Chapman has an alternative plan, does he?

Morris Chapman, lame duck President of the SBC’s Executive Committee has alternatives to the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force recommendations. My comment is just on two of them.

Missions Funding -- Recommendation #3 (Replacing task force Recommendation #3)

That LifeWay Christian Resources be requested to amend the definition for the requested data field of "Total Missions Expenditures" in future Annual Church Profiles, beginning in 2010, so that the figure will include only contributions to the Southern Baptist family of missions and ministries.

Not “Great Commission Giving” but “Total Missions Expenditures”?

So, both Chapman and the GCRTF call for the exact same statistic, just with a different wording.

But why not “Great Commission Giving”? Because it sounds too positive? Because we wouldn’t want churches to feel positive and good about giving to SBC causes outside of the Cooperative Program?

The fact is, many in the SBC believe the best plan for promoting the Cooperative Program, a great funding mechanism to which churches have given consistently less and less of their offering plate dollars over the past several decades, is to try and shame churches that emphasize more direct giving to the mission boards into giving more to the Cooperative Program. This isn’t a workable plan.

The fear that there is something dangerous in applying an attractive, celebratory, label on what churches are already doing to support Southern Baptists work is absurd. Chapman’s plan is to stick with the pedestrian “Total Missions Expenditures” as if that will accomplish anything.

NAMB -- Recommendation #4 (Replacing task force Recommendation #4)

Chapman ditches the call to phase out the Cooperative Agreements between NAMB and the states.

Mo is for the status quo. Trouble is, the status quo isn’t working too well for the SBC.

Chapman’s alternative are DOA, IMO.