While I think the SBC could benefit from a little shake-up in how the convention is structured I am a little disappointed that most GCR conversations have to do with structural change.
Changing the structure can be good, but that does not get to the heart of the problem. How do we get to the heart of the problem? How do we get people out of their pews in order to live missionally?
One could say- preach missional living and live as an example. To that I give a hearty AMEN! But, that is just the stating place. What else can we do?
Somewhat going along with my first idea is the thought of churches not only “adopting” certain people groups, but there also needs to be an emphasis on church planting in our own communities and states. I know there are certain sects in the SBC that emphasis church planting, but in reality a very small minority of SBC churches actually plant churches. Church planting needs to be put on a larger scale.
NAMB doesn’t have to completely cease to exist, it can become joined with the IMB and its purposes can be reduced greatly. If the GCR task force started an initiative for churches to start intentionally planting other churches in their own states we could see great things happen. The SBC’s missions agency could then help local churches by purely funneling money and helping with on-site training. Hopefully, the type of people the agency would hire under my idea are people who have planted churches and have a heart for equipping other churches to plant churches and to equip planters.
What becomes of NAMB, exactly?
It does not have to cease to exist. We could combine the IMB and NAMB or we could just reduce/specify the role that NAMB plays.
NAMB would:
1) Equip churches and church planters.
2) Funnel money to church plants.
3) And little to nothing else.
This puts 90% of the responsibility in the local churches hands while at the same time giving the local churches much needed help in terms of training and finances. The Annie Armstrong could go very specifically to this cause.
I think when people start living missionally churches will start naturally. When people are sharing Christ with their coworkers and holding Bible studies in their house for their lost neighbors people will come to Jesus and churches will start. With this idea we will have two ways church planting takes place- organically and intentionally. I know those two things are fully separated, but for the sake of clarity it is easier to separate the two. For instance, while First Baptist Church intentionally plants a church in the next town over there would hopefully be other churches planted in their own back yard by having people living missionally amongst their neighbors and coworkers.
What can make this happen?
As I mentioned before, we do need to actively be preaching and teaching what it means to live “On Mission” for Jesus. Pastors, elders, deacons, and others need to be leading examples of what it means to live missionally.
We need a renewed emphasis on the gospel in our typical FBC. We need an emphasis on missional living. We need an emphasis on church planting. We need a GCR!
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Matt,
“I know there are certain sects in the SBC that emphasis church planting, but in reality a very small minority of SBC churches actually plant churches. Church planting needs to be put on a larger scale.”
I know that planting more churches is the sort of the “default” answer we all give to fulfilling the call for a Great Commission Resurgence… … … But is that all we really need to do (plant more churches) to see a true Resurgence of the Christian Faith in America?
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I do not believe that planting more churches in America is going to lead to a true Resurgence of the Christian Faith in America today!
Grace Always,
Greg
Greg,
I am also not saying this is the only thing. All I am saying is that this is one idea, one thing we could do in order to see a GCR.
Church planting is THE ANSWER. Getting people to live Gospel-centered missional lives is the answer. A result of that is church planting.
Severely ill people often lose the ability to reproduce. Many churches are so sick theologically, spiritually and methodologically that they just simply cannot or will not reproduce.
You can’t ask unhealthy churches to reproduce healthy churches.
We need to start with renewal in many churches.
You have a good point, Dave. We do need renewal in many churches. One thing comes to mind and that is that once we at least get people willing to go, they shouldn’t be prevented. Actually doing GC work results in good spiritual growth in the churches involved in fulfilling the GC.
Matt,
“Church planting is THE ANSWER. Getting people to live Gospel-centered missional lives is the answer. A result of that is church planting.”
Not trying to pick a fight with you on this brother… But if the above statement were true then the South would be “New Jerusalem”. I don’t disagree with the need to start new churches… Yes, Yes, YES we need to be starting as many new churches as we can. What I am trying to get everyone to consider (and apparently not do a very good job of it) is that perhaps we need to seriously consider the overwhelming need to start/plant Christian Schools as well as planting new Churches.
Grace Always,
Greg
Greg,
My apologies, that was supposed to say, “Church planting is not THE ANSWER. Getting people to live gospel-centered missional lives is the answer. A result of that is church planting.”
