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.
Posts
38 comments:
I would like to know WHY the audio and or video recordings of the sessions are not being made available to the members of SBC churches. I understand that personnel issues matter but those names could be deleted. To make an informed decision at the convention we must know the rationale behind the proposals that the task force is recommending to the convention.
Thank you for your consideration of this question.
Jimmy Blanton
Associational Missionary
Columbus, GA
In the last audio conference Dr. Floyd seemed to admit that the GCRTF was interested using the IMB model for NAMB (going to 7 regional offices). Do they believe that the IMB model would work in North America, considering that there 50,000 SBC churches, 1200 associations & 43 State Conventions to work alongside of that the IMB DOES NOT have to "deal" or work with? If the Cooperative Agreements are cumbersome how much more would these partnerships be with all of these entities? Comparing apples & oranges?
Understanding the the GCRTF task was to focus on the Great Commission, how come nothing was address about the SBC seminaries needing to change how they train pastors? Seems that if the seminaries strategically was key in a Conservative Resurgence would be for a Great Commission Resurgence. If 71% of our churches are plateauing or declining, helping to train pastors to think missionally & more strategically on how to lead churches to accomplish the Great Commission is vital! Shouldn't their be a 7th component focused at the seminaries?
With the GCRC's desire to regroup Associations and/or state conventions around fewer and larger metropolitan areas, how do you prevent a greater "disconnect" with the smaller in attendance churches? They are the backbone of the SBC and are already experiencing a disconnect to some degree. How are they strengthened by the proposals?
What Changes have been made to the original report based on the input from the "listening" sessions?
Some of the questions raised during the first NOBA audio conference were answered with the phrase, "we're not quite sure yet." Wouldn't it be a good idea to have a post-GCR adoption plan with surety?
(My job as a successful associational missionary in the Balto-Wash region will be in the balance beginning in June 2010, if the resolution passes.)
Thank you for your work! May the Lord bring the resurgence.
Respectfully,
John B. Brittain, PhD, Exec. Dir.
Arundel Baptist Association
Maryland/Delaware
In your preliminary report it is very clear that you do not completely understand the role of a director of missions/catalytic church planter as understood and filled by most of us holding that position in the 14 state conventions outside the Bible Belt, how do you propose to replace this key function, especially as it relates to catalytic church planting in these 14 state conventions and how many new church starts do you consider "reasonable" during the next decade under your new proposal??
What will happen to the health insurance earned by many faithful, retired missionaries? Many have served for 20 years or more before retirement. It will be a shame to allow these faithful men and women to be abandoned in their retirement years.
What if the report is passed later to find that 80% of SBC churches under 250 in attendance reroute their missions funds to the Associations and State Conventions and directly to the NAMB? The implications of that action may be sooner than later. So how does this action give the Church back to the Church?
Bob Ryan, Mile High Baptist Association, Denver
The GCR Task Force is recommending ending the Cooperative Agreements but you have not explained the method to take its place, only a vague principle of money going only to those actively involved in church planting. Please share a method of funding church planting in the future.
From Craig
Our church is contemplating planting another church in the next 12 months.
It seems the current system to plant in our state involves bringing in a planter as the "hired gun".
How would a church like ours recieve assistance in planting our first church and doing the great commission in our city?
