Questions for NAMB, IMB, and seminary leaders

One feature of the annual meeting of our beloved Southern Baptist Convention is a time for reports from entity heads. These leaders usually leave a short time for questions from the floor. While I'm not planning to be in muggy St. Louis next month, if I were and could stake out one of the floor mics here's a question or two that I'd like to ask:

For David Platt, International Mission Board leader:

The locations of our overseas personnel has shifted over the past years to a greater proportion being in World A locations. I presume that these are more difficult and stressful places and would like to know some things about attrition rates:

1. What is the attrition rate for our career personnel after 5 years, 10 years?
2. Is there a difference in rates in World A countries and other locations?
3. What is the IMB doing to reduce these rates?
4. Has the IMB found that certain measures or methods of support from the home churches of personnel have reduced attrition rates.

What is the average cost of a career missions couple (single) from initial contact with IMB through appointment and the end of the first full term?

For Kevin Ezell, North American Mission Board leader:

NAMB uses "Strategic Cooperative Agreements" and "Strategic Cooperative Budgets" with state conventions to spell out joint work and funding for such work. Given that all of NAMB's funding comes from the churches and individuals, what is the reasoning behind the policy that these agreements not public information to Southern Baptists?

NAMB has been criticized for being heavy-handed in it's relationship with some of the non-southern states where NAMB provides much or most funding for many personnel. Why would it not be preferable to distribute funds to these state conventions as grants not tied to specific positions or goals and let local staff utilize them as they think best?

For Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary:

SBC presidential candidate Steve Gaines is quoted as saying, "Calvinism does not need to be taught as the exclusive, optimal theological viewpoint in our seminaries. Non-Calvinist students should not be subjected to Calvinistic professors who proactively seek to convert them to Calvinism. None of our seminaries should have a faculty of professors who are exclusively Calvinistic. Non-Calvinistic professors should be an integral part of each one of our seminary faculties because most Southern Baptists are not Calvinists, and they are the ones that fund our seminaries and pay the salaries of our professors."

Although Gaines did not name SBTS and SEBTS, others have made accusations about your two seminaries doing that to which Gaines objects. Are non-Calvinist students subjected to proactive conversion efforts by professors in your seminaries and does your faculty include non-Calvinistic professors?

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On the questions for Platt, I don't know the answers and don't know that I've ever seen material published by IMB or by missiologists in our seminaries who have been given IMB data on which they have done research. This is perhaps the most critical personnel issue for IMB and I'd like to see these rates.

On the questions for Ezell, he has an article that generally explains the agreements and the reason they are not public. While I have an idea about the second question, being the troublemaker that I am, I'd just like to see how much explanation he would give.

On the questions for Al Mohler and Danny Akin, Gaines has laid down a marker by raising the questions and making specific demands. I don't disagree with him at all. He didn't name names but others have and have named SBTS and SEBTS. I'd like to seen Mohler and Akin have a chance to respond. Akin has responded specifically to such things in the past.

Of course, no one will ask these questions and there's not enough time to fully treat the subjects anyway. But, when Southern Baptists have questions, it's always good for our leaders to give answers. If this convention is like any of the couple of dozen I've attended, a lot of floor time will be expended on subjects much more trivial than these.

I trust that my SBC convention-going colleagues will have a grand time in St. Louis.

Under the radar at the SBC meeting in Baltimore

Here are a few significant things that happened at Baltimore that didn't get much Baptist Press:

Kevin Ezell, NAMB, and state convention CEOs

No SBC entity has undergone more head-snapping, abrupt change, too often through mismanagement as well as poor leadership as has our North American Mission Board. We had two leadership meltdowns in the past few years and then some serious recalibration before the present leader, Kevin Ezell, led NAMB to get on the right track.

Ezell led the sprawling, amoebic organization to a more concentrated focus on planting churches as opposed to shuttling money back to state conventions for a panoply of good but lower priority uses, many of which are in areas where Southern Baptists are the dominant religious presence. Although this involved only a fraction of NAMB's budget it was a fraction that went back to states in kickbacks. No one rejoices when their budget is cut. Ezell and NAMB outlined a reasonable manner by which NAMB's funding would be distributed throughout North America. Eventually, folks got on board, partly because it's tough to justify spending NAMB money in Alabama when there are areas of America that don't already have SBC churches on every street corner and at every crossroads.

During NAMB's presentation in Baltimore, state convention leaders stood with Ezell in support of moving funding from their legacy states to less churched American regions through the new funding model. Ezell expressed gratitude for the leadership of the state executives and for their sacrifice. I suspect that few knew how hard it was to get to that place. Give Kevin Ezell a trophy for turning our dysfunctional mission board around.

Child Abuse Advocates...outside the convention hall

SBCers can expect organizations that advocate for reform in regard to clergy child abuse to be present at every SBC annual meeting from here on for the foreseeable future. The groups and advocates favor action that the SBC has refused to take, namely the establishment and funding of an independent investigatory group at the Executive Committee level which would receive, investigate, and maintain reports of clergy sex abuse in SBC churches. There are serious problems with this proposal but there are also serious incidents of child abuse by SBC clergy.

