Sorry I missed sweltering St. Louis but I have enjoyed reading some reports from the brethren, especially the one from the first time attendee.
Here are a few items of lesser note that I thought interesting:
Ah, those spontaneous and deliberate motions from the floor:
- A motion by Andy Perryman of First Baptist Church, Washington, Ga., to amend the SBC constitution to make intentional cooperation with a state convention and a local association criteria by which a church is deemed to be in friendly cooperation with the SBC.
This was referred to the Executive Committee which, I predict, will report that no action should be taken on this. There have always been churches that were “at large” state convention members because they left or were kicked out of an association. An association has to take formal action to accept new members. My state convention gives a list of new churches every year but I don’t know if each is vetted or not. The SBC national doesn’t formally accept churches but formally excludes one every now and then. If we were to make some formal connection among the three, then leaving one would mean automatically being excluded from the others. Better to be a part of all three but without connecting any to the other, I think.
2. A motion by David Roberts of Sunrise Baptist Church, Midland, Mich., for the North American Mission Board, International Mission Board and LifeWay Christian Resources to study the possibility of working together or separately to fund campus ministries and/or campus ministers, particularly in areas underserved by Southern Baptists.
A motion by Michael Elsey of Ontwa Baptist Church, Edwardsburg, Mich., for the Executive Committee to appoint a study group to consider giving existing camps and conference centers affiliated with Baptist state conventions a one-time payout from Cooperative Program funds for the purpose of establishing endowments or developing physical properties.
These two were ruled out of order. The idea is, I suppose, that the Executive Committee is the recipient of a boatload of cash (they handle a couple hundred million dollars annually) and that maybe they could just allocate a few tens of million to state conventions to bail out state conference centers that can’t make it on their own. Aside from the fact that the Executive Committee’s total of Cooperative Program receipts are spoken for, every penny of the $180 million or so that they receive, the state conventions have far more revenue (about $300 million) from which to support their own conference centers. These conference centers and camps need to make it on their own through marketing and sales or stop operating. My state just shed itself of one of their two such facilities, one that was underutilized, out-of-date, and not in a place where it was easy to market.
Same approach to campus ministers. NAMB is busy starting churches, probably a better use of their funding than putting paid staff on campuses. LifeWay should sell books. IMB should put their funding among the billions who have little chance of ever hearing the name of Jesus.
The real money in the SBC is with the churches which had over $10 billion in receipts, $400 million more to spend than the last statistical year. Go to the churches and persuade them to free up some cash for conference centers or campus ministers.
About the fewer baptisms
So, SBC churches report 10k or so fewer baptisms. “God help us all…” said Frank Page. Thom Ranier said something like, “Thank God for the 295,000 who were baptized.” Ronnie Floyd made an interesting point about non-reporting churches. I think they are all right. Plodder’s baptism solution: Get SBC church members to have more babies. That will get the numbers up in 5-10 years. Demographics and birth rates matter.
The Vice Presidents.
Name one of ’em.
See you next year in hot, dry Phoenix…maybe.
In regards to your comment about NAMB and college campuses, campus ministers are currently funded by states for the most part. Many are great ministries. Many are not. It depends on the campus, the minister, the resources, and local church involvement—myriad factors play into this.
BUT…NAMB is actually starting to combine what they’re doing with planting and what states are doing with campus ministry. Enter the NAMB Collegiate Collective – http://collegiatecollective.com/ – We will have Brian Frye on SBC This Week soon to discuss more.
I remember some campus ministries also had a NAMB/IMB person for engagement of international students (e.g., Friends of Internationals ministry) as well as recruiting students to go on mission trips. I don’t know if that staffing still exists since NAMB increased their focus on church planting. I also have heard of some state funding for campus ministries being cut and either the ministry given solely to local churches in the college town or just merged with other organizations more designed for that type of parachurch ministry (e.g. Campus Crusade).
The first motion mentioned would be a disaster. I know there are in Missouri (and I assume it is as well in other states) that there are orthodox conservative churches (i.e. not liberal/moderate/CBF/ect) that are not apart of the local associations or state conventions because of political issues. Churches that support and contribute to the greater SBC world (IMB, NAMB, Seminaries, ect) but for various reasons do not want to (or are prohibited from) be apart of the local associations or state conventions. If an otherwise orthodox, BFM2000 supporting church, is prohibited from being apart of the SBC because they… Read more »
A church doesn’t have to affirm the BFM to be SBC. Some states and associations require it but not all.
I over looked that, most of the churches I am aware off in Missouri that are SBC aligned but not with the local associations and the MBC affirm the BFM2000, and yet because of other “political” considerations, they are prevented from local/state affiliation. Most have given up trying and are happy to continue with just SBC affiliation. At least until the political winds change. If however we can say that BFM2000 affirmation is not required for friendly cooperation with the SBC, than that even more so confirms the error of a motion like this.
What Muschany says is exactly right, but there is a deeper-seated issue with this motion which is that it flies in the face of Baptist polity. Baptists do not believe in a hierarchy of church bodies. We believe in local, autonomous churches associating together in autonomous associations. It is the right of each autonomous association to determine its own membership and the qualifications for its membership.
I’m not up on NAMB’s campus ministry activities. Thanks.
I guess those two motions could be addressed by noting that CP funds are not growing enough to launch new, expensive initiatives…unless money is taken away from existing ones.
It would be fascinating to see a graph showing both the Southern Baptist birthrate over the last 75 years and the baptism statistics.
The Metric must change. What the text calls for, commands, is Make Disciples. Using baptisms as the Metric has produced the glaring discrepancy of ’15 million members’, BUT, only 7 million ever show up. That is flat out tragic. A solid dose of humility and repentance concerning the TRUTH about membership may well launch us on the road to renewed effectiveness and fulfillment of the Great Commission.
I think there’s something to what you’re saying, Tom. A lot actually. I do think many churches are more accurately reporting thier rolls and attendance. I’m a believer that if one is baptized and never – or rarely attends – and has not involved themselves in discipleship they should not be counted as a member. I believe that those who profess faith to be baptized quickly – but I’m not so sure about the immediate adding to the church membership roll with that action alone. Perhaps it’d be wise to not bring persons into membership “numbers” until they’ve demonstrated themselves… Read more »