Cutting the Baptist campaigning down in Georgia

My state convention, The Georgia Baptist Convention, is solidly conservative. There has not been a contested election between moderates and conservatives in years and years. But in 2011 there was a white hot political campaign for president, only between two very fine conservative pastors.

I wrote about that here.

When asking around about why the lengthy campaigns, the only answer I got was that there were competing insider groups among GBC conservatives, folks who wanted to be in charge or in a position to influence things in Georgia Baptist life.

The two candidates back in 2011 both had websites and extensive campaign events around the state. I attended one where the candidate said that he had over forty such events, meet and greets, planned beginning in the summer and going all the way to the convention in November.

Fact is, Baptists love to say that they really hate politics but the reality is that they love politics. The proof of that may easily be found in watching them.

Be all that as it may, now the GBC Executive Committee has voted to restrict political campaigning for GBC offices until two months prior to the annual meeting, usually in mid-November. No more of this summer campaign business.

Baptist Press reported the Christian Index story:  Ga. Baptists to limit campaigns to 8 weeks

The Executive Committee's unanimous vote Dec. 10 effectively reduces the campaign window, which had grown to 10 months, to eight weeks. The policy was approved by a unanimous vote of the 125-member group.

The new policy calls for a moratorium on the endorsement of any candidate until after the Sept. 10 GBC Executive Committee meeting. The policy also restricts The Christian Index, the convention's newsjournal, from publishing any article about candidates until that time and limits the amount of follow-up story coverage.

One little problem here...the GBC Executive Committee has absolute no power to prevent anyone from announcing his or her candidacy, to quash any campaign website, or even to prevent the Christian Index from printing such announcements or reporting on campaigns.

They do have a measure of bully pulpit power and they do have some degree of influence over the Christian Index mainly in regard to their budget, but no real power. Does any single Baptist anywhere let any state committee tell them what to do or say and when they can or cannot do it or say it? Nope.

It is a bit ironic, one must conclude, in that many of the heavy campaigners are now voting to restrict campaigns.  Further irony is in the fact that the Christian Index has in the past been the tool of political factions in our state.

I suspect that the Index trustees will go along with the Executive Committee's suggestion. Fact is, the Index and all state papers have been severely diminished in their circulation and thereby in their ability to influence things in the state conventions. Websites and blogs are widely read and may reach more Georgia Baptists who are interested in convention matters than any printed page. Then there are the hallway whisper campaigns, expected to continue unabated.

It is an interesting development. I'm guessing that Baptists are resourceful enough to squeeze a great deal of good, old fashioned Baptist campaigning even into an eight week period. It is one of those things that we just like to do.

We will find out later next year when the office of president in the GBC is up for grabs.

 

Georgia Baptist Convention surprises

A pleasant surprise
John Waters was elected GBC president with about 53% of the votes. I had the feeling that he was the underdog. Waters' opponent, Fred Evers, had some very heavy hitters backing him, including the host pastor. He also had by reason of his position a prominent place on the convention program and platform.

My guess is that Waters gained votes as a result of his extraordinary commitment concerning appointments to key GBC committees. To be candid, most folks attending the meetings are outsiders like me (though the so-called GBCInsider tweeted support for Waters during the meeting) and I couldn't see much difference between the two candidates, other than the appointment business.

The GBC has some difficult days ahead. Waters has my prayers.

An unpleasant surprise
In between the time the GBC staff printed the convention Book of Reports for the meeting and this week, revenue projections for 2012 came in and the GBC had to cut an additional $1.7 million from the proposed budget. Both the SBC and the GBC took a haircut on that. Debt service escaped unscathed, not that there was a choice about that.

A semi-pleasant surprise
I wrote earlier this year about a confusing aspect of GBC accounting. In this state GBC staff likes to state that the GBC "shares each Cooperative Program dollar equally" with the SBC. This is an accurate statement but only because the GBC has created an artificial category they call "Shared Responsibilities" into which a pile of expenses are tossed, sufficient to make up about 20% of the entire GBC budget. After doing that, staff can tout 40% SBC, 40% GBC, 20% shared, even though over 60% of those CP dollars never make it north of the Georgia-Tennessee border.

Let's be frank: We don't "share equally." But there is a new wrinkle, one that says that the GBC recognizes the negative perceptions of this accounting technique.

