Pastor, how about a month off?

"You bet," sayeth most all of us at one time or another.

Ah sabbaticals. I'm on one now but had to retire to get it. The usual route to a sabbatical for most of us is to (a) resign, (b) get fired, or (c) retire.

Back in 1999 Baptist Press did a piece on a small town, average sized church pastor who took a sabbatical. It was a story most of us could identify with:

“I was not overworked; the church was not asking too much of me. That was not the problem,” he said. “The problem was that I needed a freshness of purpose in my life and in the church’s life.”

The solution agreed upon was five weeks off, unheard of among SBC churches unless the church is a mega or large church.

I like the concept but am not certain that many churches would grasp it.

I can hear the conversation now,

"Brethren, I'm mentally and emotionally exhausted" the pastor might explain to the deacons, "could we work out a sabbatical, a month or so when I could be away?"

"But pastor," one of the deacons might respond, "you only work one day  a week anyway. How could you be exhausted?"

Megachurch pastors can be exhaused. Large church pastors can be thought to deserve a sabbatical every few years. But average sized churches? Probably not.

Bring up the idea of ministry burnout to your church and you're probably toast in their minds from that point on.

Be open and vulnerable and disclose that you are mildly depressed to the church and you are likely viewed as damaged goods to them, worthy of whispers in the hallways.

 Bryant Wright is on sabbatical right now. I don't begrudge him that.

Johnny Hunt gets every August off and two years ago notably extended that through mid-September.

I'm guessing that average sized and smaller churches do not love their pastor any less than a megachurch loves theirs but I'd speculate that smaller churches would look askance at a request for a sabbatical.

Here is one smaller church pastor's story:

On June 4, 2006, I drove to the church for evening worship intending to announce my resignation.  After 21 years as a pastor, and 27 years in professional ministry, I had hit a wall.  I was not only exhausted; I was empty.  My faith had not wavered, nor had my commitment to ministry or my church.  Like a car that had run out of gas, I just stopped.  Fortunately, by the time I pulled into the parking lot, I had reasoned myself out of such a drastic act.  When pastors run out of steam, they generally do one of three things:  they move to another church; they get sick; or they do something stupid.  I came very close to my stupid!  Instead of resigning, I walked into the service and announced that I was prepared to teach, but I was unable to teach, and that I would see them next week.  The congregation witnessed what I had been fearfully anticipating for several years – a total shutdown

His church gave him five weeks off.

Many pastors could identify with the problem, depression, burnout, shutdown, but few could identify with the solution, a sabbatical.

One of the ways that associational missionaries, state convention workers, denominational press, and SBC leaders could help the tens of thousands of workaday, average church, average pastors is to regularly promote the concept of an occasional sabbatical even in smaller churches.

Money is tight all around at every SBC level but I bet that there would be a lot less profitable ways for state conventions to budget money than to put a sum aside for grants to churches who wanted or needed to give their pastor a month or so sabbatical. This would give the idea a modest push among smaller churches.

I can envision a state convention program whereby churches were told, "We will fill your pulpit at no cost to you if you give your pastor a sabbatical month off." State conventions and associations would benefit by having an extended opportunity to share some of their work in a church over an extended period. Such an incentive would be persuasive to many churches who fret over finances and supply honoraria if the pastor is out.

In the past I have been pessimistic about the idea of sabbaticals being realistic in average and smaller sized SBC churches but I think it is doable and is certainly worth encouraging.

Some pastors might need to start thinking and praying about it, although you could just act like a fighter pilot and stubbornly believe that others may crash and burn but not you, you've got the right stuff.

I wouldn't risk it.

Great Commission vs Cooperative Program Giving

When the SBC approved the new giving category, Great Commission Giving, an aggregate category that includes giving to the Cooperative Program, state convention, local association, plus any direct gifts to any SBC entity, great weeping and gnashing of teeth ensued in some quarters. Dire predictions of negative effects on the Cooperative Program were made.

2011 was the first reporting year for GCG but I don't know that much can be learned by it, since nothing can be viewed comparatively; nonetheless, here are some figures for the top giving churches in the Georgia Baptist Convention:

First Woodstock (Johnny Hunt's megachurch):
Total gifts   $1,194,200
Total CP            866,170
Total GCG      3,144,120   

Woodstock is the top Cooperative Program giving church in the GBC. Their CP gifts were 27.5% of their total Great Commission Giving meaning that they gave a lot more directly to SBC causes than to the CP.

