NoBA Articles

A Great Commission Resurgence End-Vision

2010-05-17T15:50:00.002-04:00

I’d like to express deep gratitude for the work of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. They have demonstrated courageous leadership in helping us evaluate how we move forward with greater focus. I support each recommendation of the GCRTF Final Report and pray we will embrace the challenges.

I’d like to suggest our SBC family also consider adopting a “SBC 2020 End-Vision”. An end-vision can be called a picture of a preferred future. While not comprehensive in detail, such a picture revealed to us from the Lord could give us a target to know where we’re heading. I do not mean to suggest that the GCRTF does not include elements of such an end-vision. They recommend some immediate and phased changes and have hinted at some key future elements. I’d like to suggest a few others, including them in one package. Such an “End-Vision” would enable us to take the necessary steps together to arrive at a desired destination.

I propose an end-vision that depicts a “simple denomination.” What I hear most from SBC pastors and church members is a desire for a simple but effective denominational structure and strategy. They want a denomination that enables cooperative missions, ministerial training, and compassionate response to disaster on a large scale. They want their cooperative giving mission dollars to support these three areas. They support associational and state level ministries that they believe are effective and add value, but they also see redundancy. They want their 14 largest, old-line State Conventions to forward much more of their CP/Mission dollars to national and international ministry.

I hear from many pastors and church members that they don’t want an Executive Committee staff whose salaries are not transparent and who create their own ministry programs such as Empowering Kingdom Growth and a Global Liaison office. They don’t believe a political Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission is a priority for our cooperative mission dollars.

In short, I believe most Southern Baptists want what the GCRTF wants…a leaner, more effective and efficient denomination that is reprioritized and refocused even more around the Great Commission. They want a denomination that has strategic mission priorities and works well with other evangelicals in the work of the Kingdom of God. They want a denomination that assists local congregations in doing whatever it takes to reach the unreached of the world with the gospel of Christ! I concur. Let us adopt the GCRTF Recommendations along with a “SBC 2020 End-Vision” in Orlando, June 15-16, 2010.

A “SBC 2020 End-Vision” would seek to answer the question,

“What would the SBC look like in 2020 if we were maximizing our resources and effectively pursuing fulfillment of the Great Commission in the 21st century?”

I propose the following end-vision or targeted picture of a simpler, even more Great Commission-focused SBC in 2020.

A SBC 2020 END-VISION

Without restating it here, the GCRTF Report contains a wonderful, biblical call to repentance and spiritual renewal we desperately need to heed. A concrete schedule of reviving and renewing “Promise Keeper” type rallies and solemn assemblies could be held around the SBC over several years to encourage spiritual renewal, along with the challenges presented in the GCRTF Final Report.

The report follows the call for repentance and renewal with an excellent vision statement and values with which to pursue it. The vision statement is well aligned with what Southern Baptists have stood for and rally behind. I wholeheartedly concur and urge adoption of their vision, values, and challenge statements.

A NEW NAME

We need a new name in the 21st century that reflects what we value and the scope of our ministry. We need a name that no longer reflects a regional conference of churches. We need a new name that is relevant, not misunderstood, and not a potential barrier nationally or internationally.

MULTICULTURAL LEADERSHIP

In 2020, we need our leadership and staffs of the newly named SBC and its entities to more fully reflect the diversity of cultures, backgrounds, and ethnicity of our churches.

A GLOBAL MISSION AGENCY

By 2020 Southern Baptists should develop a new global mission agency, replacing both NAMB and IMB. We need to recognize that our world has flattened, globalization is a given, and the Great Commission is already “from everywhere to everywhere”. We must internationalize our missionary force and remove old barriers to strategic advance no longer pertinent to our multicultural, interconnected world. It would certainly need regionalized, affinity group structure and strategies and perhaps different departments. But we need a common vision, macro-strategy, and creative synergy.

COMPASSION MINISTRY/DISASTER RELIEF

Disaster Relief is a great strength of SBC life already developed. While adjusting as needed to ongoing contextual changes, it can be carried forward by the Global Mission Agency in cooperation with other entities such as Baptist Global Response and regional resource networks of Southern Baptists.

A COLLABORATIVE NATIONAL STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK FOR GREAT COMMISSION FULFILLMENT

A collaboratively produced strategic framework of shared vision and priorities for reaching all peoples and cities in the U.S. should be developed. Representatives of the new Global Mission Agency, LifeWay, Seminaries, States, Associations, and local church pastors could develop such a strategic framework proposal for denominational adoption.

GREAT COMMISSION FOCUSED SEMINARIES GIVING CUTTING EDGE THEOLOGICAL, MINISTERIAL LEADERSHIP TRAINING

Our six, Great Commission focused SBC seminaries would complement their residential training with further decentralized theological and ministerial leadership training delivered in partnership with local churches. I believe the Leadership Development component currently assigned in the report of the GCRTF to NAMB should be moved to the Seminaries in partnership with local churches and LifeWay.

ETHICS AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY COMMISSION

We should reassign the development and publication of ethics and religious liberty materials and training to LifeWay and the Seminaries, eliminating the ERLC as a separate entity. The ERLC budget should be reassigned to the new Global Mission Agency.

A DIGITALLY EFFECTIVE LIFEWAY CHRISTIAN RESOURCES

LifeWay is already moving in the direction of a digital age resource. They will be tasked with providing biblically faithful, digital age deliverable resources and equipping in partnership with SBC Seminaries and States/Associations.

A FLATTENED DENOMINATIONAL STRUCTURE

We should consider how to flatten our denominational structure into a simpler, more efficient form. In the future it is highly unlikely that three levels of denominational work will be funded or relevant. There is already too much overlap in services and resources offered among association, state, national, and international SBC entities. Strategies and tactics for implementing A Great Commission vision and priorities should be developed and implemented as close to home as possible. Providing resources and expertise to local churches with local understanding is a must. Of course, the churches can and will draw on national and international resources as well. But we need to flatten our organizational levels to be more effective and efficient in assisting our churches.

Such a flattened network must be large enough for excellence, make sense strategically, and nearby/local enough for relationship, understanding, customization, and contextualization. There are already a few piloted attempts in the spirit of this proposal in Southern Baptist life. We could study and perhaps utilize or adapt these restructuring efforts, remembering that one uniform size or approach may not fit all contexts.

IMMEDIATE ISSUES IN 2010

I have proposed elements of an SBC End-Vision for 2020. If adopted, we need to work toward that preferred picture of the future while allowing it to shape our responses to current issues.

LEADERSHIP OF EXCOMM, NAMB, IMB AND SBC

One current issue is the soon to be selected leadership of the SBC Executive Committee, North American Mission Board, International Mission Board, and next SBC President. In addition to adoption of a GCRTF report and its recommendations, I believe the selection of these leaders to be the most significant decisions facing the SBC. Nothing will have more import and impact upon our collective ability to pursue a GCR than these new leaders. They must be God-called men in alignment with the priorities, convictions, and spirit put forth by Dr’s Akin and Hunt in their Great Commission Resurgence Declaration.

What kind of leaders do we need? I am in agreement with Mark Morris’ blog entry of March 1, 2010 on “Time for G.R.I.T.T.Y. Leadership in the SBC” at www.missionleader.com. He offers insightful encouragement regarding the need for younger, new wineskin, missional leadership for new times.

IMB

With such G.R.I.T.T.Y leadership traits in mind, the new President of the IMB also needs to be in alignment with the declarations set forth by Dr’s Akin and Hunt. He needs to be able and willing to lead the transition to a new Global Missions Agency. Additionally, he must be a capable missiologist, able to inspire and mobilize missionaries, a strategic thinker, capable of leading change and able to collaboratively develop a strategic framework for Great Commission fulfillment involving all levels of SBC life. IMB policies also need to be in alignment with Dr’s Akin and Hunt’s Great Commission Resurgence Declarations.

NAMB

Likewise, the new President of NAMB should have the above qualities. He should be willing to work toward a new Global Missions Agency. The retooling and refocusing of NAMB should be in alignment with the GCR. This should include a refocused Trustee Board that does not revisit us with another quick dismissal of a President. NAMB’s policies should also be in alignment with Hunt and Akin’s GCR Declarations.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

The Executive Committee also needs to be refocused. We need an ExComm to continue to handle administrative matters, financial processing, business plan oversight, and convention planning functions. However, we don’t need an Executive Committee that creates its own ministries and hides the salaries of its executives from its constituents. While good men head the initiatives created by the ExComm, the EKG and Global Liaison ministries should be phased out and their budget line items transferred to IMB and the new Global Missions Agency for the sake of the nations.

GOALS

Ultimately, why seek God for spiritual renewal? Why realign and reprioritize our convention efforts? We should seek a Great Commission Resurgence for the glory of God, the declaration of the gospel, and the making of disciples among all peoples.

To that end I propose three Great Commission goals. Our simpler, reprioritized convention and its end-vision should include goals of engaging every remaining unengaged, unreached people group with the gospel, a church planting movement for every global megacity, and annually sending 1,000 college and seminary students to serve 2 year terms overseas in compassionate gospel ministry and church planting.

I respectfully submit these thoughts with great appreciation for the GCRTF and for Southern Baptist leaders at every level. I am grateful for our heritage and positive about our future. I pray God will grant us guidance, vision and courage for His glory.

Dr. Rodney L. Hammer, Executive Director of Missions
Blue River-Kansas City Baptist Association

Current member of Missouri Baptist Convention’s Organizational Study Group

Regional Leader, IMB, Central and Eastern Europe 1999-2008; 18 total years of overseas service in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Europe;

SBC church planter and pastor prior to missionary service.

Thoughts On Recommendations From GCRTF

2010-05-05T11:48:00.000-04:00

Messengers to the SBC meeting in Orlando this June will be asked to approve a body of recommendations from the GCR Task Force that will change the shape and function of the Southern Baptist Convention. I encourage you to read the report for your self before you go to the Convention. It is important that you give much prayerful consideration to this before the vote. You can find it at http://pray4gcr.com/.

As I read the Preliminary Report and now the final draft, I am left with mixed feelings but also with a definite conviction.

Mixed feelings because I fear what this could mean to our funding and yet I know in my heart that the need addressed by the GCR is real.

What it could mean to our funding? My association receives the equivalence of a little more than half of the salary and 98% of the insurance for our NAMB appointed Church and Community Missionary position as a result of the Cooperative Agreement the SCBC has with the NAMB. Add to that another several thousand dollars that we receive for each New Church Planted in cooperation with the SCBC. (SCBC New Work Funds are a combination of NAMB and Janie Chapman funds) The disruption of these two income streams represents a large deficit that we would have to make up from our churches if we are to continue the ministries that these funds represent. The GCR recommendations call for a 7-year phase out of the Cooperative Agreements so we would have time to figure out a solution. If the economy remains as is, it will take some effort to do this. If the economy comes back, it would not be as difficult. In either case, our churches will need to determine if these funds are necessary and worth the extra support to the Association it will require from them. At the same time, our churches will be considering their increased support of the local missions of the Association they will also be pulled in the direction of increasing their gifts to the Cooperative Program. Leaving us between that “rock and hard place”!

I have heard discussions about the need for the SC State Convention to down size so it can pick up the funding for the 20 or so Missionary positions in SC funded by NAMB. That will be difficult to do. Consider this, The GCR recommendations would require SCBC to shrink its share of the CP and increase the amount sent to the national SBC to 50%. That will mean shrinking the already stressed SCBC budget from 19 million to 16 million and then find another ½ million to make up the deficit from the NAMB Cooperative Agreement. Where will this money be found? Some say the SCBC staff is too large. Perhaps it could be leaner, but it has already been downsized considerably over the past few years. Others have pointed out that SC spends far more per capita on its institutions than other Southern States. So perhaps some could be trimmed from our funding to our colleges and the Children’s and Retirement Homes. Yes, and probably they are in a better position to find funds from fees and gifts that could make up the difference, but do you think the alumni and constituents of these worthy institutions are going to let that happen? I doubt it!

So, we are left with some very hard choices! Fund the Great Commission in the Pioneer and Metropolitan areas of North America at the expense of Great Commission work in the more established Southern States or find more funds so that more can be done without eliminating or downsizing these established ministries? Either way we will be called on to make greater sacrifices than we are comfortable with!

And yet, I am convinced that the need that the GCR is trying to address is very real and must some how be addressed!!! I agree that we must become more intentional about funding the IMB, we must become more practical and strategic in reaching North America, and we must call our church members and churches and associations and conventions to a greater focus on the Great Commission in these last days! Most of all, and I say this with fear and trembling, we must not remain as we are!

As fearful as I am of the impact to our funding that this GCR Recommendation may mean, I am much more afraid of what will happen if my denomination chooses to maintain the status quo. We live in an age that requires a Great Commission vision that calls each of us to a greater sacrifice than we have ever known before! I can proudly say that the SBC has been the brightest mission minded denomination in the Modern age! But we now live in a Post-Modern age that requires denominations to be leaner and more intentional about multiplying the Kingdom! God help us if we choose modern maintenance over a post-modern mission!

Mike O'Dell, Director of Missions
York Baptist Association
Rock Hill, SC

The GCRTF and the SBC Partnership Model

2010-04-28T21:30:00.003-04:00

Recently the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force (GCRTF) released their initial report. Among other things, it called for dramatic changes in the funding and structure of state conventions and NAMB, including the elimination of the long-standing cooperative agreements between the two entities. My discussion here is not to debate the spiritual reputations of the men and women of the GCR Task Force. They are all talented brothers and sisters in Christ. However, their reputations are not going to be on the floor of the convention in June. It will be the six actual recommendations of their report and the long-term ramifications that will result if adopted.

The Bible tells us to thoroughly evaluate our plans before implementation. Before drastic changes are made, it is helpful to assess the current structure in a realistic manner. Our current SBC Partnership Model, which is the state and national convention, association, and the local sponsoring church working cooperatively together to plant new churches, should be evaluated carefully before hitting the reset switch.

Evaluating Effectiveness

In the secular world, an Industry Standard is the optimum criteria for any industry to measure effectiveness within the respective field of production. When evaluating any missional structure one of the critical questions that must be answered is, “What structures are you measuring it against?

For example, take the Ford Motor Company. Ford does not expect 100% of the population to drive their cars. Rather, performance is measured in how well it does in comparison to, say, Honda in terms of market share. If Ford were outperforming every other car company, it would be unwise to throw out their overall management plan. Improve yes, overhaul no.

It is, alas, unrealistic to expect that any agency will be “100% efficient.” To seek to “do more” without knowing the current levels of effectiveness will end in frustration. Undefined performance standards are unachievable and wastes resources (i.e. unending reorganizations) that should be invested in ministry needs. What is our “Ministry Standard” to measure our current effectiveness?

To what other ministry structures were our SBC missional efforts compared? If the GCR Task Force did any comparisons, they were not in the report.

Benchmarking Effectiveness through California Church Growth, 2000-2008

The American Church Research Project (http://theamericanchurch.org/), led by David T. Olson organized statistical reports from 305,000 congregations by state and county. This research allows us to compare the effectiveness of the SBC Partnership Model against ALL other Christian and Catholic church starting ministries in California for years 2000-2008. This data allows us to move beyond inspirational challenges to numerical measurements of ministry performance. Is the current SBC Partnership Model effective in California? This is key because many SBC churches across the country support this work as they contribute to the Cooperative Program. Are their resources well spent?

Unfortunately, church planting is falling behind the tremendous population growth of California; however, evangelical churches (this includes SBC churches) are the only group in growth mode. How many churches did the SBC model plant during this time period? According to the CSBC, statistical data 1,155 SBC churches were planted between the years 2000-2008. CSBC reports an 80% success rate in its overall church planting efforts. This means that the current SBC model is producing 96% of all church starting efforts in the California evangelical world! Even with its flaws, our current model dominates the church planting structure in California. Every SBC pastor should stand up and applaud this work of God!

If we want to do more to penetrate the darkness in California, I would argue that the last thing that should be done is to start a massive overhaul of this amazing model of partnership. That will take over a decade and cost millions. Invest heavily in what is working right now, the Cooperative Program and the local Baptist association!

Conclusions

The current SBC Partnership Model is highly effective and it is difficult to see what could be gained for the Great Commission in engaging in a complex reorganization of resources. Can we improve? Always! But, those who are calling for SBC structures to produce “more” should provide other efficient ministry models (with data) for Southern Baptists to carefully consider.

Dr. Mike Stewart, Director of Missions
Central Coast Baptist Associations (CCBA)
San Jose, CA

(CCBA is 100% funded by its own ministries.
CSBC and all other SBC ministries are valued partners of the CCBA.
The views expressed here are his and not necessarily those of the churches of the CCBA.)

Ignore the Boneheads and Obey the Great Commission!

2010-04-28T21:03:00.001-04:00

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a 38-year old husband, and father of three. I am an imperfect, but growing disciple of Jesus Christ, meaning that I don’t love and adore Him as I should, and conversely love and adore myself way too much at times. In spite of that, I’m grateful that through Jesus’ death and resurrection, I have a relationship with God, the assurance of ultimate escape from sin and its consequences, and the promise of heaven. Because of all that my relationship with Jesus means to me, I am anxious to talk about it with others—especially in an area where 90% of the residents don’t know Him. Fortunately, I serve a great Association—58 churches in all as of the last one we planted just a month ago—that allows me to function as a missionary among the people of central Maryland. Over the past 5 ½ years, I have worked with our churches to plant roughly 30 congregations both inside our own area, and in other areas, partnering with other associations to help their work as well. Throughout our state, I have been privileged to work with others to see more than 100 churches started in the past 5 years. We did all of this because we believe Jesus wants the people of central Maryland to know Him, and we are excited about how the Gospel will be advanced through all of these new congregations. You see, I love sharing the hope of Jesus Christ with people who don’t know Him, and I love being a DOM in an association that plants churches, because I can’t think of a better way to get that message out.

Oh, and by the way, I’m also a Calvinist.

If that last line jolted you a bit after reading the first paragraph, then you probably feel exactly the same way I felt after reading a post on the NoBA website last week from a fellow Director of Missions citing the presence of Calvinism in the SBC as one major reason we are failing in our attempts to fulfill the Great Commission. While reading, I was well educated regarding what a few like this gentleman think of men like me. For one, I had no idea that I really believed that God doesn’t really love everybody, and that salvation isn’t offered by God to every person. Moreover, I was a bit rattled to read that people like me couldn’t be trusted—that the entire SBC is in an identity crisis because of folks like me. But, the real surprise came when I read that its folks of my ilk that are responsible for the splitting of churches all over our beloved denomination. I’m sure these folks wonder how on earth a guy like me could have passed NAMB’s missionary appointment process.

That said, if you are one of those suspicious of Calvinistic thinking and think this article is being written to defend Reformed theology, let me set your mind at ease. I’m not inclined toward debating things that have been debated for half a millennium and still have no resolution within the wider body of Christ. I figure if Luther, Calvin, Huss, Edwards, Wesley, Whitefield, and Spurgeon couldn’t all hammer out their differences, this native South Carolina redneck isn’t going to figure it all out either. At the same time, the recent practice by many on both sides of this debate of tossing mischaracterizing salvos toward the other side while claiming they have no interest in fighting seems disingenuous to me. It’s sort of like marching through a trailer park denouncing pickup trucks and green Astroturf while declaring that you didn’t come to pick a fight.

Discussions of this nature could be very healthy for our denomination, if we could develop the maturity to dialogue with each other in a way that was respectful, gave the benefit of the doubt, and did not detract us from fulfilling the Great Commission . . .together! The purpose of this article is to respond to my colleague’s apparent contention that Calvinists and non-Calvinists in the SBC can’t work together, and in fact can’t even trust each other.

After nearly 18 years in ministry, I’ve run into a few Southern Baptists like my colleague who simply assume the worst about anyone identifying themselves as a Calvinist. Over the past 10 years in particular, a lot of vitriol seems to have been expressed over this issue. Most recently, an unnamed group in west Tennessee circulated a series of papers teaching “how to find out if any of your staff are Calvinists and how to get rid of them.” Apparently, the rabid non-Calvinist answer to the “troublemaking” Calvinists is to make more trouble, start a war, and then accuse the other side of firing the first shot. Nice.

And to be fair, the Calvinists have contributed their own share of fecal matter to this mess. Just two weeks ago, I was appalled to see many of my fellow Calvinists across the country using the internet to speak in degrading terms about Rick Warren—some even going so far as to say he didn’t preach the “true Gospel.” After speaking my mind to them regarding their immature and myopic view of the Kingdom of God, some of them turned on me, sending me private emails accusing me of enabling false doctrine, fraternizing with false prophets, and compromising the purity of the Gospel.

What’s weird about all this is that my experiences in Maryland don’t reflect the theological civil war that seems to be inevitably fought over this issue in some other parts of the Convention. Among our 58 churches, we have pastors who would identify as Calvinists and others who would never wear such a label. And, these men have planted churches together! (Oh, the shame of it all indeed!) These men differ greatly on the doctrine of election, and they hold their views with strong conviction. But they aren’t so angry about what they believe that they refuse to cooperate (now, there is a good Baptist word!) with others for the sake of making Jesus known among the lost. This is exactly what Ed Stetzer meant when he said that the SBC must “welcome young, Missional Calvinists.” Though I won’t claim to speak for Stetzer, I’m betting he would be OK with me saying we should welcome any Biblically-sound Christ-follower who is missional, regardless of their soteriology.

Additionally, I would guess that at least ¼ of the church planters we have put in the field in the past five years would—if asked directly—identify themselves as Calvinists. After seeing people saved who would likely not be saved if it weren’t for their new churches, they too would be shocked at how they are portrayed by some in our Convention. Conversely, the less-Reformed planters among us would also be shocked to know that some think they really don’t preach a “pure Gospel,” particularly that same group of Calvinists angry that Rick Warren and John Piper are actually speaking to each other and talking about [gasp] doing ministry together!

So, after all these experiences, here is one man’s take on this issue. The problem in our Convention is not the Calvinists, nor is it the non-Calvinists. The problem in our Convention is that we have entirely too many boneheads! We aren’t reaching North America and the world, to a large extent, because we are giving an inordinate amount of attention to people more committed to proving the other side wrong than they are to proving Jesus right to an unbelieving world. 165 years ago, our Southern Baptist forebears had differences over these same issues, yet still managed to work together to build what today is the greatest missions-sending delivery system in the world! Those saints who helped start our denomination would likely be ashamed of a few of their great-great grandchildren today if they knew how we were letting issues of this nature divide us and get us off mission.

The fight over Calvinism is but one example of a larger problem that we often find we have in the SBC—allowing the fringe on both extremes of an issue to dictate the subject and terms of the argument. Hyper-Calvinists afraid to witness for fear of sharing Christ with someone who is “non-elect,” Hyper-Fundamentalists afraid to sit down with someone that uses a translation other than the KJV, and Hyper-Dispensationalists afraid to fellowship with anyone who doesn’t have the Jack Van Impe program on their pre-set channel list are probably the least qualified among us to decide what are and are not important subjects of conversation.

Here in Maryland, we prefer to allow Jesus and His Great Commission to set our agenda. For the past 5½ years its worked pretty well, and is certainly appreciated by the folks who typically find themselves in the middle of all the arguments; all those good Baptist men and women who hold to varying views on a number of things, but who agree that men and women are fallen in sin, separated from God, hopeless and headed toward an eternity in hell apart from Christ. But we also agree that Jesus came into the world, lived a sinless life and thus became man’s righteousness, died as a substitute bearing the wrath of God in the place of sinners, and rose bodily from the dead. Best of all, we agree that anyone who hears this amazing story, repents of his or her sin and places all of their hope and faith in what Jesus did will have the same relationship with God, deliverance from judgment, and promise of heaven that I have now. To us, those truths far outweigh whatever secondary differences we might have with each other.

Of course, I recognize that many in our Convention would rather fight over this issue. Some have even suggested that the recent GCR movement is a clandestine plot by which Calvinists aim to take over the Convention (if so, someone should probably warn Johnny Hunt and Frank Page, both of whom serve on the GCR Task Force and neither of whom would ever claim to be a Calvinist.) Many have almost certainly categorized me and anyone else who shares my soteriology under “heretic” (I just hope they remembered to put Spurgeon’s name on that list too. Also William Carey. Oh yeah, and the majority of the folks who helped start the International Mission Board in 1845).

Others in the extreme Calvinist camp would also rather divide over how many petals are on one’s TULIP than to unite around the death and resurrection of Jesus. I can’t be responsible for their beliefs on the subject. What I can do is simply talk about Jesus. It’s the whole reason I came to Maryland in the first place. If you would like to join me in that effort, I’d love to have your help. There are lots of people out there who don’t know Him, and neither the Calvinists nor the non-Calvinists in our Convention have the ability to reach them without their brothers in the other camp. We need each other, and the world needs Jesus. That said, it’s time to stop fighting, ignore the boneheads, and do what He left us here to do.

Joel O. Rainey, Ph.D.
Director of Missions/Church Planting Missionary
Mid-Maryland Baptist Association
Eldersburg, MD

Great Commission, YES - GCR, NO

2010-04-15T18:56:00.000-04:00

It is as though an outside consulting firm has been hired to do an efficiency study of the Southern Baptist Convention. In reading the progress report, it is obvious the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force has made a very serious attempt to say something significant, while at the same time ignoring some harsh realities. The Chairman stated at the first listening session “Our commission is to reveal the honest and true status of this denomination.” Can it be that we have some family secrets we do not want everyone to know? We may have wasted thousands of Cooperative Program dollars on the GCRTF and the most tangible suggestion so far is to raise the International Mission Board budget by 1 per cent.

The first two components refer to trust as a part of our cooperative relationships. Trust may be hard to come by in the midst of an identity crisis in the SBC. A Director at Lifeway has said “If our confession is to have any integrity, we need to welcome young missional Calvinists.” I, for one, have a problem trusting someone who does not believe God loves everyone and does not believe Jesus died so that all people would have the opportunity to receive God’s gift of salvation. How can we build trust when an unsuspecting congregation listens to the recommendation of a denominational employee when calling a pastor, only to find out after the church is in turmoil and mission giving is down, that their pastor is a Calvinist? Thirty years ago we learned there does come a breaking point.

An outsider would think it makes sense for NAMB to save $50.6 million by eliminating Cooperative Agreements with state conventions. Of course, they would not understand the source of the $50.6 million and therefore would not equate the reduction of expenditures with the reduction of revenue. There is no simple solution but I suspect the outcome would ultimately be catastrophic in our pioneer mission areas.

