A renaissance for state conventions?

Southern Baptist state conventions are in steep staffing and budgetary decline. There's no debate about that. Check the figures.

But if one stands back and looks at things from a sufficient distance, a distance that allows for an honest appraisal without being colored by friends who have lost jobs or resentment of whatever and whomever is blamed for declining Cooperative Program receipts from churches, perhaps the picture can be clarified in a positive manner.

It's true. Churches are giving far less to the CP than in previous years. Yes, important SBC voices have been critical of the levels of funding that automatically is reserved for state convention budgets (does anyone be reminded that about two-thirds of every CP dollar is kept by the state conventions?). And, sure, many state conventions were profligate in adding new staff during the flush years of CP receipts. A few states were, in hindsight, guilty of overreaching in building magnificent centralized HQ buildings.

Things have changed and there is no change in SBC life like the change that comes from less money being available to spend.

Yesterday, I noted the staggering staff decline of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. Following up on that The Louisville Courier Journal reports  on the KBC's new strategic plan.

A downsized Kentucky Baptist Convention will focus more on launching new churches, advising existing ones and enabling their members to do mission work and support international missionaries, according to a strategic plan unveiled Tuesday.

And...

“We were one size during our strong growth years,” Executive Director Paul Chitwood said of the state convention’s staff, which had grown as church membership and donations were on the rise. “That day has passed. We need to be another size” based on current realities.

Don't gloss over the Executive Director's stark statement: "That day has passed." Ah, a man who recognizes the reality on the ground rather than one who casts a wistful eye at the past. Good for him.
 
It is not insignificant that a major part of the focus is on starting new churches. Also in the article is mentioned that "The convention’s evangelism strategy would be “not limited to, but no longer separated from, church planting”. 

The concept sounds good to me. Exactly when did Southern Baptists decide that it was better separate the two? Just happened, I suppose.


I'm a long way from Kentucky but it looks to me like the state has solid leadership who has already decided to eschew the lamentations and recriminations of extreme budget decline and do some things differently.

In some quarters of the SBC the talk on the street is of states keeping even greater proportions of CP dollars or of providing churches with an option to defund the SBC entities. That sounds to me like living in the past, something not unheard of among we Southern Baptists.

But the KBC has chosen the better path here. I hope it leads to a renaissance for their state convention.

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.