Dr. David Hankins Announces Retirement

In most everything I see and read leadership is as committed to The Bible as ever. I think we are seeing them grapple anew with longstanding issues we have, such as race relations, but I don’t really sense a mass defection toward progressive theology.

Blake, of course the leadership of the SBC are committed to the Bible. It is the emphasis, interpretation, understanding and teachings from the Bible that may “evolve” as they say. I see a little of the creeping in that while abortion is important , a prime issue but how we treat people After they are born is just as important, that “we” only care about people who we are similar to, racism , pro immigration law enforcement is not Biblical, sexist and Islamophobia is on the same level as being opposed to abortion of unborn , innocent babies. Just seeing the nose of the camel in the tent, in my opinion.

I am old enough to remember the old days when the “dress” code was pretty standard to attend church services. Little by little the dress code is now pretty well gone as society and culture and a new generation took over. This is a bad analogy but I hope it conveys my concern. When you tell a person under 40 years old to put on their Sunday best, what would they put on? that would be different than Monday best. An example of how changes comes in inches until now the Easter dress and new clothes for kids is a memory of people like me, who urge you to get off their lawn.s

Just curious. Do you see the cultural and generational changes as inherently bad?

MIke Richardson, of course generational and cultural change is not bad, the only thing that does not change is that there will always be change. We pass on our knowledge and our heirs build upon it. Generational and cultural change can be good or bad. In the SBC for instance I would like to see more transparency, more accountability, less top to bottom bureaucratic structure and more involvement from the SBC members I believe the SBC should rethink it where it is going on new church plants, relationships with non SBC groups that “morph” into having SBC influence and moving into a cultural and social direction most SBC members do not support.

To sum up the SBC needs to remember what group really supports the SBC and at least give much consideration in their viewpoints. Change for change sake and to “attract” people with anything other than the Gospel is to be avoided.

steve, [or is it clint?](-:

The dress code was wrong to begin with. Most NT Christians didnt have but one set of clothes. Millions of Christians today, especially those living south of the equator dont have Sunday best clothes. And many here in the USA do not own a suit or can afford one. America is a rich country and someties we let our way of being to be the norm for right thinking when it is not. The idea that we must dress upto go to Gods house, the church building, belied the truth that we were God’s house, the Church. It put the emphasis on the outer man and took away from the place where we need the most reconciliation: our hearts and minds: the inner man.
It got people looking at each other’s clothes and some feeling better and others worse: feeling like they didn’t belong. Nothing wrong with wearing a suit. Nothing wrong with not wearing one.
Leave the dress codes for the high faluting country clubs.

M White, I stated it was a terrible analogy but my point was not lobbying for a dress code but now once “change” is set in motion there is no going back. Of course no person would advocate for a formal dress code and of all the issues on the subject of change this is the least but it is illustrative. Children use to know that going to church was special and it was a special day . As most people attend churches in their neighborhood or social economic group the definition of Sunday best was relative. I refer to Little House on the Prairie , where the Ingall family and the neighbors each wore their Sunday best, no big deal but they by their dress and conduct were in a special place for worship. Just to be clear, I do not disagree with you about clothes indicate anything but an outward appearance. However coming from very humble background I know the people in the poor little church my Grandmother and Mother drug me. to dressed the best they could. No one ever mentioned, was critical or mocked or made anyone feel uncomfortable about their clothing. However it was the “norm to dress as good as you could . It was a voluntary show of respect , not required but honored as a tradition not a requirement. New Easter clothes was a big event even in our poor environment because if ever little girls and boys got new outfits it was Easter.

I am of course citing my USA experience and again share your viewpoint, because we know Jesus accepts us as we are not as we dress. People dress down now to be comfortable and to me , an old geezer, it takes away from the idea that the corporate worship gathering is special and we should try to convey that.

As I stated it was not a good analogy but one I , only I , feel is illustrative . I do think that how people dress affect their actions and attitude toward the place they are in. When my wife makes me go to a top tier restaurant where whether it is stated or demanded by diner peer pressure, the mood, the tone, the atmosphere is changed by the more formal clothes.

However you are absolutely correct and represent the vast majority and that is a change from fifty years ago and we are not turning back. Even resturants have a no shirt, no shoes, no service policy, just being silly. Come as you are is certainly the policy of all churches now and backed by popular support but I think we lost something.