Hebron, Dacula (formerly Larry Wynn's megachurch):
Total gifts    $902,640
Total CP         840,905
Total GCG      944,882

Only Woodstock gave more to the CP than Hebron last year. Hebron's CP gifts were 93.1% of their total Great Commission Giving indicating that their main channel for SBC giving was the CP.

Johnson Ferry (Bryant Wright's megachurch):
Total gifts     $566,079
Total CP          566,079
Total GCG       793,315

Johnson Ferry's CP gifts were 71.4% of their total Great Commission Giving.

Clearly, Woodstock and Hebron have different giving philosophies.

Local church autonomy at work.

I haven't asked but it looks like Johnson Ferry chooses to report differently than the other two. Fact is, the Great Commission Giving total for any church would be a voluntarily reported figure supplied by the church that is comprised of components that could not be easily checked. I'm not alleging anything here about JFBC, just saying that a simple comparison of GCG statistics may not be valid.


I first heard Adrian Rogers make the statement that "Dollars pay the bills, not percentages," an assertion made to counter the complaint of megachurches giving smaller percentages to the Cooperative Program than other churches. Of course he was right and that assertion is manifestly true.

Here in Georgia, Woodstock First is the top CP giving church in total gifts - $866,170. That amount is over six times larger than the aggregate Cooperative Program giving of the top five churches in the GBC in percentage Cooperative Program giving (and who average giving 39% of their total undesignated giving to the CP).

All deserve praise for their support of missions through the Cooperative Program. None deserve criticism.

My view has been that the new Great Commission Giving category will merely reflect the reality on the ground rather than generate any new giving trends. While it may be useful for comparison of candidates for SBC offices, it is beginning to look like it may be a fuzzier figure than originally thought.

But, for SBCers who are numbers junkies, here's something to chew on.

2012 Annual Meeting Moments

Best moment: Duh. Election of Fred Luter.

Best line: Bryant Wright. "To our Calvinist friends: A bit of humility would be most welcome."  Few people have the ability to say something gravely critical, say it kindly, and have folks walk away reflecting on it rather than reacting to it.

Biggest surprise: The decisive election of Dave Miller as 2nd VP. Unthinkable just a week or so ago. Ditch the lime green suit, bro.

Biggest teaser: Frank Page, having stated that he would announce an "initiative" on the Calvinist/Traditionalist controversy, leaving the matter dangling: Page confirmed again that he plans to assemble a group of advisers to help chart a way through the division surrounding Calvinism.
Whom? What? When? How? We will have to wait.

Silliest moment: Don't know. Wasn't there. Didn't stay glued to the live feed all day. Nominations will be accepted from the hoi polloi in attendance.

Best resolution: Yawn. Doesn't matter but generally does keep people from browsing the exhibit hall for the umpteenth time.

Best hair: Tie between Peter Lumpkins and Eric Hankins.

Smoothest moment: Pick from any number during the sessions when  Bryant Wright was presiding.

Best reporting: SBC Voices did a good job with the twitter feeds.



Houston next year? Don't we ever tire of punishing ourselves by meeting in the heat of June in virtually uninhabitable places.

The SBC: Always the best show in town

I don't think our grand denominationcould stand something like the SBC annual meeting more than a couple of days each year.

A few observations:


Election of Fred Luter was an authentic, unadulterated, genuine moment. We SBCers deserve one of those occasionally.

The name change debate was a curiosity (I watched it live, in my basement of course). The SBC has always been a convention full of  parliamentarians. Barry McCarty is worth the big bucks we pay him.

Face time is always important to some obscure SBCers but we are all equal at the annual meeting and if you can grab a mic you have as much right to display your nonsense as anyone else.

The name non-change vote will be forthcoming but I suppose it will have passed comfortably but not overwhelmingly. Then 90% of us can forget about that and those who have been all exercised about it can find something else to get apoplectic about.

Bryant Wright has always seemed to hit the proper notes. He is easily the best presiding officer since Adrian Rogers.

We will see what Frank Page has in mind on a Calvinist/Traditionalist "panel." There are some traditionalists who are rather militant. I'm not sure where this is going.

While we are at it, I like Wright's gentle admonition of the Calvinists: To our Calvinist friends: A bit of humility would be most welcome. Wonder where he got the idea that such was lacking?

