SBC annual meeting attendance, elections, and resolutions

I am a statistics junkie, an interest that goes back to my baseball days and batting averages, slugging percentages, etc. So SBC stats are interesting to me, if not to many others.

Registration was 5,013, the lowest number for an annual meeting held in one of the Bible Belt southern states since World War II. The attendance was lower in 2011 but the meeting was in Phoenix.

One has to conclude that these meetings just aren't what they used to be and, absent a raging controversy that is a lot hotter than the Calvinist/Traditionalist one, we will likely not see numbers above ten thousand again.

Many have proposed alternatives such as regional meetings in addition to the main convention location. While this is doable, I'm not optimistic that there is any will to change. If SBC pastors and others do not see a lot of value in attending the annual meeting when it is in a location proximate to where the greatest concentration of SBC churches are located, I doubt they will see much value in several such locations.

One result of lower registration is seen in election results. For two consecutive years the office of 2nd Vice President was won (a) by a reasonably well known blogger, (b) by a Calvinist blogger, and (c)  at a time when most messengers were not present and voting.

Here are the figures:

2012 SBC Annual Meeting, New Orleans   

      Total registration, 7,484
           
      First  ballot for 2VP:
                  Dave Miller,    673
                  Eric Hankins, 572
                  Brad Akins,    370

      Second ballot:
                  Dave Miller,    1,202
                  Eric Hankins,    798

Miller was elected at a time when about 27% of messengers were present and voting.

2013 SBC Annual Meeting, Houston   
      
       Total registration, 5,103

       2VP ballot:
              Jared Moore, 451
              Don Cass,       223

Moore was elected at a time when about 13% of messengers were present and voting.

I doubt that there has been a convention officer elected with fewer votes in a century. Some enterprising researcher can look that up.

One might conclude that bloggers are now in a position to pull a significant number of votes, especially at times when most messengers are drinking coffee and browsing the bookstore and exhibit hall.

With so few in attendance, and with the resolutions being presented on Wednesday when many messengers have already left, there is the potential for some mischief in resolutions. Issues of national interest like the Boy Scout controversy and clergy sexual abuse usually generate some mainstream media interest. A goofball amendment supported by just a few hundred of the millions of Southern Baptists could embarrass us. Thankfully, no such goofball was foisted on the convention this year.

On resolutions, we might consider taking the course of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship which does not do resolutions, but this would deprive many SBCers of a fun time where they get to have their moment of fame at a mic. I hardly think the SBC would be harmed by eschewing resolutions and our Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission can speak for us and should on important matters. I don't see any change in the resolution process, however.

Next year the convention is in Baltimore, a non-traditional location though still south of the Mason-Dixon Line. There will be a contested presidential election (Eric Hankins? Ronnie Floyd? J. D. Greear, David Platt or of one of the other young turks? Blogger?) which should ensure attendance greater than this year.

I'm saving my pennies and planning to make the trek.

A resolution that has value: ON SEXUAL ABUSE OF CHILDREN

My friend and fellow Georgian, Peter Lumpkins, submitted this resolution and I confess that my prediction was that it would fail to be reported out of the Resolutions Committee and any attempt to bring it to the floor would likewise fail. Peter would then go home and drown his disappointment, rather expensively, in Starbucks coffee which he never seems to be without (ABP photo).

I was wrong and the SBC did pass an amended resolution but one that Peter favored.

The original resolution had this paragraph:

RESOLVED that we strongly urge denominational servants, entity leaders and our trustee boards to sever all ties, whether official or unofficial, with any evangelical organization, fellowship of ministers, and/or celebrity leader who, presently or in the past, is facing criminal and/or civil litigation for neglecting moral or legal obligations to protect the little children whom Jesus said suffer to follow Him, ties including but not limited to speaking engagements at conferences, entities, and/or agencies supported, whether full or in part, by Cooperative Program monies; and 

The target for this paragraph was C. J. Mahaney who has been loudly praised and touted by some of our SBC leaders, not the least of which is Albert Mohler.

