In the next 20 years the SBC will be smaller

I do think that we're going to see a winnowing. We're going to see a clarification of who we are and I do believe in twenty years we're going to be a smaller denomination, maybe less number of churches but I think that we're going to be more focused. I think we're going to be more serious about joining together and reaching the world for Christ.

Frank Page, CEO, SBC Executive Committee, Fault Lines Within the SBC Panel, June, 2014 (go to the 24 minute mark at the end).

If we look down the road at what the SBC will be like two decades hence, what do we see?

Frank Page sees a smaller denomination but one more focused on reaching the world for Christ.

I don't think any of us can see clearly what we will look like, what we will be like twenty years down the road, but it is somewhat remarkable that Frank Page, our day-to-day SBC leader is honest and forthright enough to state candidly that we are going to be smaller. Give a tip of the hat to demographics, cultural and religious trends, and old fashioned realism.

As for being more focused on reaching the world for Christ...perhaps. The jury is out on that but I see churches less interested in denominational structures, less interested in creating and maintaining the denominational infrastructure, particularly buildings, staff, and budgets than in placing and supporting church planters here in North America, and enhancing authentic Christian witness overseas.


It is noteworthy in this regard that in his address to trustees last month Tom Elliff, lame duck CEO of our International Mission Board, signaled his belief in "new avenues" for sending and supporting missionaries. More on this later, but if there is a vision for the SBC future, it likely will be led with something in this form. Make note here that our grand denominational funding program, The Cooperative Program, which is responsible as much as any  factor for the SBC that we have today is singularly uncaptivating to a new generation of ministers. Our goal with the CP at this stage is to find an acceptable floor for giving; hence, Elliff's exploratory remarks about "new avenues."

Any optimists among us who see a larger denomination?

Plodder summoned to the Baptist Vatican

I was privileged last week to attend the service in Nashville where 101 new missionaries appointed by IMB and will be going overseas soon.

Baptist Press (story linked above) never fails to cover these events and well they should. The stories follow a familiar template: no real names are given, no name of countries where these will be serving, and short quotes about missionary calling for a few of them.

Frank Page was there and introduced himself as the SBC Executive Committee's "Chief Encouraging Officer." I like the guy, partly for stuff like that. I didn't see Thom Ranier. Tom Elliff preached. SBC luminaries abounded. 

I don't get summoned to the Baptist Vatican for conferences with Frank Page, he doesn't know me from Adam's housecat, nor for consultations with LifeWay; however, I was summoned to this one because of a personal interest in two of the appointees.

There aren't many things SBC that do not interest me. The changes at NAMB deserve attention, the election of the next SBC president is important, the name non-change business is significant, and the ordinary, everyday SBC politics has innumerable junkies among us, but it might be helpful to remember that the SBC exists because, on a much, much smaller scale our predecessors wanted to see to it that some among them were put in other places in the world where the Gospel was desperately needed.

It still is. We still do. Thank God for that.

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.

Sorry, the SBC isn't one mammoth megachurch...

Ah, there we go again. That old standby often dredged up by Baptists in various contexts, the one of submitting to authority, was recently raised concerning our new North American Mission Board leader. I will not identify the writer but here's the quote:

God has clearly allowed [Kevin] Ezell [new NAMB CEO] the place of authority, and now it is your job (and mine), for your own sanctification in Christ (and mine), to submit to his authority at NAMB so long as he does not violate the Scriptures.

Sorry, not true. He has authority but not over me or any church.

Another:

Ezell has authority over Southern Baptist NAMB missions; and we should submit to his authority over this… OR, at the very least, we should submit to the majority of other Southern Baptist churches that have voted in favor of the GCR.

No, un-huh, nope.

There is no principle of submission to the authority of SBC leaders, or to decisions made at any SBC annual meeting, unless you are an employee. There is no principle that requires us to swallow any new policy or strategy. There is no biblical prohibition of criticism of denominational executives or policies.

Whatever level of support we give to Kevin Ezell and NAMB, Tom Elliff and the International Mission Board, or Frank Page, or Al Mohler or any state convention executive, or any associational leader is given voluntarily.

These people have to persuade us of the value of their work and ask for support. If they create new strategies, plans and policies they cannot demand support for them. They must instead explain why is it better and ask for our support.

SBC life may be driven by megachurch people and SBC leaders may all be former megachurch people but, meganoito, God forbid that we should grant to our leaders what some megachurch members grant to their megapastor – unquestioned authority.

Nope. Things don’t work that way.

Now I have yet to hear Ezell or any of the others ask Southern Baptists to submit to their authority, nor should they. Such would be unthinkable. While SBC entity leaders have authority within their own institutions and agencies and trustees have authority over what is given to their trust, none of this extends to the tiniest SBC church or the most plodding of SBC pastors.

