David Crosby is the pastor of First Baptist Church in New Orleans and will be nominated for 
president of the SBC by former president Fred Luter. We have asked him the same set of questions we asked JD Greear and Steve Gaines. We thank him for his time in answering our questions.
1. Why do you want to be SBC president?
I think the primary reason the convention exists is to help us do world missions together. Our distinctive as Southern Baptists is that we voluntarily join our resources to accomplish greater things for Christ and the gospel.
I want to help facilitate the discussion about changes that need to be made in our structure and our funding process. I will speak as a pastor who has demonstrated deep and consistent participation in our cooperative missions effort. I will also speak as someone who has launched new initiatives and is interested in new ideas.
2. What do you hope to bring to the SBC over your tenure?
I call myself a “Jesus person.” At First Baptist New Orleans we are “Jesus people.” That means that we seek to keep our minds and hearts and mouths and actions under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and him alone. I want to call our pastors and churches to a new submission to Christ as Lord that transcends both national and denominational politics.
My commitment to missions is both cooperative and community-oriented. I hope I can give greater visibility to the necessity for community involvement by our churches. Our neighbors in need should be on our hearts, in our calendars, and in our church budgets. We have worked hard to create easy access to works of compassion for all our people. Many of them join us every week in the good work of declaring God’s word and incarnating his love.
If the world is to know Christ and the gospel, then we must be making disciples at home and abroad. We must enlarge the tent and increase participation in our cooperative efforts. If our cooperative mission effort is truly the best in the world—and I believe it is—then it should be attractive and exciting to our churches and our people.
I will bring my experience as a pastor, editorialist, and spokesman. And I will bring a history of overcoming problems through implementing creative ideas and building consensus to see them accomplished.
3. What do you want to see change in the SBC? What do you hope stays the same?
I think we have to look at the entire spectrum of our work together. Few of us would have chosen to bring home a thousand missionaries from the field. Had we been making these hard choices with a view to our entire work—local church, association, state, and national—I think we would have chosen differently. If I am right in that assessment, then we must have a wide and deep discussion about our priorities and the focus of our work together.
The average Baptist layperson gives their tithe believing that they are supporting missionaries around the world. That is the picture in their minds and hearts. We often plant those pictures there. We must be fiercely faithful to that expectation and understanding.
I hope that we continue the Cooperative Program as the funding stream for our work together. I can’t imagine how boards and executive could manage money without being able to create a budget and have it funded. Barnabas “brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet” (Acts 4:37). That is the kind of trust that is required for us to do our work together. We must trust the boards we have elected and the executives they employ.
Pastors know that they can raise money for emergency needs or special projects. But it is the church budget that we all do together. That’s what keeps things running at the local church.
The same is true in the convention work. We all have things we favor, things that are exciting and have local connections. But it is the unrestricted money that funds the strategies and visions of our entity boards and leaders.
4. What can you bring from your experience at First Baptist Church, New Orleans, particularly in the area of missions, to the rest of the SBC?
We who labor day after day in New Orleans bring a missionary perspective to our work, as you can imagine. It changes how you think about the church when you are viewed as an anomaly rather than a majority.
We are deeply engaged in our community. The recovery from Hurricane Katrina was a mammoth effort that took years and continues to this day in some ways. It required commitment not only to our local church but to the parks and playgrounds and community assets that were destroyed by the flood.
Katrina washed us out of our pews and into the streets and lanes of our city. We launched a new initiative called Care Effect that involves many of our adults in practical deeds of love for our neighbors. This involvement has connected us to people who are from different ethnic and economic backgrounds. Our work touches all kinds of people, and our church is becoming more and more diverse in its worshiping congregation. Not everything about that change is easy. But it makes us look more like heaven.
If churches are interested in becoming relevant to their communities, we can show them how it is done. We are in the prisons, nursing homes, among the hungry and poor, in the public schools, teaching English to recent immigrants, helping hungry children eat over the weekends, actively recruiting and training and supporting foster families, and ministering to employees in the strip clubs on Bourbon Street.
