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 related articles here.) Staff members are currently working through audio files from the remaining meetings and will release highlights from those meetings in the coming weeks.
J.D. Greear, task force member and pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina (and future SBC president), had concerns for how younger pastors would perceive the GCR task force’s report to the Southern Baptist Convention.
During the task force’s meeting in San Antonio, Jan. 26–28, 2010, Greear specifically voiced how the report needed to hold up the “centrality and primacy” of the local church.
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He shared, “What I hear from people that are watching us, especially those that are in my generation — whatever that means — is there’s an expectation that what’s going to come out of this group is ‘business as usual,’ just like a really jazzed-up, excited version of it — where we’re going to have a bunch of new slogans come out for NAMB and the IMB.
He continued, “Like same song, louder verse, but it’s going to be the same thing. And what many of them really want to hear is … to be released and have the onus put back on them.”
Greear went on to explain the need to move this challenge up in the report, “In our church we noticed an explosion of ministry when we clearly communicated to everyone, the best ideas for ministry are not in the central offices of this church. They’re in the congregation.” He added, “It was a night and day difference.”
While task force chair Ronnie Floyd contended that challenge would be well communicated, Greear urged the task force to “(go) overboard in communicating the message.”
Running low on time
Meanwhile, the task force feverishly worked on readying a shortened version of recommendations that they planned to deliver that evening to Morris Chapman, then president and CEO of the Executive Committee. Chapman had requested the update before the task force presented its “progress report” during EC’s upcoming February meeting in Nashville.
The task force settled on the fact there wasn’t enough time to finish a fuller report, and bullet points would have to suffice.
The list included recommendations they’d hashed over in previous gatherings, which included recognizing Great Commission Giving as an endorsed way of Southern Baptist giving, refocusing NAMB and reducing its ministry assignments, allowing IMB to pursue unreached/unengaged people groups in North America, calling on state conventions to lead out Cooperative Program promotion and stewardship, and reducing the EC budget by 1 percent.
Al Mohler, task force member and president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, noted the task force needed to make it clear the report could be adjusted or changed all the way up to when they gave their final presentation in Orlando. Lessons had been learned, Mohler added, from mistakes made with Covenant for a New Century, an effort in 1995 to restructure and streamline SBC agencies.
“(That report) was typeset, in print — which ours will be — and on May 1, we released it. I think we made a mistake. … We thought that we could not revise it after that date. I want to contrast that with the Baptist Faith and Message Committee 2000. [Adrian] Rogers said, let’s ask Southern Baptists to respond to what we release May 1, and see if we want to take any of their wisdom into account or at least know where we stand.
“That produced an enormous groundswell of basic good will in which people felt like they could have a say,” Mohler added. “I’m going to suggest that we at least consider following that same example, putting it out May 1 and saying ‘we want to hear what you think about this.’”
Danny Akin, task force member and president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, added, “That lets them buy in big time. They can’t say, ‘Well, we didn’t even have a chance.’ No, you do have a chance. We’ll be listening.”
Parliamentarian Barry McCarty agreed and cautioned the task force from feeling like they needed to give a lot of detail to Chapman and to the EC with their progress report.
“The most powerful person in the Southern Baptist Convention is the average messenger who comes from his church and sits out there in that seat,” McCarty said of the upcoming annual meeting in Orlando. “The rules we follow are adopted by the messengers. The budget, the nominees, everything that happens in Southern Baptist life eventually is traced back to a decision of the messengers.
“As little as you can spend doing these legal dances with Morris and his team and the more you can focus on how you’re going to roll this out to the most powerful people in the convention, the messengers, I think the better off you are.”
Out of order?
The next morning, Chapman and Augie Boto, then executive vice president, and then SBC legal counsel Jim Guenther and Jamie Jordan arrived to share initial impressions of the report that was sent to them.
Guenther expressed concern about the task force speaking out of order with some of their recommendations. He advised the task force to present their report as a “vision statement” of ideas that the messengers can vote in support of. If approved, it would be the EC’s responsibility to handle specifics on carrying that approved vision statement out.
Boto later added, “there are things you cannot recommend, that only the Executive Committee can recommend. … If we get there by a path that is legally impermissible, we have bolloxed the entire framework.”
Mohler responded matter-of-factly, “Augie, we know that, but there’s no reason why the task force cannot recommend that the Executive Committee ‘consider.’”
Boto affirmed that sentiment. “Sure, sure, and report to the Convention on the matter. We do that all the time. If we get a motion from the floor about A or B, we ask the Executive Committee to study this.”
He later added, “The whole goal there Dr. Mohler was just to make sure that we understand it. … When someone tells me in a law office, ‘I understand completely,’ I almost always know they don’t. There are these slippage areas, so I was just trying to make it clear. I’m sorry for going over the top.”