No pastor, church, or layperson has to submit to any SBC resolution or motion passed by any SBC body.

No pastor, church, or layperson has to submit to and therefore forego criticism of any new policy, plan, strategy or vision adopted by any of our denominational employees or entities.

Rather, for the sake of the Lord’s work which we share in common among the tens of thousands of SBC churches and millions of SBC members, we absolutely ought to speak courteously but plainly about these things.

Like the new NAMB or dislike the new NAMB. Support the changes or not. We get to choose. Criticize or praise. It’s up to us.

And concerning Kevin Ezell and the new NAMB – trustees acted in accord with their authority and responsibility in making him CEO. One may like, dislike, or be ambivalent about that decision but it is done.

I don’t see the profit in making that decision an issue going forward, just don't tell me that the Bible somehow prohibits me from making that an issue.

Dropping like a rock: The Cooperative Program

A 2007 survey yielded the unlikely statistic that 87% of SBC pastors were "generally satisfied" with the Cooperative Program.

Come on, 87% of SBC pastors will not agree that the sun rises in the east...but there you have it - SBC pastors happy with the CP.

So, why is it dropping like a rock, a trend over three decades long?

We may have more mental angst over baptism statistics but Ed Stetzer says that the trend line for baptisms over the past 60 years shows no “discernable pattern.” While baptisms may be the figure we love to tout or, lately, the one that is the subject of our jeremiads, it isn't the most serious trend.

What’s dropping like a rock is the percentage of undesignated church offerings that is given through our venerable Cooperative Program. Check these figures (source):

Cooperative Program as a Percentage of Undesignated Church Offerings

1978-79.....11.130
1987-88.....10.323
1997-98..... 8.13
2007-08..... 6.082
2008-09..... 5.868

From the lusty 11.13% the year I was called in to the Christian ministry to the 5.868% for the last year for which I have statistics there is a staggering 47.3% decline. Here in 2011 we may already be at or past the 50% point.

Any way you slice this churches are sending about half of what they did thirty years ago through the Cooperative Program. If the CP were cereal, a corporation would declare it to be a dying brand and manage it accordingly, maybe putting the boxes on a lower shelf and moving on to newer and fresher products that catch the buying public’s interest.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a better plan or product than the Cooperative Program. Even though it has declined, it is still a huge funding engine and will surely continue to be the major denominational funding plan. No other plan makes as much sense.

So, how low can it go? I dunno. While I am certain that there has to be a floor to this drop, I don't know what it is.

Two salient questions:

1. Why the steep drop?
2. What can be done to arrest or reverse it?

I'd guess, I'd hope, that Frank Page, every state convention CEO, all the seminary presidents, Kevin Ezell and Tom Elliff arrive at work thinking about the Cooperative Program decline and what they can do about it. They cannot afford not to.

I read that Frank Page and the Executive Committee have retained an image consultant to see if the CP can be "rebranded." I can't pin it down but the idea of "rebranding" makes me recoil a bit. Regardless (alas, they didn't check with me about this), we've now got this consultant and also a "consortium" of state convention stewardship specialists aggregated into something called the Stewardship Development Association (and I have a blog article on that).

The image consultant is a funky-haired, goateed forty-something hot shot who may have some new ideas that will help but I'd bet good Georgia dollars that every one of the state convention CP people are over fifty with most over sixty who probably don't have many new ideas beyond, "Hey, how about you churches sending us more money." Sorry to be so blunt but I've paid attention over the past 30 years to this stuff.

I do think that it is important that the SBC arrive at some equilibrium on churches giving to the Cooperative Program and hope some fresh, new thoughts come to the surface.

What is behind the steep drop and what will arrest and reverse it, I don't know but will speculate in subsequent blog articles.
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By way of full disclosure my first two churches gave around 7 to 10 percent to the CP, though in my present church we have some rather serious financial challenges and will do well to give 1% this year. After evaluating what we can do, the church made a decision to give sacrificially to the IMB (we will end up with a Lottie Moon offering of about 3-4% of our budget) and maintain support as best we can to the association, state convention, NAMB and several local ministries. Plodder recognizes that he will not be in line for any denominational jobs or appointments with that low percentage but has accommodated himself to that reality.

Ding dong, praying on planes, Jefferson's 'Holey' Bible, 'Ham' handed nonsense...

Better be careful about praying on airplanes, especially if you pray out loud to be seen by other men, particularly if they are other passengers and flight crew. Seems some Orthodox Jews did just that and triggered an emergency landing and a free session with the FBI and Customs and Border Protection.