5. One of the most important things that an SBC President does is make appointments. What will be the primary considerations in that process for you? What role will Baptist confessionalism play regarding the BFM2000?
Our cooperative work has sufficient theological parameters in the BFM2000. I think board members should be ready to operate within those parameters.
Our boards and agencies need people at the table who represent the diversity of our churches and our mission field here in the USA. We need to hear their voices. We will do our best work together only if they are actively and consistently contributing to the development of our strategies and plans. I hope my appointments will reflect the wide-ranging diversity among us and in our communities.
I will seek to appoint Baptists from churches large and small who have a reputation that they love God and love others. I want to appoint people who are truly cooperative, who know how to speak their minds, advocate for their perspective, and submit to the will of the majority in order to get things done.
6. What is your perspective on the ongoing Calvinist/Non-Calvinist debate in SBC life? Will that affect your thought process in making appointments?
I believe that God is sovereign and humans are free and therefore accountable for their choices. Our Southern Baptist tent has included both camps since the beginning of our convention. We have not considered these views as heresy. We have defended the rights of one another to disagree on these matters.
We cannot resolve the theological conundrum of God’s sovereignty and man’s accountability. But we can resolve to work together and love each other for the sake of Christ and the gospel.
I will appoint board members who will operate our entities within the theological parameters of the BFM2000.
7. How do you plan to help facilitate the ethnic diversification of SBC leadership? In a nation that is growing increasingly ethnically diverse and with immigration being a major issue, how can a diverse SBC help give leadership to our nation in these areas?
I have the great advantage of having Pastor Fred Luter as my friend and counselor. He understands the opportunities and the needs as well as anyone I know. I hope to make this a matter of consideration from the very first as we seek to structure in the present for a future gospel strategy that is ever wider in its reach.
8. With the recent downsizing of the IMB overseas missions force, what can local churches do to both engage in mission themselves and help strengthen our collective work through the IMB?
The only way to strengthen the collective work is to give to the budgets of our entities. The best way to do that is through the Cooperative Program. I don’t know of a better way or a better plan.
Local churches must see the great advantages of a unified income stream for our work. Pooling our resources to reach the untold masses has made our mission work the model for evangelicals everywhere. Southern Baptists got this right back in 1925, and it is still right today.
I am ready to examine the length and breadth of our unified giving plan and the deployment of dollars. The International Mission Board represents the very heart of our work. We have some hard choices to make. I would rather make those choices with the entire fabric of our work laid out before us.
Nothing so inspires mission work like going yourself and lending a hand and a voice in a cross-cultural presentation of the gospel. I encourage our people to go as well as pray and give.
9. What role do you think the Cooperative Program and denominational giving should play in SBC life and our work together?
Our cooperative mission work is our life together. And the CP is our strategy for funding it. I think cooperation for the cause of the gospel is biblical and mandatory. Many churches do independent missions. There is nothing distinctive about it. What is distinctive about Southern Baptists is that they do missions together. That can and should remain our heart and our reputation.
10 The vast majority of SBC churches have under 200 people in attendance. What role do they play in SBC life? How can you help increase the involvement of smaller churches and their pastors in denominational leadership?
I live in the company of pastors in small and average-sized churches. I know their names and am familiar with their work. My church may be large to them, but my work as a pastor is very much like theirs.
I am deeply involved in my association. I believe that associational life is where biblical fellowship happens and where theological accountability takes place as an outgrowth of that fellowship.
Smaller churches are often the most faithful givers to our cooperative work. My father was pastor to a congregation of 40 people who led annually in per capita giving to the Cooperative Program. They set a high standard for us all.
Church members from small congregations should serve on the boards and agencies of our conventions. We need their perspective as we plan our work.
11. When you talk to young people and particularly young church planters, how would you encourage them to participate in the SBC?
Our church elected a 33-year-old woman to serve as one of the two messengers to our association. She is deeply involved in ministry and understands well the gospel work that we can only accomplish working together. I encourage young people to participate in our life together as Baptists, to value that collective life, and to embrace cooperation as a mainstay of our mission work.
We have a World Wall in our church lobby. It features missionaries with whom we have a personal connection. Their pictures are on display along with prayer cards. We ask our people, young and old, to pray for our missionaries.