I will ask the same question I did last time. Why are we dealing with the 2nd half of the report instead of the first half? Again, they said our GREATEST need is to repent and return to the Lord as a denomination, then God will bless ( according to Joel). Why haven't we heard a call to solemn assemblies and repentance from ALL of our leadership. Instead of having a convention in June why not a solemn assembly? As usual we talk about the need for repentance but nothing happens as a denomination. After the talk we try to fix everything in the flesh. Our baptisms are declining because we are not close to Jesus (abiding in the vine). Our baptisms are a bi-product of abiding (fruit). They kept saying we have to penetrate the darkness. Well, the only thing that penetrates darkness is US. If the darkness is not being penetrated it is not because all are lights are in the wrong place, it's because we have bushel baskets covering our light. We got to get the baskets off! That's repentance , not restructuring. Our church and myself need this. Thank you
Joe Tatsak
As a strong advocate of church planting, I as an Associational Director have found that church planting is a hard sell from time to time. I don't believe that associations or denominational agencies plant churches but rather simply facilitate the planting of churches by faithful churches. Those closest to the need ie. associations and state conventions work as Great Commission partners with NAMB now, how does the elimination of a close partner enhanced by a more distant, less personal partner at some distant regional or national office? If church planting is the only expression of "Great Commission Resurgence" we may find a lot of autonomous SBC churches may take advantage of a new form of recognized "Great Commission giving" only to find that our IMB personnel may suffer along with our weakened state conventions. Please study the consequences of change before we make them!I know of a nation that voted for undefined change only to find it wasn't what they thought it might be.
What is the GCRTF's vision for rural America and how do you see NAMB being involved in providing leadership and resources?
M. Keith Williams
Regional Associational Missionary
Northeastern & Santa Fe Baptist Associations
New Mexico
I would like to know if we are not missing the point as a convention. It seems to me we are addressing only part of the issue. If we had all the funds we needed would we have to restructure? I came from a new convention that got $2.00 for every $1.00 it sent to the SBC. We channel this away from this state and the churches will recoil and keep their funds to save their own outreach. Could we not look into a way to train and inform our people so they would look at giving as a God thing? Bring back Brotherhood and RA's. The GCRTF needs to address the training of givers. This is a part of the Great Commission in my mind. I'm glad it's you and not me. I will pray for you!
I serve in West Virginia, a fairly new state convention with about 225 churches and missions. If the is approved, it seems to me that conventions like us will be severly hurt where our support is about 80 % from NAMB. I find my function as twofold, serving the churches of the association and church planting. The Lord is bringing us indiginous people to start churches and that is exciting. I know this area well, better than those anywhere in our SBC. Will I and others have our funds taken away and the work slow down or stop or be be allowed to work with NAMB?
I would like to know how the Task Force envisions NAMB direct missionaries relating to the field. Will they go about, seeking to enlist support for NAMB's national strategy; will they work with churches / associations to implement locally derrived strategies; will they collaborate with State Convention staff in developing and implementing strategies; will they work along a parallel track, doing their own thing based on NAMB goals and objectives?
Will funding be redirected from the current associations and state conventions in pioneer areas and associations/conventions that now receive funding to sponsor new works in metropolitan areas? If so, how are these associations/conventions expected to survive?
Will NAMB develop a contextual, relevant church planting and/or
evangelism strategy for an urban setting without or will resource the local association(s) to develop and implement a contextualized and relevant strategy? Strategic Focus cities focused on NAMB doing the strategy and saying this is how to do it. What were the results?
The one question: Will we as Southern Baptists admit and really repent for protecting our culture at the expense of spiritual transformation through the gospel? Preemptive question: Will I?
Questions I would ask the GCR Task Force:
The task assigned to the group was “to bring a report and any recommendations to the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in Orlando, Florida, June 15-16, 2010, concerning how Southern Baptist can work more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.”
1. In the February 22 progress report the only SBC agencies mentioned are NAMB, IMB, and the Executive Committee. Was there no attention paid to the effectiveness of our six Seminaries, ERLCA, LifeWay, GuideStone, or WMU?
2. A critical Great Commission question that needs to be asked is how effective are our seminaries in preparing graduates for ministry in a new millennium to penetrate lostness?
3. With the proliferation of on-line and distance learning options, why have the majority of our seminaries been reluctant to and ineffective in providing educational opportunities in the new work area of SBC life?
4. Another seminary related question is how many seminary graduates are still in the ministry ten years after graduation. And if this percentage is low, then should they receive almost as many SBC mission dollars as does NAMB?