At one point, Chapman expressed concerns, specifically regarding the official SBC endorsement of Great Commission Giving and that it runs “parallel to Cooperative Program giving.” He voiced concerns it could be seen to imply “the Cooperative Program is not about the Great Commission.” While he noted he would be “thrilled” for any pastor to be recognized for their giving to missions, he noted there is “still a distinction.”
He also expressed concerns of CP promotion being turned over to state conventions, noting there would be a variety of ideas of how to promote it. He added common ground could be found if the EC was considered an equal partner in the process.
Another one of Chapman’s primary concerns was the EC losing 1% of its budget, which he noted would “knock a hole in a good many of things that we have been able to accomplish over the last 18 years and it would be a significant setback to us.”
‘Greatest fears’
Chapman at one point noted that the EC is the only entity that operates solely on the Cooperative Program, adding his concerns about more funding going to the International Mission Board. In a previous meeting, Chapman had specifically expressed concerns regarding IMB’s lack of clarity in ministry reporting.
“There are growing number of questions about the baptismal count that is given each year and what does that comprise,” Chapman said. “Growing questions about church planting and what is the make up of the churches being planted. Now I’m not here to say the counting and the planting is not exactly what needs to be happening, but I am raising the question, ‘Do Southern Baptists understand how their Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and other gifts are being utilized?’”
Chapman later added, “I regret that my greatest fears are being realized in that what I’m looking at so far, the bureaucracy is being defined as the Executive Committee.”
Floyd, then pastor of Cross Church in Springdale, Arkansas, responded, “No one here has any question about the validity of the Executive Committee. That is non-existent.”
Floyd added a concern involved redundancy in efforts, and “the real thinking in that is the state conventions are closer to the churches. … By no means do we want the EC to be alienated from the process.”
The task force later decided to adjust the wording to strengthen the EC’s role as a partner with the state conventions in CP promotion and stewardship.
‘Repentance and stewardship’
Later the task force discussed meeting with Executive Committee leadership and how support for the Cooperative Program continued to decrease.
Referencing an earlier comment from Boto on how churches needed to repent for poor stewardship and declining CP support, Larry Grays — a task force member, church planter and then senior pastor of Midtown Bridge Church in Atlanta — took issue with some of those comments. “I would also argue there is a generation of pastors who are giving. They’re just not giving to the Cooperative Program,” he said. “And that doesn’t call for repentance. I do have to give to God, but I don’t have to give to the Cooperative Program — and neither do any of my friends.”
He added, “There are guys giving. They’re giving large percentages to missions — it’s just not through CP. To tell a guy you have to give to it because we said you have to give to it because that’s history and precedent, I just reject. And if that spirit comes out at the Convention, I think it will also be offensive to a bunch guys.”
Lack of vision
Mohler agreed that too many Southern Baptist leaders are seeing CP as the “end” instead of the “means” to support missions. He added, “If people are not buying your cars guess what? They’re not popular. The reality is you can’t just talk about the Cooperative Program. The Cooperative Program is not the end, it is a means. And there’s a complete absence of ‘end,’ in vision, here.”
Floyd added, “no vision.”
Mohler continued, “Saying the Cooperative Program is the answer is like saying our confidence is in the popularity of our vehicles. People aren’t buying them. If that’s our confidence, we’re sunk.”
Frank Page, task force member and vice president of evangelization for NAMB, at one point asked how task force members should handle questions related to why they focused primarily on changes to the Executive Committee and NAMB — and not other entities.
Floyd countered that they did look at all of the entities, but Page disagreed.
After some back and forth, Floyd noted, “As far as answering it, we’ve had seven months. We’re trying our very best to look at things as much as possible. Our priority is the Great Commission, and that’s where we’re trying to focus our attention.”
Page conceded that there simply was not enough time to address every need. “Seven months did not avail the opportunity to go deep in every particular aspect of SBC life,” he noted. “And that’s OK with me.”
Where’s J.D.?
As the San Antonio meeting wound down, Ken Whitten, task force member and then pastor of the Tampa-area Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz, Florida, addressed concerns that their report will be livestreamed during the February Executive Committee meeting.
Whitten expressed concern about how his congregation might perceive the task force’s process. “If today was any indication … if my crowd saw what went on, they might walk. I don’t think we’ve built enough credibility. And the people who are going to watch that are going to be a younger generation, and I don’t want to turn them off before we get an opportunity to turn them on.”
Referencing the perspective of younger pastors, Whitten noted, “J.D. (Greear) hadn’t been back. I don’t know where he went. He looked out the window half way through this thing, and he never came back.”
Akin noted that Greear had to catch an early flight back to North Carolina, and “he’s gone.”
Whitten added, “Just look at (Greear’s) body language. He looked out that window, and I’m telling you he was glad he had a flight.”
Akin agreed, “Yes, he was.”
The task force can be heard chuckling as Whitten mentioned Greear’s absence. Whitten eventually laughed off his concerns about Greear and said the task force could disregard.
In the coming weeks, Floyd would present a brief report during the Executive Committee’s February meeting in Nashville. The task force would meet back in Music City in April for their last official meeting.