The case of Mahaney, Sovereign Grace Ministries, and sexual abuse of children is long and somewhat complicated. There are horrible allegations of abuse, some while Mahaney was pastor and in his church, though he is not accused of any such behavior. A high profile civil suit has been filed against a number of SGM leaders. The lawsuit alleges that when abuse was reported to the church, church leaders did an in-house investigation and tried to handle it privately.

Background can be found in numerous articles by Bob Allen of Associated Baptist Press (you will not find much from Baptist Press which avoids such unpleasant subjects). The article here is from this week. Also, two blog queens (their own self-description) and their blog The Wartburg Watch 2013 are tireless victim advocates and keenly focused on the SGM scandal. Their research is stellar.

The Resolution Committee quickly deep-sixed that paragraph before they reported the resolution to the floor. An amendment was added from the floor that said:

RESOLVED: that we encourage all denominational leaders and employees of the Southern Baptist Convention to utilize the highest sense of discernment in affiliating with groups and/or individuals that possess questionable policies and practices in protecting our children from criminal abuse; 

You can still read "C. J. Mahaney" between the lines of the above paragraph.

Here's the deal: Even though Southern Baptists have said a lot about clergy sex abuse and have numerous programs to educate churches and pastors of the issue and how to handle such things at the local church level, we have not been very effective in handling cases that touch on our churches or our leaders.

This resolution helps somewhat, but let's be candid here, no one who should have been paying attention to this matter, Executive Committee, Resolutions Committee, high profile leaders like Mohler, thought it important to address it with a resolution at the annual meeting. The matter was left for a small church pastor and blogger. I give Mohler et al credit for realizing that they needed to get on board here.

One of my boasts is that I have never spend a dime on Starbucks coffee. It is one of my life principles not to pay $5 or so for a cup of drugged and flavored water.

But the next time I meet Peter at the Starbucks halfway between us, I'll buy. Good work.
______________________________________

If you are a pastor or church staff and haven't given this a lot of thought, I recommend your state convention who most certainly has a staff member with responsibility for child safety. But start with a couple of my articles:
Pick up the phone, call the cops.

They did not call the cops...and have been arrested.

Also, get Christa Brown's book (available on her website) and read what she has to say. It is ugly but may save your ministry down the road. She started talking about sexual abuse in the SBC before anyone else.

Association calls on churches to cut CP giving by 25-35%

The longstanding general trend of churches giving less to the Cooperative Program is widely known at all levels of the SBC. We've gone from an average of over 11% thirty years or so ago to less than six percent today.

More keenly felt, though is the dramatic loss of CP dollars in state conventions in the past few years. The mortgage meltdown and subsequent recession has reduced individual giving and concomitantly,  the flow of CP dollars from churches to states.

Many state conventions like my own, the Georgia Baptist Convention, have made repeated, drastic cuts in spending, and, since most of the discretionary spending is in staffing, dozens and dozens of jobs have been cut.

Here in Georgia we also have the additional burden of a considerable amount of debt service for a magnificent HQ building that was built just prior to the economic meltdown.

Times are tough in this state convention.

It is not lost on state executives that when CP receipts are down, they are hit the hardest, since (a) they have always kept the great majority of CP gifts (convention wide average is that about two-thirds of CP gifts from churches stay with their state convention and do not leave state borders to go to NAMB, IMB, the seminaries, or other SBC entities), and (b) state conventions have little else in revenue aside from CP gifts (the IMB, in contrast, has other major revenue streams and the CP makes up only 30% of their budget).

One association in our state has passed a "RESOLUTION TO PROVIDE FOR OUR STATE CONVENTIONS" which calls for its churches to "consider" cutting their Cooperative Program giving by 25-35 percent.

Really? Yep. Really, a sort of cut your nose off to spite your face resolution. Undermine the Cooperative Program as a method of helping the state convention which benefits most from the Cooperative Program.

The idea is that churches would take their present CP giving, cut it by  25-35%, and designate that proportion to state convention causes exclusively.