“Jesus is bigger than any one religion,” says the emerging church rock star with the pair of monosyllabic names: Rob Bell. He will surely find a warm reception among classic protestant liberals and some former Southern Baptist moderates. His views are “nothing more than a slickly packaged, well scripted rehash of Protestant liberalism." Says an SBC seminary prof. Reading Rob Bell on the blood should make every Bible-believing SBCer's blood boil. The guy’s a rank liberal with his shirttail hanging out. Ding dong, sayonara Rob Bell.

Some Baptist theocrats among us like to decry the separation of church and state will actually try to rehabilitate Thomas Jefferson into a flaming evangelical. Before you swallow this bit of nonsense, check Jefferson's “Holey” Bible out…

Need a workout? Don’t lift a finger. Just watch this.

Stray Baptist quote of the week: “If you vote for Al Smith [Roman Catholic presidential candidate in 1928] you're voting against Christ and you will all be damned.” Who would preach such a thing in a prestigious Baptist pulpit? Why, Mordecai Ham, of course at the First Baptist Church, Oklahoma City, September 1928. Ham’s preaching later saw Billy Graham converted.

Biggest SBC news of the week: Tom Elliff unanimously elected president of the International Mission Board. Says the 67-year old Elliff: “I’m not coming as an interim. I’m coming with a vision, and I will serve as long as God gives me grace and energy.” Fair enough. No one likes to begin serving in an important position while everyone around you is wondering when you’re going to retire. Let’s see the vision.

Weather's nice this afternoon...have a nice early weekend.

SBC presidents and the Cooperative Program

What shall we say about SBC leadership and their support, or lack thereof, for our grand Cooperative Program?

Here is a summary of the past SBC presidents and their Cooperative Program support over the past 32 years:
Less than 4%: Rogers, Smith, Stanley, Vines, Young, Elliff, Merritt, Graham, Hunt, Wright.
Above the contemporary average: Draper (7%), Chapman (11%), Henry (10%), Welch (15%), Page (12%).

Between 1979 and 1992, the year the Conservative Resurgence was effectively over, seven men were elected president. Only two of those were significant CP supporters, Draper and Chapman, and only Chapman’s church gave greater than what was held out as the standard at the time, 10%. I don’t recall either of them being elected on a platform of cooperation or CP giving, but rather on a platform of continuing the conservative takeover. For the entire period up to 2010, sixteen presidents have served. Only six of those gave average or above to the CP.

Since 1992, the convention has happily elected leaders who are not known for their outstanding CP support. Only Henry, Welch, and Page were above average, while Merritt, Graham, and Hunt were down in the 2% range. I don’t think you can find a greater contrast than in the election of last year where Bryant Wright, in the 3% range, defeated a candidate who was in excess of 10%.

Since the convention elected people whose CP levels were very, very low (Bailey Smith, 1% or so, Ed young the same, Stanley, Vines, Merritt 2% or so), one has to say that the Cooperative Program was clearly not an important factor for the Conservative Resurgence. Even in the years since the CR was completed, the convention has been quite comfortable in electing leaders whose CP levels are way below average.

I summarize these things because I keep seeing people who are dissatisfied with the giving of current leadership incorrectly interpret the SBC’s history of the past three decades. I think an honest view of the past would lead to the conclusion that the CR was not a boon to the concept of cooperation and to support of the Cooperative Program. The most salient of CP statistics, that churches give less and less of undesignated giving through the CP, is partly the result of the success of megachurch pastors like Rogers, Stanley, and Young in being elected to the SBC presidency in spite of low CP giving percentages.

For my part, a presidential candidate who shows strong support for NAMB, the IMB, and whose CP percentage is above the threshold of 3-4 percent is fine by me. In my book Bryant Wright is a very strong supporter of our cooperative work as Southern Baptists even though he may not meet the CP litmus tests of some. If we dismiss pastors like him and churches like his we will be a much weaker convention.

A future question to be considered: Why has the average church CP percentage been dropping for decades when almost all SBC pastors (87% in a 2007 survey) report that they are generally satisfied with the CP?

Cooperative Program Promotion: Deck Chairs Successfully Rearranged

The Cooperative Program is our titanic funding mechanism. Nah, not "Titanic" but "titanic." The CP will be with us always even though the grand old funding ship is riding a little lower in the water year-by-year.

The longest of long-term CP trends is this: churches give less and less of their offering plate dollars to the Cooperative Program. We might talk about a ‘tithe’ to the CP but the reality is that we're under 5% and are going south from there (though there are different ways to figure the percentage and some are higher).

As a part of the Great Commission Resurgence process, the Executive Committee was to drop CP promotion and let the states handle it. So, what’s the new plan?

The new plan is outlined here. The Stewardship Development Association (SDA), a consortium of state convention stewardship specialists, will do the heavy CP lifting.

SDA will be our preferred provider for production of stewardship and Cooperative Program materials," Page told the gathering in Nashville, Tenn. "You are much better at some things than we are. We can't keep doing what we've been doing."

