The Christian Index reports that GBC cuts 2011 budget to 2000 levels. To get perspective on this, the high water mark for staffing at the GBC was in 2008 when there were 163 employees. After this latest budget trimming, there will be 103 employees.
It is reported also that a number of employees will likely take early retirement, since GuideStone is reducing annunity funding rates and the GBC is cutting retiree medical benefits. 'Woe is us' say GBC employees who are enduring a triple whammy of budget/staff cuts, benefit cuts, and annuity cuts.
Our GBC CEO, Robert White, says that staff reductions will not affect commitment to resourcing churches, leading one to wonder exactly what all these employees were doing, but never mind.
Bryant Wright, our SBC president, notably said that state conventions should learn to live with half of what they are getting. With no impetus from the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force, or from NAMB removing the money they send back to the GBC through the Cooperative Agreements, the GBC has seen staffing cut by 37%.
What Wright had in mind was that the states could live on half so that the other half could go to higher priority, authentic missions like NAMB and IMB. Looks like a good chunk of that half has just evaporated and isn't capable of going anywhere.
White rightly laments the fact that good, solid, employees must be let go. Such is Baptist life at the moment.
My question is this: Do we have a new normalcy for SBC life? One where at all levels of denominational life (associations, state conventions, and national entities) there is a permanent lowering of budgets and staff?
I suspect so for state conventions and some national entities; however, The Great Commission Resurgence will be a failure if field personnel at NAMB and the International Mission Board do not increase. Kevin Ezell and whomever the new IMB chief is will have to inspire churches to give to Annie and Lottie. I am doubtful there will be a great increase in funds sent from the states through the Cooperative Program.
6 comments:
It is tiring to see SBC leadership from the national level telling autonomous state convention they have to live with less.
Its like Obama telling me I have to live with less so he can have more.
There needs to be a slicing and dicing of the over bloated agencies of the SBC. Until then it looks like more of the "give us more" line without any promises or conditions.
I'd keep an eye on Lottie and Annie. I would hate to see them start not sending 100% to the field.
J Estes
As you know Jon, Wright was quite plain in his views about funding priorities long before he was elected SBC president and it looks to me like everyone at every level is cutting and not because anyone tells them to, the money just isnt' there.
I have my doubts about the Cooperative Program being significantly recalibrated by the GCR or anything else.
On Lottie and Annie, NAMB tried some funny business with designated gifts after 911. I hope Ezell takes steps to regain the SBC's trust. I trust the IMB.
In my opinion the SBC needs to get rid of a lot of nonessential employees and just focus on missions. The waste of this bureaucracy is really unsettling.
William: Pity the Baptist General Convention of Texas ... no Baptist entity seems to be going through a more demoralizing period than the venerable BGCT … Over one hundred full-time staff positions cut in the last four years. Egad
William: The Christian Index reports that GBC cuts 2011 budget to 2000 levels. To get perspective on this, the high water mark for staffing at the GBC was in 2008 when there were 163 employees. After this latest budget trimming, there will be 103 employees.
Norm: Where’s the “Egad”?
William: The upstart convention in Texas, Southern Baptists of Texas, is due some credit for the BGCT’s woes because the SBT provides an attractive choice for Texas churches. Surely some credit is due the BGCT itself for its propensity for self-inflicted wounds.
William: Our GBC CEO, Robert White, says that staff reductions will not affect commitment to resourcing churches, leading one to wonder exactly what all these employees were doing, but never mind.
Norm: What is the attractive choice for GBCers? Surely some self-inflicted wounds?
William: I see no great revival of enthusiasm for denominational (Cooperative Program) giving and our current SBC president, Bryant Wright, has famously said that state conventions should make drastic, radical cuts in what they keep out of CP gifts.
William: White rightly laments the fact that good, solid, employees must be let go. Such is Baptist life at the moment.
Norm: But when BGCT did it, it was seemingly written about as a failure of proportion and leadership that, apparently, could only be due to moderate causes. Granted, BGCT has its leadership problems, but to deny such in SBC as well is to be in complete denial of reality, not to mention wrongly suggesting theological orientation as an antecedent condition.
William: Unless something not anticipated occurrs, other state conventions may be following the BGCT in decline. Call this pessimism if you wish. I rather think it is realism. If so, the most valuable people in the SBC might be those who have the skills to shepherd our entities in a time of radical reprioritization, er, decline. One cannot say that the BGCT has done this well, but it has done it. Maybe lessons can be learned from it.
William: My question is this: Do we have a new normalcy for SBC life? One where at all levels of denominational life (associations, state conventions, and national entities) there is a permanent lowering of budgets and staff? I suspect so for state conventions and some national entities; however, The Great Commission Resurgence will be a failure if field personnel at NAMB and the International Mission Board do not increase. Kevin Ezell and whomever the new IMB chief is will have to inspire churches to give to Annie and Lottie. I am doubtful there will be a great increase in funds sent from the states through the Cooperative Program.
Norm: The immediately above comment is where the original post might have begun.
The GBC lacks two things that the BGCT has had to deal with: 1. an alternative convention, and 2. severe mismanagement and turmoil. While the cumulative loss of support from more moderate churches over the past years has undoubtedly contributed to the reduction in budget, the more drastic impact seems to have been the economy. If there has been mismanagement on a BGCT scale, you will surely provide examples of such. I don't believe there has been.
I don't think BGCT's failures in management was as a result of having mods in control, just people who didn't pay attention or who were incompetent or incapable or a combination of the above. I don't know which. Certainly, the SBCT arose because mods were in control, not them.
William: The GBC lacks two things that the BGCT has had to deal with: 1. an alternative convention, and 2. severe mismanagement and turmoil. While the cumulative loss of support from more moderate churches over the past years has undoubtedly contributed to the reduction in budget, the more drastic impact seems to have been the economy. If there has been mismanagement on a BGCT scale, you will surely provide examples of such. I don't believe there has been.
Norm: The GBC does not have an alternative convention, thus is not faced with churches leaving for another convention, yet it faces a reduction in financing. How does this help your argument that it is doing any better than BGCT? Secondly, the problem you likely assert is the church start problem, which was, indeed, problematic. If GBC can do what it is doing with less people, how is it that it is appropriately using its funds? Mismanagement is mismanagement, notwithstanding the issue and its scale. Third, “I don’t believe there has been” is opinion; I am willing to accept such, even without supporting evidence, but given such, I, too, will assert opinion without providing evidence, for I perceive no need to do what you have not done. It’s called meeting you on equal ground.
William: I don't think BGCT's failures in management was as a result of having mods in control, just people who didn't pay attention or who were incompetent or incapable or a combination of the above. I don't know which. Certainly, the SBCT arose because mods were in control, not them.
Norm: How is it any different, then, for White to employ more people than are needed to adequately support the state? Is that not a failure of attention and appropriation, too? Would not a loss of 60 in 1 year be comparable to a loss of 100 in 4 years? Does that scale not merit an ‘egad’, too? The training ministers receive in seminary in terms of financial and managerial oversight is usually woefully inadequate for the needs of a church (or convention), thus neither conservatives nor moderates have much in which they can point a finger at the other, other than moderates tend to be less autocratic with staff, but not highly significantly less so. Where it comes to theological issues, given advanced training, I expect a disproportionate number of ministers on a committee, however, when it comes to strategic issues of a church or convention, there is no justification for such. I don’t wish to attenuate the importance of ministers on denominational committees, only that it is time to discontinue the inflation of their importance, otherwise, due to their limited perspective and vested interests, mismangement and misappropriation of people and resources will not have sufficient checks.
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