To be fair, Wright's admonition of Traditionalists: It is time to show some respect for those of differing views when it comes to election and when it comes to salvation." 

It will be interesting to see how many votes blogger Dave Miller can pull this morning. He is well known among the blogging tribe and not known as a heavily partisan figure, nor a bomb thrower or troublemaker. If I were present he would have my vote. I like him. He has a sense of humor and he needs encouraging after his beloved Yankees got beaten by the Atlanta Braves last night.

Required reading for the Calvinist and Traditionalist tribes

This is courtesy of Bryant Wright. This is from the Baptist Press convention blog:

"My concern is that we can have Christ-centered, Bible believing Christians so engaged in trying to correct one another's view when it comes to election, that the next thing you know the devil is standing over to the side, because we have taken our focus off of what Christ tells us our clear mission is, and that is the Great Commission. And [the devil] is going to be laughing and he is going to be mocking and he is going to be rejoicing that we're no longer interested in rescuing the captives that God calls us to rescue with the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

"Let us understand that these two views on election and salvation can co-exist as long as we stay Christ-centered and biblically based in our theology."

Wright delivered "a word" to each group.

"To our Calvinist friends: A bit of humility would be most welcome. Any time there is pride, whether it is spiritual pride or intellectual pride or theological pride, it is always a sin. And we need to recognize that an attitude of superiority with those who may disagree over the finer aspects of theological belief is never going to build up the church of Jesus Christ."

After several centuries of debate, the issue is not going to be resolved in the first few years of the 21st century, Wright said.

"To those who call themselves traditional Southern Baptists: The time for judgmentalism is over, because judgmentalism quickly moves into slander. And to lump all those who have a strong, solid, biblically based theology that is a more Calvinist theology" with hyper-Calvinists "is not only misguided but it winds up causing you to break the Ninth Commandment on false witness.

"It is time to show some respect for those of differing views when it comes to election and when it comes to salvation."

Wright referenced the 2006 dialogue between R. Albert Mohler Jr. and Paige Patterson on the subject of Calvinism.

"That is the spirit that we need today."

"If we pride ourselves more on being a traditional Southern Baptist or more on being a Calvinist or a Reformed theologian, more than we are thankful that we are Christ-centered and biblically based ... then it is time to repent of theological idolatry. Our calling is to be centered on Christ and grounded in the Word while agreeing to disagree on the finer points of theological issues, may we all agree that Christ ... has given us a very clear message and mission for the church."

Wright has for years had radio spots in the Atlanta area where he offers brief, concise, pithy messages aimed at secular topics from a spiritual perspective.

This excerpt from his convention address looks like one of these spots aimed at his fellow Southern Baptists. I like it.

One notable, relevant thing about Fred Luter

Fred Luter (image from BP) is expected to be elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention in just a few weeks in New Orleans. If I am there (and it's not looking like I will be) I would be unhesitant in casting my vote in his favor. His election will be notable because he will be the first black president of the SBC.

That's good.

But there is something more notable about Fred Luter that is acutely relevant to the SBC. He is a megachurch pastor and would be the latest in a long string of megapastor elected president of our convention. But he is a megachurch pastor whose church gives an above average percentage to the Cooperative Program. 

This is unusual as these things go.

Fred Luter's church gives about six percent, not a large percentage but quite healthy for a megachurch. His six percent is more than given by our current president, Bryant Wright, whose megachurch is in the 4% range. Previous megachurch pastors who were SBC presidents, Johnny Hunt, Jack Graham, and James Merritt were in the 2% range (although Hunt notably increased his church's CP giving in recent years).

Fred Luter will be the first megachurch SBC president whose CP giving is above the SBC average since Jim Henry back in the mid-1990s.

That is notable.

For all the laments about the decline of the Cooperative Program (we have gone from an average above 10% a generation ago to under 6%) when messengers meet in our annual session they rarely find a megachurch pastor that they are unwilling to elect as president, regardless of the low giving to the Cooperative Program.

Wright was easily elected in 2010 even though alternative candidates far surpassed him in their church's CP giving. That is the usual scenario. I can think of only one megachurch pastor, Ronnie Floyd, whose CP giving was so low (around 0.3%) that it cost him the election (he has since raised it to around 5% last time I checked).

