Ezell tapping the 'incredible capacity' to fund NAMB

Baptist press has an article on Kevin Ezell's first trustee meeting as NAMB CEO: TRUSTEES: NAMB's Ezell: 'We must do more'

Among his statements was this:

...there's now an incredible capacity to tap into those who have disengaged. There are thousands of pastors who are ready to re-engage if we provide them a compelling vision and show them how we're going to efficiently and effectively use the money that they encourage their people to give through the Cooperative Program and Annie."

It is stating the obvious that this comment by the new NAMB CEO shows that he has clearly, quickly, and totally coverted to a supporter of the Cooperative Program and Annie Armstrong offering. Not that he has a choice. The new leader of NAMB has to find a way to make these two funding streams work, since they provide most of what he has to work with.

"We will do the best for every dollar Baptists send us," he said.

Avoiding such disastrous things as trips to London to see movies, ice sculptures, and lavish severance agreements will be a step forward.

Ezell, recognizing his credibility gap in not being much of a NAMB supporter as a pastor said:

"One thing I regret is that years ago, when I examined the system, I got frustrated and I disengaged. Thousands of churches also disengaged because they looked at the system and considered it broken.

"It's been a regret of mine that I disengaged..

A regret of his since, say, this past summer? Well, never mind. He's engaged now and hopes to stimulate the engagement of the thousands of churches. I would like to believe him to be accurate in saying that there is an "incredible capacity" waiting to be tapped for NAMB support. Time will tell. I think the climb is rather steep towards significantly increasing church support of NAMB. Retooling NAMB to reallocate present levels of funding is a good way to start.

I hope he succeeds.

Why not make a week of it?

Why not make a week out of suggesting that the SBC could be helped by our entity leaders being open and transparent about their employment contracts, severance provisions, and compensation?

Here’s a personal experience:

I served as pastor in South Carolina for about 15 years. One year at the annual meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention some of the brethren got stirred up about pay levels at the Baptist building. A motion was made that the complete compensation package of all ministerial level employees be published.

Needless to say, SCBC Executive Committee members argued strongly against the motion. I don’t recall the exact words but they indignantly rounded up the usual suspects: ‘disclosure would embarrass our employees,’ and ‘our pay scales are reasonable and fair,’ ‘trust us,’ etc.

Sorry, but you know how Baptists can be at times. The messengers were exercised enough to pass the motion.

After some months every SCBC church received a document that listed the pay of the Baptist Building folks. I recall looking through the thing and concluding that there was nothing out of line here. The head guy was paid well, though not excessively. The section heads were paid well, the lower level ministerial folks were paid quite modestly. No big deal. No shocks. No surprises. Employees didn't drag around in despondency that his or her compensation was made public and the South Carolina Baptist sky didn’t fall.

The folks who pay the bills wanted to know. They were given the information. That was that.

Sure, the SBC in annual session cannot force trustees of the entities to do the same, but trustees should voluntarily be open and transparent. Whatever Southern Baptists paid the two former NAMB CEOs is a secret, but it shouldn’t be. Kevin Ezell can easily avoid any problem here – just put it out for the people who pay the bills to see. No secret agreements. No confidential contracts.

I’ve read that research shows that when people don’t know what other employees are paid their speculation about it is almost always too high. Disclosure would avoid this.

So I say again that NAMB and our new CEO would help themselves with ordinary Southern Baptists, the ones who are being asked to increase our support of our beloved, if somewhat dysfunctional mission board. If we get openness and transparency one would expect that we would not have disenchanted employees who feel compelled to write about how NAMB is spending God's money.

I do wish that someone would at least make an argument as to why not being open and transparent is the better choice here.

[Just as an aside, Bill Mackey, retiring head of the Ky Baptist Conv was working for the SCBC when I was there. He is an example of a wonderful servant of Christ whom we as Southern Baptists have been blessed to have. He doesn't know me from Adam's housecat, but I wish him well in retirement.]

Ezell answers Plodder's questions about NAMB

Well, actually, I've never had a conversation with him but he has spoken often enough since his nomination and election as the new CEO of NAMB to have answered some of the questions I wrote down on September 2nd.

1. NAMB, the SBC’s poster child for dysfunction, has come close to losing my trust completely. What will you do in the first 100 days to assure Southern Baptists like me who funnel the $134 million to Alpharetta that NAMB is now on the right track and worthy of our trust?

