NAMB trustees adopt church planting network guidelines

Our North American Mission Board has endured considerable criticism for supporting church plants that also have a relationship with some church planting network. We are regularly treated to considerable, breathless, blogging acrimony alleging all manner of things about NAMB and other church planting networks.

No matter that there have been few concrete examples offered of such things. But then facts usually don't slow down bloggers from displaying a good dose of denominational indignation. NAMB has consistently stated that they only plant churches that conform to the Baptist Faith and Message Statement. No one I know has pointed to a single church that does not so conform.

Understanding the scrutiny of such things, NAMB trustees adopted some guidelines for their church plants and other networks.

NAMB's document is below:

                                       NAMB / Network Guidelines

The North American Mission Board encourages church plants to partner with their association, state convention, NAMB and the IMB. NAMB also affirms that some churches engage with other networks for mission and evangelism purposes in accordance with article 14 “Cooperation” of the Baptist Faith and Message.

NAMB does not affirm or partner with individual networks, but partners with Baptist Faith and Message affirming churches and planters.

In order to be good stewards of Southern Baptist resources and remain focused on our mission, the following guidelines must be upheld in order for a church plant to receive benefits from the Send North America church planting strategy. Church planting is a family activity, and we want to partner with those whose plans and commitments include
a commitment to the SBC family.

As such, we require that churches we support:

1. AFFIRM their doctrine, polity and practices are compatible with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.
 
2. PARTICIPATE as an SBC church, and have their denominational commitment reflected in their documents, web page, and shared with the congregation.
 
3. COMPLETE and remain faithful to all the Send North America strategy requirements and policies.
 
4. GIVE faithfully the agreed percentage through the Cooperative Program.
 
5. COMMIT to serve as a faithful SBC partner beyond receiving support in order to partner with the future strategy of Send North America in planting additional churches.

Everyone happy now?

Acts 29: Behind every tree and under every rock

I made the comment to a denominational staffer a few days ago that I could scarcely turn on my computer without Acts 29 popping up. Hardly any Southern Baptist Convention discussion goes any length without someone raising the specter of the dreaded Acts 29 Network.

Part of my retirement regimen is visiting churches, so I thought I might exhibit some steely resolve and take my silver pate to an Acts 29 church around here. There are several in the Atlanta area and one that is a short drive from me.

When I asked about the closest Acts 29 to me, I was informed that it had a Presbyterian affiliation and I already have a favorite Presbyterian church I have attended, so I have dropped the thought of trying to attend an Acts 29 church for now. I'm not sure they permit old dudes to attend, anyway.

But considering doing so reminded me that although I have heard and read innumerable SBCers complain about Acts 29 as if it is the source of many of the SBC woes, I don't know that I have ever heard a critic who has ever visited one of these churches, these ubiquitous and nefarious things that some say are the bane of our beloved denomination.


Acts 29's website mentions all of the grand sum of 400 churches in the US. There are thirteen listed as being in Georgia, three in Alabama, four in SC, and eleven in NC. Hardly a vast number.

Maybe we ought to look into Acts 29 and learn how such a small network of churches has such outsized influence in our denomination of over 45,000 churches.

Why all this complaining about Acts 29?

Aha, I'm told, there's that Acts 29/North American Mission Board connection.


There is?

Last year it was noted that a church listed on the Acts 29 website was a NAMB-supported church plant.

Really?

Yep.

And?

Curious, I asked and NAMB said that they only plant churches that conform to the Baptist Faith and Message Statement. Come to think of it, no one that I know of has pointed to a single NAMB plant that does not so conform.

Maybe SBCers ought to stop looking behind every tree and under every rock for Acts 29 churches and focus on the real problems in the SBC - seriously declining Cooperative Program giving and declining baptisms.

But then it is one of our favorite sports and such fun to find things to demonize.

A visit to a Calvinist church...

For five months of my pastoral retirement/hiatus I have visited various churches - large and small, friendly and unfriendly, good music and deplorable music, Biblical preaching and sans Biblical preaching.