Part of "Shared Responsibilities" has included debt service on the GBC's sparkling and expensive building, about $1.7 million. I was surprised to see that the GBC gurus create an entirely new budget category called "Capital Debt Service." There's no way to describe it as being in any sense "shared" with the SBC.

However....the gurus made an orphan budget category for the debt service rather than to include this in "Georgia Baptist Convention Causes" which it certainly is.

Memo to my friends at the GBC: I commend you for recognizing a problem here but we still don't "share equally" with the SBC, creative accounting notwithstanding.

An unexpected surprise
Most of the program personalities were younger pastors. Nothing wrong with youth and inexperience.

No surprise at all
Virtually all of the GBC staff who had platform time, almost all of the presenters represented were, uh, middle age or older gray hairs. Nothing wrong with age and, hopefully, wisdom, although I hear that older folks are more likely to...uh...die. Well, you get the idea here.

Another unpleasant surprise, and probably the most salient of all.
Dr. White, GBC leader, stated that churches were giving around 8% of their offering plate dollars through the CP in 2000 but that this had dropped to about 5.5%. That is a staggering 31% decrease in a decade.

There are some challenges. May God guide us as we meet these.

The GBC presidency - Will it make any difference?

I've been a pastor in Georgia for almost 15 years. It's home. I like the Georgia Baptist Convention. I like my fellow pastors. I like the GBC staff that I know and have worked with. The ones I don't know are probably great folks. I have no big complaint about things here.

We have two outstanding GBC pastors, Fred Evers and John Waters, campaigning furiously for the presidency this year, and that even though the moderates and liberals in this state have long since departed GBC life. So far as folks like me in the GBC hinterlands know, there isn't any scandal afoot nor any unsavory characters lurking around.

No Visigoths are at the gate in this state convention.

For reasons previously offered I plan to vote for John Waters for GBC president, not that my vote is anything other than one hacker and plodder's vote. But bloggers like to do stuff like this, just in case someone else might be paying attention. Happy to do my part. If John Waters loses and Fred Evers wins, I will still be a happy GBC guy.

But what I'm ruminating on about the whole business of GBC politics is this: Does it really matter? The answer that I hate to give is - probably not.

There are matters of concern. The GBC is at the budget level we were at a decade ago and employs scores fewer employees that we did a decade ago. The state convention as a moral influence and a significant force in the state is likely lower than it has been in generations (the latest example may be found here).

So, does it matter which successful pastor is our president? In a way, no.

The GBC does yet have a good pile of Cooperative Program money to spend. It's a falling sum but still quite significant. Replacing one group of decisionmakers with another will likely not change much. We may tweak a bit here, shift a little there, and replace this program with that one. Some employees may be ushered out and new ones hired. A new regime would probably only nip at the margins, since we have heavy fixed investments in buildings, programs, schools, and ministries. No one will change much.

We can rearrange the deck chairs on this ship but not do much else? Perhaps. The ship isn't sinking, of course, just shrinking.

God can certainly move things much faster, more dramatically, and permanently. I don't see that He is tied to any state convention election, budget, or personnel issue.

On the other hand, the GBC president is a person in a good position to take steps to see that GBC ownership is shared and greater participation is encouraged. Control of convention budgets, entities, and programs has been rather tightly held by a well-meaning few. It cannot but help to broaden the base of GBC supporters. Such will not be swift or dramatic, but it will be a positive move.

But does it make any difference who is elected? Probably not in the short run. But if commitments to expand convention leadership and ownership are studiously kept for the short and medium future the base of GBC supporters cannot but be expanded.

Both GBC presidential candidates have stated that they would involve new (the word 'and younger' is usually affixed here) people. Good for them both.

To my way of thinking John Waters alone has offered some very specific and concrete commitments about this. He has also explicitly stated he would like to be held accountable for this.

That's good enough for me, whether it makes a lot of difference or not.

Georgia Baptist 'insider' blog goes kaput

I didn't think it could happen but after about two months of anonymous blogging on the Georgia Baptist Convention, the possibly spuriously named GBCInsider blog has managed to give even anonymous blogging a bad name.

The blog started badly, stumbled often, and ended up an embarrassment. A few interesting points about GBC matters were offered along with a generous helping of out-of-date information, high minded pontifications, and factually challenged assertions. The blog degenerated into a raft of anonymous, unkind hemorrhages that passed for comments.

