It's time for a modest generational change in the SBC

J. D. Greear is 44. Steve Gaines is 58. David Crosby is (I think) 63. Ronnie Floyd is 60.

I like the idea of a modest generational change in the SBC President and think that J. D. Greear would offer much more than either the traditional megachurch pastor Steve Gaines or the traditional large church pastor, David Crosby. All are good men who have accomplished much.

If past history has shown us anything in the vision and thrust of the person occupying the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention it is that they do not have broad impact on the behavior of other pastors and churches. If we were in a mode where there was some overwhelming issue that needed to be addressed in our entities, the SBC president could tailor his committee appointments to try, over time, to make changes.

As it is, we are a declining denomination. The decline in Baptisms is a grave matter. I know of no better, no more enthusiastic leader than Bobby Welch who attempted single-handedly to inspire pastors to win people to Jesus and baptize them. There was no lasting success from that effort that I can see, statistically.

All the candidates favor spiritual renewal. I see no difference there. I also fail to see any connection between the visionary SBC president having much influence in calling the SBC to repentance and renewal, as if the SBC were a local church.

We have seen a staggering decline in our missionary numbers. The traditional missions support methodologies have failed to yield sufficient funds to keep people on the field; hence, the voluntary retirements and resignations of about 1,000 missions personnel.

No one. No one, expects the Cooperative Program to sail upward sufficient to supply an additional $50 million or so annually in IMB funding. For that to happen CP gifts from the churches would have to increase about $150 million annually and the record is that gifts are slightly declining.

The CP is doing well and there is rejoicing in Nashville when CP revenues received there are flat and not declining. If they tick up a little bit, it's hallelujah time. No SBC executive expects a dramatic shift in CP trends. There is not one of our entities - not the six seminaries, not NAMB, not IMB - who is planning for the future and expecting to have considerably greater sums of CP money to spend. They are looking elsewhere. I see none of the three candidates leading the SBC back to double-digit CP percentages.

Both Gaines and Greear's churches give considerably below the SBC CP average, but give large sums and very large sums to SBC causes. Crosby's gives more than the average to the CP. The future in SBC international missions support will probably incorporate some hybrid arrangement that engages churches and IMB directly. Greear's church is one of a few who do this with great success and who do it through IMB not some other mission sending outfit.

The current trend of state conventions slightly reducing their percentage take of the CP dollar is incremental and not likely to have any substantial impact on international missions. Moving from about 61.25%, the current take of state conventions, to 55% would have yielded approximately another $17 million for IMB this past fiscal year. While that is real money, it is only about a 6% increase in their budget. Factor into this the reality that states are moving slowly downward in their percentages and may not reach 55% for a number of years. State conventions do a lot of good work but it isn't hard to see the pressures they face to maintain their own ministries and staffing.

If the goal is to reach the nations, to labor among unreached people groups, to engage unengaged people groups, clearly the old mission support mechanisms are doing well but not well enough to stave off substantial reductions in IMB personnel. New, hybrid, mechanisms clearly have had some success.

We ought to be open to God using something beyond what we have done in the past.

This election doesn't need to be about Calvinism...and I hope it isn't.

All the candidates were asked about Calvinism by B21. Here is what they said. Crosby gave a short answer so his is complete below. Gaines and Greear gave longer answers, so I have excerpted theirs. Click to see the whole interview.

J. D. Greear: I am pretty confident that if you asked the average person at the Summit whether we were “Calvinist” or “non-Calvinist,” they wouldn’t know what to tell you. I prefer the balance of the BFM 2000 here. We are committed to preaching the Bible, doing the work of evangelism, and giving God all the credit.

David Crosby: No one in the SBC is about to reveal a theological fix to this centuries-old theological conundrum. Anyone who thinks they have tied up all the loose ends is either self-deluded or a heretic. Therefore our solution must be found in the common ground we share in Christ and the work we do together, as it has always been. I don’t want to throw out anyone on either side of this theological discussion. We must focus on Christ and the gospel. We must fight the “party spirit” that always seeks to divide and weaken our work. We can do this work together. If we do it together, we will get more done for our Savior. He prayed that we would be one. Let’s cooperate with the Spirit in the unity he is bringing to the bride of Christ.

Steve Gaines: The SBC has always had Calvinists and non-Calvinists. I’m fine with that, as long as one side does not seek to dominate the other. 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.

While all of them call for working together and unity, only Steve Gaines goes to the specifics of "optimal theolog[y]" in the seminaries, students being subjected to proselytizing profs, and the warning against exclusively Calvinistic faculties.

