Hey, GuideStone, can you talk to us a little more?

GuideStone announced, rather abruptly and suddenly on December 20th last year, that they were "temporarily" no longer writing any new individual policies

In the midst of the current uncertainties related to the various implementations of the Affordable Care Act and the effect it is already having on millions of Americans, and in an effort to preserve our Personal Plans medical plans for the long term, we have made the difficult decision to TEMPORARILY limit participation in the Personal Plans medical plans to our current participants going into 2014. This means the Personal Plans will continue to cover those who are enrolled as of December 31, 2013, but will not be able to accept NEW ENROLLEES into the medical plans, except as required by law due to marriage, birth, adoption or similar qualifying event. This measure will apply to both our expanded ministries we serve as well as our Southern Baptist audience. This change does not affect the availability of our Personal Plans dental, term life, accident or disability plans.

 If you call GuideStone they will tell you quickly, "Nope, we have temporarily stopped writing new seminarian, church staff, or other individual policies."

If you go to GuideStone's website you will search for awhile before you find the same announcement. Why GuideStone makes it difficult to find this I am not sure.

So, seminarians and other individuals are thrust into Obamacare for insurance. One seminarian found insurance through the troubled Obamacare website that was far superior to what GuideStone was offering to seminarians and with the government subsidies was much, much cheaper. How about insurance for $25/mo or so sound? Pretty good if it works.

One can see GuideStone's problem. As long as lower income people (that would include most all seminarians) have their insurance subsidized, GuideStone will be completely unable to compete in this market.

But I wonder about pastors and church staff. In some areas where there is little competition among providers or for those staff with higher salaries, and the subsequent loss of subsidies, will GuideStone be able to compete in this market at all? And does the Affordable Care Act count the housing allowance as income in qualifying or not for the subsidies. Don't know but would be interested in what the experiences are for the brethren.

Who knows where this is going or what it means for GuideStone. I just wish GuideStone would do a better job of talking to us than they have thus far.

Here's a little feedback, O.S. How about picking up the pace on this? I hear you on your court challenges. What I would like to hear is something relative to where most Southern Baptists are. Thanks. 

2013 Predictions, Plodder is no genuine prophet

...but would win the batting championship if this were baseball. My predictions for this year and evaluation of the same:

1. Fred Luter will be reelected. Nothing big to happen here. In a moment of prescience, I got this one right.

2. There will be contested SBC vice president elections. Got this right as well. A little known blogger elected as 2nd VP in a session that clearly lacked a quorum. While the 2nd VP is a rather obscure and meaningless position, we should follow our own by-laws in the future. Parliamentarians and presiding officers please pay closer attention.

3. The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission will get a new leader. Whomever he is will have some work to do to restore credibility. Right again. Russell Moore, and he has started well, although unprepared for the Housing Allowance court decision.

4. Frank Page's Calvinist Advisory Team will issue a report early this year.  Whatever they end up with will probably be quickly forgotten. Right again. They issued a report that I judged to get some things right and missed the mark on some other things . Quickly, what did the report say? That's what I thought. It's all forgotten now. There was a bit of an eruption over damnation of infants but that has subsided. 

5. I predict that Calvinism in the SBC will look back on 2012 as their high water mark and that SBC Calvinist news for 2013 will be mostly unhelpful to their movement. On the first part, it is too early to tell. Judge me guilty of making a macro prediction. On the 2013 Calvinist news being unhelpful, maybe. Jason K. Allen, new head of Midwestern Seminary made some remarks I thought unhelpful.

6. Some SBC agencies will hire senior level staff who are African American. Well, if they have they are under the radar. 

7. In contrast to the above, the only high profile females in SBC life will be wives of prominent pastors. Name any senior staff level females in any SBC entities. Right on this one.

8. The Cooperative Program will continue to be flat, which is a welcome improvement. Wrong. The CP showed another decline, only about 2%, but that is not flat. It's more of the gentle downward incline. Some states, Georgia for one, showed surprisingly steep drops in CP giving. 