SDA President Stan Smith said the partnership signals "a new day in the Executive Committee's commitment to partnering with state conventions."

I'm open to looking at this in a different way but is this new deck chair arrangement? More importantly, exactly how will the product be renewed? No one knows but further explanation of the new promotional package includes this:

The group also discussed rebranding the image and identity of the Cooperative Program with Kerry Bural, principle of The Resonate Group, a communication consulting agency based in Nashville. Bural and Page agreed that rebranding needs to be more than a slick marketing campaign. "It's not just about getting CP better known, but showing that it works," Page said.

OK, the new deal is a consortium of state convention employees with an Executive Committee staffer working with a consultant. The consultant "claims that his best work happens in java-infused creative sessions, when he’s divinely disturbed in the middle of the night or when he’s “in the zone” clearing some serious technical obstacles in the woods on his mountain bike."

Mix caffeine, cycling, and the Cooperative Program and you get...? Dunno. Take these comments as gentle and tongue-in-cheek, but our past forays into CP promotion have generally been by white headed, long-in-the-tooth former pastors. Can comparative youth, facial fuzz, and funky hair do what they could not? Again, dunno. His credentials are out there and impressive. We will see.

The CP is a great plan that has a couple of problems that are inherent and perhaps intractable. First, the flow chart is a bowl of spaghetti that few laypeople and a surprising number of pastors understand. Second, and this may be anecdotal just to me, by appending the term "missions" to "Cooperative Program" we devalue the former term. As long as two-thirds of CP money put in church plates is kept by states, you cannot call it missions. Check your state to see what is funded by the CP and is unashamedly called "missions."

If this consortium comes up with new bells and whistles, slick graphics, clever promotional materials yet ends up saying what every other CP study group has said in the past: "You churches just send us more money." You've lost.

I await the latest plan, brand, and image. I admit that whatever the high-powered consultant and weighty consortium come up with is better than my plan.

I don't suppose it would be fair to ask what all this is going to cost? Nah, guess not.

So, the IMB finally gets a leader - Tom Elliff

Tom Elliff, nominated to be the next president of the International Mission Board, is a former megachurch pastor, president of the SBC, missionary, and IMB VP. I have no reason to think he will not do well.

Why the trustees took so long to settle on him is puzzling, but then these are people who like to do things behind closed doors. Perhaps there are compelling reasons. The IMB and other SBC entities would not be hurt by a revival of openness and transparency.

One cannot fail to note that he would be the first IMB president without extensive and long term experience on the mission field. I didn’t look back beyond the time of B. J. Cauthen, IMB President from 1954-1979, but in the past half century no president was picked who did not have a career on the field. Cauthen was in China and before the Communists. His successor, Keith Parks, was in Indonesia for years before succeeding Cauthen in 1980. Jerry Rankin was likewise in Indonesia for years before taking the helm of the IMB in 1992. Seems to me that not having the degree of saturation in overseas missions that previous IMB heads have had is a minus for Elliff, even though he was in Zimbabwe for half a term. I suppose this will be a question asked of him.

We all have to endure comparisons with our predecessors and I admit to having a great affection for Jerry Rankin. When Rankin spoke it wasn’t the kind of bluff and bombast that many SBCers seem to love. Rather, he was always impressively grave and serious in his commitment to reaching the world for Jesus. I found his appeal to young people to give their lives to overseas mission service to be very powerful and unwavering.

If a year ago you got a glimpse of last week's headline, "Former Megachurch Pastor, SBC President Nominated As IMB Head", you wouldn't have been a bit surprised. "Nothing new under the SBC sun," you would say. The only wrinkles are that he is 66 and that the trustees took so long about it.

But whatdoIknow? I'm just a plodding SBC pastor who sacrifices every year so that we can make our Lottie Moon goal.

If Elliff is approved by trustees, a lead pipe cinch, he certainly have my prayers and support.

IMB, finally and Plodder's career change plans derailed

In a hurry this Friday:

The IMB finally has a candidate to replace Jerry Rankin - Tom Elliff, One wonders what took them so long to settle on an in-house, well-connected, former megapastor with some mission experience. Perhaps his age, 66.

Seems that elephants are behind a recent outbreak of tuberculosis. Plodder may have to reconsider his career plans to move from his mildly successful run as a cat herder to being an elephant handler if there is a risk of TB.

Speaking of elephants and TB, Plodder recommends that all SBC entity trustees immediately get checked for the disease. Most of them spend a lot of time in rooms where there are elephants, though they mostly ignore the pachyderms.

Had a couple of pretty fair fishing afternoons this past week and was reminded of Adrian Roger's axiom that "it is a sin to be soul winning when you ought to be fishing." Look it up. It's in the record.

Have a nice weekend.