This past Sunday I visited an SBC Calvinist church. More accurately,  rather than being a 'Calvinist church' it is a church whose pastor is a Calvinist.

It's about as Southern Baptist as you can get.

Being highly trained in such things, my Calvinist radar was at its maximum setting. I immediately noted the absence of dour faced, long bearded elders roaming about, neither did I find a joyless group of worshippers resigned to their predetermined fates.

The tieless pastor had no horns, did not snort fire, and no smoke came from his nostrils. The word "Calvin" was not enunciated a single time in my hearing.


Actually, my wife and I have worshiped there several times and the congregation is the friendliest that we have encountered and that without even having a canned greeting time planned in the service.
The pastor is a friend whose preaching I have enjoyed on a few occasions.

I doubt the most rabid anti-calvinist would find anything to gripe (or blog) about in this church. It is a typical SBC congregation, several decades old.

Concerning my reformed brethren, while I have written about some things I am wary about, as well as somethings I like, in personal interaction I find far more to like than dislike.

Sure, I read that some of the brethren are extremely wary of any connection to ACTS29 network churches that receive church planting support from our North American Mission Board, and that explained partly on the basis of Calvinistic beliefs. To these I would say, scrutinize all you want. If you find a NAMB church plant that does not conform to the Baptist Faith and Message, speak up.

I've seen and heard Calvinist pastors destroy SBC churches, and that directly out of their unwise zeal for Calvinist theology. These have concerned me and still do.

But, I will likely return to this church. Perhaps it is providential and/or irresistible that I do so.

What the next generation of Acts 29 Network will bring us...

Mark Driscoll on Sunday morning talking to his son about going to church:

You can get Baptist Press' daily Joe McKeever cartoon here.

Ezell ambivalent about Acts29 and other pre-convention NAMB news

Update: Baptist Press has picked up this story - EZELL INTERVIEW: Goal is to make NAMB 'first choice of church planters everywhere'

The Christian Index is about a fifteen minute drive from the sparkling North American Mission Board headquarters and the paper usually is pretty close to NAMB happenings. The paper interviewed NAMB leader Kevin Ezell (sorry, unavailable online unless you subscribe). Exerpts and observations:

NAMB’s Priorities
Ezell and NAMB are more focused on church planting rather than a hundred other things, good things, aiming to put 50% of its resources in church planting. Despite the chicken little pronouncements coming from some, the figure is now about 38%. Getting to 50% will “stretch us,” says Ezell.

Honesty in Numbers
How’s the church planting been going? Ezell says that NAMB has been reporting 1,400 to 1,600 plants annually “for years” but that these are “soft” figures. He says that the “numbers we report may be less than previous years but we believe they will be more accurate.”

Give the man a trophy for saying that he believes that the truth is more important than impressing people with “soft” figures. Ask the Baptist General Convention of Texas about “soft” church planting numbers which for them translated into hard dollars, millions of them squandered on phantom church plants.

Legacy staffing
NAMB fully funds about 250 Directors of Missions. These will have a year to transition to “church planter catalyst.” If the new job description is not a good fit they can “retire or decide to find other ministry opportunities.”

“We are looking at newer, more efficient ways of working that do not require additional staff,” says Ezell.

Are we sure this guy is a Southern Baptist agency head and not some alien? A CEO who doesn’t want to grow his staff? Give the man another trophy.

The Acts 29 Network
Critics have dogged Kevin Ezell and the North American Mission Board about the Acts 29 Network, a church planting network that at least one NAMB plant (Grace Baptist Church, Boston) has affiliated with. The complaint is that our Annie Armstrong and Cooperative Program dollars are going to folks involved with this group who are calvinists, or who drink alcohol, or who cuss or some other stuff.

Ezell expresses ambivalence, “[NAMB] missionary participation in the Network does not concern Ezell one way or the other, he neither endorses or criticizes such involvement.” Plodder mades a safe prediction that this stance will be unacceptable to strident Acts 29 opponents.

