Amuse yourself with over 28,000 articles on “death of denominations” and then do some sober thinking about the closest thing to a denomination to the average Southern Baptist pastor: his state convention.
Our beloved International Mission Board might be the latest to implement severe cuts in employment levels. Their August bombshell declared that 600-800 personnel would have to leave for the organization to have a viable future, one where the bills could be paid. This is an 11-15 percent cut in staffing.
That level of cutbacks looks pretty attractive to many state conventions. I’ll just mention Georgia and Florida. While it’s tough to get firm numbers on staff, I’ll make a conjecture that 50% cutbacks are closer to the norm for state conventions. None of the SBC level entities have dealt with cutting their staffing in half.
Here in Georgia a “reinvention” is underway in which
- We change our name from the commonly used, “Georgia Baptist Convention” to “Georgia Baptist Mission Board.”
- Our leader declares, “We are a missionary sending agency in Georgia.”
I’m OK with changing the labels, although some may confuse us with NAMB and IMB in our identification as a “sending agency.” The new GBMB has staff that serves GBMB churches and our common support “sends” these people around the state. Give me time to grieve the loss of the old “GBC” which rolls easily off the tongue and keyboard. “GBMB” is rather wooden, though just as toothy. I understand the desire to brand the GBC/GBMB as a missions enterprise.
- We decentralize, sort of.
GBC workers are high-mileage travelers. I have no complaint about any of them. Several have helped me immensely. In the future there will be a centralized staff but one that is supplemented and multiplied by “field based personnel”, clergy and church staff who are on a retainer to do stuff for churches. A suggested stipend of $1,000 per month, paid by the GBC, for a year’s worth of consulting. Resumes from church staff are now inundating the state convention.
The last time I needed guidance from a GBC expert on a specific church project I had to retain the employee on his spare time for a couple of thousand dollars. The GBC paid his salary, trained him, and gave him skills in demand of the churches. My church had to pay him to do the job. Maybe the field based people will do tasks like this for the churches without charging. We will see how this works out.
- We sell the building, maybe.
The last grand hurrah of the showpiece, centralized, first class denominational office building is the Georgia Baptist Missions and Ministry Center in Duluth. No state has a finer one. We’re closing it on Fridays and it “could” be sold for the right price to the right customer. The staff could move to more modest headquarters and excess funds put in trust for use in the state.
- We give the SBC an additional 2%
The GBC had their $25 million building debt paid off, indirectly, through the sale of hospitals we used to own. Half of the savings on debt service will go to SBC ministries. IMB gets about a quarter million additional funds. We use the other half here.
In our sunny neighbor state to the south, Florida, The Florida Baptist State Board of Missions, is downsizing and decentralizing.
- Statewide employees will be reduced from 115 to 61.
This is serious business. The savings from paying staff will raise the…
- SBC share of Cooperative Program revenues will go from 45% to 51%.
I believe this will but the FBSBM ahead of all other legacy state conventions is the CP “split.” I’m shocked at the rapid movement to give away CP revenues to the mission boards and seminaries. This is impressive.
- State staff will no longer take interim pastorates.
The new executive says what should be obvious to every state convention leader: having state staff take interim pastorates keeps them out of other churches. Want to get the average, loyal, supportive SBC pastor riled up? Start a conversation about these interim jobs.
- “Decentralization, regionalization and personalization” is the concept.
Some staff will live in various regions. The idea is a “new delivery system.”
Will changes such as these slow the death of the state convention?
I hope it hastens the death of the centralized state convention. When you can ask pastors what their state convention means to them and immediately get a variety of concrete, positive answers, then perhaps the obituary state conventions can be said to be premature.
The fact that GA is calling itself a “Mission Board” – and the history of tense relationships with current leadership – has led to some fears that this is a move to form a shadow denomination – something like the BGCT tried a few years ago. I hope your more positive take is the real story. I’m a little confused. Are you saying that GBC is moving to give 2% more or is that your suggestion? (The initial suspicions I heard were that this would lead to them keeping a greater amount to do their own missions efforts – sort… Read more »
Don’t have the link with me but the GBC had about $1.2m in debt service and are giving half of that to the SBC part of the CP.