The idea of removing the responsibility for Cooperative Program promotion and Stewardship Education from any of our organizations, at any level, seems to be a shallow attempt to make some kind of statement. Could this really be just fodder for a report? We are all in this together; the SBC, State Conventions, Associations and local churches. It is not a major part of any budget, but it is a vital part of every budget.

The statement given by a GCRTF leader in a listening session “A church ought to be judged on the dollars it is giving—rather than the percentage…” strikes at the very heart of Biblical stewardship and is contrary to where most Southern Baptists are. Large numbers impress some people but Jesus told us He is impressed by the large percentage given by the widow. To come up with a new name for non-Cooperative Program giving simply renames a line item already on the Annual Church Profile. Every year our churches report Cooperative Program giving and also Total Missions giving. Will we celebrate it more by calling it Great Commission Giving? Will we give more?

I am excited about the future of the Southern Baptist Convention, but we come again to a crossroads. Our best days are ahead of us as a denomination if we will reclaim our doctrinal integrity and commitment to the true Gospel. God will do a mighty work among us as we live out the Great Commission as Evangelical Christians. Or, we will embrace the doctrines of the Primitive Baptists and others and become just another ecumenical denomination in decline. The path we choose will determine the extent to which our churches will support the Cooperative Program.

Jerry W. Nash, Director of Missions
Harmony Baptist Association
Trenton, Florida

Hoping for a Movement

2010-03-31T21:40:00.000-04:00

Movements are what they are, of that we can be sure. Some are good, some are bad, some are forgettable, but in the long run, movements change things. Key leaders in our convention have spoken about the need to transition from institution to movement. They say that only in the movement will we find the needed power to live out the gospel of Jesus well. Movements are what they are—nothing more, nothing less. They are not manufactured, not real ones anyway, and they have a sustaining power that enables those in the vanguard and the wake to do mighty things. In another day we talked about movements regularly; we called them revivals. A revival in its most basic sense is the movement of God to stir the heart of the believer and those outside of Christ to repentance and gospel renewal. Though we see bright spots of gospel ministry in our convention of churches, overall we are a group in decline. How did we get here? We planned to get here. No? Take a moment and think it through. Nothing in the world or the kingdom of God is static. We are called to live active, missional and engaged for Christ. We planned to get here, and we need to own that. We need to realize that even the lack of a plan is a plan, and the lack of an intention is an intention deeply held demanding that we continue what we do writ large.

We have no movement on our hands here at the present point. I, like so many others, voted heartily for the GCR in Louisville. Like so many others, I cheered Pres. Johnny Hunt as he preached at the convention. I was struck by the sober reality painted by David Platt in the Pastor’s Conference. I was hopeful that a movement was underway. That is not to say that we do not have some good words working through the convention. Much of the rationale for the preliminary report given by Ronnie Floyd to the Executive Committee was great. Consider his call for a renewed emphasis on the local church and a recognition that the church is the true “headquarters” of our denomination. Wow, truly great words spoken by a great pastor and leader. The recommendations? They seem to be primarily concerned with the top level of cooperative life in the SBC. Some have said this is simply because the GCRTF can’t change anything else. We would do well to remember that they do not have the authority to change the SBC; only God can do that through willing hearts of faith. We need a movement of God.

Denominational tinkering makes not a movement. I was one who hoped the strong words of Danny Akin in his axiom sermon would start a movement in the SBC toward gospel-centered, Christ-exalting ministry. I had hopes to see a movement toward participating truly in the Great Commission by living out the Great Commandment. I had hopes that leaders would rise up and point our convention of churches toward Christ, His commands and His commission with great humility and great zeal. I still hold some hope…but it is fading.

Most of the firepower in the preliminary report has been aimed at “releasing” NAMB, as if there was lying dormant some latent power in this agency. Don’t get me wrong—NAMB does many good things, but we have no clear idea who will lead NAMB. There is also much talk that we might not need NAMB and a real lack of clarity about how the proposed changes at NAMB demonstrate that the denominational headquarters of the SBC is in the local church. This is not a movement.

There is little doubt that whatever the GCRTF brings forward will pass in Orlando. Some will take exception with that statement, but I have not met one person who has followed the GCR conversation who actually thinks the recommendations won’t pass. The problem is not whether what is brought forward will pass. It will. The real questions are: 1) How can we implement the recommendations in the current institutional environment of the SBC? and 2) How will these changes specifically lead the churches of the SBC toward the gospel movement that God is already at work supplying to some?

IF this is the best that we can do as a denomination, I will accept it and move forward with my brothers and sisters in Christ, in great hope that God will do mighty things through His people. I do have a pressing question, though. What will the leaders of the GCRTF do to demonstrate that these changes will in fact move us toward a resurgence of the Great Commission, a movement based in the gospel and carried out by transformed people? How, in particular, will the churches, seminaries and organizations represented by the leaders of the GCR model for us the means of a gospel movement through these and future recommendations? I would ask the presidents of two seminaries, “What specifically will be different in your strategic plan as key partners in training pastors and leaders in light of the recommendations?” To the pastors I would ask, “How will the church that God has entrusted to your shepherding care model for the cooperating churches of the SBC a gospel movement specifically by participating in the recommendations?” To the other leaders I would ask, “What will be different for you and the church you attend in light of the vote in Orlando?

I ask the questions for a very simple reason: I want you to be leading voices for gospel-centered churches in the SBC. I have the privilege of working with 20 Southern Baptist churches in my association. If you show me how you can be more gospel-centered, Christ-exalting and missional in light of these recommendations, I will join up and serve alongside you for the glory of God. This is a critical time in our life as a convention of churches GCRTF, please show us your hearts for the gospel and the specific work that we cooperate together to do. Provide clear calls to mission that other churches can join alongside. I still want to believe that the GCR is far more than a call to manage the denomination; I want to believe in the movement that might have been, is not yet, but still can be with God’s help and grace.

Originally published at www.missioscapes.com (Reprinted with permission)

John Elam, DoM
Northwestern Baptist Association
Woodward, OK

What 1 Question Must Be Answered?

2010-03-31T00:30:00.001-04:00

The second Audio Conference with the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force will be held on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 11:30 AM (EST).

WHAT ONE QUESTION do you feel MUST be answered before this team finalizes their report? Your question will be considered for this second Audio Conference in a few weeks.

To hear the first Audio Conference, go to http://NoBAsbc.org.

Submit your question under the comment section of this post. Please be concise.

Offer Practical Ideas for a Real Resurgence

2010-03-18T08:00:00.001-04:00

The Great Commission Resurgence TF may be well intentioned, but I am afraid they have no idea what they are about to do to the majority of SBC churches, local associations and State Conventions. The first red flag should fly when two entities such as NAMB and IMB are looking to cover the same territory. Doing this will change the focus of both entities. The current focus of NAMB is cooperating with State Conventions and State Conventions cooperate with local associations. This is the best possible ministry direction in my opinion because the local associations know the area better than someone in a plush office with a substantial budget at their disposal. Associations are all about getting the most work out of volunteer churches all at the expense of usually one paid associational leader (who is often bi-vocational with partial salary).

What is the solution to our current situation. It is obvious we need to make some changes. I think the disagreement comes when we discuss the changes and where they must occur. I know firsthand the effectiveness of our local association and its cooperation with the State Board of Missions. Funding through NAMB has afforded pastors and church planters in rural areas opportunities that would not be possible without the current structure. The NAMB also makes possible the supplements to Associational budgets through State Board of Missions that will no longer exist under the proposed plans of GCRTF. If this comes to pass Associational leaders in some areas will be forced to go bi-vocational and in some cases resign and go to work. In some rural areas this will be a disaster to Associations that are now thriving because of the leadership of dedicated DOM’s.

If our voice is worth anything to the TF let’s offer practical ideas for a real resurgence and pray they will hear us.

Looking across the SBC landscape I see the people in the trenches. They are first of all DOM’s. TF, please invite DOM’s across the board to participate in discussions. Second, it would seem more appropriate to audit the functions of each entity to address the internal issues to get a better result before changing the entity completely. Most all entities have functioned well at some point in SBC life. Let’s not throw the good out with the bad. The churches that exist in remote areas depend on cooperative efforts.

Brett Clements, Pastor
New Bethel Baptist Church

Director of Discipleship and Family Ministries
Cherokee Baptist Association
Centre, Alabama

What Do You Think?

2010-03-16T17:37:00.000-04:00

After listening to the Audio Conference with the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force (GCRTF)(Click Here to Listen), what do you think of the preliminary GCRTF report now? Were any issues clarified for you? What questions should have been ask as they impact associational ministry?

Click COMMENT and give your opinion

Word from the Lord before Presentation

2010-03-15T14:31:00.000-04:00

As a former pastor in Montana my concern is for the pioneer states.The state conventions are as much as 80% dependent on NAMB for their support. If those who serve on staff are moved to NAMB how will or will an office be maintained? In ‘82 when I left Montana there were 54 churches and missions and I am sure there are not that many more now.There is no way these small churches can support a state convention alone. Some of our larger state conventions have literally millions in reserve while the pioneer areas struggle to keep the lights on. Why were there no leaders from the pioneer areas on the GCRTF? There is no way you can understand the difference between Great Falls, Montana and Springdale, AR, Woodstock, GA.or the DFW metro unless you have been there. Mega churches run 200 in these pioneer areas and they and others like them make the cooperative program.

I don't think it is right or Godly to ask 90% of our churches to up their giving when most are already at 7%-17%.When all the churches that consider themselves "MEGA" up their giving to at least 7% of their undesignated giving, I will beat the drum loudly to encourage the churches in the North Texas Baptist Area to up their %.

If the states had all the money they need that would not be the cure all. They would still need GOD CALLED pastors to come and plant. The last time I checked this was not happening. Is there going to be a calling out of the called to GO for His glory to reached the unreached in these remote areas where a mega church will never be built? Will we put our money where our mouth is? Planting is tough enough without having to work a full time job and we must realize that the number one reason for new start failures is $$$$$$$.

I trust you will have a direct word from the Lord before anything is presented.This is about eternity let's not be in a hurry,let's get it right the best we can for we may not have another opportunity.

Ed Ethridge

Systems: Key to Effective Reorganization of Spiritually Based Organizations

2010-03-15T00:20:00.000-04:00

It seems to me that the GCR report had enough smoke in it that it is extremely hard to see what the lay of the land will look like when the air clears. My guess is that those who have written the report really don't know how it will all settle.

I understand that what we have been doing over the past 25+ years, at all levels of SBC life, from the church up to national entities, is not working. The systems (key word) that we have been using are obviously not working. When an organization is not getting the results it wants from any enterprise, you have to change the system. The previous reorganization from Home Mission Board to NAMB did not change the system--it just put a different face on an old operating system that wasn’t working. I think the system we currently have needs to be changed. Unfortunately many people do not understand systems analysis.

In the GCR document, there is an apparent change of system, although it appears cloudy at best. However, from what I understand from the report, I am not convinced that it is the right system. I have little faith that a group of pastors and denominational leaders (however intelligent and committed the group) can get together to discuss something this complex and come up with the right system---especially without some really significant professional advice (advice about systems management and organizational restructuring leading to increased effectiveness). SBC entities do not operate as a church. These organizations are different animals than the local church. I doubt that pastors of local churches (however large and influential) can effectively make decisions on how our complex SBC entity system ought to operate to get the Lord’s work done.

We all can probably get some general agreement of what kind of end result we want--certainly we ought to understand what God wants. That is clear from scripture. The Lord, however, seldom gives direction on the processes to get the end result. The "how" depends on context, which changes throughout history. The decisions to be made are not just "spiritual". The final system needs to be designed to produce the desired result that the Lord would be pleased with. It appears to me that much of the report is directed toward a reorganization of financial distribution. Proper money allocation is not the end result, but may be a means to the end result that we are all looking for. Relocation of NAMB staff from one location to six or seven locations is not a change of system--it is a simply a movement of offices from one location to another.

It seems to me that the GCR report needs to be a first step among several steps of thinking and action. Whatever the final report, I think it should initiate a comprehensive planning process where entities come together to work out the details before anything is ever put into concrete. I am sure that would not be an easy task. To ask the convention to adopt the document that was released is not a realistic option. When you embrace change, one cannot always see the end result. Decisions that are made along the way in the change process always impact the end result. But, the document released, to my opinion, does not give enough information for the convention to make a responsible decision. I fear that, if this report is something very similar to the final report to the convention, that it will have severe and adverse impacts to the cooperative program and the future of the SBC.

Is there a way for us to encourage this report to be a first step in a process of several teams working, over the next year or two, to give some structure for new systems to be adopted that will allow this huge sleeping giant (SBC) to be awakened to produce effective kingdom results?

Sorry but I must add this: It appears that many are convinced that our main problem is not allocation of resources or movement of people from one area of the country to another. Our main problem is spiritual identification with Christ. It is time we get off our own agenda (deny self) and get onto God's agenda (take up our cross). It seems to me that we have all not died to self.

It may be the best approach to start with a blank piece of paper (in reorganization of the SBC) rather than start with existing SBC structures (which seems that is where the GCR team started their thinking).

Dr. Larry Richmond, Director of Ministries
Gateway Baptist Association
Granite City, Illinois

My Reactions to the Great Commission Resurgence Report

2010-03-13T22:43:00.002-05:00

Most people in Southern Baptist life would like to see us become more effective in evangelism. Most are not so selfish or such turf guarders that if you showed them how lost people could really be brought to the Lord - in our communities, in our nation, in the world - that we wouldn't grit our teeth and step up to the plate to get it done. Sometimes, we get a little lazy, sometimes we mistakenly use the wrong approaches, and sometimes, we just don't know what to do. But most of us want to populate heaven and depopulate hell. Just tell us how. Here are my reactions to what we have so far and a few thoughts about what we ought to deal with that hasn't yet been addressed.

CLICK HERE to read complete article on:

The R in GCR stands for Resurgence, not Reorganization.
Task Force Chooses Not to Recommend Merging Mission Boards
Even Though We Do Not Need to Merge the Mission Boards, We Could Learn to Do a Better Job of Co-Laboring
Cooperative Agreements
NAMB should be asked to more fully fund the church planters they appoint.
There should be a major effort to plant African-American Southern Baptist churches everywhere in the USA. Same people groups; different location.

Some More Ideas to Consider

Provide More Quality Evangelistic Resources Made for the Full Range of the Diverse People We are Trying to Reach
Something We Need to Do: Establish Some Standards or Benchmarks
Establish a Standard for a Great Commission Association
Establish a Standard for Great Commission Colleges and Universities
The GCR task force should recommend we change the name from Southern Baptist Convention to something more universal.

Derek Gentle, Pastor
Tallassee Baptist Church
Tallassee, AL

2008 Moderator and current Pastor's Conference President
Elmore Baptist Association, AL

Cooperative Program Promotion, Stewardship Education and the SBC

2010-03-12T23:42:00.000-05:00

On February 22, 2010, the Great Commission Task Force issued a “Progress Report” on ways it hopes to assist Southern Baptists to “work more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.” The 32-page report contains a brief sermon outline, eight core values, and six principal “components.” This brief essay will evaluate its Component #4 in light of the 85-year history of promotion of the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Component #4 of the Progress Report states,

We believe in order for us to work together more faithfully and effectively towards the fulfillment of the Great Commission, we will ask Southern Baptists to move the ministry assignments of Cooperative Program promotion and stewardship education from the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention and return them to being the work of each state convention since they are located closer to our churches. Our call is for the state conventions to reassume their primary role in the promotion of the Cooperative Program and stewardship education, while asking the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention to support these efforts with enthusiasm and a convention-wide perspective. (pp. 24-25, emphasis supplied)

In the paragraph following this challenge, the report states,

While the Executive Committee has held the Cooperative Program assignment since 1997, and later received the Stewardship Education assignment, history shows us that we have struggled with where to place both of these assignments in order to serve our churches most effectively. (p. 25, emphasis supplied)

Three phrases in this report are potentially misleading. One could infer that (read complete article HERE)

An Alternative GCR Plan?

2010-03-12T22:37:00.000-05:00

I would be very interested in reading thoughts from the Directors of Missions, especially those in the newer convention areas, about an alternative GCR (Great Commission Resurgence) plan.

Whether it influenced the Task Force or not, it would generate new ideas that would end up being used somewhere somehow.

I have the same concerns as the guys I’ve been reading on the NoBA site. We don’t need restructuring for its own sake.

I think we all agree that we need a resurgence in evangelism (with new approaches to evangelizing effectively in our generation – and for resourcing our churches) and we would all love to see more missions dollars getting to foreign countries. We all want to see the gospel spread and more churches planted in the “pioneer areas” (what’s the new term for that?). I’ve given some thoughts from my Bible belt perspective, but I would really love to hear what you guys would suggest.

I would like to see an alternate plan, offered not in a spirit of divisiveness, of course, but constructively. And if there were one, I think it would influence the thinking of the convention.

Derek Gentle, Pastor
Tallassee Baptist Church
Tallassee, AL

2008 Moderator and current Pastor's Conference President
Elmore Baptist Association, AL

Critique of Great Commission Resurgence Task Force Report

2010-03-11T16:26:00.000-05:00

The initial report to the Executive Committee of the SBC from the “Great Commission Task Force seems exceedingly verbose and dangerously pernicious to our Baptist community’, since those, who ignore history, are bound to repeat its mistakes. In its present form the report may guarantee the failure of NAMB rather than improve it.

The Task Force spent such brief time in study it appears that the report is based on preconceived opinions. While its assignment covers the entire SBC organization, the neglect of LifeWay, the Seminaries and the other Commissions in the report is alarming. And expanding the IMB’s scope to include the United States will produce institutional conflict with NAMB, a part of the guaranteed failure, for SBC agencies have been known to engage in “turf war” in the past.”

If, as the Chairman says, our 50,000 Southern Baptist churches are missional, then why create missionary regions in the U. S. A.? Will that not undercut or conflict with state conventions? Would not the direct appointment of home missionaries also conflict with the state conventions as well as local churches? And is this not contrary to his declaration that Baptist headquarters are in the local churches?

And what about our 1,200 associations? There are 900 Associational Directors of Missions who perceive themselves as part of the Southern Baptist Mission program. (You can thank the Home Mission Board for that perception!) The Task Force seems ignorant of “turf wars” that arise between established churches and new missions.

Why does the Chairman demand that the NAMB be accountable to their trustees? Does he not realize that the trustees are the NAMB? The staff has always been accountable to the trustees who report annually to the SBC. What motivates this attack on the NAMB? He attacks the cooperative agreements between the NAMB and the state conventions as concentrating funds in the states. He does not seem to recognize that the multiple demands of local churches and other state institutions do not encourage state missions. The cooperative agreements allow HMB to increase state participation in missions, not just in Sunday school growth and summer camps.

When the Chairman calls for NAMB to be “reinvented and released” he simply echoes similar calls made in the 1950s and 1960s. HMB has does splendid work in responding to those calls. There is now a Department of Metropolitan Missions that focuses on the cities and has been for the past 50 years! Who has this Task Force been talking to? When the NAMB trustees elected a mega church pastor as President in 1980 (?), he curtailed the significant partnership between NAMB and Baptist Associations. When programming shifted from Associations to “flagship churches” church growth and baptisms stemming from NAMB leadership dramatically declined.“ Eloquent preaching may mask more mega-church prejudice.

Perhaps the problems that the Task Force recognizes may not begin with the agencies but with their source. When the Pressler-Patterson fundamentalist revolt began, they recognized that the SBC President appointed the Committee on Committee which in turn appointed the Committee on Boards. To achieve their ambition, criteria for membership shifted from competence in performance to loyalty to a doctrine. For the past 20 years there have been examples after examples of persons being placed on significant boards without qualification for service except allegiance to a theoretical position. If the Task Force wants to improve the agencies of the SBC perhaps they should investigate the fountain head, namely the appointment process.

It is obvious that this is not a comprehensive analysis of the report, only an initial investigation. For example, the fundamentalist controversy has so disillusioned many Southern Baptists that attendance to the annual meetings has dropped significantly. Perhaps the Task Force should investigate the cause for this loss of concern.

F. Russell Bennett, Long Run Baptist Association
Executive Director Emeritus
Louisville, KY

Portraying the problem in pious puffery proliferates pernicious practices. A pretense of prophetic preaching prevents public perception of primary perplexities. Pardon this put-on! The italicized sentence says in essence that an exposition of Joel is no excuse for ignorance
"The Task Force seems not to recognize that “all have sinned,” which includes denominational leaders, mega-church pastors and “yours truly, retired”.
The above reference to the rise of the controversy and its consequence on the ministry of the SBC has been thoroughly demonstrated by Dr. Mike Stewart, an Associational Director of Missions from California, in his address entitled, “A Brave New World: Facing the Realities of the SBC” presented on January 8, 2006, to a national assembly of Associational Directors of Missions meeting at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Something I do not see anyone else thinking about!

2010-03-11T16:15:00.000-05:00

I did a study of the history of the Missouri Baptist Convention and the Texas Baptist Convention (BGCT) to help me understand where we were in relationship to those two older State Conventions. I think they are both at about 150 years of existence.

The states the SBC entered after World War II are "celebrating" about 50 years right now! The MWBC had its first Church started in 1956. At 50 years into the work in Missouri and Texas they were about where our Pioneer states are now. Pioneer states are mostly weak, mostly still southern transplant in both the Pastoral Leadership (Denominational also) and in Church Membership. Both Texas and Missouri grew rapidly between their 50th and 100th years. I wanted to know what happened and how we here in BLBA could duplicate the results they experienced after their first 50 years.

Here is what I saw happen:

#1. They became more indigenous in Leadership and Membership. It takes time for the people who grow up in the state to take over leadership. Transplants tend to be better educated and better connected so the locals almost must run a coupe to become the Leaders who take the responsibility of winning their state to Christ. No one needs to convince the indigenous people to win their family and friends to Christ. They also stay after retirement which gives even greater stability to a state. Just a side note...I have NO retired Pastors in my association. We were, in 1993, 100% transplant Pastor's and about 85% transplant members. Today we are about 40% Indigenous Pastor's and about 75% indigenous Membership.

#2. They began schools to train the men who were answering the call to Preach. Texas started Baylor and Missouri started Wm. Jewel. We are working with Midwestern and Southern to provide Centers here to train-up the indigenous men who are answering the Call of God. The sacrifice of those who do the teaching is along the line of giving of themselves for the furtherment of the Gospel than any hope of a good second income. Again, with no retired Pastor's the weight of this is placed on Mission minded Pastor's and DOM's.

#3. It seems that when the decision making process was placed into the hands of the indigenous that the growth took off like wild-fire. They had to become ready and they had to be given the freedom of "Calling out their own". Today, I would imagine both Texas and Missouri have somewhere around 80-90% of their Pastor's and Leaders who are indigenous. I'm guessing that Pioneer Missions areas where this has not been studied have a higher % of Transplanted Leadership than does BLBA. Also, In my studies of Spiritual Awakenings; those denominations who centralized their decision making processes lost during the Awakenings. Those denominations who kept the decisions close to the field, where the "action is", gained significantly during the Awakenings. The Methodist centralized their "Governance" in the 1850. That is when they began their decline that continues even today.

Do you remember Lewis Drummond's little HMB book, "God's Divine Work", (he shared this at the SBC in Kansas City back in the early 1980's) Chapter 6, "The Revival at Ebenezer"? I believe we are at that point in History, where 1 Samuel 3:1 "Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord before Eli. And word from the Lord was rare in those days, visions [Lit no vision spread abroad] were infrequent."

"Much preaching, but no real word of the Lord. Many ideas and schemes and plans and programs, but no frequent vision." says Dr. Lewis Drummond on page 44.

The people of God became so desperate that they said; "Let us fetch the ark of the covenant...". Desperate people do desperate things to attempt to recapture what they once had and have of evidence lost. There desperate act brought on more destruction than any restitution. They made an Idol of God's ark, the ark that represented God's presence, His Shekinah Glory. After everything fell apart Eli's daughter-in-law had a baby that she named "Ichabod", meaning "the glory has departed". Israel had arrived at Ichabod and God moved His repentant, prayerful, sacrificing people from there to "Ebenezer", meaning "the land was healed".

Dr. Dennis Hansen, DOM
Bay Lakes Baptist Association
Appleton, WI

Time to Reflect on What Might Be: GCRTF Response

2010-03-10T23:20:00.001-05:00

I have to say up front that as a fairly new DoM I probably ought to sit on the sidelines and simply embrace the wisdom of others with more experience in denominational life. Yet as I read the GCRTF report and then the comments on this site I am struck by the lack of attention to what this new arrangement in the Baptist mission landscape might accomplish if properly implemented. With that in mind I would like to offer two defenses and two suggestions on how we as DoMs might positively impact the future.

First, the dismantling of State cooperative agreements seems to me to be a necessary decluttering of the way we work in Baptist life. Right now NAMB’s sense of local needs is filtered through State Convention staff who are often themselves too distant from local contexts to respond appropriately on the field. Having NAMB work directly with field missionaries living and working in their areas of operation will force NAMB to at least see that the needs of mission personnel living and working in San Francisco are different from the needs of mission personnel living and working Miami. The current system shields NAMB from this reality through complex supervision and pay schemes that allows them to ignore what in the military we called “the reality on the ground.” Having senior level NAMB officials deal with daily supervisory questions and issues has the potential of creating awareness of local needs and a culture that may more readily affirm the need for local strategies.

Secondly, I find it ironic that an organization tasked by Southern Baptists to reach North America with the Gospel would need to be given permission by the GCRTF to do just that. The recommendations affirming NAMB leadership in reaching North America with the Gospel only illustrate how saddled with denominational politics NAMB is. In the same way that DoMs in local associations are charged with keeping an eye on the big picture within their associational areas (we work where our churches are not) NAMB has a responsibility to do that nationally. It is wrong of the convention to expect its mission boards to work for the Gospel of Christ and then place territorial limitations on where and how they work. The GCRTF recommendations seem to aim at allowing NAMB to actually do the job the convention has called it to do.

Now for the two suggestions. First, I believe we really need to embrace the Spirit of the recommendations and as associational leaders begin to envision the possibilities that direct communication with NAMB offers to local mission fields. Let’s begin now to champion localized mission strategies and be prepared as NAMB transitions to provide viable plans that our mission boards can implement at the local level. We need to do more than spout rhetoric about NAMBs inability to understand us and our needs. We need to fully engage as dialogue partners and come to the table over the next four years with actual plans and justifications for those plans.