Ezell: “We plant Southern Baptist churches that adhere to the Baptist Faith and Message and support the Cooperative Program” and “We don’t ask our planters who or what groups they associate with…”

Give the Index and Ezell credit for meeting this head-on.

SBC Annual Meeting in Phoenix Cancelled

Well, not really. But I don’t recall any SBC annual meeting that has such little interest.

One has to be honest about a few things in SBC life one of which is that there is absolutely nothing that will ever cause an SBC annual meeting to be cancelled partly because pastors and denominational employees have expense money budgeted that absolutely must be spent.

What would the Red Lobster do without all those gluttonous, rotund reverends squeezing in their booths?

How could the brethren survive without all that backslapping and lying about how great it is to see each other. The best quote about the SBC annual meeting I’ve ever heard is that the meeting is where folks greet you with a big smile and firm handshake while looking over your shoulder for someone more important than you.

Where would pastors be without this backdoor job fair?

I will make some predictions nonetheless:

The Acts29 network will take some shots somehow, some way. After all, what good is demonizing something or someone if you’re not going to follow through on it?

Bryant Wright will be reelected. He certainly has been quiet.

Kevin Ezell, the man with the SBC’s toughest job, will be praised as a shining knight who is rescuing the moribund and problem-plagued NAMB. But look for him to be vilified in the hallways by some of the brethren who, presumably, like the old NAMB with it regular meltdowns.

Lamentations will be generously but gratuitously ladled upon the messengers about how the SBC is dying.

Phoenix will be ridiculously hot. Plodder recommends not taking an afternoon to see the desert botanical garden nearby, although it is a nice place…unless you are hungering and thirsting for your first heat stroke.

Resolutions will generate some degree of indignation and pontification. I’m not sure but that the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship took the better way by eliminating them.

A couple of nutcases will get to a microphone. This is how Wiley Drake, our top generator of deep feelings of buyer’s remorse, got to be known.

A multiplicity of motions will be made – some interesting, some intriguing, some absurd but some that are probably helpful. The Order of Business Committee will try and bury almost all of them.

A mere cursory visual survey of the convention hall will confirm that SBC pastors are the most obese group of folks around.

Plodder regrets that he will not be present but there is a Red Lobster here that I can visit to try and get in the mood.

Whatever happened to the benefit of the doubt?

It is a rare commodity these days.

Take the example of a very good point raised by Tim Rogers in his blog of last Thursday. He noted that one of the pastors and churches featured in a Baptist Press article, written by a North American Mission Board writer, was identified on its website with the Acts29 Network.

The story was a promotional piece for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions - Russian speaking pastor in Boston doing a good work but the connection with Acts29 raises the hackles of many SBCers.

How is it that SBCers support such a church with our AAEO money? Is this what we want to be doing with our AAEO donations?

Good questions. Fair questions. Questions that should be asked and answered.

Questions, assertions, conclusions, misrepresentations,and declarations ensue from the blog linked above. You can read it all there. You may notice that no one spoke to the pastor involved and ascertained exactly what connection the church has with Acts29, not that it slowed any of the critics down.

So, one pastor with connections to two churches is identified on the Acts29 website. NAMB doesn't know of his involvement. The extent of involvement is not ascertained; nonetheless, this one instance is implied to be a stealth policy at NAMB.

Pick a factoid, apply it liberally, as you wish, draw conclusions from it. Unfair. Unreasonable. Premature.

Is there not a better way?

Don't we lose something here - trust, comity, colleagiality, and respect?

And wouldn't it be sufficient at this stage to say that the Acts29 business is important to us and should absolutely be given due diligence by NAMB and see what happens before we pull Annie Armstrong offerings, before we elevate this example to policy, before we imply hidden agendas, and before we parse every syllable that flows from the keyboard of our agency people?

I believe that would be the more helpful, less harmful, and ultimately beneficial route to take here.

Too bad for all of us that we're past that.