Had I been present I would have talked to some of these whom I suspect that I have corresponded over the past several years when writing on child sex abuse in SBC churches.

The group asked for a time to speak during the SBC meeting but was unsuccessful. I doubt they will ever get on the official SBC program but how about the Pastor's Conference? If the PC leadership wanted to help pastors avoid child sex abuse in their churches one way to get attention would be to give one of the victims of abuse a few minutes for a testimony. Let the victim describe how he or she was abused by an SBC church staff member, what happened afterward, and how he or she felt about the church's response. That would be an uncomfortable few moments for those in attendance but I'd bet it would rivet some to the problem and some pastors would go back to their church and see to it that child protection policies were put in place. That would have been a more profitable result from a pastor's conference that the latest forgettable rip-and-roar, stemwinder sermon from whatever fair-haired preacher boy had the platform.

Low attendance and low vote totals

Ronnie Floyd almost got surprised, partly because the composition and attendance levels of SBC meetings is declining. We may be at the place where a megachurch pastor cannot expect automatic election any longer. It's time to move on from the SBC Conservative Resurgence pattern of a parade of megapastors.

Maybe next year I'll make Columbus, Ohio.

Record low attendance? Not here.

Southern Baptists are all about numbers, ad nauseum, ad absurdum, and often to our harm. Admit it, pastor, when numbers are declining in your church, you feel bad, you feel inadequate, you feel unfulfilled, you feel unsuccessful.

So, when there is an SBC event with low attendance, it is usually followed by grave handwringing sessions, laments about the decline of our grand denomination, and a surfeit of analysis and expert opinions.

This past June the SBC met in annual session in one of our major southern states, Texas, in one of the cities where we have shining megastars, Houston, and the attendance in June was pathetic, just over 5,000. At the meeting a VP was elected with just a few hundred votes, nowhere near a quorum of 25% of registrants.

The laments commenced.

How about something that is good news? Stellar numbers? How about something that has caught the enthusiasm and support of significant numbers of SBCers, particularly younger ones?

The North American Mission Board's Send North America conference met in Texas this week, Dallas metroplex rather than Houson, and the attendance was almost as large as the SBC annual meeting. Baptist Press reported  attendance of over 4,200.

NAMB President Kevin Ezell said he was "ecstatic about the turnout" for the event. "Not only the energy and electricity among the participants, but the passion and heart of pastors and planters -- it all exceeds our expectations. The ethnic diversity is fantastic. Obviously this confirms the launch of a new day. It is a new day and a new NAMB."
Most important, Ezell said, were the partnerships and commitments that were made at the conference.
"We've had more than 500 participants say they want to take the next steps in church planting. And more and more churches are stepping up to say they will partner with our planters. So the ongoing impact of these two days will really be the measure of success," Ezell said.

Of course, the goal is not to have large meetings but to share the Gospel, see people in North America saved, and plant churches. The critical metrics for all this aren't beginning to register just yet but one cannot help but be optimistic about the interest of Southern Baptists in the effort.

This is the same NAMB that was our most dysfunctional entity just a few years ago and the same Kevin Ezell who was welcomed with skepticism and criticism when he became the new NAMB CEO.

I lack both the calling and the skill set to be a church planter but I have worked with many. They all complained about meager support from NAMB and from Southern Baptists. I don't hear as much of that as I did earlier. I get the feeling that planters have greater support both denominaitonally and from established churches and pastors.

We should all be glad to see it.

No problems with a quorum at this SBC meeting

While the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention had its lowest registration when meeting in a southern city since the youngest Baby Boomer was a toddler, and while some lower level SBC business was conducted with far less than a 25% quorum, there was one SBC event that had no problem with a quorum but had a decidedly gaudy attendance in comparison.

That would be the North American Mission Board's Send North America luncheon held during the SBC Pastor's Conference (BP photo above).

The attendance was an estimated 3,500.

Hmmm, we scratch and scrape to find a few hundred for some business sessions of the SBC's annual meeting but are bulging for a special interest luncheon where the focus is planting churches in North America.

There may be something of a lesson here.

SNA is the only big new thing in the SBC's playbook. It is a year old and although the metrics thus far are only things like attendance at conferences, numbers of churches involved, and church planters who have signed on, there is reason to be optimistic. The enthusiasm factor is evidence of that.

Quorum schmorum. 

It is good to see something that generates some positive numbers in the SBC.

NAMB, State Conventions back on the same page

The big news back in February coming out of the Fellowship of State Executive Directors annual meeting was the naming of a state executives' special committee, "A Study Committee on Implementation of NAMB Initiatives with State Conventions."

The concern was over how the North American Mission Board was redirecting its budget to reflect new priorities. The changes at NAMB meant that some state conventions were to get less money and sacred cows were mooing mightily all across the SBC landscape; hence, this highly visible study committee, sort of a shot across NAMB's bow.

The study committee thereupon went into the deep freeze, since not a syllable has been heard about it since...until now.

Sensibly, the state convention leaders have decided to go along and get along with NAMB. Baptist Press reports this today in their story,

State, NAMB leaders to move forward 'in unity'.