Huh? Why go after the Calvinists and include all the detail warnings about seminaries and their faculty and practices?

Well, whatever it is, he repeats the same things in an interview with The Baptist Message:

Gaines said the Baptist Faith and Message is broad enough for both groups, but because the majority of Southern Baptists are not Calvinists, Calvinism should not be taught as the principal theological position of any SBC entity.

“I do believe that our students need to know about Calvinism. I don’t mind our seminaries teaching about Calvinism, but it should not be the exclusive theological position taught in any of our schools,” he said.

We should expect all leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention and all entities serving our denomination to affirm, to respect, and to represent all Southern Baptists of good faith and to serve the great unity of our Convention. No entity should be promoting Calvinism or non-Calvinism to the exclusion of the other. Our entities should be places where any Southern Baptist who stands within the boundaries of The Baptist Faith and Message should be welcomed and affirmed as they have opportunities to benefit from, participate in, and provide leadership for those entities.

I haven't heard a candidate for major office, or prominent SBC leader bring the matter up since the report was presented three years ago until Steve Gaines, twice now, tossed out the comments about SBC seminaries, faculties. 

Salient question not asked of Steve Gaines: Do you think that there is a problem in any of our seminaries or entities in regard to Calvinism? 

 

Does the SBC President make much of a difference?

I'd say, "no," that the SBC president doesn't really make much of a difference in the SBC.

Unless we return to some type of decades-long battle between various factions within the convention where several years worth if replacement trustee appointments are envisioned as putting one faction in control of the seminaries and mission boards, the person who is president doesn't make much difference. Any of the three candidates this year would do well. Each would probably bring something helpful to certain segments of the convention.

J. D. Greear would represent a generational and methodological change. If the energy in our convention is moving away from traditional megachurches and their leaders, and I think it may be, and towards a younger set of leaders who aren't tied to continuing things as they are and have been, Greear would be the top example of such.

As pastor of a church who has more people serving with our International Mission Board than any other single church in the convention (perhaps in history), what he and that church are doing ought to be examined and replicated. Greear sagely notes what ought to be obvious to every Southern Baptist, that "the Convention is a temporary tool that god uses to accomplish the Great Commission. It doesn't exist for itself."

Clearly, Greear's church is non-traditional in regard to missions support. Most of their mission giving is not through the Cooperative Program where most of the dollars would stay in North Carolina. The result of their autonomous decision to put funds where they will make the maximum impact on lostness around the globe is that about one in twenty-five of our IMB personnel is a Summit member. If the goal is reaching lost people, exposing unreached people groups to the Gospel, then Summit is doing something worthy of praise and of emulation.

Steve Gaines would represent something similar to Ronnie Floyd in that his church's has recently decided that the Cooperative Program is worthy of greater support. While Bellevue gives far below the average church CP percentage, they have increased it considerably the last few years. If megachurches and celebrity megapastors (and that makes up almost all of our SBC presidents for the past several decades) have some influence on the thousands of average churches and their pastors then I suspect that Gaines' church move to give greater support for the CP will have a marginally positive impact. But since most churches already give a greater percentage to the CP than Bellevue, I can't see much difference.

Gaines has laid out all the non-Calvinist markers and the usual Traditionalist sites and state Baptist news editors will be sure to make these known.

David Crosby, seems to me, would be a good choice. He isn't a megachurch pastor and it would be refreshing in a way to see such a pastor elected over the usual offering of more highly visible pastors of megachurches. Perhaps he would depart from the usual oligarchy in making key appointments.

Were I to be in sweltering St. Louis, I'd vote for Greear and strike a blow for the next generation, for the intensified focus on taking the Gospel to lost people worldwide rather than perpetuating our own, often sclerotic SBC institutions and programs. But, I don't see the SBC president as having much influence over the general direction of the Convention nor over the decisions and trajectory of our 50,000 or so individual churches.

Of the three candidates, I'd view Greear as having the most potential to exert influence. Let's be candid, the problem going forward isn't about convincing younger pastors to lead their churches to give an additional percentage point to the Cooperative Program, it's about convincing these people that our convention structure and entities still have relevance in the 21st Century.

J. D. Greear has stated that "I believe we are at a generational moment in the SBC, and if I can help lead a new generation to embrace the mission and vision of the SBC, and stand hand in hand with, and on the shoulders of, our faithful brothers and sisters who have gone before us, I want to do that."  I think that's where we are and what we need.