Well, he has taken steps to pare down NAMB personnel by 25% and this as a “first step.” In a semi-cringeworthy statement he has implied that NAMB does a lot of things but few (maybe none other than disaster relief) things well and that he will refocus NAMB on planting churches.

Sounds good to me.

2. Trustees are to be blamed for both the Reccord debacle (they said on their hands while he wasted millions, branded himself, and mistreated employees) and the Hammond disaster. What will you do to address trustee failures?

Hasn’t said much here and I don’t suppose he can. We will see how he handles things the first time there’s a conflict. I get the sense that he has enough allies to manage trustee critics.

3. Will you be among the few high-profile SBC entity leaders who refuse to be secretive and closed to rank-and-file Southern Baptists who pay the bills? Or, will you be open and transparent and begin by disclosing your compensation package, employment contract, and any severance provisions?

No comment, though it would be a great move for him to do this. Imagine the stature he would gain if he called Baptist Press and said, "Here is my compensation package and employment contract. I want people who pay the bills to know that I will be completely transparent and that they have a right to know where their money is going."

4. How will you assure the average Southern Baptist pastor and church, the average grind-it-out church where the pastor looks out over 100 or less faces every Sunday when he preaches, that your megachurch background will not ignore their gifts, support, or methodology?

He has said that he wants to “connect with churches of all sizes.” OK. Fine. Let’s see.

5. Will you stand up to vested interests and decline to squander our Annie Armstrong millions on a thousand projects in states with abundant numbers of SBC churches in favor of more needed projects elsewhere?

His actions as pastor and statements thus far say answer “yes” to this, that he will stand up to such interests. Good. Do it early and often.

6. Will you refuse to be a cheap cheerleader for the status quo?

Status quo seems to have been left behind. Good.

7. You don’t have a record of great Cooperative Program support. How will you address the lack of credibility that comes from that record while, at the same time, encouraging churches to increase CP support?

I just got around to listening to his podcast of September 21 B21. In it he says that his church didn’t give to Annie because they partnered with NAMB to plant churches. I don’t know why he did not say this early and often to his critics. I don’t have a problem with a low AA offering if a church has the resources to go to NAMB and say, “What do you want done and where and how and we will do it.” I assume that this partnership had some degree of formality and wasn’t just his church spending money and saying that they were doing what NAMB would have done with it had they sent it through the AA offering.

As for the CP, he doesn’t really have a good answer other than his church didn’t like the way the Kentucky Baptist Convention spent the money. On this he is left with little to say other than that he hopes to change NAMB into something that churches are more interested in supporting.

Friday plods...all about NAMB

NAMB is the big newsmaker this week. Here's a day's worth of random plods about them.

One of the major problems at NAMB for the past many years is bad employee morale. Now we have a NAMB trustee saying that Kevin Ezell's election as new CEO will not be so good for NAMB employees. That oughta help.

New CEO commits to moving NAMB to the place where 50% of their funds go into church planting. Well and good. I await the formula for getting there.

NAMB trustees want our money but they don't want us to observe them as they make major decisions. Is it possible that the latter makes the former more difficult?

Donor "A" gives to church "B" who sends it to state convention "C" who sends it to denominational office "D" who sends it to agency "E" who sends it to state convention "F" who spends it on ministry "G." It stands to reason that the deeper in the alphabet the less connected the donor and recipient is.

NAMB looks at the alphabet and intends to reduce the above by two letters, the state conventions, twice, "C" and "F".

State conventions have looked at the alphabet and can reduce it by three letters, denominational office "D", agency "E", and the redundant state convention "F".

Which has a better chance of success?

Big losers this week? State conventions, again. The two presidents who asked serious questions about the CEO nominee were ignored. The new NAMB CEO pointedly said he wasn't interested in sending his church's money to his state convention. The GCRTF and our new SBC president are both, uh, lukewarm or worse about state conventions at their present funding levels....but churches still send the great majority of their giving to the states. So, who's in the driver's seat?

Mark the calendar for our new leader's first meeting with state executives. Ought to be interesting.

Plodder is still interested in what Ezell will say to the churches about sending NAMB money through the Cooperative Program and Annie Armstrong offering. Trustees defended his record by saying that he was "just doing what he saw to be most effective," that is, to eschew cooperative giving. OK, I'm all ears.

NAMB trustees have been the problem...still are I'm afraid

Let's think about this for a minute.