All that was said publicly on this is in the quote below:

On September 13, 2012, state executive directors met with North American Mission Board president Kevin Ezell. David Hankins, executive director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention and chairman of the special study committee, presented a report that was enthusiastically received by the Execs. The result is that the Conventions and the North American Mission Board have determined to move forward together in unity to impact the lostness of North America.

"'It is our desire that all of us can join ranks around the task of evangelizing and congregationalizing North America,' said Hankins. 'Southern Baptists can have confidence in our united effort.'

"Ezell added, 'We are excited to be moving forward together in unity for the sake of the kingdom.'"

There was some kind of internal report. Guess we will never see that. Regardless, this is good news, although one might be curious as to the process and discussion.

State convention leaders may have been given pause by one or more of the following factors:

• Kevin Ezell, NAMB's leader, has NAMB doing quite well in the eyes of many SBCers and had made efforts to mollify some of the state exec's complaints.
• No less than retired IMB president Jerry Rankin labeled NAMB's kickback funding for state conventions, the trigger for the study committee, as "entitlements," hardly helpful to the states in shaping SBC opinion.
• While NAMB received criticism for some of their changes, it's tough to argue against NAMB's putting a laser focus on church planting.
• Early high profile critics of  NAMB's changes did not gain much traction in the SBC. 
• It  has been tough to argue against NAMB's policy redirecting mission money from heavily churched states like Arkansas and putting it in less churched areas. 
• The Annie Armstrong offering was up over one million dollars this year, indicating SBC support of the new NAMB.
• NAMB's signature Grand Program, Send North America, is off to a promising start with thousands of SBCers and SBC churches on board.

Slice this any way you want. It is good news for Southern Baptists to stop complaining and lock arms in reaching the lost in North America.

Where can SBCers find balanced info on the NAMB/State Convention debate?

The biggest conflict and the most notable news in the Southern Baptist Convention these days is the tension between our North American Mission Board and various state conventions.

It's about money, of course, NAMB focusing on priorities and goals that is causing them to redirect money formerly kicked back to state conventions through legacy Cooperative Agreements.

Where can an interested and attentive SBCer, some pastor or layperson,  go to get a balanced view of the matter?

Probably not here. I like what NAMB is doing and have written a good bit about it. I have not attempted to disallow opinions to the contrary. 

Here's my opinion on where to go for information and how confident one can be of getting balance on the various sources.

Baptist Press seems to me to be trying to give voice to both sides of the dispute. Their recent article is evidence of this. The Executive Committee has to get along with all of the people involved.

The various state papers can be relied upon to give prominence to the state conventions' view of things, but not necessarily NAMB's.  That is to be expected, I suppose. I would like to see The Christian Index on this. They have always been ahead of the crowd in reporting on NAMB matters.


The blogs are a mixed bag.

SBC Today has a weekly summary of notable blog posts. This week they have a category of blog posts named, "About Issues in the SBC" all of which are about the NAMB/state conventions controversy. One notes that balance is missing from this list of links. They should know better.

SBC Voices had three blog posts last week on the issue:

NAMB vs State Conventions? A Simple Solution
So, how do we expect NAMB to spend our money? (by William Thornton)
Grasping the Elephant: Ezell’s Webcast

Those three and the 170 or so comments among them give pretty good voice to all points of view. Dave Miller and I don't quite see eye-to-eye on the issue but he isn't afraid to let both sides be heard. Good for him.

This is a debate worth having. You just have to look around to find all sides of it.

So, how do we expect NAMB to spend our money?

The North American Mission Board is Southern Baptists' second largest entity with a budget for 2012 of $115 million. NAMB gets the second largest slice of Cooperative Program money, about ten percent. Their annual mission offering, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, totaled over $56 million in 2011.

One wonders, just how do we expect NAMB to spend our money?

Were Southern Baptists satisfied with the spending under prior administrations which included overseas trips to movie premiers, ice sculptures for in house events, and millions in wasted money on programs now defunct?

Were Southern Baptists satisfied with centralizing spending in NAMB's Alpharetta headquarters with hundreds of employees and paying millions in travel expenses?

Were Southern Baptists satisfied that NAMB in reaching North America for Christ, was spending only about twenty-eight cents on every budgetary dollar on church planting?

Are Southern Baptists displeased that headquarters employment and spending and travel expenses have been cut by many millions and that spending on church planting will consume forty-two cents on every 2012 budgetary dollar?

I hear a lot of general complaining about NAMB but I'd like to hear someone make the case made for the status quo ante at NAMB.

Aha, it's about NAMB cutting funding to state conventions some say.

Fair enough. Can we talk data?

NAMB no longer pays insurance for positions they fund at less than a 50% level (although I understand that for some of these they have agreed to take several years to transition the ending of that funding). There are several positions that NAMB funds at a very insignificant sum, couple of hundred dollars a month, for which they have paid 100% of insurance costs.

Does anyone think it inappropriate that this system be ended?

NAMB has a policy that is reducing cooperative funding to the stronger state conventions and increasing funding in the weaker state conventions.

Do Southern Baptists think this is unwise or unfair?

A commenter here made the assertion that NAMB is "decimating" missions in  the Colorado Baptist General Convention.