9. State conventions will continue to feel the most pressure financially and more churches will use various methods to fund NAMB and the IMB directly without diluting their giving to these through the Cooperative Program. True and correct. Both major mission offerings increased last year while the CP dropped. If the trend lines continue for a decade or so there will be as much given to Lottie Moon alone as to the entire SBC portion of the CP. 

10. What is euphemistically termed "complementarianism" will have a bad year, mainly due to a few high profile Calvinist churches. Nah, nothing much happened here. 

11. GuideStone will finally accede to political realities and get around to addressing the reality of Obamacare as it relates to their comprehensive health insurance for ministers. The outcome will not be good. I give myself a neutral grade here. GuideStone was rather quiet on ObamaCare except for the abortion/birth control mandate. They have announced that they will no longer write individual policies. Only God knows what is ahead for SBC ministers and GuideStone comprehensive health coverage, although we all know it will continue to cost more if they offer it.

12. Southern Baptists my age will continue to lament the absence of Adrian Rogers or anyone of his stature. Since I so lamented, I judge myself correct here.

What I did not see coming?

The housing allowance, our Sacred Clergy Tax Break, being ruled unconstitutional. I will certainly have a prediction for 2014 on this.

Alas, our Sacred Clergy Tax Break declared unconstitutional

Is it unfair to say that few things get the attention of clergy quicker than pocketbook issues?

Thus, the decision handed down Friday by U. S. District Judge Barbara Crabb has riveted the attention of my Southern Baptist colleagues along with most every group who has been a beneficiary of the tax break we call the clergy housing allowance.

My interest in the housing allowance goes back several decades, since I have always used it to exclude a portion of my income from the churches I have pastored but my focus on the intricacies, history, and abuses of it are only a few years old. I heard the clear notes of a trumpet calling me to look closely at it. I credit my CPA blogging friend, Peter Reilly, for alerting me to most of the stuff happening with the housing allowance.

So, here we are with the housing allowance being ruled unconstitutional when paid in cash to a minister. Those clergy living in pastoriums weren't affected by the decision.

The reactions have been interesting.

Southern Baptists have two main entities that concern themselves with the allowance, our annuity board, GuideStone Financial Services and our lobbying arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. The former provides clergy and churches with counsel on how to manage the allowance so as to keep the IRS happy and the latter is supposed to be a watchdog over our interests.

I get the feeling that both GuideStone and the ERLC were caught flatfooted by this decision. The two CEOs of the entities issued a joint statement and GS head, O. S. Hawkins even stated that the decision was "not unanticipated." I suppose that such anticipation was expressed around the water cooler in GuideStone's executive suite because nothing was said about it before the decision was handed down. I expect both entities to sharpen their focus now. It is incidental but both entity leaders are among the higher paid SBC clergy and likely exclude nice sums from their income tax through the housing allowance.

Naturally, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., plaintiff in the lawsuit is elated with the decision.

“May we say hallelujah!" sayeth the FFRF.

"Hallelujah" translates to "praise the Lord" so I am gratified that our fellow citizens at the FFRF aren't completely free from religion. Although, we hate to have our sacred tax break ox gored by the FFRF, those associated whom I have exchanged comments with have always been perspicacious, cordial and not unkind. Some Baptists commenters might take a lesson.

Judging from comments among the brethren, a good many Southern Baptist ministers believe that a Masters of Divinity degree conveys on them the ability to be an expert in constitutional law; hence, numerous pronouncements about rogue judges and what an establishment of religion really is. Let's be honest, this is a prickly issue with many components, precedents, and facets. While I disagree with the judge here, I cannot say flatly that any appeal is a slam dunk in our favor. We will see.

No reasonable, thinking Southern Baptist minister can avoid one conclusion in all this: the manner in which our housing allowance has been used borders on clergy malpractice. A growing subset of ministers who are very highly paid and who live in multi-million dollar mansions are able to exclude hundreds of thousands of dollars from income taxation. While this is perfectly legal, I would expect that most of us would think it to be bad policy for both government tax law and for maintaining clergy goodwill in the community. Do we really think it fair to shift taxes from wealthy clergy living in mansions to the less highly compensated? Surely not. Add to that the practice of churches ordaining ministry associates in administrative or peripheral church jobs solely so that they can be qualified for the housing allowance.

