(The SBC Plodder has been ruminating and cogitating, and has some wisdom to share with us.)
In the past decade or so, it seemed that you couldn’t type or say the words “North American Mission Board” without appending the word “dysfunctional,” or worse.
In my view things have changed and I support the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering without the serious reservations that I have had the past few years. Evidently, others feel the same way since the AAEO was significantly up for 2011.
NAMB has been the SBC’s main newsmaker the past few years and I know of no SBC entity that has undergone such substantial changes in personnel, overall strategy, and budgetary allocations.
Not everyone likes everything about the new NAMB. I may not like everything about the new NAMB.
NAMB has a website, of course, and on the site there is a page labeled
That sounds pretty pedestrian but in it they attempt to do something novel in SBC life – answer questions. Topics include the church planting strategy, the role of DOMs, and other subjects.
What is more novel about it is that they allow comments and NAMB people even answer some of them.
Contrast that to the Arkansas Baptist article that was so critical of NAMB and where comments were not only disallowed but some (as stated by a commenter here, I haven’t confirmed it with the paper) deleted. It’s their paper. They can run it like they wish. But honest conversations about disagreements in funding, strategy, personnel and the like ought to be had, and they look to me to be more likely at NAMB than at the Arkansas Baptist News.
Bloggers like to take some shots and I do my share, I suppose. But I rather like it when I ask a question or make a comment about something in the SBC, in my state convention, and people listen and respond.
I’m thinking that the latter approach is more profitable than the former.
I’d humbly recommend that folks in Arkansas, or Alaska, or wherever try it.
I love the idea that they are being more responsive.
NAMB seems to really be taking the right steps.
Kevin Ezell is proving to be a great leader and do a wonderful job.
I’m not sure everyone in state conventions would necessarily agree, but I think William’s points are very well made.
They will either learn to be more responsive or they will find themselves sans a lot of supporters. The same holds true for many other of our institutions as the stress of loss of favor in public perception becomes more and more evident. There is a movement afoot to dislocate, disenfranchise, and distress believers. What has worked in Europe and England is not being applied here, and the effect will be devastating unless we have another Awakening to offset the tremendous increase in the power of forces utterly inimical to the Gospel and its adherents.
The thing that I really appreciate about NAMB, which I am honestly surprised to see others seem to criticize, is that they really get the fact that God’s plan is best fulfilled through the local Church, not the local association, the state convention, or even the Convention. The SBC rises and falls on the strength of our local Churches. NAMB is hoping to plant as many as are dying daily. Unless we fix that (and soon), we won’t be around as a Convention to argue about where the money is going.
I am encouraged about NAMB for a number of reasons and have said so on occasion.
The idea that God’s plan is best fulfilled through the local church, not association, is not an axiom in my view. There is a very long and significant history of local churches forming associations and doing God’s work, including church starts.
I was surprised to see from NAMB’s FAQ page that they fund, fully or in part, 28% of ALL the DOM’s in the SBC. I’ve worked with some of these from New England, the Midwest, and West Coast and their work was to help church starts. I note that NAMB is changing the job description for all of the ones they fund to “church planting catalyst” and that makes good sense to me.
I once spend a very nice few days with a DOM whose area was an entire New England state. He was a church starter sans parallel and that was about all he talked about.
William-
Two posts in a week about Arkansas and NAMB. You have said over and over that you have nothing personal here but I am struggling to see that.
You said in this post that you have not confirmed with the Arkansas Baptist News concerning the comment stream. Just a wild suggestion – perhaps before painting the paper and our convention as one closed to dialogue, why not just pick up the phone and call the editor. You appear to have built this post on the comment stream from your last post. Despite the poor foundation of the post (what someone told you in a commet stream), this has made it to the sbcvoices page.
The ABN may have taken off pro-NAMB statements – I don’t know. But please, next time, at least pick up the phone before you paint the paper and our convention as closed to debate.
Being a news site and not just a blog site, it’s possible that the ABN treats the comments section more like a “Letters to the Editor” segment and verifies the identities of those who leave comments. That is what happened the last time I commented on a story there: I received a confirmation message to verify that the email I used was accurate.