Second, those of us in New Convention areas and hard to reach Metropolitan areas need to stop acting like “poor step cousins” and take control of God’s plan for us where we are. It isn’t up to NAMB to reach San Francisco for Christ, although they are welcome partners, that is the responsibility of the local body of Christ in San Francisco. If there is little talk of the association in the report I suspect it is because for too long the association has simply been the errand boy of other denominational entities. A reenvisioned SBC may well shift funds and personnel away from associational work but it may also free us from dependence on those outside our local areas and cause us to take ownership of our own calling and responsibility. It is too easy to simply become consumed by the uncertainties. Perhaps this is God’s way of getting us out of our comfort zones and putting the local community of Christ back to work reaching their neighbors with the Gospel.

I do apologize if these statements seem naive and I am the first to recognize I have a lot to learn about this new role God has placed me in. What I am convinced of is that at the end of the day if I looked around and there was no North American Mission Board or SBC my calling and my work would not have changed. I would still be busy about the work of my Father; reaching those in San Francisco who do not know the love of Jesus Christ.

Joe Caldwell, Executive Director of Missions
San Francisco Peninsula Baptist Association

Excited About the Evaluation

2010-03-09T23:40:00.000-05:00

I am excited about the evaluation, review, and proposed changes to the SBC from the GCR. It is refreshing to know that our purpose for cooperation, namely the Great Commission, is causing us to take an honest evaluation of where we are and how we can improve our networks for a greater global impact. The future seems to be brighter and worthy of more involvement. I am hopeful this review will continue to display our motives and heart as Southern Baptists. Moreover, I am hopeful that Southern Baptist will continue to return the emphasis to the local church. Although the review and proposals will not be welcomed by all, the work is worth the sweat and pain. There is too much at stake and many that can be reached by a refreshed vision in our denomination. To that end, may we all labor and pray and vote. I am looking forward to a celebration at the annual convention in June.

One hope is that as the GCR evaluates giving plans and agency productivity, they will also remember the majority of SB churches that are small and currently exist in areas that need greater support in reaching their communities.

May God bless our work together.

Pastor Jamie Woodyard
Kingston Ave Baptist Church
Anderson, IN

More Reflections on the GCR Task Force’s Preliminary Recommendations

2010-03-09T23:31:00.001-05:00

Distribution of and Accountability for Cooperative Agreement Funds

The Task Force Report contains a glaring statistical error based on inaccurate information that was given to them by NAMB. An article explaining this mistake can be found at: http://www.namb.net/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=9qKILUOzEpH&b=227361&ct=8062375. It includes this description of the nature of the error:

Page 19 of the Progress Report depicts how Southern Baptist resources are distributed throughout the United States. That data indicates that at the end of 2008 there were 3,515 missionaries serving in the 14 states most often considered to be the area where Southern Baptists are the strongest and only 1,735 missionaries serving in the remaining states across the US. In the GCRTF report the 14 states are depicted in blue and the others in red.
In actuality, within the US there were 2,573 missionaries serving in the 14 blue states in 2008 and 2,733 serving in the remaining red states. This indicates a disbursement of 48 percent of NAMB missionaries serving in blue states and 52 percent serving red states. Another 133 NAMB missionaries serve in Canada. If Canada is included in the overall numbers, 2,866 of NAMB’s missionaries serve outside the blue states, making the percentage 53 percent in North America serving outside the 14 blue states.

The NAMB article adds this important note:

In addition to money from Cooperative Agreements, NAMB sends money to state conventions through missionary benefits and national ministry funds. When these items are added, more than three-fourths (77 percent) of the $62 million NAMB distributed throughout the US and Canada in 2009 went to areas where Southern Baptist church presence is the least. These are the 36 states depicted in red on page 19 of the GCRTF’s Progress Report, plus Canada. Less than a quarter (23 percent) of NAMB’s spending occurred in states where Southern Baptists are strongest. These are the 14 states depicted in blue in the Progress Report.

The corrected figures indicate that instead of the so-called new convention areas receiving only one-third of NAMB’s Cooperative Agreement subsidies, they actually received just over half of these funds plus addition financial assistance totaling over three-fourths of all NAMB funds distributed across North America. While even this allocation may be open to criticism, it is far from the shockingly lopsided picture presented in the Task Force Report. Since the error was NAMB’s, so long as the statistics are corrected in the final report the Task Force members should not be faulted for this mistake. However this reaction from Ronnie Floyd quoted in Baptist Press (3-9-10) seems to ignore the math:

Ronnie Floyd, GCRTF chairman and pastor of First Baptist Church in Springdale Ark., said the change in missionary numbers did not alter the major concern of the task force.

"[W]e spend 2/3 of the Cooperative Program dollars on 1/3 of the population and conversely spend only 1/3 of the Cooperative Program dollars on 2/3 of the population in the United States," Floyd said.

What is much harder to justify is the criticism that the Task Force Report levels against the current level of accountability by the state conventions to NAMB for Cooperative Agreement funds. On page 20 of the report it states that the Cooperative Agreements “have become complex and at times cumbersome, resulting in a lack of accountability.” This reflects an almost willful ignorance of reality. The current system includes the following accountability structure:

A Cooperative State Mission Plan is developed by the state convention partner and approved by NAMB’s strategy coordinator in conjunction with the input of NAMB’s cross functional team representing the different NAMB teams. This Strategic Mission Plan is an agreement of strategy and funding. It includes goals, action plans, and accountability for progress.

The Cooperative Budget is a fifteen page document that notes to the cent where NAMB money MUST be spent and the matching dollars required by the state convention partner. There are no nebulous monies available for discretionary spending by the state convention partner. All dollars are assigned to individual personnel or shared projects.

The State Convention partner pays for an annual audit that reconciles not only their financial affairs but the authenticity of how NAMB dollars are spent.

The State Convention partner provides an annual performance review of all jointly funded missionaries.

In light of such rigid rules for accountability I can only read with incredulity the following statement by Task Force member Al Mohler:

In the year 2009, about $50-million dollars was routed through these Cooperative Agreements. Many of these dollars were spent on the salaries of workers in the state conventions and associations. The monies are allocated and channeled in ways that are difficult to trace, much less to prioritize. (http://www.pray4gcr.com/2010/03/cooperative-missions-and-the-great-commission-resurgence/)

Anyone who has sweated through the tedious process of annually renegotiating Cooperative Agreement funding between NAMB and a state convention partner will readily agree that it is a complex and tedious business. A Presbyterian friend of mine, upon having the system explained to him commented, “I can see why most SBC people and pastors don't understand the state convention funding process. It seems to have been borrowed from somewhere in the Ottoman Empire.” Many of us would applaud any efforts to simplify and streamline that process. But if accountability contributes to the clumsiness of the current system, then one can persuasively argue that we suffer from too much, not too little.

Glen A. Land, Former State Missions Director

Minnesota/Wisconson Baptist Convention

GCR: Same Rhetoric

2010-03-07T18:32:00.003-05:00

“I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger; then it hit me!”
The GCR report has the same rhetoric as the 1996-1997 reorganization report I remember. It is filled with admonitions for the things Bible-believing Baptists cannot argue; it is sprinkled with insinuations that if the institution were fixed, all would be right. The original intent of the GCR was to put us back on target for evangelism and baptisms. The GCR interim report started where it might have ended – Joel 2:12-17. Had the report stopped with calling the SBC to repentance, might not all the “functional fixes” become a response to a renewed heart in Southern Baptists? Where are the tools apart from reorganizations? Ted Knapp of California suggested the AIM missionaries watch Andy Stanley’s message on Systems; I suggest everyone get Andy Stanley’s DVD from http://www.catalystspace.com/store/products/Systems-DVD-Set,-Andy-Stanley.html. It applies to this context!

Bob Ryan, DMin
Mile High Baptist Team Leader
Arvada, CO

My Biggest Concerns

2010-03-05T13:19:00.004-05:00

Since the word is getting out more and more about the GCRTF Report, I wanted to comment on two topics. I took the summary from a web page and thought I would add a comment if that is OK.

Before I proceed let me say that I will be the very first one to acknowledge the need for change. I felt that way as a pastor and now as a missionary. But I do not believe in a trickle down approach to evangelism and discipleship strategy. I believe that humble men and women of God crying out to the Father for mercy, forgiveness, power and wisdom is needed. From our individual lives and our local churches as God moves will come a wave of change. Then God's leading of change not only be evident but unavoidable.

Component #2: We believe in order for us to work together more faithfully and effectively towards the fulfillment of the Great Commission that our North American Mission Board needs to be reinvented and released. Therefore, in order to do this, we will ask Southern Baptists that the North American Mission Board prioritize efforts to plant churches in North America and to reach our nation’s cities and clarify its role to lead and accomplish efforts to reach North America with the Gospel.

The full report talks about dividing the US and Canada into region and that missionaries will be under direct supervision of NAMB. That would mean if a missionary was assigned here, there would not be a RAT Team or State Convention accountability. It is a significant move away from local autonomy that we have held for many years. Second, the cities, and the clear emphasis was "big" cities like LA, New York, Houston, Chicago, would be targeted and missionaries reassigned to those areas. There is a flaw or forgetfulness in their thinking. As someone who has lived and ministered in California for 32 years I am fully aware of NAMB "Mega-Focus Cities" strategies. These target cities have received great amounts of personnel and funding help from NAMB, but to even begin to think that transformation has taken place at the end of the project is not true. It is like the old saying, "if you keep on doing the same thing, you will keep on getting the same results." I do not feel that sending money and personnel alone is going to reach our cities, only Revival and a touch of the Holy Spirit will accomplish this. Just a side note: Santa Fe may qualify as a state capital as a target city, maybe, but no other city in SFBA or NEBA would be considered large enough for the proposed shift to warrant mission resources.

Some have suggested that the DOM opposition to the report is protecting their own turf. I cannot say that that is not part of our thinking. It would be naive of me to think otherwise. But of the DoM's I meet through NoBA (Network of Baptist Associations) and APPLE conferences, the heart of their ministry is to love pastors and churches and seek to be a catalyst to impact the lostness of their communities and to see fully devoted and reproducing disciples and disciple-making churches flourish. In Santa Fe we are developing a Church Planters Network. We have identified 10 people Groups or geographical areas in Santa Fe County alone that new work needs to be started. This comes from local pastors who know their community, not from NAMB.

Component #5: We believe in order for us to work together more faithfully and effectively towards the fulfillment of the Great Commission, we will ask Southern Baptists to reaffirm the Cooperative Program as our central means of supporting Great Commission ministries; but in addition, we will ask Southern Baptists to celebrate with our churches in their Great Commission Giving that goes directly through the Cooperative Program, as well as any designated gifts given to the causes of the Southern Baptist Convention, a state convention or a local association.

This the biggest concern for me personally. The fact is that the churches represented by the members of the GCRTF average less than 3% CP giving. Traditionally, CP was the baseline for mission giving and designated giving, either to Lottie, Annie, Disaster Relief, etc. or even local missions was over and above that amount. I may have overstated my 1925 comment, but I do not feel I am overstating that the members of the GCRTF are more committed to designated missions giving than CP and they have by this statement demonstrated a shift that at least in some ways reflects the mission giving realities in a pre-1925 SBC.

The full report advocates that more of the CP monies given through the states be forwarded to the Executive Board of the SBC while at the same time there will be a four year phase out of the Cooperative Agreements where some of the CP dollars are returned back to the states. This will in reality only further cut CP dollars being forwarded as the states adjust to financially support what they feel they need to do locally. This simple not a well thought out strategy. (If this were politics I would think that the GCRTF members were Democrats... sorry that was maybe too unfair!)

What the author of the blog did not mention was the introduction to the report that called for the SBC churches and members to repentance and Revival. That is what we need! Beginning with me and all 50+ thousand churches. I feel as one person said, "without Revival, it is like moving the chairs on the Titanic."

Your Fellow Servant,

M. Keith Williams, Regional Associational Missionary
Northeastern & Santa Fe Baptist Associations

New Mexico

Questions 4 GCRTF Audio Conference

2010-03-04T18:39:00.005-05:00

What question(s) would you like to ask the GCRTF (Great Commission Resurgence Task Force) and WHY?

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS by clicking on COMMENTS below.

This Audio Conference will held on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 11:30 AM (Eastern) in partnership with the Network of Baptist Associations and the Audio Conference for Pastors.

To register for the conference, go to http://NoBAsbc.org/AC.

Think Tanks Don't Always Arrive at the Best Solutions

2010-03-03T20:26:00.002-05:00

There has been a lot of talk about the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force since that Southern Baptist group released their initial report. I have read reports/links from the Network of Baptist Associations site that many of my colleagues have written. Let me add my own comments.

First, much of the report brings a focus that we need to engage. We are losing the battle in impacting lostness in North America. CLICK HERE to read complete article.

Ken May, Director of Missions
Montgomery Baptist Association
Alabama

GCRTF Misses Best Kept Secret in SBC Life

2010-03-03T17:01:00.003-05:00

I have read, with interest, the Great Commission Resurgence report and find some things that are encouraging and one thing very troubling.

For several years I have felt that we need to release more CP money from the South and get it to pioneer and metro areas of North America. So, on this point I am in agreement philosophically with the GCR report. Having said that, I know that means, we in the south, will need to be willing to give up some things that we have now on the state and possibly association level. That will be difficult to do, but it might make us “leaner and meaner”, or more effective locally and I am sure it will make a difference in our ability to reach the 2/3rds of the North American population that we have little impact on now.

I also agree with the recommendation that the IMB be allowed to pursue un-reached people groups in North America. That makes sense to me since they have the expertise in reaching those groups already, however, I would hope this would be done in cooperation with the local association.

I am ambivalent about turning the CP promotion over to the states, but I am excited about giving 51% to the IMB! I think it is high time we placed more focus on the 4.5 billion people who have little or no access to the Gospel!

Having said all of that, I want to focus on my biggest concern on the seemingly “cluelessness” of the GCR report concerning the most strategic Great Commission partner in North America, the local association! The report addresses the need to train pastors to become “Missional Strategists” and completely overlooks the fact that we have 1,200 local associations already in place that are, for the most part, serving in that capacity! The GCR recommendation for changing, or “releasing”, NAMB to do the work of church planting in North America seems to assume that the local association is a silent, perhaps passive, partner in the Great Commission. Healthy associations are all about the Great Commission! We are the best kept secret in SBC life! If NAMB organizes itself around the local mission priorities of associations and enlisted them in a “ground up” mission strategy for reaching all of North America it would turn our mission work into a mission movement! However, as long as the SBC leadership and NAMB in particular continue to ignore this valuable partner we will continue to have an anemic mission force in North America. The potential of 1,200 local associations of Baptist Churches strategically coordinated to work together in church multiplication is a powerful vision but the implementation of this strategy needs to be coordinated through the associations! The Network of Baptist Associations (NoBA) could fill that role easily in connection with NAMB and I believe that most “Southern Associations” would get excited about being given the assignment to work together to reach the rest of North America!

Mike O’Dell, Director of Missions
York Baptist Association
Rock Hill, SC

They Simply say "Trust Me"

2010-03-02T20:03:00.002-05:00

As I watch the news from Washington, DC, I am amazed at the little details they will not tell you. "Trust me" is catch phrase they use. We have and look where we are today. The problem that I have is with the people who have not given much detail but simply say "trust me."

I totally disagree with the proposed dismantling of NAMB. We still need NAMB and the IMB to be separate. They have totally different functions. Look at what happened when the great reorganization happened a few years ago. NAMB has gone down ever since.

Also, from the BP article I read the SBC churches were castigated for not giving to the CP. Yet, I have not seen stats that showed the giving percentages for the churches who are represented on the committee. Most of the churches represented are very large and basically do their own thing when it comes to missions, while their CP giving suffers. This has become a concern to many of us in the last few years when it came to electing SBC presidents. I am also concerned about what they are suggesting we do with CP gifts. If we continue to dissect the CP and redirecting finances, then other areas will suffer.

Tweaking is one thing and it is fine, but completely overhauling the system seems a little bit suspicious to me.

Al Hood, Director of Associational Missions
Winston Baptist Association
AL

Probable Impact of the GCR Task Force’s Recommendations

2010-03-02T16:38:00.003-05:00

FULL TITLE: The Probable Impact of the GCR Task Force’s Recommendations on SBC Mission Work in the New Convention Regions of North America

The Current Structure of SBC Domestic Mission Funding
Most Southern Baptists are completely clueless about how their denomination has supported its domestic mission efforts in the decades since World War II. This ignorance is not limited to the average layperson in the pew but is shared by most pastors as well. Even Southern Baptists who belong to our churches in such remote denominational outposts as Minnesota and Wisconsin are usually uninformed on this subject. This reflects a widespread failure on the part of Southern Baptist leaders at the national, state, association and local church levels to do meaningful missions and stewardship education and has, I believe, directly contributed to the looming crisis that the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force’s preliminary report has triggered.

For most of the decades since the great movement of Southern Baptists to the cities of the northeast, upper Midwest and west coast during and after World War II, support of mission work in these regions has been based on a complex collection of cooperative agreements between the Home Mission Board / North American Mission Board and the many state conventions that serve those regions. These agreements have many similarities but each is unique. They are the formal contracts that determine how SBC mission dollars are spent in the respective state conventions. They are negotiated between members of the NAMB staff and the state executive directors and are periodically reviewed, revised, and renewed.

As the name implies these cooperative agreements reflect the essential cooperative nature that is at the heart of SBC domestic missions philosophy. This is shaped by a theology and tradition that values the autonomy of Southern Baptist life at all levels—the national convention and its agencies; each state convention; each local association; and each individual local church. But in addition to this philosophical / theological underpinning is the pragmatic realization that people closest to the field are in the best position to determine mission strategy and tactics. A DOM living and working in the Northwoods of Minnesota is in a far stronger position to develop a sound strategy for reaching the Swedes, Norwegians, Finns and Ojibwa who are his neighbors than is someone sitting in an office 1,000 miles away in Alpharetta.

While virtually all Southern Baptist missionaries abroad work directly for the International Mission Board, only a small handful of the thousands of NAMB supported missionaries in the United States and Canada are exclusively employed by NAMB. Rather, the vast majority are jointly commissioned and jointly funded by NAMB and the particular state convention in which they work. How they are supported is determined by that state’s cooperative agreement. The central component of these agreements is the matching funds formula that is established in each. In the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention (MWBC), for example, all personnel receiving NAMB support work under the auspices of an 80/20 cooperative agreement formula. For every $80 that NAMB puts into the salary package of a missionary serving in Minnesota or Wisconsin, MWBC must match it with $20. The personnel supported by this “80/20 money” fall into two categories. Those who work as members of the state convention staff are in what are termed “approved positions.” Those working as Associational DOMS or in other field positions are in “appointed positions.” The qualifications are basically the same. The only significant difference is the leeway given to state executive directors in the selection process of their own staff, a process which does not require a formal missionary appointment and commissioning at NAMB.

The cooperative agreement funding formulas vary widely from state to state. Where MWBC lives with an 80/20 matching funds percentage another state might have 75/25 or 85/15 or 90/10 or 70/30, etc. The older and better established conventions have formulas that reflect their ability to fund a larger percentage of the total. The newest and weakest conventions put in a significantly smaller percentage of the whole. But given the small number and size of churches in the new conventions, it can be an enormous challenge for these conventions to come up with even a modest matching amount. It is not uncommon for newer conventions to be unable to access all of the money offered by NAMB in a given year due to their inability to match those funds.

A totally unrelated formula is used by each state convention to determine what percentage of the Cooperative Program dollars received from their churches stays within the state and what percentage is sent on to Nashville for distribution to all SBC causes. This formula is set solely at the discretion of each state’s executive board. Again, new conventions tend to keep a much higher percentage of what is received. This is the money that is desperately needed to make up those critical matching funds with NAMB. In the weaker conventions a far greater sum comes into the state from NAMB than the amount the state is able to send on to Nashville. One might question why the new conventions send ANY money to Nashville. The reason is missions education. It is important that all Southern Baptists, whether they attend First Baptist Church of Dallas or a tiny house church meeting on some ranch in the Sand Hills of Nebraska, feel that they have ownership the greatest missionary organization in Christian history.

How the Task Force Recommendations Would Affect Domestic Missions
Pages 20-22 of the Task Force’s preliminary report contain the critical recommendations affecting how Southern Baptists would approach domestic missions. The key provisions and assumptions include:

• NAMB must lead the strategy. (20)
• Cooperative agreements are cumbersome and foster a lack of accountability. (20)
• NAMB needs to be freed from these cooperative agreements so that they will have the necessary budget to implement a national strategy. (21)
• All existing cooperative agreements will be null and void within four years. (22)
• All future funding is to be project-driven. These projects must be driven by NAMB’s strategy and fulfill NAMB’s priorities. (22)
• NAMB is to require direct accountability for what they fund. (22)

Let me address these items point by point:

• NAMB must lead the strategy. – This reinforces the philosophy of a top-down approach to strategy planning, and implies that the past failure of this approach was because it was not done rigorously enough. I would argue the opposite is closer to the truth. It has been when NAMB/HMB has attempted to impose a national strategy on local mission leaders that we have seen our worst failures in evangelism and church planting. This has been most notable in our repeat failed attempts to penetrate the great urban centers of the Northeast, Upper Midwest and the West Coast. HMB’s Mega Focus Cities program, followed by NAMB’s Strategic Focus Cities program both largely failed to achieve their goals while costing Southern Baptists millions of dollars. SFC in particular seemed to reflect an assumption that NAMB personnel in Georgia better understood what was needed to reach places like Chicago, Seattle, Boston, and New York City than career missionaries living and working on the field. This may help explain why nearly every metropolitan association lost its DOM within five years of its designation as an SFC city.

• Cooperative agreements are cumbersome and foster a lack of accountability. – This reflects the widespread lack of understanding among Southern Baptists about cooperative agreements discussed previously. There are certainly problems with the way these agreements are currently structured. But in my experience lack of accountability has never been a serious or primary issue.

• NAMB needs to be freed from these cooperative agreements so that they will have the necessary budget to implement a national strategy. – This is all about money. NAMB, if they are to take over complete command of SBC mission efforts in North America will need the money that is currently supporting pioneer state conventions and associations

• All existing cooperative agreements will be null and void within four years. – Since cooperative agreements are the only legal basis under which NAMB sends money to state conventions, this spells the end of all NAMB support for any personnel that are not directly and solely employed by NAMB. The report goes on to state, “It is understood that state conventions will manage their budgets accordingly.” (22) Using the current formulas for dividing CP money between state and national conventions, the only way that conventions like MWBC will be able to "manage their budgets accordingly" without NAMB subsidy will be to fire 80% of their missionaries. Even if these state conventions were to take the terribly unpopular move of withholding all CP money from national causes, it would not be enough to avoid massive terminations of mission personnel. State conventions would be reduced to skeleton staffs and associations in new convention areas would either cease to exist or would be left with volunteer or part-time leadership.

Baptists who lack first-hand experience in our new convention regions cannot begin to appreciate how devastating the loss of our cadre full-time ADOMS would be to our overall mission strategy and implementation. These men do an incredible job under very difficult circumstances. They often travel vast distances or cope with enormous populations. The ADOM for Northwoods Association serves all of northern Minnesota—an area larger than Ohio. The ADOM for Metropolitan Chicago serves a population of around 7 million people—almost as many people as the combined populations of Alabama and Mississippi. Most work with the barest minimum of staff and office support. Many work out of their homes. Few have sufficient travel budget to actually cover their expenses. In those areas of the country such as the Northeast and the West Coast where the cost of living is extreme, working wives are essential just to make ends meet. For while IMB has long adjusted salaries to reflect the local cost of living, NAMB has never factored in such hard realities.

• All future funding is to be project-driven. These projects must be driven by NAMB’s strategy and fulfill NAMB’s priorities. – Once again, these means that NAMB will be sole arbiter of strategy. I regard this as a recipe for disaster.

• NAMB is to require direct accountability for what they fund. – Money and strategy will flow top-down. Accountability will flow bottom up.

I contend that these task force recommendations are built upon some seriously flawed premises. If adopted they will effectively destroy the existing missionary support structure for our domestic mission efforts in the least-reached areas of North America. While this is being replaced with a system entirely directed out of Alpharetta there will be enormous costs in the form of lost and discouraged mission personnel. Over a four year period of uncertainty many of the most talented and best qualified people will seek other ministry avenues, whether that means pastoring local churches or going to work for parachurch organizations. The net effect will be a set back in our mission work that will be measured in decades, not years. It is not by any means certain whether or not we would ever recover from the blow.

Glen Land

NOTE: Land has spent most of his 36 years of vocational ministry living and working in what Southern Baptists once called “pioneer” convention areas. He did his M.Div at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, and pastored a church in the Sierra-Nevada Mountains of California during a part of that time. He returned to his childhood home in the St. Louis area immediately after seminary where he planted a church in Lake Saint Louis, Missouri. From 1985–1990 Glen served as Church Extension Director for the Chicago Metropolitan Baptist Association. 1991–2000 he was pastor of Valley Baptist Church in Appleton, Wisconsin. During those years he was active in both association and state convention life, serving two terms as Moderator of the Bay Lakes Baptist Association, as well as two terms as 1st Vice President followed by two terms as President of the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention. From 2000–2009 Glen was State Missions Director for MWBC. On 12-31-09 his position with the convention was eliminated as part of a staff consolidation process made necessary by a severe and prolonged budget crisis.

Observations of an Executive Committee Member

2010-03-01T15:39:00.004-05:00

(Written on the morning after the report after a sleepless night of prayer and re-reading of the report)

Can I be so wrong? Last night, I heard men of God, whom I admire and respect come and give a report to changes in the way we, as Southern Baptists, should be doing things. Granted, the SBC is not perfect -Jesus Himself is the perfect one; and His Bride is not….. We will be cleansed only in the last days – until that time, wheat and tares grow together. As I reflect back, I think everyone in the Executive Board auditorium had the same goal in mind – Let’s do God’s will in reaching the world the best way we can. But as the report was delivered, I became aware of and saddened by a divide: the divide of “how to”….

Last night, I was expectantly hoping for a report from the Great Commission Task Force that would unite Southern Baptists. Instead, the report brought to mind the second missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas, two Godly men who argued over taking John Mark with them. The difference was so great that they went their separate ways. I think I saw, Monday night, a gauntlet thrown down – instead of an olive branch of peace and unity. A bold plan, to be sure: with six components – only half of which I could accept, endorse, and champion.

I saw no humility in the messengers who delivered the report. I sensed no brokenness, although the report was laced with the right words, I felt no spirit of grace, or trust, or humbleness. Such a report should be brought with tears and weeping – not exclamations bordering on anger and resentment.