Not helpful, brethren. An overseer is required to be above reproach and have a good reputation in the community. Let's not forget that.

I wrote over two years ago,

Augie Boto, Frank Page, the SBC Executive Committee and our favorite SBC lobbyist, Richard Land, ought to be proactive on this matter and find a way to support legislation that will preserve the Housing Allowance in a reasonable fashion while excluding the ridiculous abuses, legal though they may be, by people like Phil Driscoll and Kenneth Copeland.

While this would not affect the constitutional issue, right is right and fair is fair. It's time to get our act together on this.

We will see what happens down the road. For now nothing is changed although Thom Ranier, head of our publishing and bookstore entity, LifeWay Christian Resources, said this:

Rainer advised ministers to be conservative as they deal with the issue. "If at all possible, do not be dependent on the tax benefits garnered from having a housing allowance," he wrote. "Look carefully at the tax benefits you gain with the housing allowance. Be prepared to know what to do if the benefit goes away."

No so simple for ministers who aren't as highly paid as Ranier, but this is good advice.

GuideStone reinrollment vs Obamacare?

There it lies - my GuideStone 2014 comprehensive medical re-enrollment packet. (I smudged the address just in case some nefarious spammer wanted to load my mailbox with junk mail. If you would like to send me money, I have a PayPal account and can accommodate you that way ;) .)

I haven't opened it but can prophetically state with absolute certainly that the annual cost will be more than my entire year's salary at my first church (not adjusted for inflation of course). It will easily be my household's greatest single expense, unless I decide to borrow money and go buy a new boat.

How much difference will there be between the Obamacare exchange price for my family of two and the GuideStone price for us? I don't know but plan to find out.

If GuideStone is, say, $5,000 per year more expensive, is it worth it to pay that? I'm thinking probably not.

So...I ask my fellow Southern Baptists a couple of questions:

1. For those of you who are like me, in the individual insurance market paying your own bill, do you plan to check the exchanges and compare? Have you already done so? What experience do you have?

2. For those of you whose bill has always been paid by your church, are you or is your church considering moving that expense to the exchanges to save the church money?

Yeah, I understand that GuideStone is filled with old, unhealthy dudes and that is why it is so high.

What do you plan to do for next year?

GuideStone seeking ObamaCare subsidies?

Well, not really. But if I understand O. S. Hawkins correctly, GuideStone is lobbying to get laws passed so that GuideStone can indirectly receive government subsidies.

While many pastors and their families would otherwise qualify for these [health care exchange] subsidies, the way the law was written excludes them from accessing subsidies if they participate in a church health plan, such as GuideStone's. GuideStone views this as an issue of fundamental unfairness. (Baptist Press)

It must be tough for GuideStone to advocate a position that acknowledges, seems to me, that they may be in a non-competitive position in the individual health care market unless their present and potential clients are allowed to access the same ObamaCare premium subsidies that they would be if they left GuideStone and bought their health coverage from one of the secular providers participating in the exchanges.

I am heavily flummoxed about all the health care changes. Here's what I understand relative to ObamaCare and my insurance provider, GuideStone:

1. GuideStone will continue to provide ministers with health insurance in 2014 and beyond.

2. GuideStone will still NOT allow enrollment of new participants in 2014 who have preexisting conditions.

3. GuideStone will have competition from the Exchanges. As an aside, preliminary figures in my state make the exchanges, with the subsidies, very attractive to someone with my family income. 

Here are the questions that express what I do not know about GuideStone and ObamaCare:

1. Will GuideStone be forced at some point in the future to accept those with preexisting conditions or will their plan be grandfathered in, allowing them to continue to require underwriting and reject some applicants?

2. Will GuideStone's present participants be able to leave GS, move to one of the exchanges, and receive the premium subsidies? (I think the answer to this is 'yes' and that the issue of the subsidies is as I described above - staying with GS and receiving them, where the answer is 'no.')

3. Does GuideStone expect that their premium structure will become highly noncompetitive if a significant number of participants move to the exchanges? I suspect that no one knows the answer to this.

4. Does GuideStone have any expectations of selling policies to young, healthy Southern Baptists or does the lack of the premium subsidy effectively eliminate the bulk of this market?

