It appears that more people are lining up behind the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force recommendations than are advocating for their rejection. The task force has done a good job in utilizing all the media available to get its message out, and task force members have made themselves available across the nation and on numerous conference calls to answer questions and advocate for their recommendations.

As June 15 approaches when the recommendations will be debated and decided upon by messengers to the annual Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) meeting in Orlando the danger arises that the vote will create “winners” and “losers.” That often happens after debates in which both sides are adamantly convinced their perspective is the only right way to see things.

If discussion and vote on the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force findings result in a divided body, it will be a great and devastating tragedy. I asked Danny Akin, task force member and president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, what happens if his “side” loses.

He said for himself he could only say that nothing would change. He would continue to work as hard, as passionately and as diligently as he has been working, for the Kingdom and for the seminary he leads.

I asked because some high profile Baptists have put themselves on the line during this debate.

When Akin, Johnny Hunt, Al Gilbert, Al Mohler, Ronnie Floyd and others bare their souls and say “this is essential” to keep the Southern Baptist Convention from sinking into irrelevancy by the next generation what happens if their perspective “loses?”

Human reaction would be to pick up their marbles and go home, to say, “A pox on all of you.”

Everyone on the task force has spoken strongly for the Cooperative Program as the primary method of funding the common work of Southern Baptists. Several have made significant verbal commitments to increases in their churches and several others have already started making significant increases.

If messengers do not adopt their perspective do they pull back?

If messengers do not adopt the perspective of the SBC Majority, those churches that comprise the overwhelming majority of Southern Baptists and who have carried the freight for cooperative work forever, do those churches throw up their hands and turn inward?

Southern Baptists have lamented for a generation the lack of a statesman among us whose wise and reasoned presence and well-spoken word could sway a room and unite a crowd.

That’s not to say we’ve not had influential leaders, men who could rally those of like mind to advocate for a cause.

But it is the man who could rally to unity those of other minds that we’ve lacked.

Such men typically do not rise from among the ranks of the winners.

Their words — no matter how kindly intended and graciously delivered — sting like salt. It is hard to speak for unity from the winner’s podium without sounding patronizing or condescending.

That leaves the search for a statesman among us confined to the ranks of those who end up on the short side of the vote.

It is the gracious “loser,” the magnanimous man in defeat, who can say, “The people have spoken. Let us unite around the decision.”

While the recommendations of the task force are billed as “unanimous,” debate leading up to those decisions was not always so. But the committee did as any committee should.

Once the discussions are held, opinions voiced, arguments heard and vote taken, no matter which side of the decision you’re on, you come out of committee with one voice.

What we will desperately need by the evening of June 15 is the calm, strong, unifying voice of a respected leader from the short side of the vote who will embrace the decision, pledge his support both for the decision and for the Southern Baptist Convention, and who will urge all of those who voted with him their continuing support as well.

This will be most difficult for those on the task force because they have poured themselves so urgently into their study.

They have said the North American Mission Board is “broken;” that next generation leaders will be lost to the SBC without a change; that church members and state conventions are selfish with money that should go to the nations; and that the way Southern Baptists have been doing evangelism and missions does not work effectively.

If messengers vote against the recommendations, can a task force member who believes those things and made those statements swallow hard, rise up and say he remains on board, fully supportive of the Convention and will work hard to help move the Convention forward to meet the challenges it faces — even as it has rejected his efforts of the past year?

Can a person outspoken against the changes promised by adoption of the task force recommendations rise up to affirm the SBC even as it takes a step in a direction that leader feels is misguided?

A statesman who would be embraced by persons of all perspectives will never wear the garland of triumphalism.

A statesman for our day must arise from the ranks of those whose preference was denied. Failure of such a statesman to arise threatens any potential for the SBC to move forward in the strength and effectiveness that only unity can provide.

Venture pastor Austin Rammell moved the Baptist State Convention board of directors May 26 to ask the Executive Committee to consider the feasibility of taking out of the Cooperative Program budget non-priority items in favor of priority items now funded through the North Carolina Missions Offering (see story).

