Monday, June 28, 2010

Plodder's absolutely free advice for Frank Page, new XCommittee President (Part 2)

Doesn't cost a thing for Southern Baptists to offer their opinions and free advice. Sometimes these might even be worth more than they cost. A few more:

Be an advocate for the Cooperative Program. It is a great plan; however, churches are voting against it (i.e. lowering their percentages) for a reason. Take an honest look at this and set the tone by not attempting to shame churches for giving too little.

You state that direct solicitations by SBC entites to churches “is a problem” and that you “will work to see that such activity stops.” Good for you. Our entities should not do what they are prohibited from doing; however, if the Great Commission can be advanced by amending our policies in this area, I would expect that such should be done.

Set a tone for the entire convention by considering a reduction in the size of the Executive Committee. Seems to me that the sizes of our trustee boards and the expense to manage them are unnecessary in the 21st century. Yeah, I know that no one wants to give up their positions (and perks) and will squeal if poked in this area.

I take it that everyone understands that the Global Evangelical Relations office is up in the air. I admit to its function being bit of a puzzle, at least to me. While the peripatetic and hyper-enthusiastic Bobby Welch is much appreciated, cannot say I'm sold on the process as structured.

Your tenure will likely see more change and challenges than your predecessors. You have my prayers.

5 comments:

Jonathan said...

"Be an advocate for the Cooperative Program. It is a great plan; however, churches are voting against it (i.e. lowering their percentages) for a reason. Take an honest look at this and set the tone by not attempting to shame churches for giving too little."

Aside from the fact that we spent $250k to fund a blue ribbon task force for the past year to figure out both the answer to this question and some solutions to the problem, we still know very little about the "why".

I encourage Page to have Lifeway commission one of Rainer's outstanding surveys of all SBC churches to find the top 3-5 reasons that CP giving is down (breaking down the data between concerns about state conventions and SBC agencies)...findings to be presented at the 2011 SBC annual meeting. Having a Pareto chart on the big screen in the big room could go a long way in focusing the convention on why folks are not giving as much or why they're sending funds directly to a specific agency (around both the state conventions and the SBC general fund).

Norm said...

William: “... not attempting to shame churches for giving too little."

Norm: Shame is an internal state and the choice of the church, that is, if said church perceives said state, it is the church’s decision to experience such; but such is not Page’s doing. Having said that, given commitment to ministry and CP as its funding mechanism, when funding falls short absent justification, Page would do well to create the conditions for cognitive dissonance, but also share strategies for reducing said state.

William Thornton said...

Jonathan, I can link it later but a recent survey (I believe that it was described as a "census" owing to the thousands of responses of SBC pastors and laypeople) concluded that a high percentage of SBCers were satisfied or highly satisfied with the CP. The problem with this is that it is inconsistent with the decades long record of declining CP percentages from churches.

It may take greater survey sophistication to find the meaningful responses.

Norm, I know this stuff is partly your area of expertise and I would like to benefit from it. I just can't always decipher what you are saying.

Norm said...

The dissonance would be due to a gap between attitudinal and behavioral commitment, that is, the discomfort of knowing that the inability to engage in ministry is due to inadequate support.

Again, this goes back to my previous post in Part 1 where I raise the point that appropriate giving levels needs to be addressed. Various contingencies may be considered in the setting of said levels, but over a specified amount of time, an agreed-upon minimum level of sacrifice should be achieved. Otherwise, the unevenness of the value of the 'thing' (i.e., SBC) will likely attenuate what SBC can accomplish.

Jonathan said...

I remember that survey. I remember it reading something like the political surveys that show that no one has a positive view of Congress but everyone is generally satisfied with their own Representative.