From housecoats to statesmanship at the NAMB?

Kevin Ezell, who was on Sept. 14 appointed president of the Southern Baptist Convention's troubled North American Mission Board, along the way blasted bloggers who were critical of his selection:

Typically those are bloggers who live with their mother and wear a housecoat during the day. Just ignore them, but I apologize if you are hurt by anything that they might say about me or indirectly about you.

Enid, Oklahoma, pastor Wade Burleson, well known for his blogging, responded calmly:

One of the things that turns leaders into statesmen is the ability to be gracious to all, even those who criticize. Regardless of whether or not the proposed NAMB President has the temperament to handle the criticism that will come his way, it would be helpful for him to be gently reminded that it is both inconsistent and illogical to call his critics "bloggers who live with their mother and wear housecoats" and then "apologize for the hurt" those bloggers cause. Criticism from respected leaders hurts. To publicly disrespect the character of one's critics and then turn around and acknowledge their criticism hurts is a fallacy. It's best to either remain silent in the face of criticism or answer the criticism while displaying respect for the critics.

Leaders who turn into statesmen learn this lesson quickly. I am hopeful Dr. Ezell learns this lesson quicker than most.

Others were also unimpressed. Even infuriatedbemused.

Ezell appears to be somehow new to the Southern Baptist blogosphere. He really must adapt. It can get rough. He ain't seen nothin' yet.

[H/T to Burleson for the House photo pun.]

Cross-posted from WordPress.

Denominational secrecy is a pervasive 'insult to Southern Baptists'

Norman Jameson, editor of North Carolina's Biblical Recorder, gets right to the point:

Being a denominational journalist or any Baptist with a contrary opinion in the current era of Southern Baptist Convention upheaval sometimes feels a bit like a tick picker atop a rhino. It’s an important role, but the rhino is going to go where he will.

And nowadays, he gets there in secret.

His immediate concern is the closed-door session in which the SBC North American Mission Board on Sept. 14 "interviewed, discussed and voted on their new president behind closed doors."

The 37-12 vote hiring Kevin Ezell for that job was ferreted out, but not announced.

As Jameson argues, secrecy is the longtime, continuously destructive rule at the Southern Baptist Convention.

For example:

• Ezell's two predecessors were forced to resign in closed deliberations.
• An entire book, Misspending God's money, deals with otherwise secret expenditures under former NAMB president Bob Reccord.
• Baptist Salaries, known and unknown deals with how little is known to the public about compensation to executives like Ezell.
• Great Commission Resergence Task Force meetings were closed and recordings of the deliberations sealed for 15 years.
• The powerful SBC Executive Committee meets primarily behind closed doors.

We agree with Jameson that the result is destructive:

Baptists want to believe in the work of our institutions. We want to continue supporting them. Closed doors indicate a lack of trust in us. It is hard to support an organization that doesn't trust you.

Do Southern Baptists who refuse to put up with it have to leave the denomination?

Church planting: Waste or salvation?

Church planting has become a main branch of the Southern Baptist Convention evangelism strategy, but a North Carolina pastor who ran for SBC president last year has raised serious questions about whether it should be.

Les Puryear, pastor of Lewisville Baptist Church, using statistics compiled by the SBC's North American Mission Board, says that the convention spends about $100,000 over the first four years of a "planted" church's life, yet 32 percent of new churches don't survive for four years.

As a result:

If $1 million is invested to plant 10 new churches, $320,000 of that investment will not result in a viable, healthy church.

Without citing a source Using statistics from from the SBC Annual 2008 Book of Reports (p. 123), Puryear cities an NAMB church planting budget for 2008-2009 of about $22.85 million (a graphic on this page of the NAMB web site shows the 2008 budgeted expenses for church planting to be $24.4 million). Puryear calculated that about $7.31 million is being spent on churches that won't exist after four years.

The new churches that survive for four years average 85 in attendance and have baptized 48 people.

Puryear compares that to his first four years at Lewisville, when 51 people were baptized.

"Thus, my 127-year-old 'traditional' Southern Baptist church has a higher average baptisms per year than does the average new church plant. I provide these stats not to glorify my church but to demonstrate that established, traditional Southern Baptist churches can be viable places of reaching the lost."

SBC records show that in 2008, the convention's 44,848 churches (newly 'planted,' dying, thriving, etc ...) baptized 342,198 people, an average of 7.63 per church.

Ed Stetzer, who is now president of LifeWay Research, cited similar figures in a 2003 article called "The Most Effective Evangelistic Strategy Under Heaven." The article, which was adapted from Stetzer's book, "Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age," quotes noted church growth author C. Peter Wagner as calling church planting "the single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven."

Stetzer goes on to cite research that new churches average about 14.4 baptisms per year for every 100 people in regular attendance in worship while churches that are 16 years old or more baptize about 7.3 persons per year for every 100 people in attendance. He calls new churches "a gift of evangelism."

"Without church planting, our denomination will decline; but more importantly, the number of Christians in North America will continue to decline. If we love God's Kingdom, we must love church planting."