I get the general feeling that GuideStone is gearing their marketing thrust to existing clients with a heavy emphasis on continuity, trust, and comfort level. That, with a bit of scare-mongering. While I like continuity, I'm not sure it's worth several hundred dollars a month. But then, I don't know the bottom line...yet.

Frankly, I'd like to hear more straight talk from GuideStone on all this.

How loyal should Southern Baptists be to GuideStone?

Let me be brutally candid here about health insurance and more personal than I am accustomed to be on this blog: My GuideStone comprehensive health insurance monthly bill is larger than my mortgage payment and is the most expensive routine expense I have. I suppose many other pastors join me in that. Even pastors whose churches pay their insurance understand that the insurance billing eats into their take home income indirectly as churches look at the costs of providing salary and benefits for their clergy staff.

I have heard my fellow pastors complain for decades about GuideStone being expensive, more expensive than alternative sources of insurance; nonetheless, I understand the reasons for this and have not asked churches I have served to explore alternative sources. Now that I pay my own bill directly in retirement, I have continued to buy from GuideStone.

Two factors have led to this. First, GuideStone will not terminate coverage for frequent of excessive claims, and second, I have found GS to be easy to work with.

We are finally hearing from GuideStone on ObamaCare, although if one accesses their website and roots around a bit there is and has been plenty of general information on it there. We are hearing more now because (a) the ObamaCare health care exchanges will be open in October, and (b) GuideStone is softening clients up for next year's rate increase, said to be in "single digits."

Baptist Press has the article, Obamacare's implementation eyed by GuideStone for 2014

My mortgage is a fixed rate. Premiums vary only in the amount of escrow needed for property insurance and taxes, and has gone down several years running because of reduction in taxes. Alas, health insurance is not fixed and, despite my taking less and less coverage, higher and higher deductibles, has skyrocketed. I mentioned the ballpark figure I pay for insurance at a minister's conference recently. The leader, a pastor but retired military, was aghast at the figure. He had no clue.

If an acceptable insurance alternative is available through the exchanges I will look very closely at it.

Naturally, GuideStone doesn't like the competition nor the reality that they stand to lose customers. Warnings to GS clients, in the form of advice, is offered in the article:

Pastors and churches must address four main concerns as they look to re-enrollment for 2014:
1. whether they will provide coverage for their employees or put them in a position of having to obtain coverage on secular exchanges.
2. how exchange plan benefits and total cost of coverage, including out-of-pocket expenses, exchange taxes and fees, will compare with their existing coverage.
3. whether, if they use a secular health plan provider, they will be subsidizing objectionable contraceptives, including abortifacients.
4. whether their health plans meet applicable health care reform limits and rules.

While these are relevant considerations, I don't like the way GuideStone puts this. Average sized churches probably depend on, and defer to, the pastor about where he obtains his health insurance. Churches may stand to save thousands annually if the pastor buys his own health insurance from one of the exchanges.

I am quite concerned that the article, a piece written by GuideStone employees, failed to mention one very important change that ObamaCare forces on them. Next post for that. Maybe GuideStone is working on that one.

If I sound a little surly about the whole thing, I am. I am about to write next month's check to GuideStone.

Hey, GuideStone. Let's hear something from you.

Quickly now, what is GuideStone saying to SBC clergy concerning the rollout of Obamacare, specifically the insurance exchanges that are to be in place starting next year?

Don't know? Haven't heard?

I'm not hearing much out of GuideStone concerning ObamaCare - no advice, no heads-ups, not much of anything.

Sure, if you go to their site you can find information on health care reform. Did down and you can find info for individuals and families. I'm guessing that most SBCers who have GS insurance like to hear a real person, or read a real Baptist Press or other article.

New insurance rates will be coming out soon. It is one of my biggest expenses.

What should I expect?

Check this article from Religion News Service: Partisan fighting spells trouble for clergy insurance under Obamacare

Under Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act, more than 50 percent of UMC clergy would qualify for tax credits available to lower- and middle-class families to purchase insurance. But because of the way the law was written, those tax credits cannot be used toward insurance plans churches can offer through government-run exchanges.