We take young people to the international mission field and help them with scholarship money. Many of the 14 teams that have gone to Ghana in the last 6 years from our church have had young adults and even youth in their number. Our youth participate as a group in mission work both foreign and domestic.
12. What was life like during your time in the band with Stills, Nash, and Young? Have you worked to reconcile your public feud with Graham Nash?
Every time David Crosby ended up in jail someone taped the news release on my door. I am glad that my liver is healthy.
He made a stab at #9, but evaded the direct question about his feud with Graham Nash. Can he be trusted? 😉
Like.
I appreciated that he even took a crack at that one.
If he will sing “Southern Cross” at the convention I will vote for him and bring a bus full of our allotted messengers to vote for him.
Must be more 50s and 60s readers at this site than I thought.
Oh, well I forgot how ancient the moderator is. Makes sense now.
Said the guy who makes me want to fly like an eagle.
One thing we know, is that the moderator is 18 months and 2 days younger than Steve Miller.
Consider this….with his music industry contacts, the annual meeting could be a whole new thing!
These interviews are good, helpful, and appreciated.
Crosby says: “I want to help facilitate the discussion about changes that need to be made in our structure and our funding process.” I am keenly interested in this discussion and look forward to his elaborating.
He also said: “The average Baptist layperson gives their tithe believing that they are supporting missionaries around the world. That is the picture in their minds and hearts. We often plant those pictures there. We must be fiercely faithful to that expectation and understanding.” I’d like to know more about his thinking here. Have we been unfaithful to that expectation? How so?
And, ” We all have things we favor, things that are exciting and have local connections. But it is the unrestricted money that funds the strategies and visions of our entity boards and leaders.” The reference here is to the CP, I presume, and his statement is absolutely and fully true for state conventions; however, our major entities and mission boards are now funded by CP to about 1/3 of budget (varies with the entity), so CP isn’t the major driver of strategy and vision.
In the context of IMB downsizing Miller asked, “…what can local churches do to both engage in mission themselves and help strengthen our collective work through the IMB?” to which Crosby replied, “The only way to strengthen the collective work is to give to the budgets of our entities. The best way to do that is through the Cooperative Program. I don’t know of a better way or a better plan.”
I think the numbers conflict with Crosby’s conclusion on this one but I appreciate his statement that he is “ready to examine the whole length and breadth of our unified giving plan.”
The SBC president, whomever is elected this year, will be able to engage in these questions.
My guess would be along these lines:
My church gives 6% to the CP. Which means that for every dollar a person gives, maybe $0.015 actually makes it to the IMB.
So is the idea of the average church people accurate, and what do we have to do to actually mean more of that dollar goes to missions?
Yeah, I get the math. I was just surprised to hear it said and wondered exactly what he would say should be changed to address that. Perhaps it will be discussed further.
“These interviews are good, helpful, and appreciated.”
Glad we have this platform to do it. I think there is some opportunity to compare and contrast the three candidates, but I for one will by happy with any of these three men. Appreciate their willingness to be interviewed by our little group.
I left my laptop at the office and so I tried formatting on my iPad last night. Somehow it doesn’t work that well. I think I have most of the problems fixed but I’m not sure.
For your information, Google says your site has been hacked! There may be wailing and (g)nashing of teeth unless you sort it? 🙂
It’s been saying that for years, we have no idea why.
Was David Crosby part of a rock band? I guess I did not follow music that much. So would some of you guys who keep up what happened with musical groups fill the rest of us in? Who are Stills, Graham and Nash?
And Young? But it looks like he finally cut his hair.
Seriously? Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young is one of the bigtime bands of my era. Not one of my favorites, but bigtime nonetheless.