On September 1st we got the announcement that the NAMB CEO search committee was bringing Kevin Ezell to the trustees as nominee to be the new NAMB leader.

The SBC at large, folks whose churches pay all those bills and put $130+ million into NAMB, got exactly 13 days to talk it over, examine the nominee's record, discuss it, question it, complain about it, and be delighted about it.

During the 13 days people from blogging nobodies to state convention presidents asked questions, some SBC leaders offered high praise, and some NAMB trustees supported the nominee in the face of questions.

In response to questions raised on Ezell, Tim Dowdy, NAMB trustee chairman said on September 10th that

"I realize there is an ongoing discussion among Southern Baptists about how we can best express our passion for missions through our giving," Dowdy said, "and I am sure that will be part of our discussion this Tuesday when our trustees meet to discuss Kevin's nomination.

If they did. SBCers will have to take someone's word about it because the meeting was closed. That is unacceptable, inappropriate, and, to use Norman Jameson's term for it, an insult.

It is an insult.

It was an insult to Southern Baptists for NAMB trustees sit on their hands while Robert Reccord wasted millions on such things as flying to London for a movie premier, and then hand him a secret severence package.

It was an insult to Southern Baptists for NAMB trustees to handle the Geoff Hammond meltdown as they did.

It was an insult for NAMB trustees to follow both of those by telling Southern Baptists to just move on from those debacles but do keep on sending their money.

It is an insult to Southern Baptists for NAMB trustees to stiff the entire convention and the legitimate questions they asked about the new CEO and missions support.

I hope Kevin Ezell can lead our dysfunctional agency to some successes. He might start with a frank conversation with trustees about openness and transparency. He might remind trustees where the money comes from. He might assess the agency's credibility and try and assign a reason for the lack thereof.

Trustees might have someone to lead NAMB out of the morass they have put themselves in. I hope so. I pray so. But they certainly haven't helped themselves here.

But maybe I undervalue the idea of sticking one's head in the sand and ignoring all the clamor.

Update: Trustee spokesman says a "strong majority" supported Ezell. Come on guys. The world isn't going to end if we have frank discussions and disagree about things.

Yet another update: ABP reports the vote to have been 37-12, the new CEO getting about a 75% vote. That's right guys, let the news trickle out from anonymous sources.

Things I've said about Kevin Ezell...

...who, absent an asteroid striking Atlanta, will be confirmed as NAMB CEO this very day.

Sep 1:

...Ezell will have my prayers. He looks like a very solid choice. I will certainly support him.

Sep 8:

Southern Baptists know, NAMB trustees acutely know, that NAMB needs some success. I hope they find it with Ezell. I'm not against him at all.

Sep 13:

I agree with Norman Jameson about Kevin Ezell, NAMB trustees' candidate to lead the agency who says, "I don’t know Ezell, but everyone I know who does know him believes him to be a godly, wise, visionary man, eminently qualified for the NAMB post."

I confess to asking honest, reasonable questions.

I confess that I have phrased some questions in a bit of an edgy way, but the NAMB CEO, whomever it has been or will be, will likely be compensated sufficiently to take an edgy question or two and have an employment contract that insulates him against financial harm.

I think our CEO-to-be has been intemperate in his reaction to the comments concerning his nomination. I know that megapastors brook little or no criticism. Our SBC leaders should have no such expectation.

Perhaps he will adjust his attitude.

Addendum:

Baptist Press has a chart of Ezell's church giving for the past 14 years here. The church is a mission minded church but not partitularly supportive of NAMB. As I have said, perhaps Ezell will explain why and what he plans to do to make NAMB into an agency that a megachurch can support.

Will NAMB trustees stonewall SBCers or answer honest questions?

NAMB is our dysfunctional, $130+ million dollar agency. One can only lament the lost opportunities, the wasted millions, and the past debacles of our penultimate SBC outfit. Perhaps we are on the cusp of something different. I hope so. I pray so.

But most of us recognize a couple of things about our denomination:

Southern Baptists are pretty good at blithely sweeping the ugly past aside, declaring it over and done with, and with impressive bluff and bluster blindly moving ahead without addressing any serious issues. It looks to me like this is what NAMB trustees have done, twice now.

Southern Baptists are also absolutely sans parallel in their faith in shining knights on white horses - 'Get the right guy and our problems are over.' Is this where NAMB is today?