Really?

Well, not really, if funding is any measure of things, since NAMB has increased funding to Colorado by about one third for 2012. Other states may wish for NAMB to decimate missions in their state in this manner.

A popular blogger from New Mexico lamented NAMB's cutting of mission funding for his state.

Really?

Well, really. NAMB has dropped their funding for New Mexico by about $222,000 for 2012, about a twenty percent cut.

Why?

Seems New Mexico is a pretty strong Southern Baptist state with well over 300 congregations serving a total population of right at two million. In fact, the case can be made from the data that New Mexico is a stronger Southern Baptist state than even Florida and than every other state outside the South except for Wyoming. NAMB has adjusted their funding based on parameters that make sense to me, although making sense isn't always the measure in SBC funding issues.

I wish someone would make the case for NAMB spending our money differently and in doing so specifically address all of the above.

I've seen Kevin Ezell and, to make a wild conjecture, he doesn't look like he can walk on water. I suppose he has made some mistakes at NAMB and perhaps some of the new NAMB policies are not wise, not workable, or appropriate.

Would some insightful SBCer please make the case for how NAMB can better spend our money.

The field for doing so is wide open. Have at it.

Why all this complaining about NAMB?

For those who like ecclesiastical drama you cannot beat our North American Mission Board. They have provided Southern Baptists with at least two major train wrecks in the last six years. But, alas, train wrecks are expensive and I’d forego them in favor of an organization that is effective in reaching North America for Christ. Thankfully, NAMB seems to be back on track absent the kind of dysfunctional behavior to which we had grown accustomed.

The new NAMB has declared an intention to spend half of their budget on church planting and to get there they have cut HQ personnel, travel expenses, and are redirecting the part of their budget that recycled funds back to state conventions.

Who would complain about that?

Well, some state conventions executives would, which is why state convention executives have  appointed a special committee of state CEOs to “evaluate relations” between NAMB and state conventions.

Fair enough, autonomous Baptist bodies exercising their cherished autonomy.

How about we consider the Arkansas Baptist State Convention as an example. There are about 1500 churches and half a million members in the convention. Churches there took in a bit under $350 million in 2010. 

NAMB kicks back about $425,000 to the ABSC for various causes. The ABSC leader, Emil Turner, says that figure is so small that its impact is “minimal.” Apparently, it’s not too minimal for him to complain about the cost and about the loss of it.

You can read Turner’s recent comments on NAMB here .

If there are that many churches with that much money Arkansas, one wonders exactly why NAMB is funneling back ANY dollars to that state, or to Georgia, Alabama or other strong SBC state conventions?

Evidently it is done because the states are accustomed to some NAMB gravy being ladled out from Alpharetta and don’t like the idea of it being reduced or eliminated.

In Baptist life sticks and stones may break bones but what really gets folks riled up is to cut their funding, minimal though it may be.

A little quiz here brethren/sistren. Which of the following are complaints about NAMB?

a) NAMB funds only about one-third of the cost of missionaries in Arkansas.

b) NAMB plans to cut funds for the health insurance of those missionaries for which which NAMB pays less than half the cost.

c) Arkansas receives less NAMB funding than almost every other state convention.

d) NAMB is going to make changes that will hurt the ASBC in the future.

e) NAMB is severely hurting their [state convention] partners.

f) NAMB's financial impact on Arkansas is "minimal."

g) NAMB's funding is "Incredibly complicated."

h) To get NAMB's minimal funding, the ASBC has to spend twice the dollars.

i) NAMB is missing a "serious evangelism stragegy."

j) NAMB "strategy for planting churches does not guarantee that churches that are planted will be marked by Baptist distinctives."

Well, how about ALL of the above? And one notes that all of them save for the last two concern money, which means that at least in Arkansas all of the complaints about NAMB can be solved if the state convention takes charge of funding missionaries in their own strong, heavily churched state.

And, really, if it is minimal, if NAMB funds don't even figure into their budget, and if it is incredibly complicated, and costs Arkansas so much of their own money why wouldn't they fund their own stuff and stop all this complaining?

Why not pick up the phone, call Kevin Ezell, and say "Kevin, we love you man but why don't you keep your $425k and put it in Maine or Montana. Where there aren't so many SBC churches?

Why not indeed.

Arkansas has 1500 churches in a state with less than 3 million people.  The Baptist Convention of New England has about one-sixth the numbers of churches serving five times the population. Maybe those states would be a more sensible destination for the lousy $425,000 that is so minimal in Arkansas.

I have no quarrel with Arkansas or its leaders. My state, Georgia, gets the same type of funding from NAMB. I would note that in Arkansas   Cooperative Program giving from churches is increasing. In Georgia, they are dropping like a rock. So, who do you think would be the more likely state convention executive to complain about NAMB?

Go figure.

NAMB still falls short of the glory of God. They still have some things going on that should be scrutinized but on this kickback funding to the states, I think they are on the right track.

NAMB in the bullseye

In the old days, hapless seminary students learning greek would be required to look at a New Testament verse in their Greek New Testament and parse the words - masculine, singular, nominative, whatever. Ah,the memories.