Church planting has been emphasized in the SBC since well before Stetzer's article. Although the strategy has on occasion been problematic.

The Overseas Leadership Team for the SBC's International Mission Board adopted a vision statement in 1998 to guide the IMB's missionary force.

"We will facilitate the lost coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ by beginning and nurturing Church Planting Movements among all peoples."

The IMB defines a church planting movement as "a rapid and multiplicative increase of indigenous churches planting churches within a given people group or population segment."

By 2000, the IMB was discouraging volunteers from constructing church buildings overseas and instead moving them toward church planting efforts.

The IMB claims that its missionaries were responsible for more than 25,000 church starts in 2007, but the board's numbers are thought to be inflated and in some cases fabricated.

The SBC's North American Mission Board see its role as helping Southern Baptists fulfill the Great Commission "through a North American strategy for sharing Christ, starting churches and sending missionaries."

NAMB even has a web site it calls a "one-stop shop for church planting."

The SBC's seminaries emphasize church planting. The Nehemiah Project, which put a professor of church planting on each Southern Baptist seminary campus, started in 1998, according to this time line.

Members of the convention's Great Commission Task Force, which is studying ways the SBC can better accomplish the Great Commission, have talked about the importance of church planting. Danny Akin, the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and a driving force behind the task force, has called for a church planting strategy "that assaults the major population centers of North America."

"Why we plant more churches in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee than we do in New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington and California is absolutely incomprehensible to me."

The Great Commission Resurgence Declaration calls for "new churches in unevangelized areas of North America, especially the great urban centers," and for the revitalization of existing congregations.

"We long to see a Convention where every church is a church planting church in its unique Jerusalem, its Judea and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth."

Ronnie Floyd, chairman of the task force, said at a recent question and answer session that the group's report "will ring the bell for church planting."

I believe charging out of the gate of our report will be a real commitment to Gospel churches planting Gospel churches planting Gospel churches.

In his blog post, Puryear says he is "not anti-church planting."

"And so, is church planting the best way to reach the lost? I'm not certain that church planting is the 'best' way, but it is one effective, though expensive way."

In addition to church planting, Puryear said he'd like to see NAMB emphasize helping existing churches.

"Pursuant to such a goal, I would like to see NAMB establish seminars, conferences, study courses, etc., to help the local church learn how to develop strategies for reaching the lost. I hear many missionaries talking about outreach strategy, but I never see anyone teaching pastors and leaders of the local churches how to develop outreach strategies. If NAMB or someone else would develop such training, I would be the first in line to attend. Also, I would happily pay for such training. We train missionaries how to develop strategy. Why cannot we train our pastors?"

More fog about NAMB's future

Stay in the dark, Southern Baptists.

Great Commission Resurgence Task Force (GCRTF) member Ted Traylor told the Florida Baptist Witness that he “did some serious thinking” about the prospect of simultaneously leading the North American Mission Board (NAMB) presidential search committee.

He of course accepted, thus raising again the keystone question:

Will the troubled NAMB be merged with the troubled International Mission Board?

Traylor acknowledged speculation the GCRTF may recommend merging IMB and NAMB or creating one new mission board to replace the current mission boards, but said, “I also know what is being discussed in the GCR meetings. However, I do not believe it is my place to discuss those things until we come to some solid conclusions.”

We already know SBC chief Johnny Hunt doesn't want anyone to talk about the fate of the recently troubled and, a well-respected Southern Baptist leader says, misconceived agency. So GCRTF members go on filling the air with fog.

Addendum

Read the entire story and you will see Traylor either isn't reading or has decided not to heed Wade Burleson's warnings against attaching God's name to our decisions.

Whither straight GCR answers?

Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt thinks state baptist newspaper stories about North American Mission Board/International Mission Board merger are "ludicrous."

Meanwhile Ronnie Floyd, the chairman of the Great Commission Resurgence task force. is feeding that ludicrous fire.

Floyd reportedly told the Florida Baptist Witness three times in a recent email interview:

. . . the search committees of the respective entities should be "very prayerful and watchful of the work of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force" when asked if the GCR Task Force may be considering recommendations that could alter the structure of those entities.

Now what do you suppose he meant by "alter the structure" of the NAMB and/or IMB?

Clarification was sought by the Baptist Witness. Asked to if the retirement announcements of Jerry Rankin (IMB) and Morris Chapman (CEO of the SBC Executive Committee), and the forced resignation of Geoff Hammond (NAMB) indicated a restructuring, Floyd said:

"These developments have clarified that God is doing something among us and we need to be intentional on finding out what He is doing and joining Him in it."

Okey-doke.

Still needed: Straight GCR answers.

Unspinning Lifeway/North American Mission Board survey

Spinning a survey which shows evangelism is surpassingly difficult, the Southern Baptist Convention's (SBC) LifeWay Research and the North American Mission Board (NAMB) both say "most people would attend [church] if invited in the right manner."

The sometimes credibility-challenged NAMB commissioned the survey in preparation for its national "God’s Plan for Sharing (GPS)" evangelism drive, to be launched in 2010.