Substantial numbers of SBC clergy will also qualify for subsidies, since the income levels for qualifying are about $62,000 for a family of two, $94,000 for a family of four, etc. The average SBC pastor income is under $60k. Many make much less. Many have only one working member of the family.

Looks like GuideStone's insurance rates may be heavily undercut by the government exchanges. Will thousands of SBC clergy take the government subsidy and ditch GuideStone for them?

I love dealing with GuideStone. They are always helpful with insurance and retirement matters but if my bill would go from well over $1k/mo to a much lower bill for same or better coverage, I'm wide open to a move.

Those lower paid clergy for whom the church pays their insurance as a part of their compensation have a difficult decision as well. If the exchanges substantially lower the bill, does the church rearrange compensation to allow the minister to buy his own and his straight income is increased? Will the church figure into that the fact that the minister will probably pay taxes on the increased income?

There are a lot of variables.

Does housing allowance count in comparing income to poverty level?

Will GuideStone be taking a lot of new ministers who were not accepted previously because of pre-existing conditions? How will this affect GS rates?

There are a lot of questions. I'm not seeing what I think I need to see from GuideStone.

Let's get with it, brethren.

2012 Average SBC Sr. Pastor Pay: $60,774

 Pastor pay is up! Happy days are here again!

Look at it this way. On the first of every month, you go to your church office and are handed a check for $5,064.50. On that day you also can feel good that the church is paying your health insurance along with some contribution to your retirement.

It all adds up to $72,840 which does not include cash payments that most ministers receive as accountable reimbursements (mostly for use of their car, calculated by mileage) or for incidental reimbursements for convention, books, etc. Ministers who live in church owned housing receive some of the $60,774 in the form of housing rather than cash.

LifeWay and GuideStone collaborate on the compensation survey. The  latest is available here.

Baptist Press trumpets that full time senior pastor pay is outpacing inflation and that it has risen over 6% since 2010.

Observations:
1. The survey is not random and likely over reports larger churches and higher paid ministers, which is not a bad thing. You can take the overall average, probably higher than your present pay, and say that you are below average.

2. You can manipulate the data. In my state the senior pastor of an average sized church (bewteen 75 and 199 in attendance) would be making $52k in salary and a package of $60k.

3. Significant increases in compensation will not come until you have a church of 300 or greater in attendance, a level that only a fraction of ministers will ever reach.

4. In my state until you have a church with a budget $200,000 or over, the senior pastor is going to have a total package of under $60k.

5. When the senior pastor hits his mid thirties, or let's say forty, he is very close to topping out in his compensation. Chew on that one.

6. A pastor making the SBC average whose wife is a teacher, nurse, or other professional will likely easily have a six figure family income. 

How does this compare to what you are seeing on the ground?

Predictions for 2013

I would have made these earlier but wanted to wait and be sure the world wasn't going to end in December. Guess we are OK until Jesus comes.

1. Fred Luter will be reelected. Nothing big to happen here.

2. There will be contested SBC vice president elections. Some of the Traditionalists are upset that mild Calvinist blogger Dave Miller, a fair and reasonable man, was elected VP over their Traditionalist standard bearer, Eric Hankins, and may nominate someone for this or the other VP slot. We usually get some additional nominations for these anyway.

3. The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission will get a new leader. Whomever he is will have some work to do to restore credibility. 

4. Frank Page's Calvinist Advisory Team will issue a report early this year. I was optimistic about Page's effort here last year but lost a good bit of that after the group's meetings were held off the record. What we needed was some open discussion. What we got was luminaries unwilling to have honest, open discussion. Whatever they end up with will probably be quickly forgotten. Too bad.

5. I predict that Calvinism in the SBC will look back on 2012 as their high water mark and that SBC Calvinist news for 2013 will be mostly unhelpful to their movement. I have always thought that Calvinism has an inherent ceiling in Southern Baptist life and think we may have reached it.

6. Some SBC agencies will hire senior level staff who are African American. The SBC has a soft underbelly (about which more later) in race relations but agencies and institutions will make good faith efforts to be less white at senior levels.

7. In contrast to the above, the only high profile females in SBC life will be wives of prominent pastors. There will be no hiring of female senior level administrative staff unless it is to ghettoized positions oriented towards women.