Now it's all done for you, clickable on innumerable internet sites. Alas, I was born a couple of decades too soon.

Here's something to parse, though, that isn't done for you:  

State execs form NAMB study committee

State convention executive directors have appointed a special committee to evaluate relations with the North America Mission Board.

Uh oh.

May I select a few quotes for my dear readers to parse:

Emil Turner, executive director of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention and president of the fellowship for 2011-12, said the committee was established "to evaluate how state conventions and NAMB can maximize cooperation during the transition process of implementing the new NAMB initiatives."

Members of the committee are David Hankins, chairman, executive director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention...

This wouldn't be the same Emil Turner and David Hankins who notably, publicly, and loudly said when the present head of NAMB was to be voted on by trustees that "Southern Baptists who want to lead a denominational entity “ought to have a track record of supporting those entities.”

Well...I suppose it was the same two.

Turner said the NAMB study committee is important to evaluating and understanding the future work of state conventions with NAMB.

"Evaluating" and "understanding" beg for parsing here.

Following the establishment of the committee, Turner said he contacted Ezell to reassure him the action "is not to be or do anything adversarial, but to seek understanding and cooperation."

You bet. A calming phone call should always be given to someone who might think some action could possibly be interpreted as adversarial but really isn't because you got that congenial phone call.

Mike Ebert, NAMB's vice president of communications, said it is NAMB's "desire to be good partners with our state conventions," adding, "[We] are always open to anything that would move us toward penetrating lostness in North America. We are ultimately accountable to the Southern Baptist Convention through the NAMB trustees, and we are confident in the direction in which we are moving."

 NAMB's spokesman pointedly speaks such that when NAMB and accountability appear in the same sentence, state conventions receive no mention. 

I'd call that a shot across the bow.

State convention executives had a pretty tough year last year. The Georgia Baptist Convention let a bunch of people go because revenues were down by millions. Other state conventions have been feeling the pinch also.

I doubt any of them are in a mode to promote any increase for NAMB and are in crisis management mode to try and deflect any further cuts of the bouncebacks in funds NAMB has been giving to the states through those mysterious Cooperative Agreements. (I call them mysterious because I've never seen one, cannot get my hands on one, and have been refused permission to view them. If any of my dear readers happens to have a copy, I'd love to see it.)

Kevin Ezell already has the hardest job in the SBC. Looks like this year will be a bit tougher. 

Top ten SBC stories of 2011

I recognize that most SBCers think that if it doesn't involve the SBC it's not worth thinking about, so here's my list of top SBC stories for 2011. The rest of Christendom can have their list, but none of that counts here (however, if the world had ended as Harold Camping said it would a couple of times in 2011, I would have been happy to include that non-SBC story in the list).
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1. Bryant Wright appoints an informal, unfunded SBC name change committee. And thereby stirs up the ire of many who resent his ability to do this. Get over it. You will get a direct vote, if it comes to that, next June.

2. Tom Elliff elected as new head of IMB. Whenever our flagship agency has a new leader, that's big news. I wish him every success in leading the SBC's flagship entity.

3. SBC Cooperative Program receipts show a slight increase. The Executive Committee reported this for the fiscal year ending September 30th; however, the next two months showed a steep decrease. Maybe they back-loaded September to make 2010-2011 look good? Whatever...an increase was unexpected.

4. Southern Baptists bash Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Start with Robert Jeffress, pastor of what used to be the SBC's top church, FBC Dallas. Add a few others and not a few bloggers who display their religious bigotry in foreswearing voting for a Mormon candidate. Perhaps the brethren should start a re-elect Obama SBCers group.

5. State conventions move towards 50/50 Cooperative Program split. State conventions get credit for good intentions; however, Plodder takes the Matthew 24 approach to these - cuts and rumors of cuts, but don't be alarmed, the checks haven't been written.

6. Surry (NC) Baptist Association kicks out church with female pastor. And does so summarily. How dare the church call a female and ignore the association's doctrinal purity and unity? And some in the SBC say that our name ("Southern") is the cause of our bad image.

7. Frank Page puts Calvinism at the top of his list of challenges for the SBC. Since he hears from a lot of Baptists, I'd listen to him on this.

8. SBC annual meeting attendance lowest since 1944. Only 4,814 at Phoenix, a group which didn't include moi (I've already been to Phoenix in 110 degree heat in June). So, it was an off election year and ther was no raging controversy. Still, SBCers used to like to spend some expense money.

9. New biography of Lottie Moon published. Regina Sullivan's new bio is the first in about three decades. It calls into question the use of Lottie's starvation death narrative as a fund raising tool but what good are facts if they don't get the money flowing? SBCers should read the book.

10. Plodder resigns his church and retires. Well, this one is pretty big news around my house if nowhere else. I reserve the right to undo this one if the Lord leads.

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.
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My source for this is reporting in The Christian Index, November 3, 2011.

Why SBC churches eschew evangelists: NAMB?

Most SBC pastors and churches do not use vocational evanglelists. Less SBC churches use vocational evangelists than did ten years ago, twenty years ago. It is one of the longrunnng trends in SBC life.

How come? One might ask.