It’s possible that no nefarious intent is involved in the comment deletion. You’d have to verify that with the editor–but you’d have to be willing to believe what he says about it.
Given that the front-page article synopsis features a “For more info…” link directly to Kevin Ezell’s blog, it is a little odd to proclaim them as only providing one point of view. Unless Ezell’s blog is the same view as Turner’s, that is.
I guess I’m biased as an Arkansas pastor, but I didn’t see that article as vehemently anti-NAMB. I saw it as the explanation of how life will go on in the ABSC even if we get no NAMB funding. That was just my reading, though.
Perhaps that’s the best answer in general: no NAMB money to any legacy SBC state conventions. And no NAMB work in any of those states. Because there’s no example of NAMB doing anything worthwhile in Arkansas or Georgia or Alabama or Kentucky, right? Oh, there is—from disaster relief to ethnic ministry to helping churches learn to plant churches, NAMB is supposed to be working in all of North America north of Mexico.
And somehow, there has to be a way to work together so that NAMB and the ABSC or the GBC or ASBOM are not spending money on duplicated efforts. Which way makes more sense? That we send all the money to Alpharetta and wait to see what they do with it and then stay out of their way? Or that they send some back with a note saying: here is what we want to see happen, let’s make plans together to make this happen?
One of those sounds like cooperation.
I don’t always agree with NAMB, but I don’t always agree with anyone. . . except Jesus. I have worked with NAMB, for NAMB and along side NAMB. They make some mistakes. Dr. Ezell hasn’t always done things that I think I would do if I was in his place. On the other hand, they are open, they are working on transparency and they are doing their best to further the work of the gospel. I have been thankful that I have been able to voice my opinions and thoughts and they have responded. It’s ok to disagree, but we can do so respectfully.
The ABN did remove a couple of comments posted to this story from individuals who did not provide us with enough information to confirm their identity or even to confirm if they were real people (we typically use use an email or phone number but neither was provided). It had nothing to do with censure, but unfortunately a weakness in our relatively new ABN website infrastructure launched a few months ago. I am hoping a new version of the software – that is supposed to be released soon – will help resolve the issue.
It is the ABN’s policy to allow for open dialogue concerning a variety of topics of interest to Arkansas Baptists. We have what I feel is fair and open commenting policy, which is published on our website at http://www.arkansasbaptist.org/submit-story-ideas/
BTW, the ABN is an independent newspaper serving Arkansas Baptists with a separate board of directors and is free to publish all news and information – as well as opinions from readers – it feels is useful and important to Arkansas Baptists.
Tim Yarbrough
Editor, Arkansas Baptist News
The article in the ABN interested me because of the pointed remarks of your state convention leader. He made the statements. The ABN printed them. It was a newsworthy item and worth a discussion. I thought he was rather unbalanced in his presentation of things concerning NAMB. Anyone who wants to make something personal out of this is evading honest discussion.
And Tim, did you not think that asking NAMB for a response and printing it would be “useful and important to Arkansas Baptists”?
But thanks for confirming that there were comments which were deleted. Were these comments in agreement with your convention leader or in disagreement?
Eric, I highlighted and asked a few questions about the statements of Emil Turner. None of these were personal. I have affirmed that we are all wonderful servants of Christ.
There is nothing wrong with having an honest discussion about differences in approach to North American missions. What NAMB does concerns all of us.
If the ABN can work out their comment system, that would be a better place to have it among Arkansas Baptists.
William, the comments were supportive of NAMB’s position, but again, that had nothing to do with removal. The story containing Emil Turner’s comments were an effort to give Arkansas Baptists a perspective on how changes at NAMB were impacting ministries in Arkansas – from the perspective of its state leader. The ABN published an extensive article two weeks prior detailing NAMB’s position related to California and its new strategy implementation. Several weeks prior to that the ABN published an extensive report detailing its church planting strategies in North America. In our current issue (April 5) the ABN published a Viewpoint article written by Kevin Ezell about the new NAMB strategy. The ABN attempts to give our readers both sides of issues like this that arise and I believe we have made an effort to do that.