5. Have our seminaries asked graduates five years after their graduation to rate the level of preparation they received for day-to-day ministry via their seminary experience.?
6. Another seminary question would be, in light of the report given to the Executive Committee by Lyle Schaller that no missions dollars should go to support eleemosynary institutions, why shouldn’t our seminaries function as self-supporting entities like Mid-America Seminary and like LifeWay freeing significant missions dollars to be used by IMB and NAMB?
7. In fact a basic question would be, was the GCRTF given a copy of Lyle Schaller’s report?
8. In light of the number of and growing percentage of SBC churches who are using non-SBC literature, why were there no recommendations related to LifeWay?
9. A more foundational question relates to the fact that nothing is said that actually addresses the basic issue of the lack of spiritual health and growth in the majority of SBC churches. Structural changes at the national and agency level, do not address the basic causes at the very core of the systemic issues we are facing on the local church and individual Christian level.
10. Why is NAMB the target for the lack of growth in churches and baptisms, but not LifeWay, our seminaries, the ERLCA or WMU?
11. In the recommendations that relate to NAMB and the IMB, there seems to be a lack of understanding of actually how cooperative agreements work and the impact that eliminating them would have at the ground level of SBC life—particularly in the new work areas. If approved and implemented:
a. In the majority of the new work states, the conventions would either cease to exist or be relegated to obscurity and ineffectiveness.
b. Work in the field would find four “competing SBC entities” developing vision and strategy for assisting churches in fulfilling the great commission. In the same city, county, or geographical region, the local association, the state convention, NAMB, and IMB would each be working with SBC churches. The funding process for each would create four siloed entities each competing for the same pool of mission dollars.
c. The report indicates that field strategy would be developed top down. When has that ever proven to be successful in SBC life? Certainly the Strategic Focused Cities and Mega Focused Cities approach did not effectively penetrate lostness.
12. In the recommendation to redirect 1% of CP giving from “Facilitating Ministries” to IMB was there any consideration of redirecting some funds from the seminaries to IMB in acknowledgement that since the mid-seventies IMB’s percentage has declined from 60.47% to 50% and that the seminary percentage increased over that same period by 9.02%?
Mark Elliott
Number one question that I think needs to be answered is, What is so broke with the state convention partnerships? 2nd, Where are the church planters coming from in the mega city church planting plan? I believe we need to extend this GCR for another year and get more input. I believe we are Not ready for a vote.
Prefer Nothing To Christ
Royce Sweatman
What will your funding mechanism be when state conventions and churches determine that their current mission projects/personnel (to be defunded with the TF report)are important enough that they choose to fund them in the future with what was CP giving? Or determine to do their own thing with that same money because of the "uncooperative agreement" they they are left with in this report? Is this not the beginning of the end for CP?
How many loyal SBC churches will we lose because it is perceived by the churches (especially the smaller ones) that they are are cut off or cut out by this Task Force report? Viz.
a)
their NAMB funded DOM/Church planter is cut out and they have no other SBC person for 70-80 miles with whom to pray, find encouragment, or seek help, leaving them as one of my pastors has already noted, "independent churches left to make it on our own." If the objective is to start new churches, why are we adopting a policy that will lead to the death of others?
b) their view of dismantling associations,and state conventions that they have worked so faithfully to build up for decades (by a Task force that has never visited the state) is so dispiriting that they choose to no longer participate in SBC causes, asking "what's the use?"
c)they watch new works (currently part of the cooperative agrement)defunded despite great progress or leaders of those new works left on such shaky ground with this kind of report that they leave because they don't have reliable funding partners (as already implied by this Report) and don't want to have their family left high and dry because of unpredictable outcomes of the lack of a cooperative agreement.
Are you sure we want for the long haul what this report is already delivering to the churches?