Let's ask Jerry Drace, one of the SBC's most distinguished vocational evangelists. Last month he offered an interesting column in The Christian Index entitled, "The SBC evangelist - an endangered species" in which he listed five reasons that he thinks SBC vocational evangelists are an endangered species. [I'd link it but cannot.]

"First," he wrote, "there is an existing attitude toward evangelists in certain areas of SBC leadership."

Huh?

I'm a pastor. I've had revivals most every year. I've used evangelists rarely but occasionally. I don't recall ever considering what any SBC leader thought about my choice or non-choice of a revival preacher.

Turns out that Drace had in mind for the "certain areas of SBC leadership" one Kevin Ezell and the North American Mission Board whose attitude towards evangelists consisted of their decision to cut funding for certain activities of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists (COSBE).

What did they cut?

They stopped taking Cooperative Program and Annie Armstrong money, over $100,000, and using it to pay for travel, hotel, meal, and conference expenses for evangelists to attend the COSBE retreat held immediately prior to the SBC's annual meeting every June.

NAMB quits cutting hotel, food, and travel costs and that is why SBC evangelists are an endangered species?

I rather think not.

I doubt most Southern Baptists knew that part of their CP and AA gifts went to pay for hotels and meals for Drace and his fellow evangelists.

Ezell responded to Drace's article by stating that "our decision to no longer cover travel, hotel and reception costs for evangelists to meet and greet at the annual Southern Baptist meeting is not intended as a negative toward them – it is a way of keeping as many dollars focused on missionaries and new churches as we can."

Sounds like a better use of the money to me.

But, back to the SBC evangelist being an endangered species. If you ignore Drace's first one he is quite reasonable in his other four reasons:

Second, the current fashion in many churches forsakes sound biblical exposition with an evangelistic fervor.

Third, the lifestyle and requirements of those in full-time evangelism is vastly different from any other Christian calling. Since our calling is referred to as a “Faith Ministry” pastors often make off-handed and ill-advised statements regarding the financial necessities of the evangelist and his family.

Fourth, we as evangelists are often guilty of the demise of evangelistic events in the local church and area wide emphases in the community. Those with unscrupulous methods and deceitful messages hinder not only the advancement of the Kingdom, but encumber evangelists who have ministries of integrity.

Fifth, the challenge for our young men and women to answer the call to itinerant evangelism is almost non-existent in our churches and Southern Baptist institutions of higher learning.

I'll generally agree with Drace on four of five, too bad he expends 40% of his words on the one he lists first.

SBC pastors and evangelists don't eschew evangelists because of Kevin Ezell, NAMB, or any other SBC person or entity. We may be afraid to ask one. We may feel that we cannot afford one. We may have been stung in the past by disreputable ones. But we don't take our cues from SBC leadership.

Vocational evangelists in the SBC have been declining for decades, but not because of NAMB.
____________________________________

The full text of Drace's first reason is below:

"First," he wrote, "there is an existing attitude toward evangelists in certain areas of SBC leadership."


The latest Convention meeting in Phoenix saw the smallest number of evangelists gather in the history of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists (COSBE). This was due in a large measure to the action taken by the current leadership of NAMB.

The traditional financial assistance for the COSBE retreat held the weekend before each Convention was withdrawn. Pastors, staff, and agency personnel have their Convention expenses covered in their budgets, but the evangelist must cover all expenses out of his or her own personal finances.

This action taken at NAMB was a spiritual “slap in the face” to those of us in full-time evangelism. It is a clear declaration of the current trend in the SBC toward the men and women who have given their lives to answering God’s call to full-time evangelism.

Since 1975 I have sat in scores of meetings with denominational leaders listening to how much the evangelist is needed and appreciated. I have heard countless times, “If we can ever help, we are here for you.” When you are young and naïve you believe it, but when you are seasoned you know better.

Lip service without feet service is like church planting without evangelism.

Feel better about NAMB?

Our North American Mission Board has been the closest thing to a completely dysfunctional agency that Southern Baptists have ever had. Well, let's go ahead and say that NAMB has absolutely been dysfunctional for most of the 21st century. Informed SBCers, even those who love to argue anything and everything, will likely not argue that point.

Along came the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force and report and, more than any other SBC entity, NAMB was singled out for change. Soon thereafter NAMB trustees plucked Kevin Ezell, megachurch pastor whose disengagement with NAMB and non-support of the same was easily the most notable and puzzling part of his resume, to be the CEO of the dysfunctional half of our two mission boards.

After little over one year, Ezell has successfully made just about every constituency in SBC life mad at him for the changes he has made at NAMB - except of course those who have an interest, passion, and skills in the area of church planting.

Good for him.

Someone in the SBC ought to be mad about the way things have been going at NAMB. Even NAMB trustees expected us to just move on from one debacle to the next and keep on giving our money.

Very quickly, Ezell cut NAMB HQ staff drastically, saving millions. He found NAMB staffers flying all around the country to do events and cut the travel budget by half, saving more millions.