Buried in the body of the "spun" NAMB summary is a plain statement that the survey of more than 15,000 adults in December 12-22, 2008, found that "personal invitations from family members or friends is the only method that a majority of Americans say would effectively draw them to church." And by ubstituting could for would and you get a straight, unspun lede for the story.

Your see, presentation data provided by Lifeway director Ed Stetzer shows that 34% of those surveyed are "somewhat willing" and 22% are "very willing" to receive information from a friend or neighbor about a local church or religious community. From family members, it's 37% and 26% respectively.

"Somewhat willing," the largest positive group in both cases, may include everyone who is willing to listen politely, rather than either change the subject or just get up and go home.

A little field experience with these conversations will teach almost anyone that it is a long step beyond persuading wayward family members and neighbors to (perhaps impatiently) receive information, and having them show up at church.

The friends (22%) and family members (26%) who are "very willing" to listen aren't necessarily willing to attend church in response either.

That may be why "Baptists like to talk more about evangelism than to actually do it," as Stetzer put it. A lot of Baptists are likely to have had had ample try-and-fail experience with unchurched family members, neighbors and others. Especially, as the survey suggests, others.

If GPS is a hard sell, the current difficulty of evangelism isn't the only reason. Years of controversy over SBC numbers -- not just the NAMB but also the International Mission Board and some state organizations -- make this a good time to be as transparent as possible.

Actions like Stetzer's provision of additional data [PowerPoint] are the best medicine for skepticism. As former North Carolina Biblical Recorder Editor R.G. Puckett often put it, "Tell the truth and trust the people."

Will Baptists help the Women's Missionary Union?

The fundamentalists vs. moderates theology war tearing apart the Southern Baptist Convention has come to the SBC Women's Missionary Union as painful retrenchment.

Wade Burleson wrote on Dec. 12:

Day before yesterday, the employees of the Woman's Missionary Union were called to a meeting to announce difficult but preemptive measures that were being taken due to the economic downturn. The WMU is short two million dollars in revenue. The executive director of the WMU, Wanda Lee, is working very hard to keep all of the WMU's employees in place, not wanting to lay anyone off. To accomplish this, the employees of the WMU are having to take what amounts to a four week furlough, spread out over an eight month period, without pay.

The problem is as much by design as it is a result of demographic change and the effects of our current economic difficulties.

The theologically moderate WMU refused to come to heel when SBC fundamentalist leadership whistled, so funding has been progressively cut off and sustaining work taken elsewhere in a process which from the outside looks like deliberate destruction of a historically sustaining institution.

The WMU's Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions and the WMU's Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions bring in hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board, respectively.

In return the WMU until recently received reimbursements from both organizations. But after some maneuvering which included an attempt by the NAMB to strip the WMU of the Lottie Moon trademark, both contributions have been sharply reduced and one is being phased out.

Burleson details the history of WMU sustenance of key Southern Baptist institutions, a part of which was a Great Depression bailout of what was then the Home Mission Board.

He in effect calls for Southern Baptists to come home from the theology wars to their consciences in this matter when he writes:

I imagine the WMU will not publicly wave a flag, asking for Southern Baptists to step into the gap for them. However, in my opinion, this is a true test for those of us identified as Southern Baptists. Will we now turn our backs on WMU when they are at a low point, financially?

In the history of what has been called the SBC conservative resurgence, that apparently would be an unprecedented denominational turnabout.

It is unlikely.

Misspending God's money

Stop Baptist Predators makes superb use of Mary Kinney Branson's book Spending God's Money to illustrate how key Southern Baptist Convention organizations are abusing the trust of faithful contributors.

Branson is a former marketing director for the SBC's North American Mission Board and her book is "an insider's account of the extravagance and financial mismanagement there."

Christa Brown writes:

Branson provides details that implicate high Southern Baptist officials and those details are not flattering. For example, (NAMB President) Bob Reccord “had a $1 million fund he could use at his discretion, no questions asked and no receipts required.” (Branson at p. 61)

Can you imagine any other organization that would allow an official to spend such sums with so little oversight? According to Branson, that $1 million fund was replenished each year, and in Reccord’s last two years, the fund was reduced to $350,000. In other words, the money didn’t just sit there. He spent it. “No receipts required.”

When Reccord resigned, 41 Southern Baptist leaders signed a letter, praising Reccord and essentially whitewashing his “undisputed misuse of funds.” (Branson at p. 18) One of those signers was Johnny Hunt, who is now the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Another was evangelist Jay Strack.

According to Branson, after Bob Reccord left the North American Mission Board, “auditors discovered that payments were being made to evangelist Jay Strack ($300,000) and Bob’s mega-pastor Johnny Hunt at Woodstock Baptist Church ($92,000). Final payments were sent after Bob resigned but before he left the building…. There were no written contracts. So nearly half a million dollars was paid to Strack and Hunt through verbal agreements with Bob.” (Branson at p. 113)

Brown's entire piece also deals with the Baptist General Convention of Texas "Valleygate" scandal and a great deal more.

It deserves to be read in full here.