If Southern Baptists are genuinely concerned about falling Cooperative Program giving, one of the ways we ought to express our concern is to consider unelectable any candidate for major denominational office whose church gives less than a threshold percentage. Five percent is a good number, though I made an exception for Bryant Wright who was a little under that.

One of the more ridiculous things regularly heard about the SBC is all the  complaining about megachurches having undue influence, when we regularly elect them to the top SBC office in spite of their low CP giving. 

I hope that Fred Luter's election establishes a precedent in ways other than related to his race. Such would be good for us all.

State conventions in steep decline

The latest state convention downsizing news comes from the Kentucky Baptist Convention where the Louisville Courier Journal story, Kentucky Baptists losing 27 staff, says,

The Kentucky Baptist Convention will lose nearly one-third of its full-time staff through early retirements and other departures in the second wave of cuts in less than a year at the state’s largest religious body.

The cuts leave the KBC with about fifty full time staff for a convention of 750,000 members and 2,400 churches.

The cuts follow the convention's vote to send more of their Cooperative Program receipts to SBC causes, mostly the two mission boards and six seminaries. The current KBC executive director also names the economic downturn and decline in churches giving as causes for the steep cuts.

KBC churches were giving an average of 9.2 percent of their offerings to the Cooperative Program in 2000. This had declined to 6.75 percent in 2011. That is a drop of almost 27% in a decade.

A few thoughts:

• The KBC is to be commended for pulling the trigger on the staff reductions rather than backtracking on their commitment to keep less of the churches contributions in their heavily churched state.

•  Those who want to point the finger at the Great Commission Resurgence recommendations will have to explain away the steep and steady decline of CP percentages that has been happening in Kentucky (and every other state) for decades. The fault here isn't the Great Commission Giving metric put into the Annual Church Profile recently.

• Our current SBC president Bryant Wright notably said that state conventions will have to learn to live with much less than they have. They are being forced to do so without any drastic, formal change in financial allocations. Churches are simply giving less. 

•  Some state conventions may roll back their commitments to keep less CP money in state, using the steep decline in giving as the rationale for doing so. This will not sell well with churches and pastors.

• State conventions have had their glory years of increasing budgets, additional staffing, new programs, and larger buildings. Those days are gone. I see nothing being said or done that will cause churches to increase their CP percentages from the SBC average of under six percent to anywhere near the 10-11 percent it was years ago.

The KBC leader, Paul Chitwood, said,

“It was time to re-evaluate our services to Kentucky Baptists, and to adjust our priorities to match current resources,” 

Indeed.

While the staff levels and budgets of many state conventions are in steep decline, there is no reason for them not to be successful in serving their churches and helping them reach North America and the world for Christ. It is absolutely the right strategy for the states to keep less of the churches dollars at home and devote more to national and international missions.

2012 Predictions

My understanding is that Harold Camping, having endured the fate of every other person who predicted the return of Jesus, is pouting for the year 2012 and that the Mayan end-of-time prediction isn't until December, so I'm going ahead and make some 2012 predictions.

_____________________

North American Mission Board: In spite of many changes that left a good number of SBCers disenchanted, NAMB's Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions will be up when the report is made for 2011, and by over a million dollars.

International Mission Board: Sorry, but the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions will show a decrease for 2011. Because 2012 is the centennial of Lottie's death, the IMB will vigorously promote the 2012 offering and will not stint on the dubious assertion that Lottie starved herself to death, even though the latest Lottie bio calls that into question.

Name Change: The Name Change Committee with offer what they see as a more palatable name for the SBC, “Southern” being the main culprit, but the convention in session will choose not to go along with the sanitized name.

SBC Politics: Fred Luter will be nominated for SBC prez and will win.

Calvinism: Calvinism will continue to be a divisive issue in the convention with more churches designating their Cooperative Program giving around Southeastern and Southern seminaries because of their strong Calvinistic bent.

Baptist Press BP will blithely press ahead with sports coverage and other irrelevant subjects and studiously ignore important stories that have real relevance to SBC pastors and churches.

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship The CBF will complete the re-engineering, re-jiggering, re-imagining of their struggling group. The results will be propounded with great enthusiasm but the result will be a moment, not a movement beyond what they have now.

Secular Politics: Barack Obama will be defeated in his re-election bid, in spite of backhanded support from many SBCers who eschew voting for the eventual president, Morman Mitt Romney.