David Crosby and Graham Nash had a famous falling out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosby,_Stills,_Nash_%26_Young
My understanding is that a current group is going to cover at least 4 songs from CSNY’s original album, but giving some of them slightly altered titles:
– Teach Your Children
– Helplessly Hoping
– You Will Have to Cry
– Long Time Gone
– 1237 Bye-Byes
The group’s name is Clinton, Sanders, Trump & Cruz
Worse band ever. Lynyrd Skynyrd (greatest band ever) put Mr. Young in his place in Sweet Home Alabama:
“Well I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well I heard old Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A southern man don’t need him around anyhow
Sweet home Alabama”
I see your Skynyrd and raise you Zeppelin 🙂
Tyler,
Zeppelin’s music was just “full of hot air” with no real Rock substance.
Their music never had that strong “Free Bird” appeal to the strong, heartland music of rebel Americans.
They were another English band that just sorta stayed “Plant”ed on the same “Page” all the time.
Tyler,
Dave Miller probably liked Zeppelin ’cause they are like the Hawkeyes, “Plant”ed in the backfield with no options of freedom when facing an SEC FOOTBALL Nation.
“When you talk to young people and particularly young church planters, how would you encourage them to participate in the SBC?”
David Crosby should have answered, “Each church has a responsibility to ‘Teach, Teach Your Children Well’ the importance of the CP.
Ok, I’m done now.
I like this guy’s background, emphasis and what appears to be a strong sense of humility. I may vote for this guy.
If he is elected, I hope that his appointments would consider that churches who do Great Commission giving, including CP giving, are just as valid in the connection to the SBC. That has been formalized by Convention action. I hope that he would not focus only on CP percentages.
I wonder who these guys support for POTUS? That might make the decision easier. 😉
Les Prouty popped a link on SBC Today alerting us to the fact that you had run a piece on Dave Crosby. “Brothers, I saw the interview at SBC Voices with expected SBC presidential nominee David Crosby, pastor of New Orleans First BC. He is expected to be nominated by past prez Fred Luter. On the question of the Cal/nonCal debate:”
Out of interest I thought I would ‘stray’ across so to speak and take a look and was surprised to find more comment about Crosby Stills and Nash than David Crosby. Does this reflect a general level of disinterest on the forthcoming selection of President of the SBC or have I caught you at a bad moment?
Andrew,
Happy to have you stray over, as you say “Pravda” adding to the conversation.
What definition are you using when using “wag” as slang.
So here is the latest on David Crosby:
On Friday Graham Nash’s Memoir Helped Spark David Crosby Feud was a top story. Here is the recap: (Classic Rock) David Crosby has pointed to Graham Nash’s memoir as one of the reasons behind the pair’s two-year feud. Earlier this month, Nash insisted that Crosby, Stills And Nash were over, saying Crosby had been “awful” towards him over the last 24 months.
But Crosby says the content of Nash’s 2013 memoir Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life has contributed to their spat. He tells The San Diego Union-Tribune: “Graham’s book is full of inaccuracies and chock-full of misinformation.
“Wag” as in funny ha ha. Do you have a different meaning? I guess ‘wife and girlfriend’ might also fit, but context, as they say, is everything!
Andrew,
I had no guess in your use of “wag” that’s why I asked.
I have no dogs in this hunt (not a messenger), but if you spent a couple of minutes looking around at past articles, you would notice that a lot of the discussion has already happened on the Greear and Gaines threads. As a matter of fact, in my reading of the discussions, I think the general tone has been that most everyone is pleased by the choices they get to make. It’s a WIN-WIN-WIN proposition.
Now to be fair, Pastor Crosby does not have a lot of traffic because his answers are somewhat similar to the other candidate’s responses, which have already been parsed. There’s only so much variation a viable candidate can have.
I should have read the “source” thread first before I injected my “pollyannish” view.
Apparently some constituents suspect everyone as having evil motives.
Or they just consistently sing off Key and fall flat.
“There’s only so much variation a viable candidate can have.”
Tell that to Donald Trump!
I think, Mike, that what may have motivated Andrew more than anything was a simple desire to condemn us here.
I think that’s probably a safe assumption.
Maybe, Andrew, you should take your judgment and insults back to SBC Today, where you can insult us with abandon.
We share these interviews and we read them, and often they get quite a bit of social media sharing and reading (as this one has – hundreds of FB shares).
But the answers were simple and straigtforward – there wasn’t much to discuss here. So, if all you are going to do is insult us, Andrew, there are plenty back at your site who enjoy doing that.