There was no celebration of anything that Southern Baptists were doing right. No softening of the report with anything in recognition of the achievements we have made as a people who are committed to God, to the expansion of the Kingdom of God, or to one another.

I wanted a Jeremiah and got Elijah. I fear the die has been cast. My prayers, although feeble, were not enough to see what I wanted. So I must question myself once again. Can I be so wrong? God show me where I am wrong. Show me in the depths of my soul, in my mind, in my spirit. Help me to see how I could miss you and your will so completely – For I do not agree with some major things said in the GCR Task Force report.

The report, up unto the second component, I can support. I pray we find our knees and repent of our failures. The right words are said, although my spirit was uneasy – tension in the room was palpable. Component two of the report, however, calls for a reinvention and release of NAMB. This is something that I need to get my head around – dismantling and retooling – decentralized - new emphasis on church planting in new areas. Some of that is palatable – it is not wrong to want to plant new work in areas where vast numbers of lost people live. In fact, it is an admirable goal. But at the expense of what we are doing now? We are talking about the lives of people who are committed to a vision and a strategy and a purpose now. We are talking of the loss of ministries and uprooting of literally thousands of called committed people whose support would vanish in the reinventing of NAMB. We had better be sure we are right before we do this. Much of what the GCR envisions is already being done. I have a problem with dismantling the current structure to fulfill a dream that could wither and die from nonsupport from those who prefer old wine to new wine.

Component 5 is a big problem for me - I do not see how “celebrating designated giving” is going to do anything but reduce support for the CP instead of enhancing it. If I am wrong, then I am wrong and I pray that Lord reveal this also to me – I do appreciate the gifts given to the association, to the state, to other mission causes – but if we put these along side of the CP as equal partners – then we will find that diamond of the CP will be lost in the setting of a host of other jewels – too numerous to count, for everyone has their own favorite mission enterprise. In fact, this is already part of the problem in the loss of CP giving which facilitates what we do as Southern Baptists. We do not need to add more pieces to the pie – just enlarge the pie.

Component 6, on the surface, is symbolic and ground breaking. It is an effort to make a statement that we care about the nations. It is a rallying cry for a newer, younger generation of Southern Baptists. I think this component can be achieved. Do I agree with it? Not sure yet. I have reservations about how without affecting existing ministries. Taking 1% from the “facilitating ministries”” (code word for the EC) will only achieve a part of the 1% of the whole budget. We will have to cut ministry somewhere else to make up the rest.

I am tired of observing a type of Christianity that most Southern Baptists do not live, what I call “Armani” Christianity. I am tired of analyzing things, I am tired of rhetoric. I am tired of statements that we are not getting the job done. I would rather focus on what we are doing rather than what we are not doing. Most Southern Baptists I know who are committed to doing what God would have us to do are constantly looking for the best way to get the job done – I cannot but think it is a presumptive thing to say “We know a better way” after less than a year of study. I do not think the GCR report will have the desired effect that the Task Force wished for among many Southern Baptists, I know it hasn’t with me.

Steve Loggins, Director of Missions
North Jefferson Baptist Association
Alabama

Opinions on GCRTF Report (Great Commission Resurgance Task Force)

2010-03-01T15:21:00.000-05:00

What do you think about the role of associations in the Great Commission Task Force Update Report? What does the future hold for associations as you see it?

GCRTF Raises Concerns

2010-03-01T14:43:00.002-05:00

I am of course concerned with how it would all work out if the recommendations by the GCR Task Force are adopted. I wonder if there would be any savings if NAMB were to decentralize – would there be seven offices with staff instead of one central office, and would that save money, or cost more money? If the Cooperative Agreements are ended with the state conventions, would that result in more CP money, or would the state conventions only retain what they need to operate and send less CP money on to Nashville resulting in no change to the CP budget, and perhaps even a decrease, especially if the state conventions have to fully fund their staff and take responsibility for stewardship/CP promotion. Here in the northern states, how would the associations and churches respond if their ADoMs are no longer funded by NAMB? Would they choose to send more to their associations in order to retain their ADoMs, and thus send less for CP? Or would the ADoMs be direct NAMB missionaries and no longer able to do ADoM work, thus leaving the associations without ADoMs? Then what? I just have a lot of questions that are unanswered at this point. I’m not sure the recommendations as reported will actually result in an increase for international missions. I’m afraid that it will just result in many changes that will not necessarily accomplish what the GCR Task Force desires to see accomplished, and may even result in less money available for international missions. Too little information and too much uncertainty as to how it will all work out when the dust settles.

In Christ,

Jim Marcus, Associational Director of Missions
Genesee Baptist Association
Flint, MI

GCRTF and Increased Giving To The Cooperative Program

2010-03-01T14:38:00.001-05:00

It seems that the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force did not address the simple solution to the challenges we face as Southern Baptists - Increased Giving To The Cooperative Program! Twenty years ago Southern Baptist averaged 10.2% to the Cooperative Program. Today it is 6.6%. I do not believe that we would be in this situation if we had remained bold in sacrificial giving to mission causes through the Cooperative Program. What a blessing the additional monies would have been to the IMB, NAMB, Seminaries, and other agencies and entities.

It concerns me that we ask people to answer the call to the mission field and then have to tell them we do not have the money to send them. This is a sad day for Southern Baptists.

Our heritage as Southern Baptists has been one of Equal Sacrifice and Not Equal Gifts.

I pray that we never forget our heritage or our Kingdom practice of being a mission sending Kingdom denomination.

May each of our Southern Baptist Churches be bold in heart and soul in increased giving to the Cooperative Program so that all may hear the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Barry F. Cosper, Associational Missionary
Tallapoosa Baptist Association
Alexander City, AL

The Need to Return to Serious Intentional Prayer

2010-02-11T12:04:00.002-05:00

Our January associational SUMMIT (which I was not able to attend because of sickness) focused on the issues of prayer and spiritual renewal. This is the first of several monthly articles concerning prayer and spiritual renewal/spiritual awakening that David Franklin and I, with the help of some of YOU, will be writing in the near future.

My association is in Illinois, across the great Mississippi River from St. Louis Missouri. We just received some new stats: the St. Louis Metro area is now estimated to be 85% unreached. I am guessing the percentage of lostness is on the rise in your area too. The Southern Baptist Convention, the greatest evangelical denomination in the United States, has been sleeping. It is time to awaken the sleeping giant.

If you have read any of my previous articles, you may recall that it is my firm conviction that we all live in a dysfunctional church culture. Even more, over the past 100+ years we have even been taught things that are not really scriptural, all of which has caused us to lose the spiritual fervor that our forefathers once had for reaching the lost for Christ.

I see many churches marginalizing prayer. We have been taught to rely on our own initiative and our own intellect to conduct church growth activities that will reach the world for Christ. Well, it hasn’t worked. I know; I participated in the church growth movement. My churches, where I was on staff, grew, but, we never saw New Testament kinds of results. I long to see 3000 people saved as told in the NT. It is time that we get beyond marginalizing prayer and make it a central part of our lives, both in our churches and in our daily individual lives as we redevelop a renewed relationship with the Lord.

David Franklin had a great idea. Let’s set aside the first Friday of every month for serious intentional prayer for DoM’s in America. On that day let us, as a group of DoM’s in the USA, pray and fast for each other as we lead our churches to intentional prayer and renewal. In addition, I want to recommend a small book to you that will help us refocus on prayer. I am reading it now and I highly recommend it to you. The book is Walking With God by John Franklin. It is a 30-day training in serious, intentional prayer. It can be ordered from www.johnfranklinministries.org.

By the way, if you want to be a part of a group to help think through the ways NoBA can assist DoM’s as we try to facilitate revival and spiritual renewal in our churches, send me a note and your e-mail address and we will begin a dialogue to develop a strategy for renewal for our churches (it won’t be easy and it will require serious, intentional prayer). larryrichmond@gatewaybaptistassoc.org.

Dr. Larry Richmond, Director of Ministries
Gateway Baptist Association
Granite City, Illinois

Blog Links Needed

2010-02-10T15:15:00.004-05:00

If you are on an Associational Staff and you write a blog about your ministry ... we need your links. We now have a blog roll (see right column) on our NoBA article site. It will list the last 5 updated blogs written by associational leaders. To submit your blog site, send your URL to bgilstrap@bscm.org. Thank you for participating.

Convention Killers

2009-12-07T23:53:00.009-05:00

Greed
Politics
Arrogance
Self-centeredness
Self-reliance

These are the fruits of OUR spirit. They rest at numerous places throughout our convention. I would love to give several examples, but I will refrain. Look at where we are! Our thinking has brought us to extreme ineffectiveness and decline. After all, we have gone through over the past years we are still a divided lot. God is obviously not pleased. To my understanding, he has withdrawn His blessing from us as a national convention. We have become a convention that has been resistant to evaluating its own effectiveness; possibly, we have been in a mode to keep the status quo, regardless of the limits of our effective operations. Many of our churches are so inward focused that He surely is not pleased. And I believe that will continue until we repent and return to Him. We don’t need men’s thinking; we need to follow God as He leads.

Some of our past leaders have tried hard to focus us in the right direction. It is just extremely hard to accomplish spiritual work within an ingrained political system that seems to fail to consult the Lord on much of anything. It seems to me that the thing that we have failed to do is consult with God. If you believe that God has led us, then surely it is His wish that we exterminate ourselves.

Should we be so surprised at our condition? Looking at the Old Testament should give us all the proof that humans have a tendency to depart from God. We want to do things our way instead of His way. So what is needed? Another reorganization? I don’t think so.

The operative word is repent. True, gut-wrenching, honest to goodness, realization of our spiritual ineptness and complete confession that we have really messed things up. That is the first half of repentance. The second half is a change of direction. That is, stop the greedy, political, arrogant, self-centered, self-reliant thinking and get back to Jesus. I know that sounds trite. Everyone says it, but few actually do it.

What we really need is to see our own personal sin the way God sees it. I tried it and He really got my attention. Know what I found out? Repentance is really hard. But, it is the greatest thing once you realize that repentance becomes an ongoing discussion with God. Once you get in the repentance mode (humility is a key thought here), there is a freshness brought by the presence of God that can’t be found anywhere else. “Repent therefore and return that our sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” Acts 3:19

It seems we have departed far from the Lord. We have grown to become dysfunctional at all levels of our organization, from the church level up. As God reveals to us the folly of our work, we need to continually repent of our own sins (some of which are listed above) and submit totally to Him who desires to lead us. In fact, I believe He is waiting to lead us. If we could only get back on the same page with God, I am totally convinced that He would begin to do some amazing things through the SBC—things that only God can do. Wouldn’t that be great?

Who will lead us to consult with God again? Who will lead us to a renewed and radical obedience to the Lord?

I suggest that we DoM’s cooperate to begin a joint effort to attempt to facilitate spiritual renewal for pastors and churches. We can’t bring revival, but we can plan some activity where God has a chance to work in the hearts of people.

So, let me suggest something. Stop and Repent. And then let’s work together to set out in a new direction—not one of our own making—but a new direction where God is leading us and allowing His power to flow through us to get His work done. Repentance has to start somewhere. Let it start with DoM’s throughout our country. Let us regain our passion for God and for His work. Let’s model it for our pastors and our churches, and let’s pray as we have never prayed before to plead with God for His divine intervention into our lives and the lives of our churches.

Dr. Larry Richmond, DoM
Gateway Baptist Association
IL

Decisions, Decisions

2009-11-08T03:16:00.002-05:00

It seems to me that there are two kinds of issues that churches must address: those issues in which God is interested and those that He doesn’t care about. How the church makes decisions about these issues is extremely important.

Let’s first take decisions in which God is not interested. If He is not interested in the issue, I would say that He doesn’t really care how the decision is made or the final outcome of the decision. Here are some examples: Sunday morning schedule, color of the carpet and/or the walls of the worship center, whether or not to order hymnals, when in the worship service do you take the offering, where you buy church supplies, where you place extension telephones, etc. Although these are sometimes issues that spark controversy in the church, God doesn’t care—at least we see nothing in the scripture to indicate otherwise. I would think that He would like for us to make these decisions in a manner that would protect the unity of the church (that is scriptural—see John 17).

The other kind of decision involves issues that concern God. The scripture gives us a lot of things that God is concerned about: reaching unchurched people, protecting unity in the church, each member growing in personal relationship with Him, rightly preaching the Word, activities that extend His mission in the world, obedience to His Word, living in holiness, etc. These issues have spiritual significance for church members or for those who the Lord wants to reach through your church. How we decide these issues is very important. If the Lord desires the church to decide in one direction, and they decide in another direction, a big problem exists: the church has just “voted” against what the Lord wants.

This raises a number of questions. One problem concerns how Southern Baptists have traditionally made decisions: by majority vote at a business meeting. Although this is very common in many churches, it is not scriptural. At least in my understanding of scripture, the Bible gives us no indication for the church to vote on anything. When votes were taken in scripture, often the vote was wrong. (For example, the 12 spies came back with the wrong recommendation for Israel NOT to go into the land of Canaan. That decision caused Israel to wander in the wilderness 40 years until nearly everyone who lived at the time of the decision died!). Our voting on issues in the church probably comes from United States governmental democracy (just guessing). Voting in opposition to God’s desires can be downright harmful to the church and its members. (I am not saying the church should have no say in church operation. There are things that are very appropriate for church members to consider.)

Here is a related issue: You don’t have to look around very long to understand that it appears quite likely that there are some unregenerate church members (they may think they know Jesus, but, their lives don’t display fruits of the spirit). Let’s get honest. Some of our church members are not saved. If that is the truth, why in the world would you allow them to vote on spiritual issues in the church? In addition, many churches allow children to vote—as long as they are church members. Others in the church, even some adults, are not really grounded in the Word and do not understand scriptural mandates. Why would you give them opportunity to vote on spiritual issues they may not understand? It creates a scenario of the church becoming spiritually disobedient.

Here is another issue. It is my impression that most votes cast in the church result in the church member voting his/her preference on the issue. That, in my opinion, is a recipe for spiritual disaster. If the outcome of a decision is very important to God, why wouldn’t we ask people to seek His leadership in the issue and then vote God’s way rather than vote their preference? Voting our human preferences in the church is the quickest way I know for a church to become disobedient to God.

Well I surely don’t have all of the answers. I do have a lot of questions.

Jesus said if you have a problem “Come unto Me”. If you have a decision to make in the church, especially one that has spiritual consequences, Jesus said “Come unto Me”. He wants us to consult Him. It is as easy as that. Here is a suggestion, for whatever it is worth: If you have a spiritual decision to make and you are asking church members to vote on it, ask them to pray about the issue and then ask them to vote the way the Lord has led them. If a church member can’t understand God’s direction, maybe he shouldn’t vote—or else he might find himself opposing God. If church members can’t get a consensus on a decision, maybe we ought to give the Lord some time to convince people what He wants.

I wonder if that is why God has chosen not to bless some churches—they have opposed Him too many times.

Dr. Larry Richmond, Director of Missions
Gateway Baptist Association
Illinois

Taking & Transcribing Minutes of a Meeting

2009-11-02T23:39:00.002-05:00

(Help for Associational & Church Clerks)

STEPS TO TAKING MINUTES

Meetings may be conducted formally or informally, depending on the objective of the meeting and the circumstances. The following guidelines for taking minutes for committees, ministry teams, or for business meetings are based on Robert's Rules of Order.

STEP 1 – The clerk needs to obtain the meeting agenda, minutes from the last meeting, and any background documents to be discussed. Consider using a tape recorder to ensure accuracy. It is also advisable to have a copy of the organization’s Constitution and bylaws and any other guiding documents.

STEP 2 - Sit beside (or close to) the chairperson for convenient clarification or help as the meeting proceeds.

STEP 3 - Write "Minutes of the meeting of (exact association/church name)."

STEP 4 - Record the date, time and place of the meeting.

STEP 5 - Circulate a sheet of paper for attendees to sign. (This sheet can also help identify speakers by seating arrangement later in the meeting.) If the meeting is an open one, write down only the names of the attendees who have voting rights.

STEP 6 - Note who arrives late or leaves early so that these people can be briefed on what they missed.

STEP 7 - Write down items in the order in which they are discussed. If item 8 on the agenda is discussed before item 2, keep the old item number but write item 8 in second place.

STEP 8 - Record the motions made and the names of people who originate them.

STEP 9 - Record whether motions are adopted or rejected, how the vote is taken (by show of hands, voice or other method) and whether the vote is unanimous.

STEP 10 - Focus on recording actions taken by the group. Avoid writing down the details of each discussion.

Minute Taking Tips

TIP 1 - You do not need to record topics irrelevant to the business being discussed. Taking minutes is not the same as taking dictation.

TIP 2 - Consult only the chairperson or executive officer, not the attendees, if you have questions.

STEPS TO TRANSCRIBING MINUTES

STEP 1 - Transcribe minutes soon after the meeting, when your memory of the event is still fresh.

STEP 2 - Follow the format used in previous minutes.

STEP 3 - Preface resolutions with "RESOLVED, THAT..."

STEP 4 - Consider attaching long resolutions, reports or other supplementary material to the minutes as an appendix.

STEP 5 - Write "Submitted by" and then sign your name and the date.

STEP 6 - Place minutes chronologically in a record book.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Bobby Gilstrap, DoM

Huron & Southeastern Baptist Assocaitions

Michigan

The Strangest Creature Ever Seen

2009-10-20T13:27:00.001-04:00

Recently, I was doing some work in my front yard. I
glanced up at my next door neighbor's tree and saw a
sight that caused my jaw to drop in disbelief. Climbing
that tree was the strangest creature I have ever seen.
Above its round white body were two large black eyes,
but no neck, and the creature had two red legs.

It was such a strange animal that I called another
neighbor over to look at it. "What is that?" he
exclaimed in utter amazement. At least then I knew I
was not hallucinating. As the creature neared the top
of the tree, we came to the conclusion that there was
definitely more to this than met the eye at first
glance.

This is often true of a lot of things. We should be
careful about jumping to conclusions. The Bible says
that we should "examine everything carefully; hold fast
to that which is good" (I Thessalonians 5:21). Today
there is an unprecedented amount of communication. A
lot of this information, especially through the
internet, includes half-truths, innuendo, illogical and
faulty arguments, personal attacks, gossip, and plain
old lies masquerading as the truth. Before we jump to
conclusions, believing and acting on information, we
should take the time to try to dig out the truth. Use
snopes.com or some other fact-finding website to verify
or disprove such material. Before we pass the
information on to others, consider how a person's
reputation might be ruined by the supposed "offense".
Think about what are the real issues and truth before
disparaging a person, group or an organization. We, as
Christians, of all people, should be truth-tellers.

Oh yes, that strange creature turned out to be a
decorator pillow with two long red ribbons. A squirrel
was running up the tree with it to make a cozy nest.
Since the squirrel was behind the pillow it could not
be seen until it reached the nest. And yes, this is a
true story.

Dr. Stephen Parks, DoM
Texas

Evangelism and Assimilation into the Baptist Association

2009-10-15T17:57:00.002-04:00

From Creation to Consummation the Story of God is about evangelism. As soon as sin enters the picture, God is looking for man to provide redemption and place him into kingdom service. As man experiences salvation and shares it with someone else he is engaged in evangelism.

Evangelism is seen in the life of the Patriarchs and the Prophets. Initially, Jesus called twelve men to bear the Good News of Salvation from God and Service to God. He poured His life into them and gave these disciples a commission: “Go into the entire world…” He taught them that the effectiveness of this global enterprise would be to mimic His servant spirit, stating: “Even the Son of Man, [came] to serve and give His life a ransom for many.”

Dr. Luke, a Gentile, wrote in the Book of Acts, three stories about conversion, portraying God’s unique desire for Global evangelization. God saves someone from the line of the three sons of Noah, seen in three chronological chapters -- Acts 8, 9, 10. These stories show there is a reciprocal dependence between God and us to do evangelism.

The Apostle Paul used the word “gospel” sixty-seven times in the thirteen epistles. His writing revealed his heart’s desire for people: “That I might by all means save some.” The actions of the great apostle are cog and wheel of the Christian’s task to perform evangelism.

Four times the Apostle Peter used the word “gospel” to show that man’s destiny hinges upon the preaching, hearing, receiving, and living out this eternal message.

Why is evangelism necessary? It is necessary because of sin and eternity. Evangelism is necessary because of the Atonement of Christ, or else He died in vain, and because every man has faith, which will either be misplaced in something or placed perfectly and effectively in the Lord Jesus Christ. Evangelism is the key to helping man find hope.

Christian faith is a doing faith. It is not simply, believing something, but, believing something that makes a difference, first in me then in someone else through me. The Christian faith must be conserved in the ones converted. How? By assimilation into the church. This is “A MUST!”

Jesus said, “I am the Vine and you are the Branches.” That is assimilation. Jesus called Himself Head of a Body, and referred to His disciples as the “parts” of His body. That is assimilation.

There is a cost to this work of assimilation - time, energy and resources. Time must be spent with the new convert to teach the fundamentals of the faith and show him how to live the Christian life. Emotional energy has to be expended to weep with them and laugh with them. Many new converts make a decision in crisis, which does not end by becoming Christian. So the soul winner must be willing to share the burden. This means meeting physical needs and other needs which demand our own resources. Bags of groceries, clothes for the body and even for a new job, a car to begin that new job, hospital bills for a new baby rescued from an abortion mill, and other such things are costly if we do personal evangelism.

Many barriers are erected which prevent new converts from being assimilated: lack of discipleship; laziness; having a jealous spirit; the size of the church; age – both youth and seniority; prematurity; geography; mindsets; duty or requirements.

Assimilation into the church is one thing; assimilation into the world (vineyard) is another. It is essential to get the new Christian merged into the Body of Christ, functioning with Spiritual gifts and serving Christ alongside fellow believers. It is also essential to get the new Christian to merge his life into the world, into the market place and be a witness to others. Herein is the value of the Baptist Association.

One great challenge to doing this is materialism. The new Christian has to deal with the issue of who owns what and who controls what. The Lordship of Christ must be taught for effective assimilation into the world. A second challenge is lack of prayer. Many a new Christian fails to realize the need for dependence upon God for ALL that is done for Him. They must be taught that prayer is the power supply and preparation for being assimilated into the body and into the world.

And Jesus said, “If you know these things, happy are you if you do them.”

Dr. Ben Chandler, Associational Missionary
St.Clair Baptist Association
Ashville, AL

Critical Issues Concerning Southern Baptist Structure

2009-10-12T15:26:00.010-04:00

With three key presidential vacancies at hand, pardon my analogy from paganism when I suggest that the planets may have aligned for sweeping changes in Southern Baptist Convention structure. Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse is a question. Bureaucratic structures are tenacious under assault. Just consider the repeated attempts at federal tax reform, resulting in an IRS more bloated and a tax code more confused, complex and convoluted than ever before. There is no guarantee that a new denominational structure will be an improvement over what we have now. If recent reorganizations are any indication I'm not optimistic. Would anyone seriously suggest that the Executive Committee has better preserved Baptist history than the old Historical Commission once did? With the debatable exception of disaster relief, has NAMB improved on any of those tasks once the responsibilities of the Brotherhood and Radio and Television Commissions?

Ask any church consultant what happens when two churches merge. In most cases within less than five years the combined congregations will shrink to the size of the larger of the two churches prior to the merger. Mergers of any kind—be it churches or corporations—are hard to pull off. Efficiency does not necessarily equal effectiveness. Yet some suggest that it's time to merge the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board into one all-encompassing mission agency. At first glance it's an appealing concept.

The Southern Baptist Convention first organized in 1845, primarily for the purpose of giving birth to two mission agencies, known then as the Foreign Mission Board and the Domestic Mission Board. After a series of name changes and reorganizations we ended up in 1997 with the current North American Mission Board, to serve the needs of the United States and its territories, along with Canada, and the International Mission Board to serve the mission needs of the rest of the world.

In 1845 it was perfectly logical to divide up the denomination's missionary task into the two big categories of foreign and domestic. Those were the days when a clipper ship leaving the East Coast of the United States would take half a year or more to reach Shanghai. Missionaries boarding those ships said goodbye to family members on the dock not expecting to meet them again this side of heaven. In most of the world in those days people group locations corresponded reasonably well with national boundaries or if not, the people group was typically contained within a contiguous region that included one or two adjacent nation states. In few cases were people groups widely scattered across the globe. (The main exceptions were those European peoples, such as the Irish, who were immigrating to the United States and Canada.) Most people on the planet were born, lived, and died within a few miles of the same cross-reference of latitude and longitude. Most people still lived in rural and small town settings. The few larger cities that did exist were fairly homogeneous in makeup.

In 1845 there were still significant areas of Africa, Asia, and South America that were unknown and unvisited by any American or European explorer. The challenges for missionaries in those days tended to focus on daunting logistical barriers. Crossing oceans, rivers, mountains, and deserts; confronting often hostile native populations who spoke languages unknown to the missionary or his or her sending agency; disease, hunger, snake bite, and isolation; the list goes on and on. IMB Strategy Facilitator for the Western Amazon Valley of Brazil, Victor Nickerson, once told me about his study of the early missionaries to the Amazon. When he examined the historical records he discovered one quality that more than any other determined the success or failure of their work: a natural resistance to malaria. Most of those early missionaries died within two years of their arrival.

Today in many profound ways we live in a radically different world. The world is now more urban than rural. Populations are growing and constantly shifting. A few years ago IMB adopted a people group-based strategy around which to organize its missionary efforts. We stopped talking about sending a missionary to reach Djibouti. We now speak of sending missionaries to reach the Somalis or the Oromo or the Afar people. But the problem is that people groups today represent moving targets. A generation ago missiologists coined the term 10-40 Window as a convenient way to talk about the most unreached region on earth. But population migration has made the term less useful than it was twenty years ago. We once spoke of the Window as defining the people groups within the region between 10˚ north and 40˚ north latitude across Africa and Asia. Today significant pockets of the Window live in London, Paris, Frankfurt, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and in thousands of other cities, towns and rural locations. The 10-40 Window, like the people groups associated with it, has torn lose from its geographical mooring. We must redesign our strategies to conform to these new realities.

So while once the work of the two mission boards could be neatly compartmentalized, a changing global scene has now hopelessly entangled their missionary tasks.

Nonetheless until recent years there has been very little deliberate contact between these agencies. While both are charged with expanding the Kingdom of God under the Southern Baptist banner, they have done so using distinctive approaches and with very different corporate cultures. There isn't even uniformity in definitions and terminology. At IMB CPM means church planting movement. At NAMB it means church planting missionary. Our boards don't even speak the same language.