Cooperative Program After a miniscule increase this year the Cooperative Program will show another decrease for fiscal 2011-2012.

Assorted miscellaneous predictions:

In spite of various worthies declaring complementarianism/egalitarianism to be a critical measure of a church or convention's health, a few serious and committed SBCers will begin to wander off the complementarian reservation.

Baptist Associations will continue to make news in their march toward complete irrelevance by dismissing churches for various reasons including Calvinism and female pastors.

Having completed a second term as SBC president, Bryant Wright will continue to be one of the SBC’s best megapastors and will not seek a denominational sinecure, not even a designer one just for him as was the case for some others.

No Southern Baptist of the female persuasion who is not married to or offspring of a prominent SBC pastor, institutional leader, or other figure will be appointed to any significant SBC role in 2012.

What major SBC meeting was held in Nashville this week?

Er, ah...LifeWay had a Christmas sale? Frank Page played Santa Claus for the Executive Committee's office party?

Nope.

What happened was that several upper echelon SBC leaders met with several Baptist World Alliance reps.

You'll find this news, not at Baptist Press, but at Associated Baptist Press:
BWA, SBC leaders meet for first time since 2004.

From ABP:

Initiated by BWA General Secretary Neville Callam, the joint meeting was part of a commitment made in 2004 for continued dialogue between the two groups.

Joining Callam in the BWA delegation were John Upton, current BWA president and executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia; George Bullard, general secretary of the North American Baptist Fellowship; and Sam Chaise, general secretary of Canadian Baptist Ministries.

Representing Southern Baptists were SBC President Bryant Wright; Frank Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee; Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; and Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Page, Patterson, Wright & Mohler in the same room with BWA president et al? Sounds like a newsworthy item to me.

One might have figured that the SBC, after spending several hundred thousand on Bobby Welch's Global Ambassador position for a few years, might reassess how we relate to the world's major Baptist body. I've been one who thinks that the SBC ought to have some relationship with them. This Global Ambassador stuff through the peripatetic Welch wasn't much of a substitute, though no fault of Welch's.

They met. They had a conversation. Good.

Maybe BP will stir themselves up enough to do a piece on it...tomorrow...maybe this week...maybe this year...maybe next year?

Appointment of SBC name change committee 'unprecedented'? Uh, no.

The argument that Bryant Wright’s action on the name change committee is unprecedented is factually incorrect.

Ed Young was first elected SBC president in June of 1992. That September he appointed not one but nine study groups to look in-depth at many SBC matters including theology, Cooperative Program, and many others.

Baptist Press, September 24, 1992

Facts are our friends, I’ve been told. Here are some friends.

New SBC Name...Already Selected?

I'm doing what bloggers do best: speculate openly about matter about which we have no evidence. Why not?

I would not attribute to Bryant Wright the slightest amount of guile in his appointing of an informal committee to study and advise him on a possible SBC name change...but...the committee and the SBC has some very savvy people.

My question is this: Has someone already registered a new name, or a selection of new names, for possible SBC use?

There are only so many possibilities:

"Southern" This is the so-called offending part of our name. How many appropriate adjectives are available?

"Baptist" No one will touch this. It's the third rail of this matter. A new name without "Baptist" is DOA.

"Convention" Convention, fellowship...whatever. I'm ambivalent about this.

And what clever and resourceful blogger will be the first to ferret this out? Has the Executive Committee registered some names? Has some third party registered some names on behalf of the Executive Committee? Will someone ask Bryant Wright, Frank Page or other leaders if this has been done?

Hmmmm....

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.

What? No evening sessions at the 2011 SBC in Phoenix?

What is happening to our beloved convention? This year's meeting in Phoenix will have no sessions in the evenings, something unprecedented so far as I know...which raises some serious questions:

Do you mean that messengers don't have to bolt out of the convention hall before the poor guy who is scheduled for the benediction says the final 'Amen' so that you can beat your brethren to a restaurant...only to find the place already packed with rotund reverends and their entourages, folks whose greatest fear seems to be missing a meal on an expense account...wait for a table, bolt down an cholesterol saturated meal in a highly unhealthy manner...and then beat it back to the convention hall? No more of this?

Can we truly say that we are Southern Baptists if we don't have to come back at night and make a 14 hour day of it?

Whatever happened to good old fashioned Baptist self-flagellation?

