Debate over SBC cooperation, direction marks Baptist Identity conference

I attended all 3 days of this conference. I found it to be truly insightful and the presenters were all consistent in their focus on Biblical truth as well as the health of the SBC. No punches were pulled and many recommendations were suggested that will certainly rock the foundations of the local, state, and national associations/conventions.

The future continues to be bright... at least potentially.

 

That's the pot calling the kettle "black."

I wonder why he said it was shameful "today." It was shameful when he did it to others when he was starting the takeover movement.

 

From what I've read about things that have been happening in the SBC recently, he's still doing this.

 

I guess I just don't see why the SBC, which is basically an organization based on the voluntary cooperation of independent, autonomous congregations, has such a large executive administration for each of its mission boards, agencies and institutions, and additional layers of independent, autonomous structure on the state level where even more executives are employed, spending what appears to me to be excessive amounts of money that is given by churches under the "mssions" tag. The Tennessee Baptist Convention is housed in a rather large office complex in Brentwood, and the size of the building and parking lot indicates to me that there might be over 200 people working there. Supposedly, money given to the Cooperative Program through the TBC goes to its agencies and institutions and then a portion of it is passed along to the SBC. I went to Belmont University, which was at the time "supported" by the TBC and received Cooperative Program money, but it was a drop in the bucket compared to the schools total operating budget, about 1%, and didn't make a dent in the tuition, which provided most of the operating money.

Tennessee is just one of many different state conventions. I've seen the headquarters buildings of the state conventions in Georgia, North Carolina, Missouri and Texas, and they are all large, imposing structures with lots of employees. The SBC headquarters at Ninth and Commerce in downtown Nashville is nothing to sneeze at, either, nor is the gigantic Lifeway complex which stretches along 10 city blocks. The SBC's North American Mission Board has quite a large, imposing structure in Alpharetta, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta as well, and again, it is a building in which several hundred employees work. I have to wonder how much of the Cooperative Program money actually benefits the mission field or the students in the seminaries? It seems like a lot of people have an administrative or executive tap in the stream.

Now we read about executives in various SBC agencies having "businesses" on the side, and speaking engagements for which they receive large honorariums and supplement their income by taking advantage of their position. I don't think our church is the only one having discussions about reducing the amount of money we send to this bloated bureaucracy.

 

Were you privy to the comments made be Dr. Mike Day, the DOM for the Mid-South Baptist Association, he views the traditional structure and system living on borrowed time and offered several alternatives to take their place. His reasoning sounds alot like your own. The days of the TBC and other state/local associations hoarding funds and resources while creating unecessary redundancy within the system are limited as a massive change must occur.

Churches are already doing an "end run" around the state associations financially, getting funds and resources directly to the agancies that need them. His main point was that original intent for associations and conventions to be supporting and resourcing the local churches... NOT CREATING THEIR OWN MINISTRIES and MISSIONS!

I am hopeful for the future...

 

Simple fact that older, established churches do not experience the growth as new chruches and chruch plants, thus the stategy the plant as many churches in an area as possible.

New churches are more effective at reaching new believers. Older more established churches can grow but the typically experience transfer and biological growth.

There are local and state associations that are using CP dollars to send folks on mission trips and develop ministires that should be done by local churches. Rather than doing what the chruch should be doing and many are, the association can do its original job of resourcing funds and assisstance to the local church. The chruches do no exist to resource the association, but rather visa versa.

 

Statistically, though, regardless of how many new churches are being planted, the SBC isn't growing in the states where it has the largest number of churches and church members. The total membership figure grows, but the figures that count--attendance and baptisms, is dropping off.

It just seems like there hasn't been a lot of real financial accountability here lately. I've read blogs and articles about the president of Southwestern and his wife earning something like $60,000 in honorariums for outside speaking engagements, this on top of their already significant salary, while the amount that students must pay is increasing. Didn't he try to hire some pastor friend of his from Ft. Worth, Claude Thomas, after Thomas resigned from a church because of financial scandal? Wasn't that some kind of position that he created just to give Thomas a job? Then there was stuff at NAMB over the President making trips to Europe in a private jet for some movie preview, and expensive contracts made with a business owned by his wife, without seeking other bids for the same services? Why does the president of the North American mission board need to go to Europe at board expense? For that matter, why are any of these Baptist executives allowed travel privileges on the CP's dime? The rest of us don't get that privilege. This is money that is given in the name of missions. If most of it isn't being used for that purpose, then that is deceitful, and disrespectful of the people in the churches, particularly those who give genuinely and sacrificially. Missions, in my opinion, isn't paying executive salaries to people who work in an office building shuffling paper, in a building that we've obviously built recently and for which we paid a small fortune.

The church I attend is an SBC congregation that was a new church plant just a few years ago. We run better than 350 in worship now, due in part to the fact that we have a contemporary worship service and no one else nearby has one. We've debated as to whether we will continue to have the name "Baptist" as part of our identity, and whether we will continue to support the Cooperative Program. This church didn't receive CP funds when it was started, because the people who got it going didn't go through the bureaucratic channels at the TBC. A local church was primarily involved financially and a couple of others contributed furnishings and equipment. We took out a loan to purchase our building, which we have paid off in two years. It gets increasingly more difficult to convince our people to contribute to the Cooperative Program when they are aware of the salaries that are paid to the executives. The inclination is to put that money into direct support of either a local ministry or finding a missionary couple already on the field who raise their own support.

 

Simple rule of change: You will have a better chance at seeing change come to fruition if you work from teh inside, rather than be critical from the outside.

In the case of your church... why in the world did you break the wonderful momentum you had. What you should do, even now, is plant yet another church. Your body has obviously been blessed... give those blessings away with no strings. Why do you think you received them in the first place. The CP can be restored and once again be the tool it was intended to be. However, if your fellowship doesn't participate, you will not have a voice.

As far as being a baptist... well that has been discussed at length. Most members of baptist churches have no idea of the history or meaning behind the word. Before that label is tossed, everyone should have a at least a basic understanding of what it means.

Blessings to you and your fellowship!

 

We'll start another church soon. That's been the plan from the beginning, when we reached capacity of our facility. And it will be a plant with no strings attached.

As far as the SBC goes, I'm wondering if a good, natural downsizing isn't something that would be a good thing in making the operation much more efficient and much less prone to thinking that it has an unlimited cash supply, or if the unforseen consequences of such, which I think is inevitable, would just make some of the bureaucrats learn how to hang on to what they've got.