The differences between our domestic and international mission agencies run far deeper than the geography of the regions they serve. The corporate cultures of the two boards are as different as those of Apple Computer and the Marine Corp. Short of firing everybody from the vice presidents all the way down to the secretaries and starting over with a blank slate (Who can forget that seamless transition from HMB to NAMB and its resultant body count?) such a merger cannot help but be incredibly messy and stressful.

Just consider the difference in how salaries are structured. At IMB salaries are determined by two factors: tenure of the missionary with the agency and an adjustment to reflect the local cost of living. Consequently if your spiritual gifts equip you to be an effective church planter you have no economic incentive to seek transfer to an administrative role in some regional office—a job for which you may not be gifted. At NAMB and in virtually all state convention offices, salaries are determined in a hierarchical structure similar to that found in the secular corporate world. Church planters are typically at the bottom. Strategists rank higher. State convention salaries run higher on average than those of associational workers. And as for any cost of living adjustments, often missionary salaries in high cost of living areas such as the big cities of the Northeast and the West Coast are actually lower than their counterparts in old convention areas such as Mississippi and Alabama where the cost of living is greatly reduced. It is not surprising that such a system would encourage people to move from regions of great spiritual need but where compensation for ministers is stingy to areas of the country with a much stronger gospel presence but where the pay is better. In the same way field missionaries sometimes seek promotion to better-paying administrative roles for which they may be ill-suited, often leaving a ministry that they love and in which they were very effective. In our unthinking adoption of a secular corporate model of compensation, we have inadvertently proclaimed that the spiritual gift of administration is more valuable than that of evangelism. But in my 37 years in Southern Baptist ministry I have yet to hear anyone admit this.

Complicating this different approach to determining salaries is the fact that IMB missionaries work exclusively for IMB. NAMB missionaries, with only a handful of exceptions, are jointly commissioned and funded by NAMB and one of 42 different state conventions or with the conventions of Canada or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. These joint funding arrangements are determined by 44 different cooperative agreements.

The two boards embrace profoundly different operational philosophies. This reflects the enormous differences in the nature of their respective tasks. IMB has a monolithic structure that relates to other Baptist groups around the world much the same way that a megachurch in Texas relates to some association in Minnesota in order to co-sponsor a new work in the Northwoods. No matter how gracious their manners or benevolent their intent, they will tend to overwhelm their Minnesota partners—and in the end they will control the decision-making process.

While NAMB exercises considerable power in dealing with the weak and cash-strapped conventions of the north, it must also work with some old line conventions possessing far more resources than NAMB, conventions that send more money to NAMB through the Cooperative Program and the Annie Armstrong Offering than NAMB will ever return.

Risking a very unbiblical metaphor, the role of the state conventions is the joker in the deck that complicates any hypothetical merger of IMB and NAMB. They are autonomous bodies that cannot be ignored nor can they be dictated to by any SBC board, agency, or study group. The only way to circumvent them would be to adopt a radically different approach to missions in the United States, abandoning the concept of joint funding and making all domestic missionaries the direct employees of NAMB or of some new global mission board. Such a move would almost certainly spark a civil war in the Southern Baptist Convention resulting in a catastrophic drop in CP giving.

If we were designing a new denomination in 2009 would we approach it differently than we did in 1845? Assuredly. But we have not the luxury of simply ignoring 164 years of Southern Baptist mission history. We are, at least to some extent, the prisoners of our own past. So while I agree that to do nothing but continue as we are is a long-term strategy for decline into irrelevance we must move forward with all the care of a man traversing a minefield. I believe that rather than approaching this "Great Commission Resurgence" with sweeping changes that could easily cost the denomination more in lost good will and trust than any gains won in organizational efficiency, we ought to focus on the most egregious flaws in the current system and address them one by one. I suggest starting with the following items:

Some structure or system must be devised that results in ongoing, meaningful communication between IMB and NAMB at multiple levels from the presidents all the way to the field missionaries. The people group strategy of IMB must become truly global. When a Somali man moves from Mogadishu to Toronto to Minneapolis to London to Seattle (and in the case of a Somali that is not as unreasonable a hypothetical scenario as you might think) it is absurd that he not remain the focus of the same strategy coordinator whose team is seeking to reach all Somalis everywhere.
We must develop missionary recruitment and training strategies that work across existing agency boundaries. We need an expanding pool of cross-cultural missionaries. The cultural skills required of a native Minnesotan trying to reach Somalis in Minneapolis are far greater than those of American leading an English-speaking congregation in Aberdeen, Scotland. Some years ago the US military began requiring joint command training for all their senior officers. Before promotion to general officer rank, all army, navy, marine and air force officers must serve a tour where they work side by side with officers from other military branches. Such cross-training would be invaluable for missionaries both foreign and domestic, especially for those serving in the great global cities of the earth.
Domestically we must address the disparate salaries of missionaries doing similar work for dramatically different levels of compensation. We have never attempted to seriously address the economic factor in our miserable track record in evangelizing high cost-of-living urban areas such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. It is not uncommon for a Director of Missions for a small city in the South to make tens of thousands of dollars more than his counterpart in a city like San Francisco. The home that the Southern DOM bought for $150,000 could not be touched for ten times that much in the Mission District of San Francisco. Yet the IMB missionary who works in Tokyo or London or Moscow does get at least a partial cost of living adjustment.
The current makeup of the SBC's Great Commission Council, a creation of the last major SBC reorganization, is heavily skewed in favor of the interests of theological education at the expense of missions. Six seminary presidents and two mission board presidents all have equal votes. Yet when you consider the SBC budget nearly 75% of Cooperative Program funding goes to IMB and NAMB—not to the seminaries. This lopsided influence of seminary presidents on the council is bad for missions. Combine IMB and NAMB and you go from 6-to-2 to 6-to-1 in favor of seminaries over mission boards. If this body—whose work and very existence is a mystery to most Southern Baptists—is to continue functioning, this imbalance needs to be corrected.
Any merging of mission boards must be done in a way that protects and preserves the priority of reaching the new convention regions of the United States. Winning Albany, New York will never have the same romantic appeal that winning China or India has. Gary, Indiana has little cachet when competing for the imaginations (and mission gifts) of Southern Baptists with places like Nairobi or Rio de Janeiro. I am not suggestion that these various priorities are equally important. But I am saying that we risk hard-won gains in the U.S. outside the South if we suddenly abandon what we have started.
Finally, we need to fundamentally reexamine how we as Southern Baptists do missions education. We are failing at this critical task. I believe that the poor job that we are doing in educating our people about missions, from our youngest children through our senior adults, also underlies the weakness of much of our stewardship education. We need to gather the best and brightest from NAMB, IMB, WMU, LifeWay, state convention leadership, as well as a representative group of pastors and lay leaders to rethink how we teach missions.

God bless the men and women of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. They may end up shaping the next chapter of Southern Baptist history. I hope they appreciate the fragile treasure that they hold.

Glen A. Land, State Missions Director

Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention

An Urgent Plea to Listen

2009-10-07T22:05:00.002-04:00

It's a good thing that Jesus led by example. Where did we lose the ability to follow His model in evangelism. His example for evangelism was through relationships and not a three point sermon and a fancy poem. Don't misunderstand me, I am certified and trained in a variety of witnessing tools but none of those tools are very helpful without a relationship to "lost" people. Sometime we are motivated by a self-imposed quota for souls. How many have I won? We think of every possible way to share Jesus, when Jesus shared Himself by being himself in relationships.

I wonder what people outside of the church and Christian relationships think about all of our methods and approaches? Could this woman represent what they think?

bobby gilstrap, Director of Missions
Huron & Southeastern Baptist Associations
Michigan

Future Convocations on Baptist Associationalism

2009-10-06T15:28:00.004-04:00

I was glad to participate in the National Convocation of Baptist Associationalism at Ridgecrest. It was encouraging to see the renewed interest in the work of the local Association by the North American Mission Board. The break out sessions affirmed that I am not alone in many of the things that we have been thinking about and struggling with in our association. The plenary speakers were uplifting and encouraging, especially J.C. Bradley, and I was glad to see the number that came to this meeting. However, I left there with a question that continues to nag me. It concerns the "ownership" of Associationalism. Please let me explain.

This convocation was a North American Mission Board event, held by NAMB for Associational Leaders. I affirm NAMB for doing this for us. The issue I am struggling with is this, if NAMB controls Associational development by holding these events for us, then they have control of the agenda and will "steer" the future of Associational Missions from Alpharetta. The local association will become an extension of NAMB rather than a partner in local missions. We already struggle with this because so much of our funding comes from Alpharetta in the form of NAMB appointed personnel. Please don't hear me saying anything negative about our covenant with NAMB, I am not advocating any kind of revolt! My struggle has to do with perspective of leadership and how our relationship with NAMB tends to lead us away from healthy Baptist polity. I would like to suggest that we as Associational leaders seek a relationship with NAMB that is based on the Empowering Kingdom Growth initiative that was adopted by the SBC a few years ago.

The Empowering Kingdom Growth initiative has worked well in South Carolina because it took us back to our foundational Baptist polity that says the local church is the boss! It restructured our state convention and associations around a pivotal concept that forced us to listen to and respond to the local church rather than create programs and ask the churches to implement them. We moved toward a true "grass roots" leadership rather than the hierarchy that had been developed during the past 100 years and began to streamline our ministries. We became more effective in Kingdom work. Associations in SC were treated as true partners in ministry by the SC Convention and we began to take leadership in Associational Missions that the SC Convention began to follow and support. My point is this: SC Associations "own" associational development in SC.

The formation of the Network of Baptist Associations (NoBA) was a very positive move for associations nationally. It put a structure in place that had the potential to put the ownership of associational development in the hands of the associational leadership. We began to set the agenda and steer the course for the future of Baptist Associational Missions. If our relationship with NAMB is built upon the EKG vision then NoBA would set the agenda and NAMB would come alongside of NoBA to strengthen the work as a partner. I was glad to see that much of the agenda of the Convocation included the NoBA leadership but I fear that NAMB set the agenda. An EKG partner would allow the group that is being served set their own agenda.

Here is my bottom line, If NAMB really wants to partner with Associations, then let them support NoBA and its annual meeting rather than planning a NAMB meeting and inviting NoBA to participate. This is all about "who will steer he associational ship" in the future?

Remember the first NoBA meeting? We had a consultant from Coca-Cola that led us through some initial conversations about our role as associations. Do you remember the point when he stopped us in the middle of our "whining" and said something like, "Do you guys realize that you sound like victims? Do you operate out of a victim mentality? Are you subordinate to NAMB?" That comment galvanized us! It was at that point that we determined to take the lead and develop our own agenda concerning the future of Associationalism.

I can't help but wonder if, after 20 years, NAMBs decision to host a national convocation of associationalism was motivated by our formation of NoBA?

It will be very easy to slide back into our traditional "comfort zone" and let NAMB take control of the future of Baptist Associationalism once again. The only way to avoid it is to insist on setting the agenda ourselves. I truly believe this pivotal change in relationship will strengthen both NAMB an the local association.

Mike O'Dell, Director of Missions
York Baptist Association
Rock Hill, SC

The Priority of Prayer in the Association

2009-09-30T14:30:00.002-04:00

After fifteen years of serving as pastor of three churches, I stepped into an area of ministry that God confirmed as His clear direction - that of leading a prayer mobilization ministry in the Charlotte region. Six years of that work opened my eyes to real needs in churches and communities, and prepared me for what the Lord had in store next - serving as an
associational director of missions. I had known since my first year of seminary that I was called to serve in associational missions, but the way God led me there helped me to see the importance of prayer when one serves in that area of Kingdom work.

Southern Baptists are at a crossroads in North America, and we have come to that awareness partly because of studies that show a vast majority of churches are either plateaued or declining. What must be done to reverse decline, to revitalize churches, to move congregations toward a position of growth and strength? We can work on mechanics and logistics, on strategic plans and values clarification, but all of this must flow from a realization of our desperate need of God and a reviving move of His Spirit in the churches. Our problem is, first and foremost, a spiritual one. We must focus on building and maintaining dedicated relationships with Father God in Jesus' name and by the power of the Spirit. The road to revival leads directly through the place of prayer.

As associational leaders, we cannot assume that our pastors are praying together, or that they are practicing prayer on their own - we need to encourage and equip them to pray individually and corporately. We also need to be praying for them, standing in the intercessory gap for the pastors and the churches on a regular basis.

At a state-wide prayer team meeting recently, Pastor Michael Barrett mentioned that every Sunday morning he looks forward to getting an email from a friend who prays for him and several other pastors each week. His excitement over this support gave me the idea of emailing the pastors of our association each Sunday morning with a Scripture-based prayer for that day.
The response to this intercession has been amazing - many pastors are responding with thanks, and with specific requests to be lifted up. This work of prayer is building stronger relationships between myself and the pastors, and is modeling the kind of partnership in prayer that we
desperately need in the church and in the culture.

It was in January, 2009 when I took a group of pastors away for a two day leadership summit. They knew that the first day would have a prayer focus, but they did not know how much time would be spent in prayer. After our orientation, the first hour-long session was a season of prayer together. Afterward one of the pastors asked how long we had prayed. When I told him
it had been exactly one hour, he was surprised and called his wife to tell her about it. During our evaluation at the end of the retreat, the prayer time came up in discussion. Two of the six pastors present had never spent an hour in prayer with other pastors. One indicated his hesitation at the idea of doing so, but then emotionally described the blessing he experienced
as we sought the Lord together.

The associational missionary has a unique opportunity to be a prayer advocate for pastors and churches. One of my greatest burdens is to see churches become healthy, growing, and multiplying, making disciples in Jesus' name. To get to that place, we must be people of prayer.

Because of the wide-open Kingdom possibilities before us, the enemy of our souls will do all he can to discourage this prayer activity. Jesus placed a high priority on the oneness of the fellowship when He prayed in John 17, so we should not be surprised when the forces of evil look to dissuade us from uniting in prayer. A sober awareness of the truths presented in Ephesians
6:10-18 regarding the spiritual struggles we face is absolutely necessary.

The road to revival leads directly through the place of prayer. May we lead the way in our associations, interceding for our pastors and churches, and calling them all to "seek the Lord until He comes and showers righteousness on us" (Hosea 10:12).

Bob Lowman, Jr., Director-Missionary
Metrolina Baptist Association
Charlotte NC

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

2009-09-25T23:22:00.002-04:00

In our role as a DOM, Associational Missionary, ADOM, or whatever our title, we have a common task of leadership. Much like Jeremiah, we must cry out to our own people during uncertain times knowing that there will be some who heed and some who scoff. That cannot
deter us from speaking prophetically.

I'm sure we all have all sorts of congregations. Some have been the flagships for us in years gone by while others are up and coming. Still others are dead or dying and unfortunately, with the limits of our Baptist polity, we are virtually without authority to change their course. Whether, up and coming, stagnant or dying, all of them have one thing in common. Decisions! Each of them have made or are making decisions that determine their future.

It is at this juncture where we can speak with Biblical authority. We must not be timid and just allow tragic consequences to occur. Jeremiah delivered the "Word of the Lord" and risked unpopularity. He was indeed the weeping prophet but today we know who Jeremiah was and
his detractors are virtual nobodies. What made him the man that he was? Courage! Courage to speak in the face of false hope and a willingness to embrace the eternal and unchanging truths of God characterized him. Jeremiah knew the plans of God and his nature was to give them a hope and a future but that didn't stop him from dealing with the immediate crisis at hand. He spoke and while some scoffed, others built houses, planted vineyards, and sought the prosperity of the
land in which they dwelt.

I see the same two responses today. It seems that the parable of the talents is being lived out in our own association. Those churches that are making poor decisions and are burying their talents are slowly but certainly dying. All the while, my five and ten talent churches are making courageous decisions to obey the Great Commission and are being added to regularly. Again, I ask, what makes such a difference. Decisions based on the eternal truths of God. While God winnows His harvest fields, to those who have (faith) much is given and to those who have not, it is being taken away even what they have!

As the prophetic voices crying in the wilderness, we need to courageously speak, not fearing their dissent. We must help all of our churches to lift up their eyes and see from where we've fallen.

Repent and do the first works!

Speak Prophet; your audience is not just on earth!

Steve Patterson, Director of Missions
Spring River Baptist Association
Joplin, MO

The Impact of Associational National Convocations

2009-09-17T15:23:00.002-04:00

I’m delighted to be here for several reasons.

This is the 5^th national convocation on associations. The first four significantly impacted the life and work of associations – and I know that this one will too.
This convocation represents a reversal of the gradual decline in involvement with associations by national agencies that has been going on for around 20 years.
There has always been a special vitality in the national convocations because associational missionaries/directors of missions come together from all across the country. We can learn a tremendous amount from one another.

In these brief minutes, I want to share with you something of the impact of the four previous convocations, to express some thoughts about the challenges that lie before us, and to express my optimism that associations will develop the innovations needed to address those challenges.

The Impact of Associational Convocations

Over a period of about 25 years, associational national convocations provided major benchmarks in understanding and working in, with, and through associations.

Then, there was a 20 year gap between the 1989 convocation and the one we are currently experiencing.

There are a several major values I want to share with you regarding both the previous and current convocations. They serve as benchmarks, springboards, and iron-sharpeners.

1. The convocations are useful benchmarks that seemed to capture the spirit and productivity of an era.

2. They serve as springboards to send us in new directions or to elevate us to new levels in associational understandings and actions.

3. They are iron-sharpeners in the sense that iron sharpens iron. Possibly the most important result you will carry away is what you pick up in a conversation with a colleague you meet from somewhere across the country from where you minister.

Consider the Impact of Each of the Previous Convocations

1-The Impact of the Gulfshore Conference on Associational Missions (1963)

1. For the first time, the denomination listened to associational missionaries.

2. In The Associational Guidebook, which was published in 1959, the association’s function was stated to be to develop an understanding of the denominational program of work in the churches. The association was to promote all of the programs of the denomination and teach methods for carrying out those programs. That was a view that was prevalent at the time.

One of the actions of the Gulf Shore conference was to repudiate that philosophy. This produced a 180 degree shift in the philosophy of the role of associations from serving as an instrument of the denomination to return to an understanding that associations are a fellowship of churches associated for mutual benefit. Associations are for meeting the practical needs of the churches rather than for meeting the promotional needs of the denomination. (Ironically, perhaps, the denomination benefits most by this church orientation.)

3. The legacy of the Gulfshore Conference included these four affirmations:

1. That associations are a constituent part of our total task force for world missions and not a sub-part or instrument of any other entity. (This was in accord with our polity all along, but it was not consistent with what was practiced.)

2. That there is a vital inter-dependence of the association with other entities.

3. Associational missions is a part of the total world mission program. (cf. Acts 1:8)

4. The associational missionary should be considered as belonging fully to the Southern Baptist family of missionaries. (The fundamental issue is not what an associational missionary – or any other missionary – does [tasks] nor where his compensation comes from – but who he is in terms of his identity and calling. I am an associational missionary and I serve on the mission field to which God has assigned to me.)

2- The Impact of the National Convocation on the Southern Baptist Association (1974)

1. It reinforced the philosophy of associations as a fellowship of churches

2. It positioned associations as full partners in denominational efforts – not merely as program promoters.

3. The convocation was a benchmark in an era of significant developments in associationalism.

a. Several doctoral dissertations on associations were completed at SBC seminaries.

b. This was an intense time of publication of associational materials. There were notable books and there were special issues of scholarly journals on the Baptist Association.

4. The legacy of the 1974 convocation is that associations by that time could be described as a full partner in Southern Baptist life.

3- The Impact of Mission in Context: A National Conference on the Association (1981)

1. Thinking Nationally; Acting Locally was the theme, and there was great optimism for evangelizing and congregationalizing through Bold Mission Thrust.

2. Major emphasis was given to the essential role that context played in mission strategy.

3. The Association: A Base for Mission Strategy was a prominent emphasis. It recognized that an association has the basic responsibility for developing a comprehensive mission strategy for its particular area.

4. Directors of Missions were urged and equipped to be mission strategists.

5. There was a growing consensus and specific agreements among the SBC agencies, state conventions, and associations regarding basic associational philosophy and methods.

6. There were new materials including books, manuals, and articles.

7. Leadership training for associational leaders was intensified.

8. The Associational Bulletin and the Associational Leader Notebook were published with the director of missions as the specific, intended reader.

9. The theme, The Association: Base for Mission Strategy, was implemented through major strategic planning projects such as Mega Focus Cities, Metro Thrust, Town & Country Thrust, and the PACT process.

4 - The Impact of the Our World, Our Mission Associational Convocation (1989)

1. The focus on missions continued and expanded. Whereas associations were generally agreed to be churches on mission in their setting (a legacy from Gulfshore), and associations worked in full partnership with other entities of the denomination (a legacy of the 1974 Convocation), and associations were recognized as a base for mission strategy within a framework of thinking nationally and acting locally (a legacy of the 1981 meeting), the 1989 convocation went further.

2. The 1989 Convocation asserted that associations of churches were to be on mission beyond all boundaries and barriers. This is a view that’s obedient to the versions of the Great Commission given in both Matthew 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8.

Now, The Big Question Is:

What Will Be the Legacy – the Impact -- of This Convocation?

What will they say at the next two or three convocations -- whenever they are held, but hopefully no more than 10 years apart – about the benchmarks set here and the legacy left by this particular group?

I hope they will say that those of us who are here will use this event as a springboard into new levels of missional understanding, actions, and leadership.

So what will be the legacy of this convocation? In its barest form, let me ask, what difference will this make? Well, it’s up to each of us to take full advantage of what is offered here and then to go back home to utilize fresh insights. I hope our impact and legacy will include something like these:

1. Consistent with our nature, we will innovate to solve pressing problems & seize opportunities.

Let me share an observation as to why I think that associations might have some of their greatest days ahead. (Not necessarily my association or your association, but associations.)

Throughout Baptist history, associations have been at their best when there were perplexing issues or problems that couldn’t be handled by the usual approaches. It was when the usual answers were applied – even with greater commitment and expertise – but when those great answers were ineffective, and maybe even pernicious; when not only the answers, but the questions changed. Associations have flourished during difficult times – and when that was settled, they tended to drift downward – only to be reinvigorated when issues arose where new answers were needed or where there were new questions to be addressed.

Associations represent some 1200 centers of potential innovation. It is the nature of innovation to bubble-up, not to trickle down. A major strength of associations is adaptability and flexibility. Associations cannot be both pioneers and settlers. An association can be either one or neither one, but it can’t be both. The inherent nature of associations is to be a pioneer – adaptable and flexible.

2. We Will Reinvent Our Associations and Whatever Else as Needed.

Some associations are already at some stage in the process – and it is still in the future for some. We live in a time when every institution in society is challenged. This includes churches, associations, and every other organization in Baptist life – and in the broader society. Associations, like others, must justify themselves to every new generation and every new people group. Remember that memories are short. We deal with many people whose question is What have you done for me lately?

Here are some examples of innovation and invention by associations of churches.

The Modern Missions movement was started by William Carey in the Nottingham Baptist Association in England.

When the impact of Carey’s emphasis on missions came to America around 1800, associations got busy trying to figure out the best ways of engaging in missions. Baptist associations experimented with various approaches including acting directly as a mission board and developing missionary societies. In addition, six associations in the Charleston area formed the first state convention in the South – the Baptist State Convention of South Carolina – because they recognized the need for an organization dealing with a larger area than the associations and specifically devoted to missions advance. (Note that it was associations, not messengers from the churches that created that convention.)

There were many other things done which resulted from associations that, when they confronted something that should be done, they figured out a way of doing it. As soon as success seemed assured, they usually passed it off to others such as societies and state conventions. In order to protect their strengths of adaptability and flexibility, they generally avoided tying themselves down with institutions or long term commitments. Their approach was to find a need and fill it and to practice the art of the possible.

Associations have

Published curriculum & hymnals
Started Baptist colleges, hospitals, and children’s homes
One association purchased a slave in order for him to preach the Christian gospel to the other slaves (the laws of manumission prohibited the freeing of slaves)

It is useful to remember that association was a verb before it became a noun. Churches associated to do something. They didn’t form an organization and then try to figure out what it was to do.

3. We Will Respond to the Condition of the Churches with Both Affirmation and Innovation as Appropriate

There are several drivers of innovation in associations, but let me focus for a few minutes on just one of these – the needs of the churches.

There is a lot that’s right in the churches today – and that should be affirmed-- but there are a number of issues that call for innovation. You can easily count some of the things – but not others. For example:

The primary missionary force – the churches – has cumulatively grown weaker as indicated by these facts:

a. 80% of churches are in a non-growth pattern – either on a plateau or declining

b. Of the 20% that are growing, only 1% is growing by reaching people for salvation. The other 19% are presumably growing as people transfer from declining churches.

c. The number of baptisms is declining.

d. The number of churches relative to population is declining.

e. The number of Baptists, as well as other Christians, in relation to population Declining.

The most important things in the world are not measurable, but, are nevertheless observable. For example:

a. There is a growing biblical illiteracy – both in the churches and in society.

b. Some churches are victimized by spiritual amnesia – they neither know who they are (Body of Christ, etc.) nor whose they are. Their primary operational theology is church autonomy rather than the Lordship of Christ.

c. There is a shrinking leadership pool – you can get plenty of helpers, but leaders are in short supply.

d. Some have been diverted from the main task by important, but lesser issues. The greatest enemy of the best is usually not the bad, but the merely good. The direct, easily understood commands of Jesus should not be side-tracked in order to pursue lesser issues.

4. We Will Commit to Follow the Holy Spirit – the Cosmic Director of God’s Mission.

If we had understood the questions or problems adequately, we would have already addressed these and other issues effectively. However, we must consider these in terms of challenges, not achievements.

We all probably know it, but we might need to be reminded from time to time that whatever we do in associations or churches, that we are not in charge. The book of Acts makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is the Cosmic Director of God’s Mission. The Holy Spirit is not our resource – we, and the churches, are His instruments for accomplishing His mission in the world.

The issue is not what the future will be like, but how we will participate with God in co-creating the future. When we recognize that it is God’s mission, we realize that prayer must be Strategy #1.

Expect Great Things from God; Attempt Great Things for God.

I know of no better admonition to us all as we address the challenges in our own fields of missionary service than those given by William Carey in his famous message to his colleagues in the Northampton Baptist Association, Expect Great Things from God; Attempt Great Things for God. I hope and pray that the legacy of this convocation will be that because we expected great things from God, that we attempted great things for God.