Bryant Wright, SBC president says the change is designed to "free up time for fellowship, discussions and family."

What a concept!

But isn't part of what it means to be a Southern Baptist is to punish yourself, primarily your backside, by sitting all day through tedious session after session and then come back in the evenings?

Isn't there some credit in heaven for staying for the duration?

And didn't the moderates way back in the 1908s complain loudly about the conservatives skipping sessions, while they sat and suffered? Look what that got them.

Alas, I don't plan to attend the Phoenix convention this year. But the rest of you have a great time, just don't goof off in the wrong places in those free evenings.

SBC presidents and the Cooperative Program

What shall we say about SBC leadership and their support, or lack thereof, for our grand Cooperative Program?

Here is a summary of the past SBC presidents and their Cooperative Program support over the past 32 years:
Less than 4%: Rogers, Smith, Stanley, Vines, Young, Elliff, Merritt, Graham, Hunt, Wright.
Above the contemporary average: Draper (7%), Chapman (11%), Henry (10%), Welch (15%), Page (12%).

Between 1979 and 1992, the year the Conservative Resurgence was effectively over, seven men were elected president. Only two of those were significant CP supporters, Draper and Chapman, and only Chapman’s church gave greater than what was held out as the standard at the time, 10%. I don’t recall either of them being elected on a platform of cooperation or CP giving, but rather on a platform of continuing the conservative takeover. For the entire period up to 2010, sixteen presidents have served. Only six of those gave average or above to the CP.

Since 1992, the convention has happily elected leaders who are not known for their outstanding CP support. Only Henry, Welch, and Page were above average, while Merritt, Graham, and Hunt were down in the 2% range. I don’t think you can find a greater contrast than in the election of last year where Bryant Wright, in the 3% range, defeated a candidate who was in excess of 10%.

Since the convention elected people whose CP levels were very, very low (Bailey Smith, 1% or so, Ed young the same, Stanley, Vines, Merritt 2% or so), one has to say that the Cooperative Program was clearly not an important factor for the Conservative Resurgence. Even in the years since the CR was completed, the convention has been quite comfortable in electing leaders whose CP levels are way below average.

I summarize these things because I keep seeing people who are dissatisfied with the giving of current leadership incorrectly interpret the SBC’s history of the past three decades. I think an honest view of the past would lead to the conclusion that the CR was not a boon to the concept of cooperation and to support of the Cooperative Program. The most salient of CP statistics, that churches give less and less of undesignated giving through the CP, is partly the result of the success of megachurch pastors like Rogers, Stanley, and Young in being elected to the SBC presidency in spite of low CP giving percentages.

For my part, a presidential candidate who shows strong support for NAMB, the IMB, and whose CP percentage is above the threshold of 3-4 percent is fine by me. In my book Bryant Wright is a very strong supporter of our cooperative work as Southern Baptists even though he may not meet the CP litmus tests of some. If we dismiss pastors like him and churches like his we will be a much weaker convention.

A future question to be considered: Why has the average church CP percentage been dropping for decades when almost all SBC pastors (87% in a 2007 survey) report that they are generally satisfied with the CP?

Cooperative Program Promotion: Deck Chairs Successfully Rearranged

The Cooperative Program is our titanic funding mechanism. Nah, not "Titanic" but "titanic." The CP will be with us always even though the grand old funding ship is riding a little lower in the water year-by-year.

The longest of long-term CP trends is this: churches give less and less of their offering plate dollars to the Cooperative Program. We might talk about a ‘tithe’ to the CP but the reality is that we're under 5% and are going south from there (though there are different ways to figure the percentage and some are higher).

As a part of the Great Commission Resurgence process, the Executive Committee was to drop CP promotion and let the states handle it. So, what’s the new plan?

The new plan is outlined here. The Stewardship Development Association (SDA), a consortium of state convention stewardship specialists, will do the heavy CP lifting.

SDA will be our preferred provider for production of stewardship and Cooperative Program materials," Page told the gathering in Nashville, Tenn. "You are much better at some things than we are. We can't keep doing what we've been doing."

SDA President Stan Smith said the partnership signals "a new day in the Executive Committee's commitment to partnering with state conventions."