8. The Cooperative Program will continue to be flat, which is a welcome improvement.

9. State conventions will continue to feel the most pressure financially and more churches will use various methods to fund NAMB and the IMB directly without diluting their giving to these through the Cooperative Program.

10. What is euphemistically termed "complementarianism" will have a bad year, mainly due to a few high profile Calvinist churches.

11. GuideStone will finally accede to political realities and get around to addressing the reality of Obamacare as it relates to their comprehensive health insurance for ministers. The outcome will not be good.

12. Southern Baptists my age will continue to lament the absence of Adrian Rogers or anyone of his stature.



 

Feet to the fire: Plodder's 2011 Predictions

Last December, I made some predictions for 2011: Plodders predictions, er, conjectures for 2011

I am hereby holding myself accountable for the rash things I offered then. Here's a look at them one year later.

1. International Mission Board. I predicted that trustees would settle on "a known SBC figure rather than an obscure missions-driven person" to be CEO. I further specified that the individual "will either be a megachurch pastor or have strong mega connections."

I was right by a circuituous route, it turns out. Tom Elliff is a former mega pastor.
I also predicted that there would be continued funding shortfalls. Lottie Moon was down over $3m for 2010.

Plodder hits prediction paydirt on this one (though I wish I had been wrong on the LMCO).

2. North American Mission Board. I predicted that the new CEO would "make some major policy changes, including direct funding to some megachurches." I rate myself as half-right on this, the former true, the latter not true, yet.

I predicted that "the Annie Armstrong offering will yet again fall far short of the goal." Although the totals haven't been released, the goal will almost certainly not be met. I said that "declining Cooperative Program giving will force more staffing cuts." NAMB has stopped funding some positions, mainly as part of the shift in the kickback funds to state conventions.

I give myself a "half-right" on these.

3. Cooperative Program. I predicted that "the decades long decline in the percentage of church offering plate dollars devoted to the CP will continue." Well, the stats aren't in on that. The CP did show the tiniest increase for the fiscal year ending in September which, coupled with an overall decline in church revenues, may actually show an increase in CP church percentages.

I am still not optimistic that the percentage has hit its floor yet.

I rate my prediction "Undetermined."

4. Great Commission Resurgence Recommendations. I predicted that "Even though a number of state conventions declared they would move towards a 50/50 state/national CP split, little movement in this direction will actually occur."

Some state conventions made what I would term major moves in this direction. The South Carolina Baptist Convention made substantial and significant cuts to in-state stuff and even budgeted to send funds directly to the IMB, bypassing the Executive Committee. Overall, state conventions are still in the mode of making declarations. The checks haven’t been written.

I give myself a "undetermined" on this one.

5. Assorted odd stuff.

An SBC megachurch pastor will be involved in a major scandal. Nope. Not that I am aware of. Plodder strikes out on this one.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship will continue to eke out an existence but will not find their ‘revisioning’ sufficiently visionary to infuse new life into an organization that still has the identity of being the anti-SBC. I’ll renew this one for 2012. They’re still working on it.

The Southern Baptists of Texas convention will surpass the Baptist General Convention of Texas in revenues. Nope. Didn’t happen. The BGCT has stabilized somewhat and in 11 months has received more than the SBTC’s entire budget. It will happen one day but I'm Texas toast on this one.

GuideStone, recognizing that their health insurance product is struggling, that their pool of insured is older and sicker, and that they will soon to be priced out of the market, will make changes to keep it from total collapse. Premiums will nonetheless go up. Yep. Premiums up. Benefits cut. Same old story.

Frank Page will prove to be less hands-on with Baptist Press than his predecessor, even though he made BP part of his PR office. I don’t know about this prediction although BP has noticeably avoided certain stories.

OK, so I picked the low hanging fruit from last year's predictions. Next week I'll promise to go out on a limb with predictions for 2012.

A sweet deal from NAMB

Most pastors, like ordinary Americans, are acutely attuned to health care costs and especially to the premiums they pay or their church pays for comprehensive health care coverage. The holy grail of healthcare for Southern Baptists is be employed by or have an arrangment with some SBC entity whereby they pay your health insurance premiums. We hacker and plodder pastors who go individually to GuideStone pay high premiums for not-so-hot coverages.

