Tuesday, July 20, 2010

So where are state conventions headed?

Are state conventions headed in the direction Bryant Wright, our new SBC president, said they should be headed – towards being cut in half?


Perhaps people in North Carolina have something to think about. Check this story concerning a motion made by a bald, goateed NC Baptist. Perhaps a NClinian would tell me where they think this is going.


The BGCT budget has been plummeting for some time. David Montoya, the Texas small voice who seems to have a large megaphone thinks it is partly because of lack of transparency, cronyism, and mismanagement. Maybe he has a point.


Radical. But it’s a good time for some radicalism in the SBC. If the Cooperative Program is to contribute more to North American and international missions not a few think that the states should keep less and send more.

I'm not terribly optimistic that this is what will happen. Organizations, even Baptist(perhaps especially Baptist) ones seems to have a modicum of institutional inertia and resistance to change.

We will see.

6 comments:

Jon L. Estes said...

William,

I think the states will take the biggest hit. probably not from small churches that will send their monies as they always have. Those that remain clueless to what happens with their money after the check is written.

I pastor a small church where the leaders who have been there for decades don't know how CP money is spent, divided, used... And for the most part, they are not all that interested in knowing.

We did reduce our CP giving last year, upped our associational and kept half of what was going to CP to do hands on missions ourselves. We will do 2 trips this year. One next week to western PA and the to Cuba in September. These are things we would not do, or only a few of us would if there was not help from the coffers. I'm taking 54-56 people to PA. Just under half our fine people.

foxofbama said...

I think the Alabama Baptist Convention should dethrone Jimmy Jackson since he wanted to throw out FBC Huntsvile of the Madison Association.
By Unanimous consent elect Gary Fenton of Dawson Memorial the State president since he isleading CP giver, and Mike Shaw as VP.
Give Shaw a four year term since he is a good fellow.
Make a Resolution that Timothy George come clean on the Barmen Declaration and have a task force study what SBOM Ex Dir was preaching that at FBC Tuscaloosa that got GOP Gube candidate Bentley to the ideological stance he has today.
Georgia and Mississippi can work out their own situation with Fear and Trembling; but I do think Laurel Mississippi's Charles Pickering ought to get further scrutiny on his association with the Alliance Defense Fund given the insight sure to come from his former pastor's son on the church state views of Dietrich Bonhoeffer; DB on the fringes of the Valkyrie plot for which he became a martyr.
Pickering a Bush 43 Judicial Nominee, SBC Peace Committee Member and former Prez of Miss SBC.
Other than that, I have no advice for the moment.

foxofbama said...

Historical note:
At the 89 Bama SBC when the big tornado came; I went to the dais of the state convention to offer a resolution condemning the SBC Ex Com treatment of Martin and Shackelford, then of Baptist PRess.
Fred Wolfe Castigated me in the Convention sermon about 15 minutes later.
This very day www.abpnews.com has two great stories about how ABP originated, one opinion piece about the 20th anniversary of the Martin/Shackelford massacre at the hands of Paul Pressler and the SBC ExCom
The verdict, or the Takeaway as Andy Stanley might say:
I was Right and Pressler aspired to die on a Bogus Hill.

William Thornton said...

Jon, I get the sense that not a few churches have cut CP for the same reason that you have.

David Montoya said...

William,

The BGCT is now trying Facebook and Twitter to seem relevant. It is almost comical. I wonder how long it will take for them to block me.

William said...

They wouldn't dare do that David. You are too powerful, bro.

Keep plugging away...