I'm open to looking at this in a different way but is this new deck chair arrangement? More importantly, exactly how will the product be renewed? No one knows but further explanation of the new promotional package includes this:

The group also discussed rebranding the image and identity of the Cooperative Program with Kerry Bural, principle of The Resonate Group, a communication consulting agency based in Nashville. Bural and Page agreed that rebranding needs to be more than a slick marketing campaign. "It's not just about getting CP better known, but showing that it works," Page said.

OK, the new deal is a consortium of state convention employees with an Executive Committee staffer working with a consultant. The consultant "claims that his best work happens in java-infused creative sessions, when he’s divinely disturbed in the middle of the night or when he’s “in the zone” clearing some serious technical obstacles in the woods on his mountain bike."

Mix caffeine, cycling, and the Cooperative Program and you get...? Dunno. Take these comments as gentle and tongue-in-cheek, but our past forays into CP promotion have generally been by white headed, long-in-the-tooth former pastors. Can comparative youth, facial fuzz, and funky hair do what they could not? Again, dunno. His credentials are out there and impressive. We will see.

The CP is a great plan that has a couple of problems that are inherent and perhaps intractable. First, the flow chart is a bowl of spaghetti that few laypeople and a surprising number of pastors understand. Second, and this may be anecdotal just to me, by appending the term "missions" to "Cooperative Program" we devalue the former term. As long as two-thirds of CP money put in church plates is kept by states, you cannot call it missions. Check your state to see what is funded by the CP and is unashamedly called "missions."

If this consortium comes up with new bells and whistles, slick graphics, clever promotional materials yet ends up saying what every other CP study group has said in the past: "You churches just send us more money." You've lost.

I await the latest plan, brand, and image. I admit that whatever the high-powered consultant and weighty consortium come up with is better than my plan.

I don't suppose it would be fair to ask what all this is going to cost? Nah, guess not.

Imagine a greater contrast on the Cooperative Program?

Can there be a greater contrast about our venerable, if declining, Cooperative Program than that provided to the Executive Committee by Bryant Wright, SBC prez, and Frank Page, new Executive Committee CEO?

Wright said, in his first remarks to the XComm,

"It is my hope that there will be a radical reprioritization so that we can bring about these thousands of people groups who have practically no witness of the gospel."

Repeating views shared prior to his election, Wright means that he hopes the state conventions will willingly give up substantial shares of their CP cut.

Radical.

Page said that

"What is needed more than anything for a Great Commission resurgence, Page said, is a "Cooperative Program resurgence...The truth is that the pie [Cooperative Program] has to get bigger," Page said. In order for that to happen, he said the Executive Committee will work in conjunction with Baptist state conventions to promote the Cooperative Program."

Traditional.

Since churches have for decades been giving less and less of their offering plate dollars to the CP, I don't see Page having anything to say that will do the least thing to change that...but he has to say it anyway.

I read where he will offer a ten year plan to raise CP giving. One can only hope that the plan consists of something more than the standard, "Just give more" mantra that we've heard for so long.

CP promoters say that when laypeople find out about all the great work done by their CP dollars, they will enthusiastically give more.

Wright says that when his church laypeople found out more about the CP, about where the money goes, about where the money stays, they immediately wanted to give LESS, not more.

A little reality therapy for the CP means less, not more, I'm afraid.

I like Frank Page. His position, of all the leadership positions in the SBC, demands a CP supporter, promoter, and optimist but Wright's right on this one.

Wright, salaries, lottery and odd thoughts

Baptist Press reports that clergy salaries are outpacing inflation. Really?

Bryant Wright iscalling for Southern Baptists to get busy with the Gospel and missions. The guy is a workhorse, not a showhorse. He calls for every SBC church to send their pastor on a mission trip "annually." I'm for that.

Here in Georgia, one of the worst states for foreclosures and bank failures, the economy is quite bad...but our state sponsored lottery is doing just great, thank you. The lottery, our tax on poor and stupid people, is effectively transferring money from po' folks to educated middle class folks by paying for their kids' college education.

Back in the mid-1990s long before I could afford a cell phone, people were coming by the church asking for assistance, uh, money to pay their bills. How long before someone shows up at my church with an Iphone needing help to keep their water turned on?

We're deep into indirect losses from the BP oil disaster. Maybe the BGCT, whose revenues are way, way down, can put in a claim. I think Texas has a good bit of land that borders the gulf.