Matt, right on! Let’s streamline NAMB’s responsibilities to church planting and disaster relief. The IMB has already done this, with tremendous success I might add. If you are employed with the IMB, you must serve on a church planting team – everyone does. NAMB should streamline, whether it’s part of a combined missions agency or not, and focus essentially on church planting. In those states where there is already a critical mass of churches and resources, i.e. Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, etc. not a cent of NAMB money will get spent there. NAMB will then turn it’s attention to the frontier areas where there is not a critical mass or churches, resources and/or personnel and invest everything it has there.
Beautiful idea!
I like your idea there, Micah (and Matt’s). Why send massive NAMB dollars to Alabama, Mississippi and Texas? Iowa, Kansas/Nebraska, the Dakotas, Minn/Wisc, the Northeastern conventions and the Western – invest.
Baptist work is so different here in Iowa. There are almost NO cultural southern Baptists, and few Baptists in general. We are viewed as some sort of cult.
But every time an SBC church is planted and grows, becomes a part of their community and begins to reach people – that church adds credibility to the convention and becomes an outpost/lighthouse.
Micah and Matt – which one of you wants me to to nominate you for President in Orlando?
If you don’t want to get laughed at and mocked, you had better nominate Micah.
I just want to say AMEN to the 2 comments above. The last thing NAMB needs to do is throw a lot of money into Alabama! The Midwest and Northeast are in desperate need, clearly the South isn’t.
Dave, its funny you are somewhat regarded as a cult in Iowa. In Nebraska, at least Kearney, we get mocked for bringing up the SBC. Probably because of bad strategy every SBC church plant has fallen on its face.
Our church planting here has been plagued with failure as well. Often a good pastor builds a church up then leaves and the transition doesn’t go well. People either drift away or there is a big fight.
Iowa is littered with the wreckage of churches that have died because they fought with each other instead of the forces of darkness.
Dave,
A lot of the CP failures in Nebraska have been the result of bad strategy…
It’s looked like this: Some Director of Missions or Church planting dude that is paid by the State convention(Kansas-Nebraska) starts a “Bible study/church plant” and once it has a consistent core the DOM passes it off to a guy that hasnt been from the area as a part time job and the core group either doesnt connect with him or the guy leaves. It’s been pathetic.
There is some level of concern over the use of non-Calvinist dollars to plant Calvinist churches. Would this proposed structure continue to allow the local church the autonomy to reproduce churches consistent with their own theology or would the network itself review qualifications and commission the church planters?
Micah,
“In those states where there is already a critical mass of churches and resources, i.e. Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, etc. not a cent of NAMB money will get spent there.”
I understand where you heart is in this matter (seeing new churches planted in the frontier states), but the above comment is simply irresponsible. 1st – To carelessly assume that because the vast majority of Southern Baptist Churches are in the Old South there is little or no mission work left to be done in these states is far from the truth. The mission work to be done in these state is different for sure, but the need is no less great than the frontier states. 2nd – To limit the scope of NAMB to Church Planting and Disaster Relief only is gravely shortsighted. What of those countless souls that remain lost here in the South in spite of the fact that we have a Baptist Church on every corner? In the frontier states your challenge is reaching the “Un-Churched”, but here in the Southern States our challenge is no less great in trying to reach the “De-Churched”, and the lost generations who are a product of the “Secular Schools Experiment” in America.
Brother, you may feel there is nothing left for NAMB to do here in the Southern States, but I strongly disagree. I agree with you that, except on rare occasion, we do not need NAMB to help plant churches here in the Southern States… But there are many other areas of missions work here in the Southern States where the need is very real.
Grace Always,
Greg
no Greg, it’s not irresponsible at all – church planting is the job of churches, not mission boards. In those states where plenty of churches exist to do the work of church planting, they need to do so. We eliminate NAMB’s dollars going there and instead focus NAMB’s energy in areas where there are not churches with resources to do the biblical work of church planting.
Aside from that it’s my opinion that NAMB does not need to be involved in any other work other than church planting, with the possible exception of disaster relief as that needs someone on a national scale to coordinate. The failure of local churches to do their job does not need to be corrected by NAMB, it needs to be corrected by the local churches. Just because local churches are failing to do their job does not mean that NAMB needs to step in and clean up their mess. Evangelism, missions, etc. is the work of a local church. Florida, Alabama, Georgia, my state of Missouri, etc. don’t need NAMB to reach their state, they need their churches to step up and be biblical churches to reach their state.