The intent is transparent and pure. Rammell, who has advocated for such a move during his term on the board, says let’s budget those things we say are our priorities, and leave the special offerings to fund non-priority items.

The result of a special offering for “non-priority” items is obvious. But that result also is OK with Rammell and others of similar mind. They would say if churches do not support those items in a special offering, then obviously those items have no real merit and should be allowed to fade away.

From a development or fund-raising perspective, however, you want a special offering to include items that have significant merit and appeal, so people give to them. If you look at Cooperative Program and special offerings as one basket in which the total funds ministries, you want that total to be as large as possible. Special offerings for high appeal items assure the highest total.

Years ago when the Baptist State Convention (BSC) responded to complaints of “too many special offerings” being collected among the churches, the BSC combined offerings for Baptist Retirement Homes, Baptist Hospital, Baptist Children’s Homes and the North Carolina Missions Offering (NCMO) into one. The result was unmitigated disaster.

So the Convention after a couple years pulled the Retirement Homes, Children’s Homes and Hospital out and into a “Homes and Hospital Offering” and kept a separate NCMO offering. Still, disastrous.

The first year each entity was allowed to resume its own offering, income from the Thanksgiving Offering for Baptist Children’s Homes alone was as high as the offering for all three entities had been the year before. The Cooperative Program is the undergirding force for funding cooperative ministries. But some of the money pays the light bill that if left on its own could never raise its own funds.

When Tom Elliff was pastor at First Southern Baptist Church of Del City, Okla., he had to take the drastic step of laying off every staff member, including himself. Those who could work without pay did so as long as they could before the church could start hiring some of them back.

In the midst of the financial straits the church endured, he shared that he allowed special offerings to be received among his people. Why? “Because the more they give, the more they give,” he said. Giving begets giving. Giving begets generosity. Generosity begets a loving, fruitful spirit in the life of a congregation. And in the life of a Baptist state convention.

No church must receive any special offering. Every church is completely autonomous in that and every other matter. While the executive committee has been instructed now by the board to examine the feasibility of creating an impotent North Carolina Missions Offering, to do so would be a return to disaster. 

In the movie"Braveheart" there is a scene where the landowners are plotting secretly around a banquet table to betray William Wallace, who is leading a revolt against the English in Scotland. As they talk, the body of one of their conspirators thuds onto the table from above.

Looking up in terror, they spie Wallace, who escapes. Don't you know when they removed the body from the table, the conversation changed.

This story details the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report messengers will consider June 15 at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. The task force, appointed last June by SBC President Johnny Hunt, has studied the processes of a broad, comprehensive system of missions, education and benevolence with the intention of finding ways to focus the resources more on missions and less on the other aspects of Southern Baptists’ cooperative efforts since 1845.

The committee believes refocusing on missions, particularly evangelism to other nations and to the densest populations in America, will reinvigorate the combined energies of the Convention, recapture the imagination of the next generation for the work of the Convention, and restore the Cooperative Program in the minds of Southern Baptists as the primary and essential missions giving channel.

That’s a huge load to ask any single action of the Convention to carry but it is so important that Southern Baptists rally around a specific, meaningful, challenging, spiritual vision that we might have to ask this report to carry such a load.

The committee issued a preliminary report Feb. 22, and then wisely listened to reaction. Their May 3 final version reflected their consideration of that reaction, which predictably came loudest from those who interpret the report as directly affecting their work.

A poll running on the national directors of missions website indicates a majority of that group will not vote in favor of the task force recommendations.

Two major issues in the report draw the most comment. First, the longstanding process of how the North American Mission board works with state conventions and associations, called “cooperative agreements” would be phased out over seven years, in favor of a yet undefined process. The intent of the dissolution of cooperative agreements is to “liberate” NAMB from a process that limits its strategic leadership role in designing and implementing a national evangelism strategy.

Because so many smaller state conventions and associations in areas where Southern Baptists are not strong depend heavily on NAMB resources – as they should in a denominational system where resources from strong areas flow to help newer work areas – there was immediate and palpable angst over any proposed changes. Even strong state conventions reacted, notably Alabama which said the changes would “devastate” their evangelism strategy.