NAMB has re-engineered the complicated system of kickbacks to state conventions whereby churches give to Annie Armstrong and Cooperative Program, which money travels to state conventions, then the Executive Committee in Nashville, then to NAMB in Alpharetta, GA, then back to state conventions. The change was intended to put less money in low priority areas and ministries and more in church planting. Made perfect sense to me.

NAMB funded missionaries who fulfilled various jobs like ministry at ski resorts have been either eliminated or reassigned to focus on church planting.

I like the changes.

Baptist Press quotes Ezell as saying recently that,

In 2009, NAMB spent 28 percent of its budget on church planting. In 2011, we are spending 37 percent and, in 2012, we will spend at least 42 percent of our budget on church planting," Ezell said. "So we are progressing rapidly toward our minimal goal of 50 percent."

Amen.

I like the direction of NAMB these days.

Some people don't. I like the focus on church planting. Some people may like NAMB doing a thousand things and making tens of thousands of people happy they get a slice of NAMB's budget. I don't think that concept was working well for us and am glad it is changing.

I feel better about giving to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions.

Some don't like the new NAMB. My working hypothesis is that if you look closely behind what is not liked about the new NAMB, you will find a funding cut. There is no better way to make an SBCer scream than to cut his funding stream.

The jury is still out as far as results go but I feel better about NAMB.

How about you?

What will make the Cooperative Program more attractive?

If the CP has some flawed DNA that makes it virtually impossible to ever change substantially, is there anything that will make it more attractive to SBC pastors and churches?

Asked another way, since churches have consistently, relentlessly chosen to support the CP less and less, and that for decades, what might arrest that trend?

I think that there are three possibilities for making the CP more attractive:

1. State Conventions keep less of the funds. As I said yesterday, I am not optimistic about anything significant here. Suppose the states keep, say, 57 cents of a dollar instead of 62 cents. Who is enthused about that? Not me.

There is elasticity in the "pricing" (the amount kept by state conventions) of the CP to churches but we will not see a demand change without substantial lowering of the "price." Bryant Wright talked about the states cutting their share by half, an unlikely event.

My favorite candy bar is a Baby Ruth. I love them. I buy them occasionally. Would a price drop from 62 cents for a bar to 57 drive me to go out an buy more? Unlikely. It's just a nickel but if the price went to 35 cents I might stock up.

As a factor in increasing CP revenues, I don't see any change that state conventions will be willing to make to cause it.

2. The Executive Committee significantly changes the allocation formula for the mission boards to receive more. Nothing will happen here. IMB, NAMB, and the seminaries will continue to get their historic percentages, with a tweak here or there.

3. Internal changes at our major SBC entities: IMB, NAMB, seminaries. Kevin Ezell, in the short span of a single year, has substantially changed NAMB. It is much more attractive to me and much more likely to see an increase in my support. IMB has a leader change but I don't see much institution change. I support it and will continue. The seminaries keep rocking along. I don't see anything much that pushes my button among them.

But even if our two main entities, IMB and NAMB, are made to be much more attractive, efficient, and functional in carrying out their mission, will I be motivated to express my increased support by increasing CP giving, or by increasing Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong offerings?

This is simple. The most efficient and effective way to express support of the two mission agencies is to increase Lottie and Annie, not to increase CP support. Who is not aware that another dollar to the CP yields only about 20 cents to IMB and 10 to NAMB. It's a no brainer.

One might find support for this in the CP figures just released. Designated causes, mainly Lottie and Annie, increased several times that of the CP. The increased revenues are all small dollar numbers but I think my reading of them is accurate.

There will be a day when the economy is booming again, when church revenues are increasing and when CP revenues will increase. There will come a day when the percentage of church offering plate dollars given through the CP will stop declining and even bump up a point or so. But I don't see a day when the SBC will ever move back to anywhere near double digit percentages.

We have a new CP normal and will have to live with it.

The New NAMB: Plant churches or 'Good bye!'

Like the new North American Mission Board of not, it is substantially different in significant ways.

Last year’s NAMB news was about emptying their Alpharetta, GA headquarters of considerable numbers of personnel to free up money for the job of church planting.

This year’s NAMB news may be in the sharper focus on church planting of personnel outside HQ. Back in June, Baptist Press reported (a reprint of a Christian Index story) on NAMB head Kevin Ezell’s plant to make job assignment changes for the considerable number of associational missionaries that NAMB funds:

About 250 directors of missions fully funded by NAMB will have their ministry assignments changed to "church planter catalyst." Ezell said the areas of the nation where most of them serve -- in heavily unchurched new work areas -- are where new churches are needed the most.

Use for an example of that assignment change what NAMB is doing with the Baptist Convention of New York. The Christian Index reported last week that the BCNY has seven associational missionaries who are fully or partly funded by NAMB. These people have been reassigned as church planting catalysts who have a goal of starting four churches per year in their associations.

In the past six years (2004-2010) the number of churches reported by the BCNY has increased by a total of thirty. If goals are met there will be about that many started in 2012 alone. That’s progress, and pressure.

Two things that might be said here. First, one of the problems identified by Ezell and the new NAMB was described as “soft” numbers in NAMB’s reporting of new congregations. One supposes that these new churches in New York will not be “soft” just to meet the goals. Second, what is to be done if goals are unmet?

