This month Southern Baptists gather in Anaheim, Calif., for the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to make decisions about the convention’s work for the next year. The convention’s messengers will decide upon its budget, listen to reports, elect a president, make motions and pass resolutions.
Yet one of their most important tasks may also be one of the most overlooked. Messengers will approve the selections of the participants for five committees and 12 trustee boards (of the 11 SBC entities and the Executive Committee).
“Committees are in place to do the primary direct work for the convention,” said Amy Whitfield, who served as the assistant parliamentarian for four annual meetings (2016-19). “There are certain tasks that the convention needs to carry out, but they can’t do it all en masse as the messengers. For example, they’re determining who to put on the various boards for entities. If you asked 15,000 people to come up with that list, we’ll be there for a lot longer than two days.”
Trustees have a similar, yet complimentary, role. They are assigned to specific entities and asked to serve as the convention’s representatives in overseeing the work of those entities.
Being one of the states with the largest population of Southern Baptists, North Carolina has a large number of representatives on SBC committees and boards, including several chairpersons.
Serving on a board or committee within the SBC is an important way in which Southern Baptists participate in the work of the convention. Participating on a board or committee is a way to be a part of “tangible, action-orientated moments.”
Amy Whitfield
Clint Pressley, senior pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist in Charlotte, chairs the board of trustees at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Pressley says it’s an honor to serve on the trustee board, and he has enjoyed learning about all the good work God is doing through the seminary.
“I believe in the Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Program and the way we do ministry, missions and seminary education,” Pressley said. “I’ve benefited from one of our seminaries. I went to New Orleans [Baptist Theological] Seminary, benefited from a discounted tuition because I was a Southern Baptist and want to be a part of maintaining fidelity in the schools and making sure they’re healthy.”
Pressley says the 44-member board meets twice a year. Trustees serve on subcommittees related to different schools within the seminary, along with several other areas of focus. These subcommittees will hear reports by these schools about their work. The personnel committee also provides oversight for the hiring of full-time professors. These meetings last about two days. The seminary provides any needed travel expenses to and from the meeting and provides the lodging.
“It’s not a time for micromanaging,” Pressley said. “We’re not there all the time. We meet twice a year. We have great people in place that provide leadership, but we do provide the oversight for the entire organization. And, in order to do that, we have to meet and hear reports.”
As the chairman of the board, Pressley presides over the meetings, including opening and closing them. Pressley and the other trustee officers give a performance review to the president and provide him with advice and counsel.
Besides having an opportunity to provide input on the seminary’s direction, trustees also get a unique view of the entities they serve.
“You can see, in very great detail, the responsibility they’re taking with the money that they’ve been entrusted with,” Pressley said. “You can see the number of students, those who are online. You get a full picture of what’s going on inside that institution. So, there’s not just some thin veneer of saying, ‘This is a great place.’ You actually can go and be a part of it for a little while. And that’s really gratifying to know that Cooperative Program dollars go into such fine institutions, not just Southern. There are five other great seminaries. They give us a lot to be thankful for as Southern Baptists.”
As a member of the SBC’s Committee on the Order of Business, Spence Shelton, lead pastor of Charlotte’s Mercy Church, works on a team that helps put together the full schedule of business and the program for the annual meeting. Shelton notes that, at first, the effort might seem simple, but it’s harder than it looks.
“I have been in the seat of messenger, and often found myself asking, ‘Why are we doing these things?’” said Shelton. “It’s a great question. And all I can say is, the reason behind a lot of what we’re doing is because [these actions] represent the things that we, the messengers, have tasked our entities to do. And so whether it’s something we’re hearing or something we’re voting on, we’re the ones that are in charge. And our employees are coming to us and telling us, ‘Here’s how we’re doing.’”
Besides having an opportunity to provide input on the seminary’s direction, trustees also get a unique view of the entities they serve. “You get a full picture of what’s going on inside that institution.”
Clint Pressley
Amy Whitfield, who currently serves as the executive director of communications at Summit Church in Raleigh, says serving on a board or committee within the SBC is an important way in which Southern Baptists participate in the work of the convention. She notes that Southern Baptists have a variety of ways to register an opinion about the activities of the convention but participating on a board or committee is a way to be a part of “tangible, action-orientated moments.”
“I think it’s important to remember that we’re people who have determined by our structures that we think we can do more together than we can do apart,” Whitfield said. “So if we’re going to invest in that way of thinking, and if we’re going to be sending our resources to the Cooperative Program or to other places, having a voice in that matters. It’s important.”
In 2018, Whitfield and Keith Harper, a Baptist history professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Raleigh, published the book SBC FAQs: A Ready Reference, which explains many of the processes and structures of the Southern Baptist Convention, including the trustee and committee system.
(EDITOR’S NOTE – Tobin Perry is a freelance writer with more than 20 years of writing experience with Southern Baptist organizations. He can be reached at TobinPerry.com.)