You might feel more at home there.
You are welcome to discuss, but if all you want to do is bring self-righteous condemnation – well, there’s enough of that in the world.
Dave, I can assure you if I wanted to insult you … I could do better than that! I was genuinely surprised at the level of content. Pretty much in-house banter I guess, but no harm in that.
But then I noticed that in the link from Les Prouty he had tagged on his own bit “On the question of the Cal/nonCal debate:” which it turns out is well … a bit of misdirection from Les. He’s well practiced in that art form and I guess I should have known better 😉 From the comments made I see the discussion is the third in a series of similar discussions and has probably already run out of steam. I don’t think the Cal/nonCal debate has been much in evidence has it? I fully understand the need for some light relief although I would venture that David Crosby is quietly sick to the back teeth with people making remarks about ‘Graham Nash’! But I’m sure he’s too much of a gentleman to say so.
Your patience and forbearance is appreciated!
On the Graham Nash thing… We also asked Gaines about his gig with Lynyrd Skynyrd and Greear about the fake twitter account — just trying to keep things light-hearted and not take ourselves too seriously.
In fairness, I think the % of discussion of Fake JD Greear and Lynyrd Skynyrd was likely less in those discussions than the discussion of Graham Nash was in this one. Most likely, that has something to do with the fact that David Crosby waited until 3rd to announce. We’d discussed many of the issues previously.
Plus, frankly, Dr. Crosby said nothing that was controversial, that put him in contradiction to the other two, or that would foster great debate.
For me, the fact that he pastors a church of only about 2 to 3 times the size of mine is something that I find a plus.
Dave Miller,
For full context, here is what I posted at SBC Today:
“Brothers, I saw the interview at SBC Voices with expected SBC presidential nominee David Crosby, pastor of New Orleans First BC. He is expected to be nominated by past prez Fred Luter. On the question of the Cal/nonCal debate:
“5. What is your perspective on the ongoing Calvinist/Non-Calvinist debate in SBC life? Will that affect your thought process in making appointments?
I believe that God is sovereign and humans are free and therefore accountable for their choices. Our Southern Baptist tent has included both camps since the beginning of our convention. We have not considered these views as heresy. We have defended the rights of one another to disagree on these matters.
We cannot resolve the theological conundrum of God’s sovereignty and man’s accountability. But we can resolve to work together and love each other for the sake of Christ and the gospel.
I will appoint board members who will operate our entities within the theological parameters of the BFM2000.”
Rev. Crosby seems to me to have a very good and balanced perspective on the matter and considers both sides of the debate to be brothers and able to work together for Christ and the gospel. Amen!”
The reason I even posted it was there was a little debate going on about, you guessed it, Calvinism. A fellow named Ken had stated,
“Dennis Lee:
Chris wrote, “Brother, if you lived in my town… ”
Just a word of caution, Dennis Lee, brother, if Chris calls you “brother” he would have to mean “Calvinist brother” since he doesn’t understand or believe the way we do about how you and I became “brothers in Christ.””
Ken has danced all around actually saying that Calvinists are not brothers in Christ. He has surely intimated it. My point to quote from here was to show that this candidate, one who seems to me to be a godly pastor and not a flame thrower in the Cal debate, had said what he did. I was thinking, maybe we could all begin to show a little more brotherly respect given that this pastor seems to be able to do so. That was it.
Now I don’t know how that is deemed a “bit of misdirection” by Andrew. But as he says of himself, “…if I wanted to insult you … I could do better than that!” I have to agree with him on that.
I don’t really want to get into this, Les, but the reason I almost ever go to SBC Today is because the Calvinist/anti-Calvinist brouhaha just doesn’t interest me. If I wanted to engage it, I would. I don’t. So, I write about other things. They are free to do as they please at that site and follow whatever priorities and passions they desire.
I am aware that commenters there sometimes take pot-shots at us – usually people who have been restricted from this site because they cannot engage with civility or basic Christian decency. One guy who used profanity and has said some vile things to me is a regular over there and for a while was going after us pretty hard. I don’t know if the commenting policies have changed or if he is still berating us regularly, because as I said, I don’t go there often. I barely have time to come here.