J.C. Bradley, Associational Missionary

Central Triad Baptist Association

High Point, NC

jcb@ctbanc.org

When Prayer Is Not Enough

2009-09-15T15:36:00.004-04:00

Have you ever prayed about an issue and nothing seemed to happen? There is no resolution. You are still facing the problem. The stress is still there. The general consensus about unanswered prayer is that God is sending you a message “NO” or “It’s not yet time” for the prayer to be answered, or, He wants to answer the prayer in a different way than what we expect.

There may be another reason for unanswered prayer.

The book of Isaiah begins with a tough realization. Read Isaiah 1:10-20. It seems that Israel had a long history of turning aside and moving away from God. Under normal circumstances their sacrifices were sufficient to handle their sin; but after God had seen their departure from Him time and time again, He rejected them. I am sure that many Israelites were praying seriously with heart-felt prayers; but He wasn’t paying any attention to them. He wanted them to repent and come back to Him.

God wants us to respond to Him in love, obedience and faithfulness. How does God respond to our prayers if we have loved something more than Him? How does He respond if our life actions display disobedience to Him? How does He respond to our prayers when we are not faithful to His call on our lives—we go about doing our own thing rather than partner with Him in the work He has assigned to us?

Think back to a time when your relationship with God was vibrant, real, vital and you sensed His presence and peace in your life. Wasn’t that great! Well, what is your relationship with Him today? If it is not the same as it was, you have, to one degree or another, departed from Him.

What God wanted from the Israelites is what He wants from us today: Repentance. Many of us (individuals and churches) have drifted so far from God that the only thing that He will respond to is our repentant hearts. We want God’s blessings, but, the truth is, you cannot find scripture where God blesses people (or churches) that have departed from Him.

What is the solution? We have only one road out of our difficulties: the road of repentance, and we may be so far departed from God, that it make take several levels of repentance before we get to the spiritual level where God can work with us. Therefore, let me encourage you to repent, repent, repent. It is not only feeling sorry for our sins, but repentance is a change of direction, to display redirected behavior toward God. Repentance is an activity for all of us, not just for unbelievers.

Maybe the Father does want us to pray, but the prayer of repentance (and not a prayer of deliverance) may be the only thing He wants to hear.

Larry M. Richmond, Director of Ministries
Gateway Baptist Association
Granite City, Illinois

One Missionary’s Observations on the 2009 Associational Convocation

2009-09-13T20:05:00.006-04:00

Spiritual revitalization, full missional partnership, diversification, and a challenging future were the recurring ideas shared at this convocation among the over 400 Directors of Missions who attended. Last week’s Convocation on Associational missions held in Ridgecrest Conference Center in North Carolina was by most accounts a very successful and encouraging meeting. It was encouraging to have the North American Mission Board show its concern and support for Associational work in a renewed and significant way. It was successful because over half of the active Directors of Missions from all over North America were sharing their ideas, concerns, and dreams for the future.

This convocation differed from previous convocations because of length, period of time since the last one, and the times in which we are living. The last event like this was held in 1989. Three other convocations have been held. In 1963, 1974, and 1981 many of the issues that faced these earlier convocations have experienced significant metamorphosis in the 20 years since the most recent event. The other events were also longer in duration taking most of a week to dialogue, consider, and formulate conclusions. However, some significant findings emerged in our time together on the mountain.

First, almost to the last man, a real concern for the spiritual needs and attitudes of Associational Directors of Missions, Associations and churches came to the surface. Spiritual revitalization, what I am sure our predecessors would have called spiritual revival, has not swept this country in many decades. The DoM’s shared a common recognition of the spiritual struggle in the absence of the Holy Spirit’s power. It is the prayer and desire of this group to see change in this important area of the ministry of their associations of churches, and in their own lives.

Secondly, there was a hope that in the face of today’s opportunities, associations would be elevated in the view of all SBC entities as full partners in the work of reaching the world for Christ. Among all levels of denominational life, only the association has the assignment for every area of the mission effort in Acts 1:8, working alongside local churches to share that assignment in new and vibrant ways.

Third, diversification of mission opportunities locally and globally was recognized as the most exciting prospect for the future. The nations have come to us. Whether we live in a large metropolitan area or a rural area people with different cultures, languages, and customs surround us. This is both exciting and challenging as churches work to meet these changes with effective ministries designed to share the Gospel in the midst of diverse and changing cultures. The dominant culture of our continent has rapidly given way to a stew of cultures weaving a more colorful pattern into the life of North America.

Finally, the presence of rapid, discontinuous change makes responding to the future the greatest challenge the churches and the Gospel they proclaim face as we enter the second decade of the third millennium. Structures set in stone are inundated with a flood of change that makes them less able to respond quickly enough to make the difference they could have made. In short, the 21st century is looking more like the first century than any of the intervening centuries.

Second Corinthians 11:28 may be the passage that best characterizes the work of the missionaries in associations across this continent. Paul says in the context of defending his apostleship to the Corinthian Christians that, “Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches.” This is the heartbeat of the men and women who serve in associations all over the land. From the greatest to the least, they bear the burden of the churches in a way that no other group bears it.

While this only represents a few of the great ideas, opportunities, and concerns shared at this historic convocation, it points to the greatest need in our day which is for God to visit his people with a real, tangible, and empowering manifestation of His presence. We need His presence through His Spirit in order that the work of the Kingdom might again see dramatic results as it did in previous times. Pray with me, that just such a movement of God would begin among associational leaders and spread to the ends of the earth.

Missionary Directions Today

2009-09-13T14:56:00.007-04:00

Message Delivered at the
2009 National Convocation on Associations
by David Smith, Director of Missions
Austin Baptist Association, Texas

In the fall of ‘99, while serving on the DOM search committee for the Austin Baptist Association, I was captured by the impact that an Association could have on a geographical area. That realization and the amazing opportunity for Kingdom expansion is what excited me to accept the role of Director of Missions.

One of the men I invited to prayer with me, for God’s direction, described this position as God giving me the opportunity to paint on a larger canvas. My translation of this pictorial image was that I would continue doing what God had commanded me to do, namely the Great Commission (making disciples), but in this role I would involve myself on a larger scale.

So, the question becomes, how does disciple making become the core of what I do in giving leadership to my association? And, what does disciple-making look like from the view of a DOM?
While the Great-Commission of Christ should stand at the foundation of every believer, church, and Christian entity, today I invite you to look back at a text that pre-figures the Great Commission.

In Luke’s gospel, we see Jesus first sending out the 12 (Ch. 9), and in Ch. 10 we read that he commissioned another 70. Luke 10:1-9 (NAS)

1Now after this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them in pairs ahead of Him to every city and place where He Himself was going to come. 2And He was saying to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. 3"Go; behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. 4"Carry no money belt, no bag, no shoes; and greet no one on the way. 5"Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace be to this house.' 6"If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. 7"Stay in that house, eating and drinking what they give you; for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not keep moving from house to house. 8"Whatever city you enter and they receive you, eat what is set before you; 9and heal those in it who are sick, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'

So, why another group, and why 70?

The OT background is clearly Genesis 10-11. In these chapters, we read of the 70 nations that represent “the world” at that time. Luke is pointing out Jesus’ intention for the worldwide (gentile) mission.

A second reference to 70 chosen is in Numbers 11:16-17 Moses is commanded by God to select 70 men, in whom God would pour His spirit. These men would help Moses carry his role in leading the children of Israel.

We don’t have to decide which of the two backgrounds works here. Luke probably intended both. Jesus as the second Moses is calling a new taskforce of laborers whom he appoints to share His responsibilities.

Jesus’ canvas now expands to more than Israel, He is prefiguring a worldwide horizon, and in that sense, this text prepares us for the Great Commission.

How would we segment the world today? There are now at least 194 recognized countries. 6,912 languages spoken. 16,351 people groups. (Of those people groups 6,641 are considered unreached)

As DOM’s, Disciplers Of Many - How do we cast a vision for our Associations to join in the task of Discipling an entire world?

1. By seeing the largeness of the harvest.

If anyone is in a position to see the harvest, we are that person. We have been called upon to paint on a larger canvas than one local church. What is the reach of our Association of churches?

This agricultural image is used to show urgency.

What does your vision of the horizon include? Do you see the harvest? Is it large? Jesus saw it larger than the disciples realized it.

The University of Texas has a motto – “What starts in Texas changes the world” How tragic if a state University were to have a greater vision for changing the world than we do.

How are you presenting the vision of lostness to the churches in your area?

In Austin, it has been estimated that 90 - 95% of the population does not attend church.

Of the 1.2 million people, living in Austin, only 1.727% or 20,730 people attended a Southern Baptist Church last year. (170 SBC churches)

Catching a vision for discipling our Associations would translate into transformed lives, strengthened churches, and new church plants or simply the advancement of the Great Commission.

2. By praying ...

a. For more workers: Interestingly, Jesus told them not only to see the harvest, but also to see the workers: they are few

Even though this is the second sending, of “another 70”, the laborers are still not enough. Why didn’t Jesus just send more?

The reason Jesus didn’t send more is because he was building his Kingdom on reproduction. The disciples He sent would disciple the next generation of disciples

All of a sudden, these rookie laborers are entrusted to ask for more laborers. It is not simply about praying for more, but it’s about an attitude of responsibility.

And instead of praying for an easier job, they are to pray for more laborers to join them. It is not a call for more spectators to pray for more laborers… those that are doing are to pray.

b. For a missionary mindset. We can encourage missionary thinking in our churches, which will impact our cities, our states, and our world.

Missionaries take the church to the city instead of asking the city to come to the church. They incarnate the gospel. Make it real, tangible, like Jesus. They get on common cultural ground and ask everyday questions in order to offer concrete, gospel answers.

The missionary thinker asks several questions:

• What is it like to be an Austenite and not to believe in Jesus?
• Where is our city broken and how can the gospel address the need?

I get the sense that if praying to God for more laborers would indeed be the burden of our hearts, we would have greater effectiveness in helping others see the lostness of our cities, and the opportunities for harvest.

c. For a capital "K" Kingdom mindset

When our churches begin to see themselves as part of a larger body of believers they can then really begin to engage an area for transformation.

I think it important and timely to point out that the association does not exist to keep the churches “engaged” with “the association”. We exist to help churches be “engaged” in the harvest.

One of the ways we accomplish this engagement is to create an environment where the churches work together. The Associational staff or leadership works to facilitate this network.

The churches of the ABA work together on 3 distinct fronts.

1. In the area of church strengthening, we encourage the churches to take active ownership in growing one another. We empower the churches to do the training.

For example, a church requests training for their children’s workers. We ask the requesting church to host the training and we will bring in children’s leaders from sister churches (who are excelling in this area) to provide the training. In this case, we brought in Bannockburn Baptist church that has an outstanding Children’s program. In turn, the host church will open its doors to any church needing help in this area.

2. In the area of church planting. We have said that every participating church will partner to plant a new church every 3 years. This might mean that a larger church provides a bigger portion in the area of financial resources but that a smaller church might provide prayer support or help with smaller ticket items.

We have even had smaller churches, like Skyview Baptist, that have so catch the vision that they have deeded their church building back to the Association as a incubator for new church starts. The original group though small continues to meet but have agreed to move to a smaller area like a fellowship hall to allow the largest group meeting to have the sanctuary and the prime time. This is our Legacy Church plan. At the newly named Skyview Ministry Center, we now have four congregations meeting rather than just one.

3. Finally, we as an Association have said that we want to be about City transformation. This means that we will partner with other Kingdom minded, Evangelical churches to see Austin changed for the cause of Christ.

As a result of the issues faced with the Katrina Hurricane, the city of Austin has asked that the Faith Based Community take on the role of directing the 88 shelters in Austin. Because of the geographical distribution of churches they felt we might be the best equipped to handle future catastrophes. Thru prayer, God lead Daniel Geraci, a member of a non-denominational church in the city to lead what we have established as the Austin Disaster Relief Network. ADRN. It is made up of over 100 participating churches whose primary task is to serve the city and refugees in the event of a natural disaster. Taking on this challenge has put the Faith Based community in the Command and control center. We believe that we can reach a city through service. (This seems right in line with the Lk. 10 sending)

3. By being in the harvest ourselves.

We can only help others do it, if we are doing ourselves. We need to be out into the harvest, doing the job ourselves, and not simply directing it. We can’t be on the sidelines and just cheer others do to it.

This point was driven home to me one evening after one of our monthly pastors meetings.

We have a large population of homeless people that “live” around our office. We have made it a practice to offer food, assistance, and bus passes to help these individuals. This is our way of participating in the Great Commandment to Love and up until recently was about the extent of our ministry to the homeless.

There seemed to be something missing. If I were to lead by example, how could I engage my world? The place where I spent a great deal of my day? How could I be a part of discipleship in this setting? So I began praying that the Lord would show me who I was to engage. Realizing that I had an unreached people group at my doorstep, I began to develop relationships with these people. I have begun to know them by name.

One evening after a very busy day and one that I might add was pretty successful from the “I have done my DOM job well” perspective. I encountered Richard standing in the middle of Harmon Street, which is right next to our office, with a can of government issued chicken. He was asking if I had a can opener that he could borrow. Somewhat frustrated I turned to go back in the building that I had just locked, to honor his request.

From the back door to the middle of the workroom, a matter of feet, I sensed the Lord saying that if I missed this opportunity to serve Richard that this would be the defining moment of my day. That all the DOM stuff that I had done would be for naught if I missed this opportunity. With tears in my eyes, I apologized to Richard for not immediately serving him. I called Julie to let her know I would be home a little later and then I encouraged him to invite his friend Trudy to dinner. I microwaved some of the leftovers of our Executive Board meeting earlier that day and I can tell you that the impact of that one event has impacted my role as a DOM.

Since we have shifted from just being a hand out to the needy, we have found a new sense of purpose. Others come by and drink coffee and request prayer. We even have a barber come buy and cut everyone’s hair. We have seen a few folks confess Jesus and we hope to disciple them to be fully functioning followers of Jesus.

We are just content with making disciples and we haven’t given much thought to what we would do with all these folks in terms of having them congregate in a larger group. We feel that we need one of their own to lead them in this next step.

About a month or so ago the Lord brought Myron our way. A homeless man with a very obvious relationship with the Lord. Could he be the pastor of this new group? It is too early to tell. What form will this new church be? There won’t be any big offerings! But the Lord will lead us at that point. He told us to make disciples He will take care of the rest.

Often when asked, we DOM’s offer a “can opener,” when we could respond with a meal.

As DOMs, we have a unique position to help churches realize the largeness of the harvest and all its opportunities. But unless this is the burden of our hearts and of our prayers, we will not get far, because only the Lord of the Harvest sends them out.

4. By trusting that the Lord will provide

Did you notice that the Lord told them what they should leave behind? Jesus doesn’t tell them what to take, but what not to take: purse (moneybag), traveling bag (luggage), and footwear. Why? In order to learn to depend on the Lord of the harvest.

I know that all of us find ourselves wondering how we will fund our Association. Our Churches our strapped and it is easy for them to cut us a little. The state conventions are strapped and it’s easy to cut us. We can bemoan the fact that we are not in the CP mix. But men we need to trust that the Lord will provide. That He will resource what is at His very heart. And those whose hearts are completely His. And if we will be faithful to serve His bride, the church He will meet our needs. “But my God will supply all my needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
In the parable of the Feeding of the 5,000, Jesus was not interested in what they needed. Jesus is never at a loss for what is need. (The disciples had spent the day calculating what it would cost when they should have been listening to Jesus.) When they tell him what he already knows – that it is getting late and the people are hungry. He tells them to feed the people. When they say they can’t He asks them, What do you have?

What do we have? All we need, we have Jesus?

This “Harvest” business is not just a test of obedience, but also a test of dependence on the Lord: trusting that the Lord of the Harvest will provide.

Missions as Usual or Missional?

2009-09-04T13:53:00.001-04:00

Many churches and associations know where they have been, but have no sure vision for where they are going. Some questions come to mind:

• Where is the Metro-East Baptist Association today….and where does God want MEBA to be?
• Will MEBA be about associational missions or will it be a missional association?

What does missional mean? Bob Mayfield from the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma defines it as the mindset and action of living as a missionary in your neighborhood. Milford Minatrea would say it is seeing our communities, states, nation and world through God’s eyes and acting accordingly. Who is right? They both are.

My prayer for the association of churches called MEBA is that we will take on the mindset and action of living as a missionary in the communities of the Metro-East, that we will see the Metro-East through God’s eyes, and that we will act accordingly.

How will this look? I am not sure yet of all the particulars, but I have an idea we will be experiencing what Mayfield mentions: movements of God rather than simple battle cries for God. Our growth will be exponential rather than incremental. Our folks will be missionaries rather than members. Our practice will be planting rather than protecting. Our approach will be customized rather than cookie-cutter. We will be about transformation rather than self-preservation.

Indeed, I look forward to the day when every person from every people group from every community in the Metro- East has opportunity to hear and receive Christ and participate in a New Testament church.

Dennis E. Dawson, Executive Director
Metro-East Baptist Association
Illinois

No Little Work

2009-08-12T09:02:00.002-04:00

One of the deceptions many ministers, including DOM’s, get caught up in is the size of the ministry they are involved in. When we begin to believe the size of our association or the size of the churches of our association are too small to really make a difference we limit God. Over the years I have heard pastors bemoan the fact their church was too small to offer the same things larger membership churches offer, and they used it as an excuse to do nothing. Since the first time I heard one of those kinds of statements it became a pet peeve.

My ministry began in a small membership church and the congregation there had bought into the fallacy of they were too small to make a difference. As we worked through those issues the Lord reminded all of us He does not have a small work. Once people realized everyone served the same Big God, then great things began to happen and the Lord really blessed. That “little church” soon was doing all the things any church was doing.

George/Greene Baptist Association is a two county rural association in Southeast Mississippi. Our association is very rural and isolated. The majority of the population of our two counties drives long distances to work and choose to live here for the slower lifestyle. The vast majority of the thirty-three churches have less than fifty in Sunday School. The description of our area would delight someone looking for a great place to live in a relaxed atmosphere, but it would not stir the imagination of making a major difference in reaching a world for Jesus. Yet, through the cooperation of churches working together in an association, the Lord has allowed this small rural association to literally reach around the world for Christ.

Instead of focusing on the limited resources we had here we chose to focus on the task the Lord has given all believers found in Acts 1:8. The Lord is faithful to provide all the resources the association needs to assist churches to carry out their purpose of the Great Commission. This past year we have engaged an unreached people group in Nigeria that has no known Christians. We are in the second year of a church planting partnership with a church plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil. A team distributed over 2,000 copies of the Gospel of John in Mexico as part of Operation Go Mexico. A team of men working with a sister association in Omaha helped pass out 60,000 bottles of water with a gospel presentation at the College World Series. A student team assisted a church in New Orleans conduct a VBS. Within our own association a summer missionary held mission VBS at several locations, and we are developing a church plant from one of these VBS’s. Our construction team worked to frame the inside of a building for one of our churches that was destroyed by a tornado. The Lord has truly allowed us to have a witness from Jerusalem to the utter most.

There is “no little work” in the kingdom of God. I would encourage you to focus on Him and His mission, and He will provide you areas of influence beyond your wildest imagination. The Baptist Association is being used of God to assist churches to reach around the world in a big way.

Jimmy C. Holcomb, Associational Missions Director
George/Greene Baptist Association
Lucedale, MS

How Do We Know that a Church is Healthy?

2009-07-14T23:40:00.004-04:00

A growing church is not necessarily a healthy church but a healthy church is always a growing church. What determines if a church is healthy?

You can see by studying present and past Annual Church Profiles (ACPs). We seem to focus on numbers and numbers are important but we don’t always look at the right numbers and how they reflect the heart of a church. Another problem is convincing some of our churches to submit their ACP. The ACP is such a valuable tool but some churches look on as just another report. When all the churches in a community submit their ACPs, we can then take that data and compare it with demographic reports and have a pretty good idea of how effective we are at reaching the community. School enrollment for each grade level is readily available. I know of one church that had 90 children enrolled in a certain grade of their local school and felt that they were being very successful at reaching that grade until they found out that there were eight schools in that area, each having 90 students enrolled in that grade so even though they were doing a good work, they were not reaching but about 13% of the children in that grade. It is important to know the makeup of your community if you want to know who you are impacting.

The ACP is valuable for comparing statistics for present and prior years. Usually we focus on SS and Worship attendance and giving but what about Discipleship Training, Missions involvement, special missions offerings, enrollment by age group, etc. Associational work would be simplified if every church submitted their ACP each year.

Many churches in the Southern Baptist Convention have not baptized one person in years. That is sad because it means we are not even baptizing our own children. Without something like the ACP to track that information we forget how long it has been since we baptized anyone. A healthy church is a reproducing church. A healthy church is a church with a strong Discipleship Ministry that teaches people who to live out their faith. I’m afraid that statistics show that we have many unhealthy churches that need to be revived. Let’s pray that the church in America will wake up and get busy about the Father’s business.

Jim Ballard
Associate for Church Services
Kauf-Van Baptist Association
Texas

Love Them “AS IS”

2009-07-01T13:35:00.003-04:00

Do the people outside the walls know that you and your church care about them? Don’t give the easy answer. Think through this. Do they believe you care about them and their families just because they are important to you or do they suspect some ulterior motive? Do they feel like you love them, “as is”?

It is easy to view them as what they can become. They can fill those critical leadership roles in the organizational chart. They can create the growth momentum that all of us want. With a little encouragement and training they can help with the budget needs that growing ministry creates. The presence of “new people” almost always creates a sense of freshness and excitement.

Loving people for what they become is easy, but do you love them as they are right now. If you don’t, is it any wonder they look at us with a little suspicion, if they look at us at all. We all know of couples that got married and one or the other set out to change their partner. They loved them for what they could become. There is real trouble with that attitude in a marriage or in a church.

You will love some people naturally. I am blessed with a wife that is more attractive than I am physically, intellectually and spiritually. I didn’t have to learn or pray about loving her. While our love has grown through the years, I began loving her very naturally.

Some people you can only love eventually. Have you ever heard this, “He’s a little odd but when you get to really know him you will learn to like him.” What that really means is that he is a jerk right now, but you can learn to love him eventually.

There are a handful of people that you will not love naturally, you will not even learn to love eventually, but you can only love them obediently. Jesus commanded us to love! Love them “as is” in obedience to the Lord Himself.

A handful of folks in the church at Corinth must have accused Paul of not really loving them for who they were. In the final chapter of II Corinthians as Paul is telling of his plans to come a third time to Corinth he says, “I will not burden you, for I am not seeking what is yours but you.” (HCSV) If the Corinthians could have felt that way about Paul after all the sacrifices he went through to bring the gospel, is it any wonder that our world sometimes looks at the church with suspicion.

When we hear someone accusing the church of not caring, it is tempting to say, “Well it’s just not true” and somehow think that fixes it. If we are taking seriously the Jerusalem challenge in the Great Commission, then it is not just their problem, it is our problem. We must first be sure we do love them. We know we are commanded to but do we really love them or do we just love what they might become. When we settle that in our hearts we must develop ways as individuals and churches to communicate that love to them. People want to be loved but they are leery of being used.

Ernie McCoulskey, Director of Missions
Kauf-Van Baptist Association
Terrell, TX

Spiritual Drift

2009-06-12T01:16:00.002-04:00

Do people drift in their relationship with the Lord? Absolutely! The Old Testament is filled with occurrences of the Israelites in a “sin cycle” involving fellowship with God, drifting from God, disobedience through sin, repentance, and returning to fellowship with God. Drifting is not confined to the Old Testament. I believe it has happened in America over the past 100-200 years. As best as I can determine, we are in the “negative” part of the sin cycle in America.

We see indirect evidence of this everywhere. Baptisms are down significantly from 20 years ago. Many churches are inwardly focused. Only 1% of our churches are growing because of conversion growth. Serious corporate and individual prayer is low. Cooperative program gifts, when you consider economic inflation, have been decreasing over the past 20 years. There is little evidence in our churches where activity is attributed to the sovereign supernatural intervention of God. Many church leaders have lost God’s vision and their passion for God’s work. There is significant conflict and/or ineffectiveness at many levels of SBC life. The list goes on.

How did we get where we are? Spiritual drift. Consider this. Just suppose when you were saved you joined a church that was 50% dysfunctional. The church did some things right and some things that God did not like, but, you had no church background, so, what you observed in church was considered “normal” activity. Twenty years later, the church is about 60% dysfunctional. You have seen some changes, but not enough to get too concerned. Now at 60% level of church dysfunction, someone else is saved and to that person everything is “normal” because he has no previous experience in church life. Now, extend that kind of spiritual drift from 20 to 100 or 200 years. Might we have drifted so slowly away from God that our drifting away from God has been undetectable to us? Might we have drifted so far that we are out of fellowship with God and don’t know it? I think that is a distinct possibility.

What is the solution? In a word, REPENTANCE. Are there any scriptures we specifically need to follow in this situation? There are several, but two come to mind: Luke 9:23 (get off of our own agenda and get onto God’s agenda) and 2 Chronicles 7:14 (get humble, pray, turn from our wicked ways). You say we aren’t involved in wicked ways? Well, at least look at the following and see if we haven’t moved away from God:

Comparison of NT Church to Today’s Church in America

Churches in America have been spiritually drifting away from God for 100-200 years and they do not realize it. Today we have churches that are twisted and deformed compared to the New Testament model. When will WE stop thinking about ourselves and begin to think about the lost people who are walking our streets without Christ? Will we confess our sin and return to truly following Jesus? The church was not meant to be a fortress for Christians, but a gathering place for the nations as people accept Christ as Lord and Savior.

Which column generally describes your church? What are you going to do to help your church approach God’s design for the church?

Dr. Larry Richmond, DoM
Gateway Baptist Association
Illinois

When God’s Spirit Moves

2009-06-08T13:49:00.003-04:00

In the 50’s and 60’s, Morgan Avenue Baptist Church was one of the strongest churches in Corpus Christi. But time took its toll and the numbers decreased to 30 silver-headed people meeting in a corner of the building. The physical building located in the inner city was also deteriorating. But the beautiful sanctuary that once echoed the praise of 700 worshippers singing “Blessed Assurance” maintained its stately grace.

Pastor Bobby Graham and the remnant considered selling the church. After all, they had prayed for years that God would resurrect the church. On several occasions, they had welcomed a Hispanic Pastor to use their facilities. But these stayed only a few months.