Our convention is referred to as the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions. ALSBOM.com. I don’t think we’re planning on a shadow convention here.
Several state conventions have “mission board” or “board of missions” or similar as their name. i am unaware of the GBC/GBMB doing anything to compete with IMB. Routinely, states do church planting and offer degrees that compete with the seminaries.
I am open to someone telling me something I don’t know.
Thanks
Kudos to Florida! Decentralization is the way to go. There’s no better way to be beneficial to churches throughout the state then to have state convention employees living in the region for which they are responsible and very accessible to the pastors and churches. Technology allows for communication with the central office regularly without them having to be on site. I think the biggest thing that state conventions need to always remember is that they exist to help the churches Carry out their ministry – the churches do not exist to sustain them. It seems many state conventions get that… Read more »
The percentage of 51 – 49 in FL is in real money with nothing hidden. It will result in an over $1 million more to go to IMB and over $500,000 more for NAMB.
The downsizing will also result in more money be freed up to do ministry in Florida itself.
This good work is the result of calling Dr. Tommy Green as our new exec.
Here is the video presentation that he gave throughout the state: http://www.flbaptist.org/news/articles/green-shares-conventions-new-direction-florida-baptist-pastors/
Wow! This girl s really good news! Double and triple kudos to Florida! “The Convention will return to a Biblical approach in church planting, with churches—not the state convention—planting churches. “We are not getting out of the church planting business,” he stressed. “We are just changing the model.” He believes with the changes in percentages earmarked for the SBC in 2016, churches will increase their CP giving. The decrease in giving was once attributed to the downturn in the economy, he noted, but it is “no longer a financial matter, it’s a philosophical matter.” “As the Cooperative Program dollars increase… Read more »
*is really good news….
Tarheel, You are exactly correct on the SBCV. As a pastor in VA for 10 years I have watched the SBCV evolve for the better. They went to decentralized staffing a few years ago, they sold a bigger executive office and moved into a more modest office, and they incrementally lead the state to a 51-49 percent split with 51 percent going to the CP. The results have been that churches have better, more frequent contact with SBCV staff, when the SBCV calls for their churches to look for ways to step up CP giving it is more received because… Read more »
If you folks knew your Baptist History, you would find that the big fight between the Primitives and the Missionaries was over societies, boards, and conventions for which the former could find no biblical justification. The forces pushing such developments helped shove the Primitives into their fatalistic attitudes (although not all, as some Primitives had missionaries. I even heard of a Primitive Baptist dental missionary in Haiti back, I think, in the 60s). I have to admit that the arguments against such organizations are much more persuasive, and all the more lacking in the power to offer biblical alternatives than… Read more »
In recent days the questions for me have become: (1) how serious is serious (2) what should our priority be as a denomination. If we are in a financial “slump” then disregard everything that follows. We will probably pull out of it as we have in the past. If we are burning the furniture and the denomination is at stake then the following comments become real issues to me. (1) Do we really need 6 seminaries. With swift travel, on line learning, etc. could we not do as much with less institutions? (2) Do we really need NAMB? Could not… Read more »
Well said.
DL – thou art a wise, wise man. Great thoughts!
1. “Six seminaries”? No, but in my lifetime and yours that’s the number we will have…too much political power. 2-4. “NAMB”? Yes. Among denominational entities, NAMB has the most successful ‘reinvention.’ A good many things have changed there. 5. I think this is where some thinking is changing. SC staffing has been reduced drastically and the idea of a centralized office filled with specialists has lost some favor. 6. State execs will say that IMB gets all of Lottie plus about 1/5 of CP giving, which shows priority. There is a good response to that argument. 7. States are moving… Read more »
To much political power with the seminaries, no doubt true. And great evidence that we have a very long way to go. If cuts basically have to happen everywhere, from the state level to IMB, when it begins to happen in these sacred pillars, maybe we’ll have something.