I agree with Norman Jameson about Kevin Ezell, NAMB trustees' candidate to lead the agency who says, "I don’t know Ezell, but everyone I know who does know him believes him to be a godly, wise, visionary man, eminently qualified for the NAMB post."

That said, could we at least answer some honest questions about our CEO nominee:

1. What, exactly, was his church's Great Commission Giving percentage?

The Great Commission Task Force said we should give this statistic so that we could 'celebrate' it. Perhaps some SBCers are waiting to break out the party stuff and just need the figure. Let's see it for Ezell's church. So far, we've seen his generic missions giving, $1 million plus. What amount and percentage of that went to SBC entities and would be counted as Great Commission Giving?

2. What does he plan to say to SBC churches about giving to NAMB through their two major funding streams, the Cooperative Program and Annie Armstrong?

3. Do we have a two-tiered system for denominational support - a top tier from which we get our leaders, churches so large they do direct missions and very little denominational missions and a lower tier who of smaller churches who aren't large enough or knowledgeable enough to do direct missions and should be encouraged to give to denominational causes?

4. NAMB manifestly wasn't something his church demonstrated much support for. Why not? What will he change so that churches like his could wholeheartedly support it?

There is nothing wrong with asking honest questions. NAMB trustees and Kevin Ezell should welcome them and should give honest answers.

Kevin Ezell...not much of a NAMB supporter?

...but to be running the outfit come next Tuesday. I'm just asking.

Maybe NAMB needs someone like him but unless I'm missing something in his budget and in the reports about his church's giving, he's just not much of a NAMB supporter.

$10,000 for Annie Armstrong. OK, so they did direct stuff for much more than that. Still, he will be running the agency that expects churches to send tens of millions through this offering.

Christian Index has stories here and here.

What can I say? All the SBC leaders like him. Maybe they can explain some of why they like him, apparently in spite of his not liking NAMB too much.

Maybe he is to be the great outsider reformer for NAMB, making it into something that he likes and would support.

Burleson, demons, Ezell and other random Friday plods

My dear alma mater, Univ of GA, doesn’t play their first game until tomorrow but already leads the SEC in one category…players arrested. How about that?

Our Atlanta zoo was missing one of their critters, a rattlesnake, but they didn’t tell partons or zoo neighbors because they had folks looking for it. After all, they explained, it’s nocturnal and probably slunk away to a dark corner of the non-public building where it was housed. The snake was found…by a 4 year-old kid…on his front porch…in the residential neighborhood near the zoo...and the kid got within 4 feet of the thing. The zoo people say that maybe they should have knocked on a few doors. Indeed. Preachers may wish for a good illustration about not sounding the alarm about sin. It could be deadly to some people.

SBC cliché watch: NAMB search committee chairman describing Kevin Ezell, nominee for NAMB CEO as, “God’s man.” So was the last guy…so was the guy before that…both of whom were dispatched by trustees. Let’s at least be creative, guys. I hate to say it and it ought not to be but that phrase is completely worn out.

Speaking of our NAMB nominee, who will be the first to use our wonderful new nomenclature, “Great Commission Giving,” when referring to his church’s giving, beside Plodder that is? And, will anyone object, preferring to “embrace and celebrate” such?

September has never been so welcome to Plodder, far too much heat and humidity. Global warming? Better candidate: age.

The SBC’s most read blogger, Wade Burleson, is back from his blogging hiatus and to get started his readers are treated to…well…a picture of his smiling self. Well, you look about the same as you did a few months ago, bro. 

College football game to watch: Northwestern State vs Air Force. Last hear NWS was 0-11 and lost their two games against big time opponents by 48 and 53 points respectively. Oddsmakers are giving NWS and a staggering 48 points. Take the points. I think the NWS Demons will do better than expected. Never underestimate a demon, I say.

Have a nice weekend.

Ezell, new NAMB leader and the Cooperative Program?

[edited and revised, Sep 2, not that it makes a whole lot of difference]

The SBC has demonstrated, repeatedly, that we are comfortable in having leaders whose churches give far less than average in Cooperative Program percentages. Bryant Wright, our new president is the latest in a long line of leaders who are examples of this.

Whatever the GCRTF might have said about the primacy of the Cooperative Program, the choice of Ezell appears to indicate that the Cooperative Program is actually something less than the primary and preferred channel for missions funding. Ezell may argue otherwise but his record is not that different than Wright's or others who prefer direct giving rather than Cooperative Program giving.