I did not appreciate Andrew wandering over here to demean our site, especially when he clearly did not understand the dynamic of what was going on. This post has been shared on Facebook 244 times as of this writing. That’s hardly viral, but it shows that people are interested. There’s not a lot to disagree with or comment on, so the discussion has been lighthearted.
Honestly, are we going to have 50 comments on his 7% CP support? He gave good answers, but as someone else pointed out, the bulk of the discussion took place when JD announced, then when Steve Gaines came out.
But just because we’ve been horsing around in the comments is not fair evidence for Andrew to surmise that we do not take this election seriously. Between our 3 candidate interviews (we’ve given them all the same questions, except for the “bonus” question) we’ve had thousands of FB shares.
The one with the most right to complain, perhaps was Steve Gaines, who interview went up just before our site went down. That negatively affected distribution of his interview, but he still had some pretty good numbers.
I’m guessing if others announce, and answer our questions (we’ve determined to show fairness by asking the same core questions) the response in the comments may continue to be diminishing unless someone says something wildly shocking – which I hope they won’t.
All that to say that my preference is to let SBC Today exist in peace and to let us do our thing. People are welcome to engage at both, it takes all kinds.
Dave,
No need to explain it to me. They go at this site pretty hard over there. If I had any idea that Andrew or one of the other, shall we say “potshooters,” was going to come over here and try to stir things up I never would have made my comments. They don’t need encouragement to engage in those kind of antics any more than they already do. Obviously Andrew had no context and just doesn’t know what he is talking about.
As you know, I won’t have a vote. But Rev. Crosby seems like a godly man, as do the others, and his comments struck me as helpful to all.
There are only 2-3 of us who non anti-Calvinists who engage there regularly. The abuse comes in waves, but I keep hoping that some Christian decency will eventually prevail.
God bless.
I’ve never understood why you bother, but whatever floats your boat.
I actually find some of the articles quite good and worth engaging, but engagement in the comment section is nearly impossible. You can expect to be sniped at by the same 3 people over and over again.
In the three interviews, none of the candidates explicitly committed to nominating/appointing small church pastors, though I think Crosby came the closest.
I agree.
We were talking yesterday (our little unofficial Facebook group that publishes the “New Voices” posts) and I told them they were welcome to write a post in a month or 6 weeks endorsing one of the candidates.
I can tell you that I could not write such a post at this point. I would not know which candidate to endorse.
After reflecting on this one a little while, I’m wondering if the New Orleans connection might make some people a little uneasy. Fred Luter was immediately preceding Ronnie Floyd. It seems a little odd to me to have two pastors from the same city be SBC president in such close proximity?
That’s not to say anything negative about Crosby as a candidate in and of himself, or his answers here, with which I had no issue. Is geographical diversity a concern that enters the equation?
For clarification, I don’t mean anything about any connection to NOBTS. I don’t know if both or either Luter or Crosby is close to the seminary. I’m simply speaking in geographical terms. Pastors of two churches in the same city being SBC president so closely together.
I don’t see that as a factor.
Crosby is different from the other two primarily in that his church gives above the average to CP (Gaines and Greear are well below that average) and secondarily in that he is large church but not mega church guy.
I would think that his candidacy is reactionary and welcomed by state convention folks among others.
Gaines is pretty big in the area and is the usual kind of megapastor that gets elected.
Greear is easily the fav of the thirtysomethings and those who look to the future of the SBC and see something different than the status quo.
It will be interesting.
I think we can take our cries for diversity too far, to the point that we are looking for a lack of diversity under every rock. I have no issue with Crosby and Luter both being from New Orleans unless someone can give me a good reason why I should have an issue with it. I don’t know who I will vote for in St. Louis, and I have not ruled out any of the candidates yet. It seems that they each have strengths they would bring to the table as SBC President.
Yep
I honestly don’t know if that’s going to factor in.
For me, if I decide David Crosby is the best candidate, his home city won’t be the issue.
On the other hand, I could see it being a factor for someone. And votes are votes.