Steve Gaines is 59. I can't find David Crosby's age but he looks somewhere in that neighborhood. Ronnie Floyd is 60. J. D. Greear is 43. Al Mohler is 56, Danny Akin is 59, Paige Patterson is 74, Frank Page is 63. I'm feeling a bit old myself.

Consider that Adrian Rogers was 47 when he was first elected as SBC president. Time to pass the torch again. 

Dennis Kim would be a good choice for SBC President

I think that Korean pastor Dennis Manpoong Kim would be a good choice for SBC president this year. He would have my vote were I present. Kim's Silver Spring, Maryland church, Global Mission Church, has a predominantly Korean membership, according to a Baptist Press report.

It may surprise many that the Southern Baptist Convention is made up of a considerable number of non-Anglo congregations. A few years ago our North American Mission Board stated that fully 20% are non-Anglo, or as conversely put, ethnic congregations, and that the percentage of such congregations has grown considerably in recent years.

Source: SBC Ethnic Congregations up 66% since 1998

There are three announced SBC presidential candidates. Jared Moore is a young, small church pastor and seminary student known mainly for his blogging. He is the current SBC 2nd Vice President, having been voted to such office with 451 votes in a quorum-lacking session last year. Great guy. Good pastor. Lacks seasoning, a broad knowledge of the SBC and its history and work. Has some positions that he has not thought very deeply about.

Ronnie Floyd is one of the SBC's most prominent megachurch pastors. He lost to Frank Page in 2006 primarily, in my view, because of his almost non-existent Cooperative Program support. His church has since moved to an acceptable, though below average percentage. He is to be nominated by Al Mohler perhaps because (a) Mohler is the SBC's most prominent leader, and (b) Mohler is the SBC's most prominent Calvinist and Floyd is no Calvinist, thereby making a meld of the SBC's two primary theological tribes.   Although he is a stellar, high-powered, and successful pastor, I'm ready to move away from the megachurch/megapastor model for SBC leadership. Floyd would have to be the heavy favorite. If elected, he will do a good job and will have my support.

In some ways one might identify the future growth of the SBC with the growth of non-Anglo congregations such as that of Dennis Kim. I think it would be a very forward looking move for the SBC to elect the pastor of one such congregation as president. Frankly, I cannot think of a better, more visible and positive manner by which we could signal our view of the future of the SBC.

Ronnie Floyd and the SBC Presidency

Baptist Press reports Ronnie Floyd to be SBC president nominee.

No less than Al Mohler has an endorsement in the article and will nominate him at the annual meeting in Baltimore in June.

Here are some things that can be said about this:

He is a leading pastor, megachurch pastor, highly successful pastor as we see such things. To be candid, I've got a heavy case of megachurch/megapastor fatigue syndrome. I'd really like to see the SBC get off of the celebrity pastor bandwagon. It probably will not happen.

He was nominated in 2006 and lost. At the time the only issue seemed to be his church's extremely low Cooperative Program percentage. He came to be known as "Mr. Zero Point Two Eight" which was the percentage. As I recall he said that they had a problem with the state convention. Frank Page was elected that year with a robust, double digit CP percentage.

Since 2006 Floyd's church has given heavily to the CP. The article above says that last year the church gave over $700,000. Presumably, this was routed through the state convention in the normal manner. Baptist Press is either holding something back from us or is being negligent in not reporting what percentage his church gave to the CP. Maybe later. Those who decry the low giving of megachurches to the CP should take a look at the positive change in CP giving by Floyd and his church.

His church is very heavy into church planting and planting in the SEND North America areas and NAMB's SEND North America is about the only positive thing going in the SBC these days, aside from the arduous labor overseas for the Gospel.

As best I know Ronnie Floyd is not a Calvinist, in fact, some of his stuff has been anathema to many Calvinists (Google "Ronnie Floyd" + "fire truck"). If he and his church is OK with Al Mohler, that ought to settle any problem about that.

It wasn't explicitly stated (the word "Calvinism" doesn't appear in the article or Mohler's endorsement) but this looks like a signal that we're not going to fight over the SBC president's stance on Calvinism/Traditionalism issues. This is good and comes at an opportune time.

I'm not sure that the SBC presidency means much in the big picture of things. He can mess things up with his statements but there's not a whole lot he can accomplish that I can see.

Before I decided for whom to cast my vote - if I go and if I am a messenger - I would like to see if any others will be nominated along with the CP percentage for his church.

One notable, relevant thing about Fred Luter

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

That's good.

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

This is unusual as these things go.

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

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

That is notable.

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

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

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

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

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