I suppose GuideStone is doing the best they can with a voluntary pool of aging clergy whose health habits are measurably below the general population (think fried chicken and rotund reverends) but coverages have deteriorated and premiums have risen, both substantially.

It's an unholy mess. No one is happy about GuideStone health coverages and premiums.

I am approaching retirement age and the coverages my church can afford on me are pathetic even though the premiums amount to over a thousand dollars a month. When I retire, my health care premiums will be my largest monthly bill, easily going beyond my combined mortgage plus escrow payments.

So, when I learn that the North American Mission Board has been carrying health insurance for around 340 missions personnel who are only partly funded by NAMB, well, I'm interested.

That is a sweet deal.

Get the picture here. Some missionaries for whom NAMB provides as little as $100 in monthly support qualify for having NAMB pick up their insurance. Of course, that means Annie Armstrong and Cooperative Program givers - you, me, our churches - struggle to pay insurance for our full time people but if you can get NAMB to jointly fund a position, even part time, even the slightest fraction part time, and we get to pay their insurance also. Not so sweet.

It's time to say goodbye to the sweet deal. NAMB is eliminating insurance for positions for which they are not primary employer. Good for NAMB.

"We do not feel obligated to pay those benefits when we are not the primary employer" says NAMB leader, Kevin Ezell.

Ezell estimates that this will eventually result in up to a $5 million annual savings. Annual savings? Five million...anually? Good heavens.

While I sympathize with those affected, nothing raises the ire of folks in the pulpits and pews greater than when they learn that some people in SBC life are getting a sweet deal, and we are paying for it.

Good move, NAMB.
_________
My source for this is reporting in The Christian Index, November 3, 2011.

NAMB's big, sad Christmas party

It is rather poignant to read the Baptist Press story headlined, 99 leaving NAMB as part of downsizing.

The sadness isn't because of the absence of the ice sculptures once found at NAMB (my scrutiny of the photo above yeilds not a single fabulous ice sculpture) but because almost a hundred folks are on their way out the door for the final time.

It is reported that 81 of these took the early retirement incentives (a part of which is payment of half their health insurance cost until medicare age, if I recall correctly, a benefit which is very generous) and 18 others leave due to support staff reductions.

The new CEO, Kevin Ezell, came in weilding a sizable budget and personnel hatchet and wasted no time before he announced a 25% HQ personnel cut some months ago. Last Friday he said,

"I have the very strong conviction that NAMB has been trying to do too much in too many different arenas,"

A sentiment shared by many, I suppose.

One suspects that GuideStone contributed as much to the large number of early retirees due to their announced change in annuity funding formulas.

NAMB says that the retirement packages are as generous as they could make them. I wish they would put a figure on it for the SBCers who pay the bills. I certainly don't begrudge the cost of transitioning longtime employees to another job but I would like to know how much it cost us to do this and the savings from the reduced size as well.

I'll make a rash conjecture that Ezell will not be able to get next year's Annie Armstrong offering up. Maybe in time. The new normal I hear from folks everywhere is a lower normal.

Although the Atlanta area SBC clergy market is sizable and the influx of a good number of people in that job market has to be felt. But one can look at it another way. Who better than NAMB people to get to the front lines in a church position and get baptisms and attendance up?

Pastor, are you thinking about moving from your church? Be prepared to have some high quality former NAMB folks as 'competition'. I guess the Lord can sort all that out.

Toss in Georgia Baptist Convention former employees, they have gone from 168 employees to 104 in two years, and that's a lot of folks for the SBC job market. Then there are the usual clergy who want to move, have to move, are forced to move.

The SBC times they are a-changing indeed.

Jim Morrison, GuideStone, Turandot, and cheatin' teachers

Got a nice Christmas e-card from GuideStone, about three weeks before I get to pay an additional 25% for health insurance. Merry Christmas indeed.