Concerning the latter, here is what BP reported in June:

In most cases missionaries serving in director of missions positions will be allowed a year of transition, beginning in January 2012, to see if the new job description is a good fit. If not, they can retire or decide to find other ministry opportunities.

NAMB to AMs: 'You've got one year.'

I wouldn’t want the pressure, unless I was called to the task and confident in the Lord working to get churches started in the BCNY.

Well, a focus on church planting was the intent of the Great Commission Resurgence report. It was what Kevin Ezell said he would do. Here's the reality on the ground in the BCNY. Presumably, NAMB intends to do the same for the other 243 associational missionaries that they fund.

Want a pressure cooker job? There might be some available soon.

NAMB and restoring lost trust

Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong have always been one-two in special offerings for the churches I have pastored over the last three decades. We didn't have to pray about it, think about it, decide about it; come December and March it was Lottie and Annie and that was that.

Then NAMB's head took a private jet to a movie in London, at our expense, and Spending God's Money came along, more revelations about wasting money, a hasty resignation followed by SBC heavyweights putting out a statement about how wonderful the leader was. We get to pay an estimated two year severance for him, along with tens of thousands of dollars for executive placement services. NAMB trustees eventually get us a new CEO, tell us he's doing a great job and then force him to resign. NAMB seemed to be as good at creating disasters as with disaster relief.

What a mess. An expensive mess. Our mess.

My confidence in NAMB was deep-sixed. We still did the Annie Armstrong Offering but with little enthusiasm.

"Don't hurt the people in the field," we were admonished.

Sorry, that effort at emotional blackmail won't work this time. How about we get our house in order before going back to the status quo ante?

Eventually we get another CEO, Kevin Ezell, who arrived about a year ago. I like stuff about him. I had some questions about him.

I'm liking what I see with Kevin Ezell. He comes to preach in my church (I invited him) and I appreciate a few moments with him before the service. He connected well with our church. I mean, the guy brought several different Bibles so he could use the one our church preferred. Any old Bible suits us just fine.

I introduce him to my church as the man with the SBC's hardest job and I think he is doing well. I get the impression that here's a leader who might find more satisfaction in pastoring a congregation (or several of them) than in administering a $140m outfit with a truckload of critics snapping at him over every decision; but, administer he does.

He wastes no time downsizing NAMB HQ, as if it was written in stone that we need hundreds of people in Alpharetta to reach North America for Christ. It wasn't. Good move.

After decades of routing money from churches to NAMB, back to states who put it in a bunch of different stuff and have ordinary people scratching their heads over the byzantine process, he tries to add some sensibility to all that. Good move. Time will tell how good.

He moves the organization from doing a million things with mediocrity to a focus on church planting and doing that well. Sounds like a better plan to me.

I'm feeling better about NAMB.

It's in our interest that he succeed, not fail, and NAMB hasn't seen much of that lately - success, that is.

Every SBCer has an opinion about everyone and everything SBC.

Here's mine.

Kevin Ezell comes to town

I am pleased that Kevin Ezell, our North American Mission Board president, will be preaching in my church this Sunday.

It is our Homecoming. We don't get too many coming back for HC these days but we still enjoy the occasion and eat pretty good after church. Some of the region's best BBQ will be served.

I am looking forward to meeting Kevin and Mike Ebert who will be with him and hearing him preach.

So far as I know, only one blogger type is close by me. But any who wish would be welcome.

The unbaptistic Kevin Ezell, Frank Page's new old giving plan, and, sigh, Wiley Drake

It's almost 2,000 miles from me to Phoenix but with herculean effort, I will comment on SBC meeting stuff anyway:

Kevin Ezell on Numbers, almost unbaptistic

What's this? An SBC leader who believes in honesty in numbers? That would be NAMB leader Kevin Ezell who said that "Biblical stewardship demands accuracy..." What's next, transparency in financial matters?

Here's a leader who has cut - cut, mind you - church plants in half with a wave of his hand, just to be honest about them; who has explained that, no, we don't exactly have over 5k NAMB missionaries.

Give the guy another trophy.

Frank Page's new, well, not so new, Giving Challenge

Now, I like Frank Page. I think he will do well but I cannot help but noting that his challenge to Southern Baptists to increase their giving to the Cooperative Program by 1 percent is the same stewardship campaign we have had for all these years that the CP has been declining: You churches just give more.

My very first exposure to a national SBC stewardship program was in 1982 when Planned Growth in Giving asked churches to increase their CP giving by one-half of one percent annually. Nothing new under the SBC sun. We need substantial change in both spending and funding formulas. Page, to his credit has cut EC spending substantially and certainly has the credibility and track record to ask churches to give more.

Southern Baptists' Village Idiot

Wiley Drake nominates himself for SBC president - gets 102 votes. What are those 101 people thinking? It would be laughable but since he is a past SBC vice president every fruitcake thing he does gets shoved at all of us. Sigh.

Ezell ambivalent about Acts29 and other pre-convention NAMB news

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SBC Annual Meeting in Phoenix Cancelled

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

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

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

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

Where would pastors be without this backdoor job fair?

I will make some predictions nonetheless:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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