One of the task force positions is that too few resources flow to areas such as dense population centers because cooperative agreements with southeastern states – whose churches provide the money – return too much money to those southeastern states for mission activity that the strong state conventions should fund themselves.

North Carolina’s executive director-treasurer has been publicly silent during the run-up to the national meeting, but will deliver his interpretation of the task force proposals during the Baptist State Convention board meeting May 25.

Second, the task force proposes a change in mission giving nomenclature that it believes will elevate the status of Cooperative Program giving, but that has the potential to bury it as one part of a new category of giving called “Great Commission Giving.”

Many who support CP as the single best missions giving channel ever devised fear it will be lost as just one element of Great Commission Giving. Others would welcome “Great Commission Giving” because their churches would get “credit” for their giving to other Southern Baptist Convention causes when church leaders are being considered for national offices.

In North Carolina last year 77 churches bypassed the Baptist State Convention of N.C. with $1.3 million sent directly to the SBC, which does not count as Cooperative Program giving, but which would count as Great Commission Giving, should the recommendation pass.

The task force recommends one percent of national Cooperative Program money be redistributed from the SBC Executive Committee to the International Mission Board. That percentage point represents $2 million, a huge part of the Executive Committee budget, and an insignificant part of the IMB budget. But it is two million real dollars and its shift to the IMB will apply real dollars to the point of greatest need.

It will be interesting to see how incoming Executive Committee President Frank Page feels about having to deal with a nearly 30 percent budget cut in his first year of office. Similarly, it will be interesting to see who is called to the presidencies of the International Mission Board and North American Mission Board. These are vital positions in a critical hour.

The high profile provided by serving on the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force has put several names on that task force into the mix for mission board leadership. If task force members are named to those offices, cynics will have a field day.

Jerry Rankin, current IMB president who will retire July 1, likes the task force report, and not just because IMB is scheduled to receive more money, but because he believes adoption of the report will fuel “a renewed impetus in reaching the lost and a higher priority given to discipling the nations.”

The task force recommendation that the SBC adopt a new mission statement “to present the gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all the nations” is not dissimilar to the one under which Southern Baptists have been operating since their founding in 1845:   to organize “a plan for eliciting, combining, and directing the energies of the denomination for the propagation of the gospel.”

What to do about the report? Love it or hate it, the report is out there for consideration. It has been dropped onto the table like the body Wallace dropped in front of the English landowners and it suddenly becomes – with either its adoption or rejection – a potential dividing line for Southern Baptists.

If Southern Baptists adopt the report, they are committing to the first step of change. They’re saying, “We’re in. Ready. Shoot. Aim. Let’s see if changing some formerly successful ways of doing ministry will kick us off dead center to meet new challenges.”

Rejecting the report says either, “We’re fine the way we are,” or “We need change, but not this kind of change.”

But here’s the thing: rejecting the report does not take it off the table and return Southern Baptists to where we were 14 months ago, any more than a divorce simply returns you to your pre-marital state. You’ve changed. You have new relationships and considerations you did not have before.

Already the report has prompted “Great Commission” discussion and deep internal evaluations. It has invigorated young Baptist pastors because they see a hope that all things future will not be like all things past. By the same token it has prompted angst in those who fear all things future will not be like all things past.

Adopted, or rejected, the task force report has changed the conversation.

 

 

 

My pastor preached on the Lord’s Prayer and said one of its great effects through history is to give Christians a common language. Then, on pages two and three of this issue, persons on different ends of the current Baptist continuum use remarkably common language to describe their intentions, hopes and purposes. It makes me dizzy.

In Southern Baptist life, the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force recommendations will emphasize returning the impetus for missions to the local church. Daniel Vestal, who leads an organization born as an “anti-SBC” group, said his Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) is committed to the local church as “the center of the missions enterprise.”

Vestal, the second coordinator in the 20-year history of the CBF, said member churches of his organization “share a passion for the Great Commission.” The SBC’s Great Commission Resurgence Task Force … well, its name affirms its own position there.

