State conventions should add value, not guilt, to churches

...the value of a state convention will not be determined by the size of its staff, its building, its budget, or its programming. Value will be determined by one metric alone—investment in the local church. When we bring value to the church, we bring glory to God.

The quote above is not mine, although I have made many such statements over the past decade or so. These words are from the chief executive of one of our largest state conventions - Tommy Green, Executive Director-Treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention.

There have been times when it has seemed to me that the only tool in the toolbox of state convention staffers and leaders has been a single, blunt club whose design was to bring a feeling of guilt onto church pastors and laypeople over their level of Cooperative Program giving. That has proven to be an ineffective tool in the long haul, CP giving by churches declining slowly, steadily, relentlessly over the past several decades.

Thank God for a fresh, new approach to promoting one's state convention to the churches: bringing value to the local church.

SBC presidential candidate J. D. Greear has a blog, Conventional Futures, in which has this timely article by Tommy Green: Bringing Value, Not Guilt, to Local Churches: The Role of the State Conventions. I have found the articles and podcasts on Conventional Futures to be interesting and valuable in addressing things that will matter to SBCers now and in the years ahead.

It is not lost on many pastors that state conventions are in a tight spot, declining revenues, aging ministries and attendant physical plants, struggles to define mission, difficulties in showing exactly how value is added to local churches through the millions collected, budgeted, and spent by the state organization.

The energy and innovation in state convention seems to be coming from either (a) state conventions that have started fresh and new (Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, possibly the SBC of Virginia) or (b) states that have made rapid and drastic changes in their approach to doing their work. The Florida Baptist Convention is an example of the latter.

In my own state convention here in Georgia drastic changes have been made but mostly as a result of revenue declines. If changes have added value to the churches I am at a loss to explain exactly where or how. State staff are to an individual, solid servants of Christ who desire to help pastors and churches and I have always appreciated that.

As to my state convention's value, I offer this positive example. I was asked recently by a church near me to conduct a review of the church's finances, policies, and procedures. The source for sample policies, recommended best practices, and other resources is one of the offices of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. I was able to meet with church leaders, show them the results of my review, but also hand them sample policies and other documents to help them implement the administrative structures and controls needed.

Tommy Green, again:

When it comes to CP giving, we do not guilt our churches. I have not initiated any individual conversations with pastors concerning their church’s commitment to CP. I fully believe that the local church decision must be valued and honored by our SBC. The percentage a church gives is not the litmus test for our involvement with that local church. As a former pastor of a local church, I fully understand the nuances of resources, commitments, and factors that impact a local church budget. The state convention exists for the church and not the church for the state convention. Our goal is to bring value and not guilt to the churches of Florida.

My state convention practices the same thing: the church with the most tenuous connection to the GBMB, the church that gives only a token amount to the GBMB will receive the best the state staff can offer. That's the way it should be.

Cooperative Program and the new CEO of the Florida Baptist state convention

The only thing I invest in Florida is an occasional chunk of tourist money. The only thing I bring out of Florida is sunburn and a few fish. But I do think events concerning the Florida Baptist Convention are interesting, since it is one of the largest of the state conventions and one of the heaviest contributors to the Cooperative Program on the national level.

In 2014 FBC churches, through their state convention, sent almost $30 million to the SBC Executive Committee in Nashville to be allocated mainly to the mission boards and seminaries. In 2014 the FBC kept 58.63 percent of every CP dollar it received from FBC churches.

In the way most states present their accounting, they use certain traditional techniques to explain how a CP dollar is divided (often called the "split") between their state convention and the national CP allocation budget. The accounting always makes the split appear not to be as unfavorable to the mission boards and seminaries as it looks. I've always considered this accounting to be confusing if not mildly, though not nefariously, deceptive.

Florida has said that a 50/50 split is in the works. I have doubted it would ever arrive because of the accounting system, not that my doubts have any meaning south of the St. Mary's River.

But now Florida has a new Executive who is about a generation younger that their long-serving one who just retired. The new guy, J. Thomas Green, will present a budget this year to the FBC in session which, in his words, "will have a budget that gives away 51 percent and keeps 49 percent."

Goodbye, 59/50; sayonara, 50/50. So long, funny accounting. Hello, 49/51.

This reminds me of similar action taken by the new CEO in Iowa, a much, much smaller state convention. Their split was moved by a new CEO from 85/15 to a "true" 50/50" in one fell swoop. No more funny accounting there either.

Why the sudden shift? Why not slow and steady?

Green, who is 57, about two decades younger than his predecessor, said that the goal was in part to "get the 30-somethings and 40-something-year-olds back into the mix." He commented that the convention had been working towards a 50/50 split for five years and that "we need to do it immediately." He adds that the change is the right thing to do even if this doesn't accomplish what he expects or desires.

I would like the thinking of my new state CEO were I in Florida.

Here's a new executive who will start by having to cut funding in order to give Cooperative Program money away (not just toss it in the air but see that it gets outside the state and to the mission boards and seminaries) and do so in part because he thinks this will demonstrate serious change in thinking about the CP to younger FBC pastors who are not CP enthusiasts.

My anecdotal reading of attitudes is that younger pastors are general not engaged or enthused by the Cooperative Program and, when they find out how the accounting disguises the actual distribution of the funds, they move from mild apathy to cynicism and conclude that their mission dollars are better spent elsewhere. Perhaps others read the attitudes differently. I doubt that there are many who wouldn't recognize that the attitudes of younger pastors towards the CP do not bode well for its future.

Tommy Green, the new FBC CEO, may not have solved the problem but he has done something that will get the attention of his younger colleagues.

How much difference will it make?

No one knows but if I were a pastor in Florida, I'd like what I see.

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Interview of the new CEO in the Florida Baptist Witness: Tommy Green talks about everything...

Baptist21, younger dude Southern Baptist site interview: Beyond Fifty Percent: B21interview with Tommy Green