So, here in Georgia, with the Georgia Baptist Convention already retaining over sixty percent of the CP dollar, if churches made this designation it would effectively raise the Georgia percentage of a CP dollar to about 75% if all churches followed this plan.

I have read the resolution and also spoken with the association's director of missions and acknowledge that not everyone is happy with all the changes around the convention. I also believe that this is a well-meaning effort, however misguided. I understand our state convention wants nothing to do with it.

The idea that we would penalize NAMB and the IMB, remove funds from NAMB's church planting efforts or from IMB missionaries serving in places that don't have counties full of churches is rather absurd. Georgia has about 3300 churches, a million resident members, who collected over a billion dollars in 2010, and over $25 million to spend in this state on our own needs. 

Do we really think it proper to undercut that missionary in a place desolate of the Gospel to put back in staff in Georgia to conduct VBS training, or deacon training, or other local needs? 

Surely not.

If the GBC desired they could propose that we increase our percentage of CP receipts from 61% to 75% or 85%. It is up to us. If the churches feel this is best, we may certainly meet and vote these increases. I'm not persuaded that churches will recognize that associations in south Georgia are suffering enough to take money away from NAMB and the IMB to help our poor peach state brethren out.

So, what's the best way to help the Cooperative Program? Give more.

Below is the key part of the association's resolution:

  Therefore, be it resolved, that the administration committee of the  __________ Baptist Association encourages each church to “consider” to contribute a portion of their  cooperative program contributions  (25 – 35%)  to state missions and give the balance to the cooperative program (this is not binding on any church since each one is autonomous, we are only suggesting). The intent of the resolution is not to destroy the cooperative program, though some feel the Great Commission Giving has already accomplished this, but to encourage a means to balance the cooperative program so that state conventions are adequately provided. This will assure that our state conventions will receive enough contributions to provide assistance to our small town and rural churches. The state convention needs us as we need the state convention, and,

Be it finally resolved, that the ________ Baptist Association encourages all sister churches and associations to consider this recommendation.

Ironically, even though the resolution claims that Great Commission Giving has already "destroy[ed]" the Cooperative Program, were churches to adopt these recommendations, this association would be a leader in Georgia in Great Commission Giving. Go figure...

Even though the resolution was passed at a recent spring associational meeting and the document is public, I edited out the name. The DOM said they might want to tweak the document. Tweak? How about deep-sixing it?

But, ah, we are all autonomous. And, maybe this resolution should go to the place where lots of associational resolutions go - a cool, dark, place where it can be quietly forgotten.

I don't know that anyone connected with this reads my humble blog but I would happily provide a place for them to defend the resolution and disagree with your humble blogging semi-retired pastor.

SBC resolutions: Not worth a bucket of tepid expectoration

I'm sorry, but when only about 1500 people out of our sixteen million members make pronouncements at the annual meeting about issues, it just isn't worth much. The Executive Committee gets to say that the SBC has spoken on this or that but these things are probably more harmful that helpful so far as the publicity they generate.

Intelligent SBCers might note that a resolution is only a statement of opinion by the folks who happen to be present at the time. Unfortunately, the public doesn't grasp that and imputes the resolution to the entire Southern Baptist Convention.

Dave Miller does a good job of analyzing the immigration resolution of last week, “Immigration and the Gospel” – the SBC’s Real Controversy, and I have to be honest. When I read the resolution I thought that it sounded just like what the CBF would do, if they did resolutions.

So, in addition to immigration we affirm hell. I didn't know hell needed any help from Southern Baptists, although one of the upper levels of hell has to be some sessions of the SBC annual meeting that I have endured.

The resolutions process is one of the more tightly controlled aspects of the meeting, although there has been the occasional runaway convention.

The SBC will always have to endure the phrase "former SBC vice president" in front of Wiley Drake's name. One of these days we will embarrass ourselves with a ridiculous resolution and have to deal with being reminded that the SBC "officially" passed such a thing.

Perhaps we could follow the CBF, they may have this thing right if not much of anything else.