Vestal believes local churches affiliating with multiple partners is a feature of the future. Task force member J.D. Greear said in a “flat world” churches can find resources beyond “a denominational knowledge broker.”

Most churches that affiliate with the CBF remain tangentially connected to the Baptist state conventions that once enjoyed their primary support. Most churches that have affirmed the first round of Great Commission Task Force recommendations similarly are connected to their Baptist state conventions, but not necessarily as their primary alliance.

This is not to say the wishful but whipped Baptists who formed the CBF 20 years ago and the hopeful reformers of the SBC today are really political or theological clones. I doubt any Great Commission Resurgence advocates would endorse Vestal’s affirmation of women in the pastorate or his position that “justice is as important as personal salvation.”

It’s just that the Baptist family once was large enough to include people who were this much alike — even if they were this much different. Purchase price for entry into the family reunion was cooperation in missions.

With dividing lines more clearly drawn, meetings of Baptist State Convention of North Carolina Baptists, and Southern Baptist Convention Baptists, are much more harmonious. Conflict virtually is gone because those with differing opinion coalesced around like perspectives and pulled away from involvement with family members who vote a different ticket.

Harmony is nice. Harmony makes for quick meetings and for good feelings driving home.

Harmony like this also carries the danger that no wise perspective will surface if it might be perceived as pushing against prevailing opinion. That is a dangerous silence because the very reason we have boards is to gather representation and collective wisdom around the conference table.

What does it mean that the Great Commission Task Force and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship use the same language to describe their work? It could mean that the two groups define the words differently so they don’t mean the same thing. It could affirm my pastor’s sermon point that Christians need a common language. It could mean that we are not as far apart as the rhetoric would claim.

It could mean we are brothers and sisters in Christ and should affirm every positive step each of us makes, and not waste a moment’s energy to create a war of words over the differences.
 
What does tangential affiliation mean?
Above I mentioned that most churches affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship are tangentially connected also to their Baptist State Convention. That is true whether in North Carolina or elsewhere. Tangential means “merely touching; slightly connected.”

Since the easiest to quantify measure of a church’s involvement with the Baptist State Convention is its gifts for cooperative ministry given through the Cooperative Program, here are a few examples of churches once hugely supportive of the Baptist State Convention but who have moved to just a tangential relationship — and which maintain the relationship primarily to stay qualified for the insurance and retirement benefits provided by the BSC.

I offer comparisons between gifts to the Baptist State Convention by these churches in 2003 and gifts in 2008. Five years is long enough to see the comparison clearly, and 2008 is before gifts from many churches dropped due to the economy.

Church A, $7,600 to $0; Church B $13,619 to $1,328; Church C $28,162 to $1,775; Church D $20,453 to $3,767; Church E $25,000 to withdrawn; Church F $164,389 to $44,839; Church G $12,297 to $2,519. You can easily see the impact of a church that no longer feels welcomed at the family reunion. Its money follows its heart. And do not say a church that shifts funds has no heart for the Great Commission. See Vestal’s comments (above and here).

Lest you hasten to judge churches that have shifted funds to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship for lack of support to the Baptist State Convention that they once loved and supported in significant ways, I invite your attention to page 144 of the 2009 Southern Baptist Convention annual. This page lists the North Carolina Baptist churches that direct gifts to the Southern Baptist Convention, bypassing the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.

Each church has every right to do that and still be a BSC member church. Most of these churches are tangentially related still to the BSC because they also give money to the BSC. But 77 churches gave $1.1 million that is not counted as Cooperative Program because it did not come through the state Convention and will not be distributed among all ministries. You’ll see on this list three members of the Baptist State Convention Board of directors.

Do I need to itemize the implications of board members bypassing the Baptist State Convention with their gifts?

You’ll also see on this list the churches of three Biblical Recorder directors. Two of them are working hard to change that in their churches.

We are more alike than we are different. Let’s celebrate our common love for Jesus, our heart for missions and affirm each other everywhere we can.