Why decentralize the NAMB into seven regions when greater and more effective decentralization already occurs through use of the state conventions? Wouldn't regional centers only create an additional layer of bureaucracy? I assmume that we originally created a board for domestic missions because there were areas of the nation that existed beyond the areas served by state conventions at that time. Now that there are state or Canadian conventions for all areas, why should NAMB's responsibilities be geographically oriented?
Randel Trull
Pittsburg, Texas
The question left begging for an answer: How does the prevailing issue of decline in baptisms over the last several years get answered by moving around a relatively few (but important) NAMB missionary personnel when the membership of our 50,000 churches assigned the Great Commission go virtually ignored in the report in terms of a being challenged, equipped, and mobilized, etc. for the task. It seems to me we are straining at a gnat (the NAMB shuffle: assuming the NAMB missionaries can reverse the trend) when the focus of our attention should be developing a compelling vision the churches would enthusiastically implement.
An aside: GPS Across North America has gone a long way toward the kind of equipping and mobilizing we need. But note that were it not for the NAMB funded DOMs in our state (the very ones who will be defunded by the Great Commission Task Force Report), the churches with the "work force" adequate to turn the tide on the decline in baptisms would not have learned about, cared for, or implemented the GPS strategy. Curious, how we shoot ourselves in our foot, isn’t it?
Isn’t it time we get back to what the messengers actually believed they were voting on at the Convention: how Southern Baptists in the churches can “work more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission?” Might we not still do that if we laid aside agendas and got to it?
In light of the desire to emphasize larger cities in an effort to greater penetrate lostness and the dissolution or restructuring of cooperative agreements, how will the task force's suggestions help folks in
rural areas, smaller conventions and areas that depend greatly on assistance from Cooperative Program dollars do our part in penetrating lostness?
David Banks
FBC Eagle River, Alaska
They must have a more detailed "blue print" of how it will look. It does not have to be exact, but now all we have is a general idea that raises questions but no details. Could they at least paint a picture of how the
NAMB structure will look and how long it will take to implement it?
1. Will current NAMB missionaries be reassigned or what ?
Gary Odom
Church Planting Resource Group Leader
State Convention of Baptist in Ohio
How will the churches become the missional headquarters about which you speak when, according to the report, NAMB will centralize (not decentralize) itself in the church planting process even further by 1) moving to regional centers and 2) creating another layer of bureaucracy in competition with the state convention leaders and strategies--- both of which the churches are left to make their way through, like a mouse in a maze?
How many new work people have you consulted with to get at the heartbeat of what's happening outside of the Southern context?
(Basis for this question. Things in the new work fields are NOT like things in the established South. For example with NAMB numbers in bulletin insert from several years ago in the south with 100,000,000 people we have 36,000 churches, in the Midwest with 64.4 million people we have 5008 churches, in the west with 63 million people we have 4008 churches, in the northeast with 55 million people we have 866 churches. {I would like to think those numbers have improved some over the last ten years or so} however, we do not have the issues they deal with down there. Many of our churches give more %CP (not dollars) than many of the churches leading this report. If they gave at 10% or more as most of the churches I work with do, we would have no shortage of funds for our Great Commission work.)
Douglas Pilot, Associational Missionary
Conemaugh Valley Baptist Association
Duncansville,
PA
What Cost Analysis has been done? Surely this will not be the SBC version of "Lets just vote on it and we will see what's in it and how much it costs"
Where in the original committee description, or in the SBC constitution, do you see the authorization for an APPOINTED committee to usurp the responsibility of ELECTED trustees to determine which recommendations are implemented? Shouldn't your RECOMMENDATIONS be referred to the appropriate trustees (NAMB, IMB, State Conventions), who are much more qualified (and representative of all SBC churches) to complete the cost and implementation analysis for discussion in 2011?
If your assignment is to address lostness, wouldnt it be appropriate to address why the SBC is underwriting Southern Seminary to train a disproportionate number of "reformed" 5 point Calvinists, a philosophy with a documented negative impact on effective, intentional evangelism?
