I think it depends on the church, the pastor, and the state convention.
IF your pastor has desires for state level office, or harbors the dream of being on the Committee on Committees, or a seminary trustee, etc, you bet your bippy whatever the current leadership says goes. BTDT with a pastor who was a Midwestern trustee during, shall we say, the one of the trusteeship's less finer moments. He currently serves at state level rather than pastoring.
IF your state convention is wise they will put some strictures on money they loan. But if a church is wise they just won't borrow there, and avoid those strictures.
More and more I see churches just kind of with a "whatever" attitude towards the convention. They send less to the CP, and more of them seem to be directly funding mission endeavors instead of doing so through the convention.
So while some see it as a Conservative Resurgence and others as a Fundamentalist Takeover, whatever it was has had two opposite results.
The first is that the boundaries, the lines in the sand over which one cannot cross and expect any leadership roles have tightened. The true liberals are gone (yay!), the moderates are gone, and lots of the conservatives are gone. Some see all this as good and purifying, others as bad and stultifying. Take your pick.
The second result is that churches don't seem to see themselves as SBC churches, but as churches that sometimes send some money to the SBC. It may turn out that those that wanted to be in leadership so badly may wind up captains of an empty ship.
Some of the areas where I have lived the churches used to ALL use SBC material, contribute heavily to the CP as well as Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon, have very active Brotherhood and WMU as well as activities that were SBC for the teens and kids. The BFM was used in a new member class every year, and copies were given to all new members. The SBC may not have been as pure or as tightly controlled, but we were SBC through and through.
Since the CR, curiously, those churches now usually DON'T use the SBC material, don't contribute much, and while as active as ever are more likely to offer AWANA'S or scouting to the younger set and to order non Baptist books off Amazon for the older set. There may be something in the church constitution about ascribing to the BFM2000, but it isn't handed out or taught to the members. Instead of Brotherhood meetings the guys go fishing, and instead of WMU the gals get together for some syrupy video book study.
It would seem, to me at least, that when the SBC took a "my way or the highway" attitude, a lot of churches just turned around and ignored them. That way they can claim to be SBC affiliated for what perks it still brings them, but for the most part they became the polar opposite of what the CR was supposed to make them.
Hollow victory at best.
IF your pastor has desires for state level office, or harbors the dream of being on the Committee on Committees, or a seminary trustee, etc, you bet your bippy whatever the current leadership says goes. BTDT with a pastor who was a Midwestern trustee during, shall we say, the one of the trusteeship's less finer moments. He currently serves at state level rather than pastoring.
IF your state convention is wise they will put some strictures on money they loan. But if a church is wise they just won't borrow there, and avoid those strictures.
More and more I see churches just kind of with a "whatever" attitude towards the convention. They send less to the CP, and more of them seem to be directly funding mission endeavors instead of doing so through the convention.
So while some see it as a Conservative Resurgence and others as a Fundamentalist Takeover, whatever it was has had two opposite results.
The first is that the boundaries, the lines in the sand over which one cannot cross and expect any leadership roles have tightened. The true liberals are gone (yay!), the moderates are gone, and lots of the conservatives are gone. Some see all this as good and purifying, others as bad and stultifying. Take your pick.
The second result is that churches don't seem to see themselves as SBC churches, but as churches that sometimes send some money to the SBC. It may turn out that those that wanted to be in leadership so badly may wind up captains of an empty ship.
Some of the areas where I have lived the churches used to ALL use SBC material, contribute heavily to the CP as well as Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon, have very active Brotherhood and WMU as well as activities that were SBC for the teens and kids. The BFM was used in a new member class every year, and copies were given to all new members. The SBC may not have been as pure or as tightly controlled, but we were SBC through and through.
Since the CR, curiously, those churches now usually DON'T use the SBC material, don't contribute much, and while as active as ever are more likely to offer AWANA'S or scouting to the younger set and to order non Baptist books off Amazon for the older set. There may be something in the church constitution about ascribing to the BFM2000, but it isn't handed out or taught to the members. Instead of Brotherhood meetings the guys go fishing, and instead of WMU the gals get together for some syrupy video book study.
It would seem, to me at least, that when the SBC took a "my way or the highway" attitude, a lot of churches just turned around and ignored them. That way they can claim to be SBC affiliated for what perks it still brings them, but for the most part they became the polar opposite of what the CR was supposed to make them.
Hollow victory at best.