The building was decaying, but the vision of the people of Morgan Avenue was still present. When the possibility of the church making a come back was least likely, they voted to update their sputtering central air conditioning for their sanctuary. I remind you, nobody is meeting in their huge worship center. The skeptic cries, “Why pay for air conditioning for an empty building?”

Bay Area Fellowship is the largest church in Corpus Christi Association. Bil Cornelius regularly speaks to a congregation of 6,000. Talking with Bil at lunch one day, we recounted the events and partners that had participated in their climb to begin a mega-church. Bil thoughtfully commented, “We do need to be more on the giving end.”

God moved in the heart of Bay Area Fellowship to take up offerings for Morgan Avenue Baptist Church. But, this was no ordinary offering. The Children’s Ministry of Bay Area Fellowship had the children collect money in socks. That’s right – socks. SOCKS in an acronym for “Save Our Community Kids”. With that offering, a large work team from Bay Area descended on the church to create a colorful and stimulating pre-school and nursery area. The finished project was impressive! But the critic would remind us that Morgan Avenue doesn’t have any children. Faith hears the children long before the first child enters the room.

Ely Perez, Pastor of Family First, and I became good friends. His love for the Lord was contagious. I invited him and his small group to use our office space until they could locate a better place to meet for worship. Soon they were ministering to 130 nursing students in worship services weekly at our office. I wrote an article in the Anchor about this phenomenal experience.

Bobby Graham, Pastor of Morgan Avenue reads the article, calls me and extends an invitation to have Ely Perez and Family First begin meeting at Morgan Avenue. Family First gladly accepted the offer. In less than 3 years, Family First has an attendance regularly of close to 300. Many of those are children enjoying the wonderful space provided by Bay Area Fellowship. The central air is a constant reminder of the Spirit of God blowing over a congregation who refused to let the vision die.

I am truly amazed at how God uses all our pieces to assemble His plan. That’s what happens when churches pray together, give unselfishly for the good of another, and trust God’s promptings. That is what happens when we work together. We can do more together than we can do alone. That’s what an Association is all about!

Ed Jump, Director of Missions
Corpus Christi Baptist Association
Corpus Christi, TX

Solutions/Models for Struggling Churches

2009-06-03T13:31:00.002-04:00

St. Louis Metro Baptist Association is committed to strengthening existing churches. Believing God's plan is for His churches to thrive not just survive, the following models are offered to assist struggling churches. The goal is help churches discover how they can be "born again"to reach their community and glorify the Lord.

I. Church Assessment and Consultation

Work with pastor and people to assess current systems, structures and strategies that need to be changed to effectively fulfill the Great Commandment and Great Commission in the churches current context. This may or may not require new leadership.

II. Partnering with Stronger Church

Most churches began as missions under the leadership of a "mother church". This model allows a church to gain leadership, support, and needed resources from a stronger church. After open communication and clear agreements both churches take on new roles under God's leadership.

III. New Church Plant

This model provides the opportunity for a church to start over. Often this is needed due to a changing community. A church planter is called under God's leadership to launch a new vision and type of church. The existing church membership either becomes a Sunday School class of this new church or joins other churches.

IV. From Church to Ministry Center

In an effort to be good stewards of facilities and enlarge the arms of ministry from one location, a church can transition from being one church to a center for many ministries to reach a community. This could include multiple churches meeting in one building and/or several types of ministries to be started or invited to join at a single location.

V. Selling and Starting New Church Planting Fund

The Bible says there is a time to be born and a time to die. This opportunity allows a church to celebrate the past and provide for new churches in the future. Existing church members join other churches and rejoice to hear and see their investments in the kingdom reach new communities.

Jim Breeden, Executive Director
St. Louis Metro Baptist Assoc.
Missouri

Automatic Termination of Church Membership?

2009-02-20T07:21:00.001-05:00

Should membership in a local church grant you “forever status” in that congregation until you choose to “move your membership” or withdraw?

In recent conversation with the several attorneys, it was strongly recommended to me that an automatic termination of membership for nonattendance be included in a church’s bylaws. This provision would automatically, and without any further action from anyone, remove from the church membership rolls any person who had not been in regular attendance during a designated time. Further, it was recommended to NOT move members in an “inactive” or “non-resident” membership status. This is a problem because it is a vague status. For instance,

May those “inactive” or “non-resident” members vote?
If not, may they attend “member only” meetings?
If so, may they have a say on the issue at hand?
When they are present in a meeting in which a vote is taken, are they counted for the purposes of determining whether a quorum is present?

Most pastors (and members, too) have experienced that when there is internal church dissension, members who have not attended for months often appear and expect to have a say and/or vote in the matter. It is obvious to most of us that someone who has not attended any service in several months is upset at something and are likely returning to defend an agenda or make a point about a personal preference. Providing for an automatic termination clears up any confusion as to who is eligible to vote, attend member meetings, count for quorum purposes, or have a say in a member’s meeting. Obviously, you would exclude from this termination provision such persons as college students, military personnel, shut-ins, missionaries, evangelists or others who are legitimately unable to attend regular activities of the church.

The automatic termination of members who flaunt their sexual immorality spares the church the shame of having to "speak of those things which are done of them in secret" for discipline purposes. By establishing an automatic termination for "going to law against a brother" provides the church with protection against having to retain a person as a member who is willing to harm the church by taking it to court. If this provision is automatic, it will avoid the charge of retaliation.

How do you feel about churches putting provisions in place for automatic termination of church membership?

Make your comments here, or review others comments on original post HERE

Beyond the Boundaries

2008-11-25T22:42:00.004-05:00

Through the years, I have often found myself drawn to a particular passage of Scripture for a period of time. One that is currently n my mind is from 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (The Message):

Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have oluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of
people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!

As the culture changes around the doorstep of our churches are we becoming servants to those outside the doors. How are we as associations helping the churches and pastors we work with to become all things to all men? Have we entered the world of other cultures? Are we becoming servants to those who are different and least expects it in order to share the gospel with them? Are we assisting our churches in how to reach outside of themselves to touch the lives of the various cultures around us? And, I am not talking only about people with a different skin color or different native language.

Some days I make it through the day and realize that my contact with that wide range of people has been very limited. The challenge is for me – I want to enter the world of those different and sometimes in my attempt to speak “their language” I fall flat on my face. But, I get up and I try again another day.

One of the churches I work with, for the last two summers, has done Grace (Baptist Church) in the park. They have done some evenings and some mornings. When the service is over then the grill comes out and the inflatable bouncer and obstacle course goes up. As a result, they are crossing the cultural boundaries. We see cowboy churches and motorcycle churches. In the coming year, lets help our churches cross the boundaries in an attempt to lead others into a God-saved life!

Jim Pratt
Area Missionary, Siouxland Association
South Dakota

Lawyers Recommendations for Your Constitution & Bylaws

2008-10-15T00:42:00.003-04:00

(From the Introduction of the
SAMPLE Church Constitution & Ministry Bylaws
document produced by the Christian Law Association)

Every church, must have an operational document. This is the internal ministry document that sets forth how the organization will operate, i.e., the purposes of the organization, the election of officers, when organizational meetings will be held, if and how members will be admitted, etc. This document is commonly known as the bylaws, but may be known as the constitution or the constitution and bylaws.

In most instances, when a dispute as to the authority and duties of church officers or other governing body is taken to court, the court will look to the organization’s bylaws to determine whether or not that officer or the voting members acted within the scope of his or their duties. For legal purposes, the set of bylaws is the organization’s most important document because it sets out in detail the internal workings of the organization. It is vital that this document be prepared properly and that it include all the protections available for the organization to safeguard against many of the lawsuits that are being filed against religious organizations today. Courts generally hold that a member who joins a church with knowledge of the bylaws has agreed to be bound by the bylaws—even to those with which they may disagree.

Each state has enacted laws establishing rules by which ministries incorporated as nonprofit corporations will be governed if it has no bylaws or if the bylaws do not speak to a specific issue. It is important that your organization at least consider all the issues presented in the Sample Church Bylaws that follow. The organization may then decide that its specific method of operation does not necessitate the inclusion of a section included in the Sample.

Many questions are answered in the SAMPLE regarding Church Constitutions and Bylaws including:

Must the church file its constitution and bylaws with the state secretary of state or any other government office?
Do we need to take any action to repeal old bylaws when we amend them?
May we prevent the bylaws from ever being changed by providing in our bylaws that part or all may never be amended?
May we vote to dismiss or otherwise discipline members who are not in the meeting in which the vote is to be taken?
If one of the rules in our bylaws is not working for the church, may we just ignore it and amend it later?

Specific questions not covered by this SAMPLE booklet should be referred to your ministry’s attorneys or to attorneys for the Christian Law Association. CLA will consult with a church or ministry free of charge.

The SAMPLE Constitution & Bylaws is annotated by attorneys for the Christian Law Association (CLA). Their comments explain the reasoning behind the recommendations in the SAMPLE.

The SAMPLE Church Constitution & Ministry Bylaws document can be ordered from CLA at http://www.christianlaw.org/ or (727) 399-8300. Search with keyword: Constitution. It is worth the investment.

Facing Financial Difficulties

2008-09-08T09:09:00.003-04:00

Next week I will have been serving as a Director of Missions for twenty-one years. During that time, I have been faced with financial blessings and financial difficulties several times. I have seen several recessions that hit us very hard and we had to make cutbacks in budgets to make ends meet but God has always seen us through. We are in the midst of another financial crunch that is deeper and more significant than we have ever faced but I want to remind you and myself of some principles that I learned many years ago.

First and foremost is that God is our Resource. He is the one that provides for the needs of our association of churches. Yes, I know, it is the churches that send the checks, but all of the churches are His churches. So I need to focus on the One who is my resource and our resource and then things will be OK. I sometimes forget this and want to try to handle it myself and He is the one who can best handle it when I am trusting in him!

Secondly, when the association is hurting financially, it means that the churches are also hurting financially and so I need to pray more fervently for them and for their pastors and their staff. It is probably true that one of the first places that churches tend to cut in difficult times is the association but hey, unless the churches survive we don’t survive. So take this as an opportunity to pray for your churches. Our God hears!

Thirdly, take this time as a time to evaluate your stewardship of the resources that God has been providing. Have we taken too many things for granted? Do we spend just because we have the money or is it really needed? I have found that we sometimes get in a rut and do the same things year after year and it is not bad to have to evaluate and prioritize things so that we are sure we are doing the things we need to be doing.

Lastly, time is a great healer and this too shall pass. Economic conditions change and will move back to more secure positions eventually and we will be blessed once again and able to do most of the things we would like to do. Just learn from the hard times so that even in the good times we remember the One who is in charge of it all and our Resource for now and for the future.

Sid Hopkins, DOM
Gwinnett Metro Baptist Association
Lawrenceville, Georgia

An Environment for Kingdom Results

2008-08-20T14:27:00.003-04:00

An environment for Kingdom results is one of the most important and difficult environments to create in an Association. With the pressures on pastors and church leaders to be focused on their churches and the needs of their members Kingdom-thinking is often pushed to the back burner in the mind and lives of these leaders. The tyranny of the urgent keeps many pastors running from one emergency to another. This accounts for the lack of planning and engagement in Kingdom focused ministry in many churches. It also means that most churches are going to need a change of mindset at the basic level to begin to focus on Kingdom expansion and extension.

So, how do you change the culture to enable churches to look beyond themselves? What are the key issues that must be addressed to begin this change? Finally, what are the steps an association can take to help create this culture of Kingdom focused results? Along the way, I will attempt to address some of the primary barriers and negotiating this difficult terrain.

Some guru of change has made the observation that we can be forced to change what we do for a period of time, but if we do not change the way we think about an issue we will eventually revert to our old actions. No area of church life is more susceptible to this truth than Kingdom focus. Most churches are under the impression that they are the Kingdom of God and therefore anything they do is automatically Kingdom focused. On the one hand, this attitude should contain a considerable amount of truth. On the other hand, most congregations spend the greatest amount of their time, talent, and treasure on work that has a direct and immediate impact on activities inside the walls of the church with the congregation as the focus. This is not a bad thing until the congregation reaches the point where they are maintaining their own comfort and institution ahead of all other needs. Church buildings, staffing, and other fixed expenses absorb the attention of most budgets, and therefore most of the resources of the churches.

The obvious initial strategy here is to begin to pray and ask God to soften the hearts and open the eyes of pastors and key church leaders in the area of Kingdom concern for the work of the Great Commission. Prayer times at Pastor’s fellowships, meetings etc. focused on the task of reaching the world and letting God keep the scorecard can begin this process in changing thinking. Introducing specific opportunities for service through newsletters and the use of the established mission seasons can also be very beneficial to help church leaders see the greater Kingdom purpose for their church’s ministry.

Helping a church think critically about the needs of its community and the world balanced with their own needs is the issue. Some churches are committed to such a debt load and such a saturated budget that they literally cannot assist another ministry with financial means. In many ways that is good because that leaves only the issue of time and talent. A congregation with even one person who is passionate about missional activity can make a huge difference in the involvement of that church in Kingdom activity. Looking at the community can reveal opportunities next door, down the block, across town, in a neighboring community, or around the world or …?

My observations are however, that distance for many churches with regard to their first missional partnership may be a good thing. The distance needs not be great enough to cause concern that the people of the church would have considerable difficulty getting there; however, in many churches I have noted a tendency to go out of their geographical area on their first Kingdom partnership. There remains in us enough catholocism to make most churches think of their church field as geographically defined and therefore if anyone in their area is to be reached they should come directly into the church. The obvious blind spot here is the diversity that exists within the claimed field of most churches in America be they rural or urban.

Teaming up with another church who is already involved in Kingdom focused ministry is another way to activate the passionate in a congregation without placing undue stress on the rest of the system. Sending one or two people on a mission event can get the seed planted in any congregation that given time can take firm root and help change the thinking of the church to be more positive with regard Kingdom kinds of ministry. When a few have gotten the vision, others will follow in time. Remember the effort here is to be a catalyst for the change of the mindset of the congregation.

Promoting these mission partnerships in an association can pay great dividends in Kingdom results. After prayer there is no more important vehicle for Kingdom focused ministry than telling the stories of churches that are making an impact through Kingdom partnerships. Helping churches see the possibilities by telling their stories through associational news letters, recognizing those congregations in annual meetings for their work, and personally encouraging churches to network with active Kingdom focused congregations will create a climate that moves churches to look outside their walls.

Being consistently supportive of missional activity within and outside the area of the association is your best tool as a Director of Missions or associational missionary to move your churches toward a Kingdom focused climate. Allowing God time to work in the hearts and lives of the pastors and key leaders takes patience and commitment. Modeling missional focus in the association by attempting to keep some partnerships going at the associational level can also engage church leaders in initial Kingdom activities. Undergirding all these actions with prayer will help your association turn the corner in missional Kingdom action. Stay with it! Climate change is slow. Be committed for the long haul! Trust God!

Tell the people! You can do this!

Eddie Miller, DoM
Sierra Baptist Association
Western Nevada

A Virtual Missionary

2008-07-31T16:55:00.003-04:00

On March 1, 2007, Roger Stacy became the Director of Missions for the Gibson Baptist Association. Having previously served as a missionary with IMB to Brazil and Ukraine, he brought a passion and desire to see that nation of Brazil evangelized.

As a part of developing a strategy for reaching a population segment which includes the Slavic speaking people group, Roger met with Terry Sharp, State and Association Relations Director, International Mission Board. Terry shared the vision and concept of becoming a virtual missionary association (strategy coordinator association). From that conversation and with Terry’s help, Roger shared the vision with his mission team and with the Executive Board of the association. At the annual meeting of the association in October 2007, the association officially voted to become a virtual missionary association.

Roger began working with Phil Kesler, mission strategist for Brazil. A team traveled to Brazil in November of 2007 to do research and practice the principles of a virtual missionary. Phil Kesler visited the Gibson Baptist Association in December and trained volunteers in how to be virtual missionaries and work within the Churches Multiplying Churches strategy for Brazil.

The Association has developed a Masterplan for simple church starts in the southern part of Brazil in the state of Paraná. Their critical path has been presented and approved as well. According to Phil Kesler, the Gibson Baptist Association is the first group to submit a volunteer request in all of Brazil for the new Churches Multiplying Churches strategy for Brazil.

Terry W. Sharp
Director, State and Association Relations
International Mission Board,SBC
(804) 219-1939
http://dom.imb.org/

The Church of the Future

2008-07-21T12:47:00.004-04:00

During the summer of 1964, while on tour with a youth choir, I had the opportunity to see what was for me the most modern design for a church sanctuary I had ever seen. It was a Presbyterian church in north Georgia. I thought the design looked like a space ship. It was very contemporary to say the least. I imagined that churches of the future would look like that. Boy was I wrong! I have yet to see a church that even resembles that architectural design.

What will the church of the future look like? I am not talking, however, about buildings and architecture. I am talking about the living, breathing, dynamic church of Jesus Christ. I affirm what Holy Scripture teaches—that Jesus established the church and the “gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” It is His Church. His Church is not composed of four walls and a roof. Neither is it composed of boards and committees, programs and activities. Today that is what most of us tend to think, because these have defined “church” in our lifetimes. But, in reality, the Church of our Lord consists of those who have responded to his call to salvation, and the call to be instruments of reconciliation, a light to the nations, and a blessing to others as they labor to fulfill the mission the Lord has given. What we have done is we have taken what we believed to be the Church and conformed it into our Church, complete with all the services, activities and membership requirements that we believed were necessary to be a “church,” adopting the corporate or educational model. Now we are experiencing difficulty getting people into this “church culture,” resulting in a significant percentage decline in church participation, membership, and contributions. All this is occurring in “church culture” while the broader culture professes a greater eagerness for spirituality. Somewhere there is a great disconnect. That is not to say the church has been totally ineffective, but rather is saying that we have reached a type of saturation point with our current church culture. Where does that leave us as we seek to chart a course for the future? Hear the words of God spoken through Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Isa. 43:19 (RSV) What will the church of the future look like?

The church of the future will focus more on Jesus. People may be turned off to church, but they are not turned off to Jesus. The church of the future will focus on connecting people to Jesus. Like the Apostle Paul, whose burning passion was to “know Christ,” the church will lead people to Jesus, to live in relationship with Him, to KNOW Him. The church of the past has done an excellent job teaching ABOUT God, ABOUT Jesus. As a result, many of our members know all ABOUT God and His Son, Jesus. But, are they living in an intimate relationship with Him? What have we learned about relating to God, about loving God will all our heart, soul, mind, and strength?

The church of the future will be a church on mission, or missional--focused on connecting people with Christ and with His mission. It will focus more on connecting people with each other and with their culture/world than on gathering them from their world. The church will realize her job is to change the world from her front porch. She will be passionately involved in living out her mission. Mission will be the essence of who she is.

The church of the future will reconnect or connect with its community. The focus will move from revitalizing churches to rebuilding communities. Gone is the luxury of the protective fortress. To survive, the church must move outside the walls and into the streets. I love The Message paraphrase of John 1:14, “And the word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood.” Jesus connected with people wherever he went. The church of the future will focus on what she is doing as she goes into all the world.

The church of the future will connect with the world. Artificial boundaries of cities, states, neighborhoods, and nations will fall as the church engages in her world mission. Creative relationships, partnerships, and meaningful associations will develop between Christians on different continents, in different cities, and between different denominations. The focus will be on the common good we can achieve by working together.

The church of the future will be a loving church, exemplifying in action the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Beyond all else, she will be known for unconditional love for all people. After all, that is what characterized Jesus.

Thankfully, some expressions of the church of the future are in existence today. The sad part of the reality is that these expressions are too few. To have a greater impact on our world, we need more churches of the future-TODAY!

Ken May, DoM
Montgomery Baptist Association
Alabama

Seven Vital Signs of a Healthy Church

2008-07-17T13:19:00.003-04:00

What is a healthy church? That’s a critical question for which all of my church friends seem to be trying to answer. For my business-minded, chart loving friends the answer to this question is a growth equation: new members + more money + better facilities = a healthy church. My post-modern, flip-flops and t-shirt wearing friends often give a soulful answer saying a healthy church can’t be defined, only experienced in a community of authentic discipleship. My white shirt, navy suit, traditional friends often define a healthy church by belief in the inerrancy of Scripture, sound doctrine, missions, and evangelism. And my purpose driven Hawaiian shirt and horn-rimmed glasses wearing friends might define it as balanced approach to missions, evangelism, discipleship, worship, and fellowship. So with all of these varying thoughts on the matter, I thought why don’t I take a shot at defining a healthy church as well. Hence, with no further ado, here are Lash’s ...

Seven Vital Signs of a Healthy Church

High Sense of Purpose—A church must know its reason for existence and have a clear process for biblically leading people from spiritual lostness to spiritual maturity.

Effective Evangelism—A church must see its community as a mission field and develop ways to contextually communicate the gospel to the people living in the community.

Acceptance of Change—A church must be creative, understanding the changing needs of people and meeting people at their point of need.

Leadership that Empowers—Church leaders must be servant leaders helping others identify spiritual gifts and empowering them to use these gifts in ministry.

Transforming Worship—True worship brings glory to God and leads to change. Each time the church gathers for worship the primary goal is to encounter God and His truth which leads to transformed lives.

Help with Life—A healthy sense of community is built through healthy, caring relationships. Church leaders must be consumed with leading people to live out Jesus’ Great Commandment: to love one another.

Yes to God—Healthy churches diligently seek God’s answers and direction through faithful prayer and study of His Word always bending our will and our beliefs to God’s.

Dr. Lash Banks, DoM

Grayson Baptist Association

Sherman, Texas

Stop the Merry-Go-Round!

2008-07-14T22:51:00.004-04:00

Stop the merry-go-round and let me get off! Or, at least, slow it down. Do you ever get that way? It seems that summer activities begin earlier and earlier and from the middle of May until the middle of September is a never-ending cycle of activities. I would imagine your life is that way also.

In June, we got home from the Southern Baptist Convention on Monday, to begin Powerplant on Friday, with a couple meetings in between. What a blessing!! After the first night on a cot, before the Powerplant teams came in, I knew I was getting too old for this! As we welcomed teams from Georgia, Nebraska, Minnesota, and yes, even our own association into Sioux Falls I was again struck by the cooperation that we as Southern Baptists share! Here were my brothers and sisters coming to help us start new churches. Even the NAMB staff was almost young enough to be my grandchildren but there was a connection of all being on the same team! And, when I found out that this staff of young people did much of their own work after everyone else was in bed, I found my own little corner so I could get some sleep!

The future is bright! Our two speakers for the event were great. They related well to the teens that had come to serve. The maturity and commitment of the staff that NAMB sent was impressive. Despite last minute changes in assignments, some poor turnouts, and less than ideal conditions for sleeping and showering I did not hear any complaining or murmuring.

Out of this week, we assisted a mission who had recently moved into their own building in a new neighborhood, and two new church starts. In one of those, we saw 15 professions of faith (we had been laying a foundation for two years with activities in the area). We laid groundwork in the other two areas with various servant evangelism activities, VBS, block parties and a grill out.

Thank you, fellow Southern Baptists, for your commitment to helping one another. Thank you for your support of NAMB who does Powerplant but also supports many of us in the “new work” areas (No, this is not a paid advertisement!).

Even though I am still on the merry-go-round I am excited about next summer’s Powerplant (maybe by then I will have caught up on sleep). Bring it on!

Jim Pratt, Area Missionary
Siouxland Association of Southern Baptists
Yankton, SD 57078

Livestock 4 Missions

2008-07-04T21:55:00.018-04:00

One cow + one rancher = an interesting way to fund missionaries. Three years ago in the Western Kansas Baptist Association, Director of Missions Randy Caddell and missionary Tim Huffman came up with a business model where cows could help fulfill the Great Commission. They call it Livestock 4 Missions (L4M), and the results have been moooving to say the least.

Here’s how:
A Sunday School class, a church, or individual buys a mother cow. Randy finds a rancher willing to care for her. As she calves (gives birth), they’re sold and the money is used for missions. When the "mama cow" is sold at auction (after about seven years), that money is paid toward another mother. As the mother cow continues to produce calves, the funds grow. Rural churches in western Kansas multiplied their missions dollars and now fund new church planters and missionaries in Kansas and Nebraska.

"If a Sunday School class or a church wants to put $1,000 toward missions and see that money multiply, they can buy a cow and we’ll place it," says Randy.

During its lifetime, a mama cow can produce about $5,000 in calves and, when sold at auction, fetch about $800. During the last three years, the association has placed more than 20 mama cows.

Here’s how you can get involved raising cattle for missions: HELP BUY A COW. Giving to Livestock 4 Missions is an investment almost guaranteed to grow. Often Sunday School classes, small or other groups within the church will join with other groups to buy a cow or contribute toward buying a cow. If you don’t own a cattle-raising farm, this is an excellent first step toward helping with this ministry.

HELP PLACE A COW. If you or someone you know is in the cattle raising business, you can help make space available for a missions cow. A rancher willing to do this invests in feeding and upkeep of the cow alongside his other livestock. This is the motor keeping Livestock 4 Missions working.

PRAY FOR THIS MINISTRY. The business model for Livestock 4 Missions relies upon the generosity of people to buy the cattle but more important on the ranchers who raise them. Pray for ranchers who are willing to give a little extra time and money to make this a self-sustaining mode of missions.

Are you interested in this unique missions opportunity? Visit Western Kansas Baptist Association on the web at http://www.blogger.com/www.westernkansasbaptist.com or call 620-275-7223.

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Having an Entrepreneurial Spirit

2008-06-16T20:11:00.005-04:00

One of the four suggested competencies for Directors of Missions is to be entrepreneurial. Pastors in my churches challenge me on almost every subject, "Where does it say that in the Bible?" One can find the need to be entrepreneurial is found in the parable of the talents.

Since I have been a DOM since September 2005, I have watched four churches close in my association. The spirit of maintenance had set in and every pastor of those churches said to me, "I don't know what to do." Although the circumstances differed for each church, one things was true, the pastor had run out of vision and ideas.

On the other hand, I have also worked with two church planters who have seen tremendous growth in their people and their numbers. They have a deep trust in God which also results in plenty of creative ideas. Both of them are entrepreneurs at heart with business backgrounds.

It is my firm belief that we need to become entrepreneurs as DOMs and to ask our pastors to be entrepreneurial. Most of us have far more resources than we are currently using. One good example is the use of our computers. Our computers are designed to do a lot more than just use it for e-mail and Facebook.

An entrepreneur takes advantage of his resources and mobilizes them to his advantage. I have found that a DOM is usually matching up needs with resources. Pray that the Lord would help us to take advantage of all the resources at our disposal. Please be sure to read about what it means to be an entrepreneur on the www.NoBAsbc.org web site.