Take a look and see if you disagree.

The statement in the Florida Baptist Witness about his nomination for NAMB says of his church, Highview Baptist in Louisville, “12 percent of their budget being given to Southern Baptist causes.” Is this 12% a figure for the new nomenclature "Great Comission Giving"? The article doesn't say. Details aren't given but that's what it looks like.

As late as 2007, Highview bypassed the Kentucky Baptist Convention altogether in Cooperative Program giving. The church received some criticism for that when Al Mohler was going to run for SBC president (he withdrew due to illness). When Ezell was nominated to be Pastor’s Conference president in 2009 the CP figure given was 3.5%.

Whatever the past methodology for funding church planting, the nomination (and presumably the certain election) of Ezell is another indication that the status quo in missions funding, the one where churches give to the CP, the CP funds NAMB, and NAMB funds church planting, is in jeopary.

Read this exerpt of an interview with Danny Akin, a big Ezell supporter, where Akin speaks about NAMB, missions, and church planting funding. Note that he specifically uses Ezell’s church as an example:

If you, for example, wanted to be a church planter right now, and you wanted to work through the system, you would be interviewed and would seek funding from your local association, from the state convention where you want to go and plant a church, and from the North American Mission Board where you want to go and plant a church.

There is a three-tiered – not duplication – but triplication in this system that is only going to provide nominal funding for you to actually accomplish what you need to do. There are also strings attached to those funds that limit what you can do to earn additional income. You can’t be a tentmaker like the apostle Paul, working to compliment and supplement what you would need to live on.

Classic example. We just sent a student from here up into the Washington D.C. area to plant a church. He went through the three avenues I just described, and it took months to pull everything together. He was able to put together $36,000 for his first year. Try and live in Washington D.C. You can’t pay rent and utilities for $36,000 a year.

But he is informed by NAMB that if he received funding from them, he can do nothing more than occupy a part-time job. That’s insane. So he will have to do what everybody else does: raise funds outside our structure.

This is why a lot of people are getting frustrated. Let’s take a large church like Highview Baptist in Louisville. If they were to give 10% of their monies through the Cooperative Program, they would probably be giving somewhere around $400,000 a year. I’m not even counting Lottie Moon, Annie Armstrong or anything else they do. Let’s just say they give around $400,000 a year.

First and foremost, 60% of that money is going to stay in Kentucky. That money is never even going to get out of the state.

Then, let’s say they send Trevin Wax from Highview to be a church planter. You appeal to the Kentucky Baptist Convention for funding. Even though Highview has been giving around $260,000 to $280,000 a year for a number of years to that state convention, when you go to get funding, you’ll be lucky to get $12,000 a year from them for three years. After three years, they’re not going to give you another dime.

Suddenly Highview says, “What are we doing? What are we doing? Why should we give $280,000 a year to the Kentucky Baptist Convention when we try to plant a church? Why should we work through the system that we are funding if, because of the overhead and the bureaucracy and other things, we are only going to be able to get back from them maybe $25,000 to $30,000 over three years? That doesn’t sound like a good deal.”

So all of a sudden, you have people saying, “We can do it better without partnering with a state convention.”

First we have the Great Commission Resurgence report that recommends cutting out the millions that went back to the states from NAMB through the Cooperative Agreements. Now a new leader who seems to be a strong ratification of that recommendation. NAMB trustees, seeking to carry out the will of the convention, gets a leader who will agressively implement what was in the report. I'm sure that state conventions who depend on their hefty slice of CP giving probably see the handwriting on the wall, not only in the loss of the Cooperative Agreement money, but also in the indirect ratification of the policy of churches bypassing the Cooperative Program in favor of direct giving.

The average percentage of offering plate dollars given to the CP has been declining for years, decades. I see nothing happening in 2010 that encourages churches to stanch the decline. I suppose that is where we are and where we are headed...more of the same.

I thought Harris would be a wise, safe, and secure NAMB leader but Ezell will have my prayers. He looks like a very solid choice. I will certainly support him. NAMB needs some success after their meltdowns of the last five years. We need something going on at NAMB that we can be proud of.

Maybe Ezell and other megachurches and pastors merely reflect an unstoppable trend in SBC missions giving, one that should be embraced rather than criticized. One thing he will have difficulty doing, though, is selling the churches on increasing their Cooperative Program percentages.

Let us now see what the IMB will do.