Steve et al:

I think you are on to something. I don’t want to put words in your mouth but one aspect of what you are saying is that because the “social fabric” is unraveling, any organization, such as the SBC, is becoming a dinosaur. People are so unattached that they just sit home and stare at the TV or hang out in their favorite chat room. They don’t join any church or go to the Elks Club or the local lodge or anything else. They don’t even hang out with their friends playing poker on Friday night.

I guess I’m guilty as charged. I have not been involved in my SS Class [more formally known as a ‘Connection Group’] for several years because I have been taking care of my wife, who has MS and needs what is tantamount to 24/7 care. My wife went to a Long Term Care Center last week and so I went back to Sunday School for the first time in a couple of years. It is a miracle that the rafters of the building didn’t collapse.

Let me ask another question. In today’s society where things are not very hierarchical who says that the SBC even needs a president? Couldn’t the entities survive if all we had was a nominating committee made up on 2 people from each state convention who picked the nominees for the BoT of each of the entities. Under this scenario the Exec Committee would become an “entity”. Many successful operations have shed layers of management and never missed them. There would still be an annual meeting. A pastor from the host city would give the annual sermon. Each entity would give its report as usual. The exec committee would direct that someone act as the chairman of the meeting to hear motions etc. He/she would be assisted by a “professional” parliamentarian as per current practice.

Who knows if we need to act on resolutions at the annual meeting? I’ll leave that questions for others to ponder.

Here is a question for you? Why does the IMB [or any other entity] need so many members on the BoT? Wouldn’t a measly 20 members suffice? During certain year pairs a given state might only send a BoT member to half of the agencies. Then they would only send a BoT members to the other half in opposite years. This way there would equal representation on the BoTs from each state and the total number of people on all boards would be a small integral value times the number of state conventions.

Sorry to hear about your wife having to go to the care center.

Wow. That is a difference. An awesome one.

Mark:

I did not know that some agencies had trimmed the number of trustees and/or reduced the number of trustee meeting per year. I wonder if the management of any entity been negatively changed because of fewer trustee meetings per year or fewer trustees at any given meeting. My guess is the answer is no.

Similarly, couldn’t we eliminate one whole layer of machinery in our overall setup? Right now we have associations, state conventions, and then the national entities. These both cooperate, and sometimes “compete”, with each other. For example what used to be “home missions” — now NAMB — sometimes bumps into what states and/or associations are doing. This layout grew up organically. However, if we were starting again from scratch would we setup something like this?

If we brought in high powered management consultants from the Wharton school they would probably re-draw the SBC org chart. Well of course there is no org chart because every layer of the cake is autonomous. No one is claiming that efficiency is part of the equation. In fact, there are no metrics for efficiency. It is really a free market system on steroids. Layers compete for funding based upon a mixture of historical precedent and effective marketing.

I wonder about the allocation of resources across all of our operations? How much is the annual budget of First Baptist Church of Holly Grove MS per member compared to the per member budget of Cedar Creek Baptist Megachurch in suburban Atlanta, Nashville, Dallas, or Oklahoma City? I don’t know the answer to this question. My guess is there is quite a large dichotomy. If so is this a good thing?

Roger, you’ve raised good questions. Sixty years ago this is the way the SBC functioned. The Sunday School Board (now Lifeway) staff would decide to implement a new program. The staff would call a meeting and communicate this to the Sunday school directors for the state conventions. They in turn would call a meeting and pass on the information to the associational directors of missions, and they would call a meeting of the pastors and Sunday school directors at the churches in their associations. Now, of course, because of the internet information is available instantly. You are right in stating that our system is archaic, but our SBC polity works against change. You understand correctly that each level of SBC life is autonomous: church, association, state convention, and national convention. You are also correct in writing that we have redundancy in the SBC, especially between NAMB and the state conventions. NAMB tries hard to alleviate that problem by negotiating Cooperative Agreements with each state convention. These are memorandums of understanding in which NAMB and the state convention agree on what projects will be done and how the projects will be funded (amount provided by NAMB and the state convention). NAMB also holds meetings with state missions directors and evangelism directors to coordinate efforts.