Greg-
I just did a bit more research & found out that the Florida Baptist Convention took in over $39 million this year – compare that, for instance, with the Minnesota/Wisconsin State Convention which took in $454,094 this year for both states combined. Add to that the fact that Minn/Wis only has 10 employees for the entire state convention and you have a massive discrepancy. The truth is that Florida has all the resources it needs to reach it’s state and help reaching other states. NAMB money is not needed there, leaving it there only takes it out of the states where it really is needed.
At Matt’s request, I’m nominating Micah Fries for SBC President. I suspect you’ll get several dozen votes!
I think I can deliver that!
One thing we often miss in these discussions is the work of God in the hearts of his people. That’s why the discussion often devolves into mere discussions of programmatic development and structural changes. That’s not to say that it’s not a bad thing to evaluate the way we do things, but you can do all the right things and unless God moves, nothing will happen.
So we must first pray that God will mobilize his people. Then we must go according to the prompting of God, restructuring as we go according to the needs of the movement. Then we must invite people to come with us and develop programs with the appropriate lifespan in mind to administrate and facilitate others coming with us.
And I speak with some experience. This is what my church has done and we now have people from our church evangelizing and planting churches in most major countries and regions now – that we are supporting. And our budget remains in the black. We’ve been sending at least a tenth of our congregation on the mission field each year for the past several years and I would say that 30-40% of our congregation has been involved in foreign missions.
One other thing that we have started doing is once a month or every other month, instead of a Sunday evening service we meet and go out to our local communities with drive-by Bible and Jesus video distribution, medical clinics in poor neighborhoods, handing out free water at the soccer fields, playing basketball with the youth in neighborhood courts, prayer teams for people unable to go out, etc. – all for the purpose of getting to share the gospel. Interestingly, these seem better attended than our usual Sunday evening services.
But the point is that each church must develop a GC culture on their own and that can only happen with the movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of his people.
Any talk about GCR and sending more money to missions and unreached people groups has to start with cutting back the state conventions. Keep Associations and National Entities and trim back dramatically the bloated State Conventions.
This whole train of thought regarding our bloated state conventions seems a waste of time to me for the following reasons: (1) I don’t think the so-called bloated state conventions are consuming too many dollars, but even if they were, because they are autonomous they would have to admit this fact and voluntarily cut their own budgets, programs and staff, and since they don’t believe they are bloated this is something they will obviously never do and no one can make them. (2) I do think individual churches giving less than ten percent through CP is directly responsible for all missions funding shortfalls and since everyone is saying the local church must lead a GCR, then the bloated churches, many of them large megachurches, must prioritize CP giving over against their other ministries, but since they too are autonomous and do not believe they are bloated, they are not going to do this either.
If the GCR Task Force wishes to persuade SBC entities of their bloatedness, they would be wise to spread such an accusation beyond the state conventions to our institutions, churches and individual Southern Baptists. To the extent that state conventions are bloated, all of us are. Such a challenge would no doubt be more palatable at the convention.
Guys,
I’m doing research for an Audio Conference for Pastors with the G C R T F on March 16th. I’d be interested in what questions you feel still need to be asked of this task force? Some questions have already been submitted to our partner’s blog site (http://NoBAsbc.org). Look over the questions already submitted (see link in middle of page) and tell me what you think are the most critical questions to ask. I’d appreciate your insight.
SBC churches that have been going along aren’t gonna buy the GCR until the Ronnie Floyds of the world get up to 10% CP giving.
Churches like high percentage Dawson Memorial in Alabama as an example will cut their percentage and designate to state convention entities.
EVen Adrian Rogers son DAvid recent SBCimpact blog on the Idolatry of Politics implies Richard Land’s ERLC fronting as a PAC for Karl Rove should be slashed.
IMB trustees need to be cut in half to save half million dollars for missions as strong statement to struggling SBC churches the SBC is serious about better stewardship of their SBC dollars.
In clear language distance the SBC from the Tea Party and Birther movement. Have more integrity in the politics of the abortion debate
Engage in a civil discussion Leroy Treat’s new book about Fundamentalism and its lack of virtue.