Mark Millman, DoM
Central Baptist Association
Wisconsin

Why Plant New Churches?

2008-05-28T21:12:00.007-04:00

One of the questions that I frequently encounter is, "Why should churches plant new churches instead of strengthening the ones that already exist?" You can imagine the crazy looks that I get when, in response, I begin talking about the golden arches. No, not the golden arches of heaven (although I think that's actually golden streets anyway). I'm not even referring to the golden arches of the new Cowboy Stadium. I'm talking about McDonalds; specifically the part of their sign that reads "billions and billions served." Think about that for a moment, that's a lot of beef, and it's all been served in just 60 years. Ironically, five years (1953) into their history, there were only four restaurants in the chain. It wasn't until entrepreneur Ray Croc came on board in 1954 that things started booming. From 1954-1972 the chain grew from 4 restaurants to 2200. In my lifetime they've added another 29,000 locations. For years the sign kept count of how many had been served, changing with every five billions customers, until today the sign simply reads "billions and billions." Basically, it grew so large and so rapidly that they lost count.

Okay, where am I going with this? Well, this rapid, massive expansion was accomplished by sticking to a simple mission, maintaining high standards in their existing locations, and aggressively establishing new locations in promising areas. As we think about the task of world evangelization it is a rather daunting challenge. According to the International Mission Board there are approximately 6.6 billion people alive today with a projected increase to 8.9 billion by 2050. Though 33% of the world considers themselves "Christian," only 10% of the world embraces the idea of salvation by grace through Christ alone. Meaning that there are about 6 billion individuals in the world today to whom we need to bring the gospel near. Daunting? Yes. Overwhelming? Yes. Bigger than just you? Yes. Bigger than just your church? Yes. . . . . . Impossible? NOPE.

I can envision a day 60 years from now when we can rejoice in the reality of billions and billions of lives who have been eternally changed by the grace of God. But for this to happen, we must expand our thinking to understand that it is crucial that the church you attend to be healthy and growing, but it is also crucial that the other existing like-minded churches in your community, nation, and world are healthy and growing as well. Why? Because growing, healthy churches are able to work together to establish new churches in your community, nation, and world. The answer to the question of "Why plant new churches instead of strengthening existing ones?" is not an either/or answer; it's both/and. Our existing churches must not lose sight of our Great Commission. Our existing churches must work together devoted to seeing healthy, growing churches. And, our existing churches must see the need, embrace the vision, and be about the work of starting new churches. Because the reality of "billions and billions" worshiping the God of the universe in every language and land is achievable in our lifetime.

Dr. Lash Banks, DoM
Grayson Baptist Association
Sherman, Texas

SBC: Organizing for Effectiveness

2008-05-06T20:09:00.009-04:00

Our convention is statistically beginning a decline, especially looking at our declining baptisms over the past several years. (See Ed Stetzer’s recent blog article of April 23, 2008 by Clicking HERE or his follow up article HERE). It is time to do something about the condition of our convention. Here is a discussion of a scenario that, I believe, has great potential for turning around a floundering giant and generating massive kingdom building results.

I perceive four levels of dysfunctional activity that must be addressed within the Southern Baptist Convention. I will take each level, one at a time, and attempt to clearly make my case.

I. Relationships Between SBC Entities Must Change

The above diagram greatly simplifies, but generally depicts the current operational strategy of the convention. Strategy development is from a top down strategy, with national leaders attempting to generate “programs” that the state and associations will promote in an attempt to encourage churches to adopt. Resource allocation takes Cooperative Program receipts and distributes them down to the states. Some states may allocate some of those resources into associations and churches, but from my observation, it seems that activity is extremely limited, with support for church planting being the main exception. Almost no funds go to associations and churches for church strengthening.

The diagram below indicates the preferred cooperative workings between SBC entities.

In this model, strategy development starts with the needs of churches and a church strategy to meet those needs. The association takes the collective needs and strategy of its churches and develops a strategy to partner with the churches by bringing value to the churches in the form of needed resources tailor-made to facilitate the local church strategy. In turn, the state develops its strategy based upon the strategy of the associations, and NAMB and other entities, develop a strategy based upon the strategies of the state conventions. It is a “grass roots”, bottom up strategy development process.

Based upon the strategies of the various entities, the available resources are deployed, first to state conventions, then to associations, then finally to churches, where the front line of Kingdom work takes place.

It is my firm belief that if church strengthening and church planting can be developed through this kind of model, the local church will be strengthened and be in a much stronger position to bring about the Kingdom impact within communities. Consequently, I would not be surprised at all to see a resurgence of giving to the Cooperative Program as a result of healthier, vibrant churches if this model were instituted. By the way, I believe that NAMB is in a unique situation to lead in the rebirth of our denomination as we move to greater effectiveness.

II. Dysfunctional Life at the Association Level Must Be Resolved

I am not sure how it all started, but at some point in the past and for various reasons, the role of DOM changed. That change necessitated a different skill set for operating effectively as a DOM. Consequently, some DOM’s found themselves in a situation of confusion and frustration as they dealt with a rapidly changing society. Some found themselves becoming less effective than before. When that realization became apparent at the state convention level, the state conventions began trying to cover responsibilities formerly assigned to associations. Duplication of effort began.

To resolve this situation, this still exists in many parts of the convention, DOM’s need to be taught a new series of skill sets. A massive leadership training effort across the country needs to be deployed toward the development of core competencies for DOM’s. NAMB association staff, in conjunction with a group of DOM’s, has identified four core competencies that are needed for a DOM to be successful in his role today: Entrepreneurial Leadership, Establishing Strategic Direction, Achieving Kingdom Results, and Facilitative Leadership. Each of those categories contains several skill subsets that would be useful to DOM’s.

This training emphasis needs to be on a national level. NoBA (Network of Baptist Associations), in cooperation with NAMB, is in the process of developing a leadership diploma program for all new, in-service and prospective DOM’s.

Apart from the training aspect for DOM’s it appears that many associations are too small to generate enough strength to sustain an aggressive effort to resource their own churches. Regional mergers would be a likely scenario to consider developing larger and stronger associations.

III. State Convention Activities Are Not Producing Desired Results

Despite all the good intentions from state staff everywhere, it is obvious that all the money we are putting into state convention activity is not working. Graph your state’s baptism records, Bible Study attendance, worship attendance, and cooperative program receipts over the last 30 years. Don’t be surprised to find that most everything is plateaued, if not worse.

In the past, I worked as a member of a state staff. I find that my work as a DOM is much more effective than my experience as a state staffer. Why? I think because of the proximity to the churches. State staff can become your friend. Association relationships can foster a family atmosphere. In Illinois, I was assigned to work with 1000 churches in Sunday School growth. It was impossible to have consistent contact with the same churches over time in order to help them to find the path to effectiveness. The work of the state convention is not dependent on the number of people they have on the ground working. The state convention can be most effective in looking at its operational systems and seeking a new strategy that would produce greater effectiveness.

Let me say it plainly. The systems of many state conventions are not working. It is not the fault of the convention staff members; it is the system that is being used to operate the state convention. Simply, if a wagon is broken, it will not work right. Bringing in a new horse to pull the wagon is not going to make much difference. The wagon has to be fixed.

I believe, as indicated above, that the effectiveness of the state convention can be massively improved in participating in a new and different resourcing strategy with associations and churches.

IV. Spiritually Dysfunctional Churches

I have consulted in approximately 100-200 individual churches over the past 25 years. My positions in growing churches insulated me from the reality in many other churches. I finally came to believe that many churches have lost their reason for being. They have misplaced their mission. They have lost God’s vision for their church. Many have become inward focused. According to recent research, about 90% of our churches are somewhere in the dysfunctional camp. I recently had an honest conversation with a pastor. He said, “I don’t know what to do to get my church to become more effective, and if I knew what to do, I wouldn’t know how to do it.” That comment is laced with massive leadership needs.

So, the first line of attack on this dysfunctional situation is to do substantial leadership training for pastors. The training should include, but certainly not be limited to, vision development and vision casting, strategy development, situational self-leadership, lay leader development, mentoring skill development, spiritual formation activity, and to be safe, conflict management. This training should be done best, I would think, through the state conventions that might set up regional training schools for pastors. To be more specific, I would suggest that all pastors be invited to attend, but to make a special effort to reach pastors 45 years old and younger.

There remains, however, a most serious situation. Because of the inward focus of most churches, there are spiritual issues in the life of the church. When you can’t answer the question “Where is God working in your church or community?”, you are in trouble at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. It appears that in some if not many churches we have nice, but carnal Christians in leadership positions. No wonder we are in fighting and have taken our eyes off Jesus. We have lost the concept of surrender to the Lord. We no longer know what it means to sacrifice, and we certainly do not understand what it means to die to self. In short, churches are operating out of their own agenda rather than seeking God and working from His agenda.

Well, how do you deal with spiritual issues? Confession first comes to mind. But in reality, it has to do with a person’s relationship with God. I am sure it must have to do in part with intentional transformational discipleship. I am quite sure that it must involve a much more serious approach to prayer. It is probably dependent upon an outpouring of God’s Spirit; but it must accompany an understanding that as hard as we have tried, we have failed. It is time to move off our own agenda and onto God’s. Somewhere, somehow, we need to focus on being transformed into Kingdom People. The term we use today is “missional”. Again, that requires God’s intimate interaction with each of us, but it seems to me that we need to develop some rationale that would facilitate spiritual renewal. I will leave that strategy to the more spiritually minded. I am doing my best to keep my head above water.

If churches are inward focused and plateaued or dying, asking churches to give more to the cooperative program would be futile and is not the answer to our dilemma. We need to strengthen churches and start as many new ones as possible. That activity will address the Cooperative Program issue. Will every convention, association, and church be improved by the approach I am proposing? Probably not, but many will. I believe it is time to look with new eyes at our situation, stop bickering about inconsequential issues, rally around Jesus, and launch off into a new horizon that will hopefully lead to greater partnership with the Lord in His work.

I am just one person. But, I sense God is trying to get my attention. He keeps bothering me about all this stuff. I obviously do not have all the answers and I probably raise more questions than I answer. But, I think it is time for a serious dialogue. What do you think?

Dr. Larry Richmond, DoM
Gateway Baptist Association
Illinois

Timely or Timeless

2008-04-07T13:25:00.004-04:00

Years ago, I remember a “western” that ended with two cowboys lamenting the loss of the old west. One scruffy old chuck wagon cook said, “The times, they are a changin’.” I’ve met more than one scruffy old Baptist that has lamented with the same thoughts. Unfortunately, all that many want to do is LAMENT. I think it’s time for some “sons of Issachar” to arise in our day and give a clarion call to our Southern Baptist Churches about the times we now face and what we need to do! This is a prime time for Associations/DOMs to step up.

As a young pastor (back when I still knew it all), I saw little or no need for the association. That may have been my arrogance or it may have been the expression of associationalism I saw in that day. As I’ve matured and allowed Christ to crucify my pride, I’ve found the great value of my mission partner that the present day association can be.

Being timely is a huge challenge to a tradition driven denomination like ours. We have many fears, not the least of which is theological liberalism. Let me lay that to rest immediately! I believe we must never abandon the timeless truths of God’s infallible word. When we used to believe and practice the great commission, Southern Baptist enjoyed our best days. Well, if we desire to have God’s blessing again, we must reinstate evangelism and missions as our top priorities. Without these, we’ll continue down the same failed path that other denominations have followed to oblivion. Having said that, how we do evangelism and missions is the timely part.

As an associational leader, director or missionary, this is our opportunity to help people understand the times and know what to do. Business as usual will never reignite anyone’s passion but Biblical obedience will. I think we need to realize that the days of automatic participation in associational work is behind us and the future of our work is providing entry points for participation according to Biblical passion. Therefore, the missionary or director needs to embrace the role of strategist. A strategist accesses the situation then presents a process of change. In the business book entitled “Judgment” by Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bemis, they identify four areas of critical decision-making.

They are:

Self Knowledge
Social Networking
Contextual Understanding
Organizational Structure

While nothing but the scriptures carries divine authority, we need to see what Jesus said in Luke 16:8 that sometimes the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. I think that happens because they are paying attention to the current situation. I love to see what God can do with principles gained from many realms when filtered through Scripture.

When we know who we are in Christ, we know how to use the gifts and experiences God has invested in us. When we see our context, it should become obvious what kind of ministry is needed, and what resources are available to us.

Our social networking is finding the right people to lead in the ministries we identify. Finally, the organizational structure is the process whereby we can move to application.

1 Peter 3:15 instructs us to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks your reason of the hope that in is you. I believe this presupposes that we are doing something that causes them to ask the question. If we have an effective strategy in place, we should be actively causing some questions. In our setting, disaster relief, mission partnerships and church planting are some of the chosen tools we’ve used. As the churches have embraced a missions and evangelism strategy, I find that my job is a greater joy than ever before!

Steve Patterson. Director of Missions
Spring River Baptist Association
Joplin, MO
http://www.springriverbaptist.com/

Associational Impulse

2008-03-25T10:26:00.003-04:00

In his book Theology for the Community of God the late Stanley Grenz, Professor of Theology and Ethics at Regent College, Vancouver, wrote that there are two New Testament principles which are basics of the present-day community of God. They are:

The principle of congregational autonomy; whereby individual congregations make their own decisions apart from external control; and
The principle of associational impulse; whereby this Biblical principle of autonomy of the local church never degenerates into congregational individualism.

As he describes it, Interdependency functions as a counterbalancing norm for these principles. In their autonomy, each church has three defining powers; membership, mandate and organization that make them unique but also identifiable as a church.

Simply put, each congregation establishes how one may become a member and how those members relate to the body and what responsibility the body may have to its members. A congregation is mandated to demonstrate certain basic functions or purposes such as worship outreach and edification. Finally they organize with officers, leaders and a functional polity that meets the needs of their fellowship.

Even though they are autonomous and possess church powers, no congregation is an end to itself. Each is a participating partner with other congregations in a larger whole. Each has a particular local function in life and ministry, and each local body is crucial for the life and ministry of the whole people of God in the world.

To fulfill that associational impulse, each congregation should find a way to express its responsibility to the larger whole by voluntarily joining with sister churches in an associational framework. Associations of various types complete us as we look for ways to fulfill the Lord's will for his bride. They also promote a wider experience of community. Through associations, congregations are able to join their resources in order to unite in fulfilling the commission shared by the entire people of God.

In addition to very practical advantages, the uniting of local congregations into a larger association is theologically significant. Associations of churches demonstrate the importance of wider Christian fellowship, unity, and reciprocal dependence. We surely want to protect congregational autonomy, but have we considered cooperation with others in a larger context than our local field as a measure of church health?

So, how's your Associational Impulse?

Bill Rains, Associate Director of Missions
Tulsa Metro Association of Baptist Churches
Tulsa, OK

Reaching the Lost through the Association

2008-03-12T00:10:00.006-04:00

This is the Church Field! As a young preacher, as I was being shown the community of my new and first pastorate, this is what I had explained to me was my area of responsibility as the new pastor. The people on the East side of the road back to the church, which was about 3 miles, was my field of visitation. The people on the West side of the road were not my responsibility and I need not worry about them. My reply was the question, “Then the people on the West side of the road could go to Hell”? This certainly did not start my new pastorate on the right foot. However, some of this mentality still prevails today.

We either have imaginary church fields, or have a caste system within the church, or only visit people of a culture that would fit in our churches. In response to this mentality, I believe, according to the Scriptures, our field is the world and God doesn’t see caste systems, or cultural barriers, but a world that needs Christ.

There are some who don’t have the above problems but are busy doing their own thing, so they miss the obvious, that we can do so much more together than we can by ourselves. This is not just in giving to missions, but it's all about going out together and doing missions.

In order to accomplish this, we first must recognize that the most important issue is not our differences in preferences, but reaching the lost. When I speak of differences, I am not speaking of Bible Doctrine. The Bible clearly teaches that unless we are agreed, we cannot walk together. This does not include preferences about worship styles, and church names. The world is not interested in any of these things. The world needs the Truth about Salvation! If we Baptists cannot come together with a burning desire to reach the lost, we have failed in our efforts to establish a testimony of how Christ is the Prince of Peace. Again, I am not talking about bringing and mixing with groups that teach false doctrines.

How can all of this be overcome and do the Scriptures teach that we should work together? I believe it does. In 1 Cor. 16:1, Paul identifies a geographical area as Galatia and places several churches in Galatia in a group. While this scripture was for Biblical instructions on giving, the application can be found of joining the churches together.
They had the same location, the same instructions and admonitions as a group.

Once we can see the need, then we can come together in a joint effort to reach our area for Christ. When so many of our churches are struggling to survive, what a glorious opportunity for sister churches to come in and help them with their visitation efforts. Several years ago, God burdened my heart about the association I was pastoring in at that time. As Evangelism Director, I had led the association in setting up a tent at one of our large South Georgia festivals, Mule Day. As we gave out over 5,000 tracts, God spoke to my heart about the need of not only reaching those passing through South Georgia, but reaching out to the lost already there.

I knew that the church I was pastor of did not have the man power to cover the whole Association. I recruited some other pastors, who had a burden for souls, and we began to pray for God’s leadership and for God to raise up an army of people to cover our Association with the gospel. In a matter of months, God had given us a plan to accomplish this great feat.

In 7 months, we were able to train over 600 people on how to knock on doors and with all 25 churches participating were able to place the gospel in over 7400 homes. Many souls were saved and many brought back to the churches that had drifted away. This has since been duplicated in another association and the association I am now the DOM, we are beginning this effort called “Operation Total Contact.” This testimony is not about me, but about our Lord waiting for us to get together and obey the great commission. Anything this big is bigger than any man or group of men and women. This is a God thing. On two different occasions I saw over 400 Baptists from the Association out on a Saturday morning knocking on doors. Praise the Lord!

If we sit back and listen to the objections, and look at the obstacles, we will never see the opportunity that lies before us of how TOGETHER, as an association, we can join together and do what one church will never do. It is not how small we are in number, but how big our God is in his actions. If we will step forward in faith, he will roll back the waters. Remember, the waters of Jordon did not roll back till the priests had placed their feet in the water up to the ankles. Once they committed themselves to crossing over, God took care of everything else.

Let me challenge you as an association, think not of the problems in the way, but of the promises God has given to us if we will but go. “Lo, I with you always”!

Your servant in the Lord,

Ken Cloud, DOM
Bowen Baptist Association
Bainbridge, Georgia

What Kind of Church are you Building Today

2008-02-13T13:40:00.010-05:00

"According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay that that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." I Corinthians 3:10-11 NKJV

It has been said that the "day of the institutional church is over!" I totally agree. The un-churched are not coming to our churches today. Attractional ministry is no longer effective. If we are going to be the people of God we must take the church out to the community where the people are! Where is the focus in the churches of your association? A missional church is focused outside of itself on mission, rather than on itself in a maintenance mode. I've found that maintenance focused churches are declining churches whereas missional churches are growing, vibrant congregations. A brief look at the New Testament church confirms that the early disciples were focused on being and doing. Today's society reflects the same challenges of the first century when Christianity was first introduced to the world in the person of Jesus Christ. New Testament churches today must direct their attention to changing the culture of our age rather than conforming to the culture around us. I would encourage any church to ask themselves, "What kind of church are we building today?" What kind of churches do you have in your Association? What does God want to do in you and your association? Consider the following contrast:

Mission Minded Church vs. Missional Church

Religious ceremonies vs. Relationships
Go to church vs. See themselves "as the church"
Isolated from the world vs. Engaged in the world'
Focus on maintenance vs. Focused on missions
Activities vs. Accomplishing God's mission
Sending and supporting vs. Being and doing
Representative vs. Participative
Mission is one expression of its ministry vs. Missions in the essence of our existence
Teach people to know vs. Teach people to obey
Explaining vs. Experiencing
Worship is to entertain people vs. Worship is to exalt God
Connecting people to the church vs. Changing the culture of our world
Spend time at the church vs. Spend time getting to know lost
Holding on vs. Forging ahead
Design events for members vs. Design activities to connect
Enlargement vs. Extension
Retaining members vs. Releasing members to replace them with people outside the church
Size vs. Sending and serving
Mega Church vs. Multiplying church
Compete vs. Cooperate
Survive vs. Thrive
Faithful team vs. Flexible team
Not content to know about God vs. They hunger to know God

References:

Milfred Minatrea, Shaped by God's Heart The Passion and Practices of Missional Churches
David Putman & Ed Stetzer, Breaking the Missional Code Your Church Can Become a Missionary in Your Community

Dr. Larry Cheek, Associational Missionary
Stone Mountain Baptist Association
Conyers, GA * 770-483-2776
lcheek@stonemountainbaptistassociation.org

Leadership Development

2008-02-07T14:59:00.003-05:00

Church starting is one of the principle focuses of Tarrant Baptist Association. As such, we have aggressively established a goal of establishing 500 new churches by 2012. Along the way, we have discovered that one of our biggest challenges is finding existing congregations to sponsor these new congregations. There seems to be two major reasons for this. They are leadership and money. We are trying to aggressively address these two issues that are constantly cropping up in our conversations with the existing congregations. The leadership issue, in turn, manifests itself basically in two ways. First, churches are afraid that they are going to have to give up their best and most active leaders to the new church. The converse is that they don't think they have any leaders who can step in to take these outgoing leaders' places. Unfortunately, the leadership and money issues stem from the fact that the vast majority of our churches are in survival mode. They are dying and grasping at everything, holding on for dear life in order to stave off the inevitable in just a few more years.

Therefore, if we are serious about starting all of these churches here and establishing a strong foundation to launch new churches around the country and the world, we are going to have to strengthen our existing congregations. In an effort to help our churches, we have begun several initiatives. The first is ServantsEdge. This program, developed in Houston under Jim Herrington as Young leaders, grew into LeadersEdge and we have brought it to North Texas as ServantsEdge. It is a two-year process of placing pastors (now open to other staff and lay leaders as well) in intentional learning peer accountability groups led by a mentor/coach with four retreats and monthly peer meetings. Each retreat focuses on a different dynamic. Those in week one focus on personal transformation (becoming a changed agent before being a change agent). Week two focuses on congregational transformation (moving the focus from membership to discipleship). Week three focuses on community transformation (how can my church impact its community). And week four focuses on world transformation (moving my church from its community to Kingdom focus). Several significant outcomes have become apparent. One, the churches whose pastors have gone through the process are growing and developing the focus we are working on. Two, the pastors have a support group to help them and even those pastors who have moved away from Tarrant are continuing to plug in. Three, strong men's groups are beginning to develop in some of the churches with strong lay leadership. Four, two of our graduates are meeting with fellow pastors from their community across denominational lines to bring them into the process so that they can form a united effort to focus on the lostness of their community. And fifth, most of our new church-sponsoring churches are led by graduates of ServantsEdge.

We are working on several new areas with ServantsEdge. First, we are requiring that all of our new church planters go through the process. This is giving them a wider basis of support. Two, we have opened up the parameters in timing and have the capability of doing it in Spanish, although at this time these do not seem to be priorities. Finally, we are contracting with a nationally recognized coaching trainer to help us develop the mentor/coaches that lead each of the peer groups. We feel that this is a skill set that is invaluable to them as they address the needs of the peer group but also as they lead their congregations in developing a stronger discipleship program.

If you are interested in learning more about ServantsEdge or the coaching training please contact Becky Biser at 817-927-1911 x 222 or by dropping her an email at becky@tarrantbaptist.org.

Thomas L. Law, III
Executive Director
Tarrant Baptist Association
Ft. Worth, Texas

The Best Seat In The House

2008-01-19T23:11:00.001-05:00

I have a friend (a Baptist state staff person) who describes the role of a Baptist DoAM as “the best seat in the house”. Over a period of time I have come to believe that is true. While there are times that I miss the pastorate I am thankful that God has placed me in “the best seat in the house”

Those of us in this role (no matter what we are called) are in a position to see what is the best (and also the worst) of Southern Baptist life. We are uniquely placed as a catalyst (as Allen Nix indicated in his blog in November 2007) but also enjoy the view as an observer. As society changes we see our churches change…or not. We also see our role defined and re-defined.

I am thankful for those men who had the vision of NoBA. NoBA is a vehicle in that process of helping to define and equip those of us who serve in this position. A week ago as I returned from the NoBA Summit in Ft. Worth I came away encouraged at the commitment to helping each other become better stewards in the areas in which we serve. As we improve our skills it will result in God’s Kingdom advancing. As I heard from several others, the only downside of the meeting is that we were limited to the number of break-out sessions that we could attend. I encourage you to put the 2009 NoBA Summit on your calendar. You will be blessed!

Jim Pratt, Area Missionary
Siouxland Association of Southern Baptists
Yankton, SD 57078

The DOM as Visionary

2007-12-19T10:22:00.001-05:00

The visionary DOM always has a portion of the people of his association upset with him.

In a “vote of confidence” he would get several “no” votes.

Why is that?

The reason is because the futurist has his or her foot not only firmly planted in the present but also grounded in the future. If things are currently going well in the association many folk do not see the need of change. Yet the visionary tries to understand the needs of five and ten years away and is constantly tweaking and altering the work in order to be ready for the future needed changes .

Henry Ford thought that the Model T would serve the needs of families forever. He had to be coerced into approving the development of the Model A.

The time to make changes is before decline sets in which, ironically, is when people see the need for change the least.

Rick Robbins, DoM
Northern KY Association

What's the Right Word?

2007-11-20T20:14:00.001-05:00

Mark Twain once observed, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug." What is the right word to use in describing the proper function of Baptist associations in relation to its member congregations?

It appears that the most common and most accepted word is the word assist. Historically speaking, it has been understood that Baptist associations have existed to assist churches in fulfilling their mission/purpose. I wonder, "Is assist the best word to use in expressing the function of an association in relation to churches? Does the word assist convey an active and intentional role or a more passive one?

It seems that various other words portray an accurate image of an association's role among churches. Words such as equip, mobilize, develop, empower, initiate, coordinate and facilitate come to mind. These words, all verbs, speak of active responses.

If I were to choose a noun instead of a verb, I would select the word catalyst. One of the central meanings of the word catalyst and its synonyms is "an agent that stimulates or precipitates a reaction, development, or change." Effective associations serve a catalytic function--helping to bring about change on both individual and corporate levels.

What word would you choose to best describe the function of Baptist associations among churches? What's the right word?

Allan Nix, DoM

Jones County Baptist Association

Laurel, MS