Jim Morrison, long dead bad boy rocker of my generation who had those sensual lips that belied a very nice singing voice, is to be pardoned. I happened to be in Miami, site of his offense, when the thing went down. Local people my age were outraged about on stage antics that wouldn't raise an eyebrow today. Pardon/schmardon, who cares? Tourism at his Paris grave site will be steady regardless.

Incidentally, both Morrison and Elvis are in the porcelain hall-of-fame, the former dying in a bathtub and the latter on a toilet. They say drugs were involved...

Teachers, great numbers of them, are caught blatantly cheating in Atlanta. They did so to raise their students' test scores. Concerned Black Clergy of Atlanta come out with predictable outrage and concern. The concern is for the cheaters, not the cheated.

Sorry to read of the death December 3rd of Hughes Cuenod (no, neither you nor I can pronounce it right), notable singer. Debuted at the Met at the age of 84 in the opera Turandot, one of my favorites complete with torture, suicide but a happy ending. He was 108 and started his career as a concert singer in 1928. Egad.

After almost three decades as a pastor I achieved a first recently. No, I wasn't elected to a denominational position or trusteeship or hired for a nice denominational job...but I did bring in one of our senior adult's laundry. Oh, the woes and pressures of being a pastor. Nobody knows how hard it is. Hey, give me a sabbatical!

Sad to read of Elizabeth Edwards death. Headshakingly sad to understand that the phrase, "she survived her husband's infidelity" is in the lead paragraph of stories that report her death.

Cam Newton will win the Heisman. Bets are on how long he gets to keep it.

SBC Narcissist, Lottie Moon, and good therapy

Random Friday plods:

A local high school football team here ran up almost 600 yards rushing in a game...and lost by two TDs. Gotta be some kinda record.

My sat TV provider is in a squabble with some of the networks and has dropped some channels that I like but, no, I'm not going to take sides, I'll just drop the whole thing. I think I can live without TV. I pay more for TV than I do a couple of months a year for electricity and I'm all electric in my house.

Why isn't there more griping about GuideStone? Aren't we SBCers known for that? And, is there anything going on now that is more worthy of our complaints?

Wanted: someone honest enough to start a Baptist blog with the title of SBC Narcissist. No, I decline. 'Plodder' is sufficiently accurate for me.

We're going up on our Lottie Moon goal, and offering, this year. If not now, when would be a better time?

For the 'take back our country crowd': Looks like we are going to have another voluntary, free will, election where political power will shift. Explain to me why the Obama crowd would be unjustified in claiming the 'take back our country' line after our new representatives are sworn in next January? We had it. They had it. We will share it. Sounds so, well, democratic to me.

Not her best moment: Christine O'Donnell on 'separation of church and state'. Come on, Christine, at least be able to quote the relevant part of the first amendment.

I cannot think of an SBC blogger whom I dislike, although I can think of a few basement bound, housecoated blog commenters that I dislike.

Fishing and working on your woodpile are highly therapeutic.

Sadly, one SBC statistic that is not declining: GuideStone health insurance premiums

Cooperative Program revenues are down. Every church I know is behind budget. Some state conventions have steeply declining revenues. Our two mission boards are millions behind in revenues. Rather depressing.

How about an SBC statistic that is not declining?

Here’s one: GuideStone raises comprehensive medical insurance coverage 25% over last year. My premiums have increased about 60% in the past two years. Rather depressing. The packet containing my 2011 medical re-enrollment has been sitting on my desk for a couple of weeks. I just now got the nerve to open it.

For about $15,000 per year, my wife and I get comprehensive health insurance which means that above the premiums we get to limit our annual out-of-pocket health costs to $11,600. To be clear, that is about $27,000 for the year in the event of major health care expenses. Such a deal.

Yeah, yeah. I know the problems, the reasons.

Yeah, I know that by-passes and knee replacements, etc. cost big bucks.

No, I didn’t expect Obama to fix anything.

Sure, I’m grateful to my church for paying my insurance, although most of us have understood for years and years that steeply increasing insurance premiums have eaten up any salary increases.

No, I don’t know of a decent alternative outside of getting a job where group insurance is available.

The telemarketers are already calling the church to try and get us to drop GuideStone and buy theirs. Give them credit for knowing when SBC pastors might be in a mood to switch.

Stinks, really.