While I think some anonymity in blogging is reasonable, I'm about cured of this type. If you have something to say. If you would like to write about things you don't like about the GBC, do it with a name affixed, like John Waters, one of the GBC presidential candidates.

My friend and fellow non-anonymous blogger, Peter Lumpkins, has noted the demise of the same yesterday and with greater insight and elan than I. He speculates that the whole thing was a political tactic designed for no good purpose other than to scare up a few votes for one of the two GBC political candidates.

For the record, GBCInsider signs off by absolving itself of any blame for untoward comments and by blithely declaring victory.

What a joke.

There is a need for honest discussion of matter of concern in the Georgia Baptist Convention and a dearth of forums for doing so. The impression of not a few GBCers is that leadership would like for the churches to just trust us and give more money. I suggest that GBC leadership and the new president find a way to schedule sessions around the state where the purpose is listening, where honest feedback is solicited, received, and heard.

...either that or start a blog and welcome questions and provide answers.

The extraordinary actions of John Waters, GBC presidential nominee

I wrote last Thursday that I intended to vote for John Waters for president of the Georgia Baptist Convention. Two good men are campaigning energetically for the top elected position in the GBC. I happen to like Waters in part because of his extraordinary commitment

...I will not personally support any At Large appointment of a person who has recently served.

While GBC committees and appointments are perhaps tediously viewed by many as inside baseball, they are the key to the approximately $44 million budget and the various GBC entities. If the same small group of well-meaning GBC pastors can manage to stay in the positions of leadership of influence then any talk about being more inclusive is just empty talk.

The details and process can be mind numbing and it would be too difficult to restate it here. I merely point to Waters' two articles below.

2011 Committee on Nominations: Another Misssed Opportunity

A Missed Opportunity

The links above are to John Waters' blog, John Waters for GBC. Sure. Any hacker and plodder one can start a blog and fill it with bluff and bluster. What Waters relates on his blog is that he has done more than just type words that represent commitments. He has taken the extraordinary step to actually speak to some nominees and ask them to decline nominations. Well, you read it.

This is quite extraordinary. My hat is off to John Waters.

The red hot Georgia Baptist Convention politics

I am an outsider in the Georgia Baptist Convention and haven't spent a lot of time hobnobbing with the Georgia Baptist bourgeoisie preferring my natural element, the Baptist hoi polloi.

When I moved back to my native state in 1997, the state convention was already solidly conservative and has been since. .

This year it has been interesting to watch a hotly contested GBC presidential election unfold, something I have noted in previous blogs here and here. The GBC meets in less than two weeks and we vote on one of the two presidential candidates.

I understand that any organization with a $44 million budget has people who want to be either in the room when decisions are made or in the position to make important decisions. Sure enough, a fairly smallish group has wielded sufficient influence to have their presidents elected, appointments made, and hiring decisions determined. I must confess a probably unhealthy level of ambivalence about these things.

This conservative candidate. That conservative candidate. Tweedledee. Tweedledum.

This year we have had two very energetic candidates who have campaigned furiously. One stated that he has fifty meet-and-greet meetings planned. Fifty.

Both are very good pastors. Both are talking about expanding the tent to include new people in important GBC committees and positions.

Sounds good to me. How should one decide? Flip a coin? Perhaps the biblical casting of lots?

As I have listened and read, I find one candidate to have made a striking public commitment, one that I don't recall ever seeing in all my years of Baptist politics, er, ministry.

John Waters has said this:
I will not personally support any At Large appointment of a person who has recently served. Nor will I support the appointment of that person’s staff member or a member of his/her immediate family to key places of leadership, practices which have become commonplace in recent years.

We're getting serious here.

This was not shared in a private meeting. It's on his campaign site. If he is elected it will be a rather simple matter to judge his actions against these words.

The GBC has seen a steady erosion of Cooperative Program support and some soft rumblings of dissent. Folks are doing a bit of handwringing in this state. While there is no panacea available, it can only help if we move beyond the control of the well-meaning few to include and involve the many. I cannot see anything negative about doing this.

I declare that both candidates are outstanding men, stellar pastors, and wonderful servants of Christ; that the small group that has exercised such influence in GBC politics are all great, well-meaning people; that their staff members and family members who have been appointed because of their close relationships are also wonderful folks.

But I believe I'll vote for John Waters, the guy who has not only said he would call for new levels of inclusion but who has made specific commitments to get there. I love the concept. Say it. Do it. Let's get on with it.

...but we can all still be friends.