points to understand we’re not restricting them from spending a dime. They just can’t do it out of the old habits of the cooperative agreements. They’ll create new habits.”
In regards to the challenge of brainstorming and compiling what to communicate to Southern Baptist messengers, Mohler added, “I’m literally trying to scratch out a report here. I’ve got pages and pages of stuff here. Let me tell ya, our first hope is going to be that somebody reads it — and the second hope is that they find the good parts and not just the things that they may want to argue about.”
‘Bottom line’
Floyd said, “If NAMB can effectively accomplish this, we’re going to have more churches, we’re going to have more revenue, we’re going to be able to do more for God than ever before. Hopefully, that’s going to be the result.”
Whitten added, “It’s got to result in more baptisms.”
Floyd agreed. He later added, “We’re saying after all of our study — after listening, after hearing, after looking — if we’re going to penetrate lostness, the bottom line is we’re only going to do it through planting new churches and evangelizing through those new church plants. IMB has proven that true all across the world. Well, let’s prove it true here.”
Closer look at the GCR Task Force strategy team
Throughout the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force meetings, chairman Ronnie Floyd mentions lengthy meetings with a group of task force members called the “strategy team.” In addition to Floyd, the strategy team includes Danny Akin, Al Gilbert, Johnny Hunt, Al Mohler, Roger Spradlin, Ted Traylor and Ken Whitten.
At the end of the first meeting in Atlanta —right before the task force headed to the press conference — Floyd noted, “Y’all cannot simply rely on my wisdom on how we go in this. Twenty-two people (on the task force) is a lot of people. … I’ve got to have help on helping us charting our future. I’m going to ask these people to serve with me on a strategy team to help us chart our future.”
He emphasized, “That strategy team has a purpose, one purpose — chart our future.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This report was written and compiled by Shawn Hendricks, with reporting from Jennifer Rash.