The little Texas Japanese bulldog, David Montoya, can't seem to get answers about just how much BGCT employees are paid. Good luck, David. Don't give in or give up. It's your money. You deserve to have your questions answered.

An observation: Church conflict blogs that are successful, as in seeing the pastor resign (Two Rivers BC, Nashville) disappear. Those that don't achieve that success (FBC Jax, Bellevue) stick around and morp into sort of a watchdog and commentary function.

I'm still waiting for Frank Page to tell me what I need to do Sunday...

Do SBC megachurches/pastors drive Cooperative Program trends?

Does the level of Cooperative Program giving (or lack thereof) among the few dozen of SBC megachurches (and I’d limit that to high profile megachurches…we know ‘em when we see ‘em) drive CP trends among our 42,000 or so congregations?

Can’t say that I know but some seem to think it does.

Consider the attitudes of some to (a) the SBC electing Bryant Wright who has pointedly reduced his church’s CP giving from 10% to somewhere around 4%, and (b) the plaudits being given to Ronnie Floyd for increasing his church’s CP giving from 0.29% a few years ago (sufficient to cost him the SBC presidency in 2006, IMO) to somewhere around 5% projected for 2011.

Look for the former to be criticized by many and while the latter is praised, sort of a denominational Doppler effect. It sounds different when it’s rising than when it’s falling?

When the dust clears, both of these high-profile SBC megachurch pastors will be giving roughly equivalent amounts to the Cooperative Program; however, the one on the ascent is, among some SBCers, to be praised, while the one on the descent is to be criticized. Both have stellar records of mission support, church planting, and the like.

Note the piece by Norman Jameson, here, where he ends with this paragraph.

Please forward this news [Floyd’s push to increase CP support] to new SBC president Bryant Wright, who said in a press conference following his election that it is poor stewardship to give through the Cooperative Program if reaching the nations is your goal.

Question for Norman: Bryant Wright church’s CP giving reflects the stewardship that he and his church leadership believe is good for reaching the nations. His percentages are (or will be, soon as Floyd catches up with Wright) about the same as Floyd’s. How is it that he gets a slap while Floyd gets a big kiss? Both end up at the same place.

Prediction from Plodder: Floyd’s church will not go beyond 5% in CP support. I commend him for the increase and would happily support him for SBC president should he try it again down the road. His 0.28% was too low. Four or five percent is sufficient for me.

On the original question about high profile megas driving convention-wide CP giving. I just don’t think that it will and if it does the messages from the megas have been mostly negative. All three megachurch pastors in the recent election had cut their CP giving and the one who cut the most got elected.

I'm thinking that CP giving depends more on what funding decisions are made in the next few years, now that the GCRTF made some modest recommendations that the convention adopted, than on what the megas do.

A micropastor looks at megapastor Bryant Wright

Those nasty, insular, greedy, predatory megachurches.

Really?

Read what one pastor says about the perception and reality of megachurches:

Point of View: My megachurch neighbors

On the most mega of the three megapastors, Bryant Wright, (Jimmy Jackson and Ted Traylor are the other two) the micropastor says this:

Bryant Wright is a man who may not remember me, but I remember him. The reason why is several years ago I was at a conference at Ridgecrest and Dr. Wright was the guest speaker that week. How did this megachurch pastor treat the rest of us? He stayed after every service to speak to people, fellowshipped with various groups during meals, and on two occasions Dr. Wright spent almost a half an hour talking to me about the ministry that I had just started. He prayed for me and greeted me every day. This man took a interest in me, a twenty something kid who could do nothing for him and that has left a lasting impression.

I'm not a big megachurch fan and think there has to be some balance in SBC life. It was a mistake for Johnny Hunt to set up the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force where fully two-thirds of them either pastor or worship at megachurches. However, it is also a mistake to stereotype megachurches and pastors.

One of my online friends declares that he will never vote for a SBC presidential candidate whose church runs more than 350 in worship. The other Resurgence, the one that really happened rather than the one we hope we can stir up with a committee and votes and all that, would never have happened if megachurch pastors didn't lead it. Sorry, my friend, you will be disappointed on June 15th because a megachurch pastor will be elected SBC president.

Money is tight for the micropastors and I don't plan to be in Orlando but if I were I'd vote for Bryant Wright. In an interview with The Christian Index, Wright actually said "We’ve made some mistakes along the way..."

When is the last time you heard a megachurch pastor admit mistakes?