Another way to apply limited dollars to evangelistic church planting is for seminaries to reexamine their acceptance policies to reduce the number of students receiving the SBC scholarship who are not called and do not go into vocational ministry.
Anonoymos:
What should we adopt this at this time...Let it be in the hands of the people for a year...Will Direcotrs of missions be forced to ask their churches to cut CP to fund church planting and developping healthy churches...I think so.
I would like to know why NAMB is being micro-managed and IMB is looked upon as the fair haired child? Why not look into waste that is in IMB? Maybe they could have sent out more missionaries if they would have tightened their belts. NAMB has had drama in the past, but I don't think that taints their potential. This task force has thrown the baby out with the bath water. Let the new president lead and make these changes. Keep IMB out of North America unless they are asked. IMB has it's own problems.
Jon McLain
Pastor
Are your recommendations regarding NAMB a step toward combining the IMB and NAMB. (similar to the president saying that the last health care bill was a step toward a Canada type system)
Jonathan McLain
Pastor
#1. The State Conventions most affected by the GCRTF are those entered by the SBC after WWII. Most are just now entering their 2nd 50 year period. How are these Conventions doing compared to other Conventions after their first 50 years. My study of Missouri and Texas says we are on track with them. They became more indigenous during their 2nd 50 years. Colleges were established to train the indigenous leaders. The people on the front lines made better decisions based upon the culture, the needs of the people within those geographic areas and among their indigenous peers. Taking away the local decision making from the indigenous seems to be the opposite of what is needed.
#2. The historical emphasis on educating the indigenous leadership within their geographic area seems to put light on the need of our Seminaries not just to respond with distance learning but on what is being taught. Is the emphasis of our training to closely tied to the culture of the south? What re-education do our IMB Missionaries go through to become effective when they cross cultures? The USA may be the "Melting Pot" but people are not becoming homogenized white southerners. People who's homes are in the north, northeast, or west who are white and speak English are not culturally the same as those who grew up in the southeast. How are Seminaries training graduates to be strategic in reaching the multi-cultural USA?
#3. Other denominations who have moved to a more Central authority; United Methodist, and American Baptist, have experienced the opposite of what is hoped for in this study. They have lost membership rapidly and weakened the denomination significantly. Why would we be following Liberal Denominations by Centralizing authority? We also threaten the significant place of the Missionary DOM. This Church support generalist may be called on for any type of need by the local Churches. In Missions areas it takes a great deal of time before the ways Southern Baptist do Church becomes understood. In the Canadian structure the persons the local Church can call on are "specialist" and respond within their disciplines. Our new Missions Churches and their Pastor's may not understand their need well enough to ask for the help they need. The American Baptist did away with the Association and the DOM and distanced themselves from the local Church. Pastor have tended to not call for help because of the investment it takes to target information from an office unfamiliar with their area to fit the local need. They have found it easier to go somewhere else or "wing it".
#4. The lack of better financial support to plant Churches in these Missions areas where the local funding is very scarce because the other Churches are new, paying for their first buildings and single staffed. The lack of Church Planters willing to do the work required to enter an unentered county or unentered city with any idea of an effective strategy. The need for Pastor's willing to do the work required to grow a local church or to produce a "Turn Around Church" seem to be the issues requiring the most attention. I do not hear much about "doing the work of an evangelist" any more.
These point back more to Seminary and denominational support of the local Missions area effort. Do not adopt the current Government ideas of Centralizing control and asking us to "trust the Leaders".
Question: How will the GCR recommendations empower and assist churches in fulfilling the Great Commission locally, nationally and internationally?
Question: What group or groups will make the implementation decisions (the details) of the recommendations?
Question: What are the intended ramifications of redefining the cooperative mission funding emphasis of Southern Baptists as “Great Commission Giving”?
Larry W. Fillingim, Director of Missions
Noonday Baptist Association
Marietta, GA
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