SBC This Week is a great site. It is described as “a weekly news roundup from around the Southern Baptist Convention” and has “guest interviews from today’s top church leaders.” The podcast is hosted by Amy Whitfield, Director of Communications for SEBTS, and Jonathan Howe, Director of Strategic Initiatives for LifeWay which, I suppose, makes it at least a semi-official SBC site.
On their home page, lower right panel is a place where you can view current SBC entity trustees, all of ’em. This is available elsewhere but not so conveniently. An address for each trustee is given. Sometimes it is a church address, sometimes a business, sometimes home.
You will find ol’ Chris Barber of Farmersville, TX as a SWBTS trustee (listed as “Christopher B. (Bart) Barber”) along with his church address. Other folks found here may be trustees as well.
Oddly, Georgia has two Executive Committee members who pastor in the same south Georgia city. I thought with a few million SBCers in our state you wouldn’t have to locate two in the same mid-sized city.
Hmmm, Jason Allen of Missouri is a trustee of SEBTS. Oh, not that Jason Allen.
Well…those interested can take time to look ’em up. They are our folks. We elected them.
The listings are copied from the 2016 SBC Annual. Presumably, when the 2017 Annual is published the lists will be updated. Guess I just didn’t notice this resource before. It’s a lot easier than downloading the annual and looking up trustees. The various entity websites sometimes make it difficult to get this information.
Over the years, usually when some entity is in hot water, folks start asking how to contact trustees. Here you go.
THANKS for the info…It demonstrates a major pblm with considering SBC Trustees as legitimate overseers of our entities…the sheer size of the Trustee Boards. How can a Trustee board with so many members function as anything other than a rubber stamp?
I’m not sure how accurate the addresses are. For instance, it lists ExComm trustee Shane Hall as residing/pastoring in Lawton, OK but he’s been at First Southern Del City (OKC) for at least 3 years (as best I can recall). I wasn’t scouring for inaccuracies but I accidentally ran across this one since we’re old friends. I don’t suspect there are too many more like this, but its worth double checking.
Jason –
The contact information is supplied in the form submitted by the trustees themselves and is updated as and when they supply it. Certainly, there will occasionally be anomalies (because it is, after all, a human endeavor) but for the most part the addresses will be accurate. In Shane’s case, either address will work, and I know that this year his office address at First Southern will be printed.
I’m the one who made the motion at the meeting to have each entity publish this info online. This info is from the 16 annual, as you said, and it not always up to date as trustees move, die, resign, or whatever. Some of the SBC entities make no mention on their site of their trustees at all. To me it’s ridiculous that we have to rely on someone besides an entity to make it easy to contact trustees. The EC has the list of trustees on their website, also, but site is difficult to navigate and in need of updating, in my opinion.
I don’t want emails out on the web for all the trustees, I understand the difficulty in that. But if trustees represent the people, then it should be easy to find their contact info. If you are not willing to be contacted about issues, then you shouldn’t be a trustee.
My motion got kicked to each entity, as I expected. I also expect that nothing will come of it in most cases, but I saw a problem and wanted to propose a solution.
Luke –
As the EC’s Exec. VP, I head the division of the EC that supplies the Convention’s website resources (Policy and Operations), so I guess the buck stops with me with regard to any deficiencies. I can tell you frankly, though, that I concur with your sentiment about the trustees representing the people and that contacting them should be easier. Of course, I also appreciate the fact, as apparently you also do, that privacy concerns present certain challenges.
I have suggested that each entity supply a simple way for any Southern Baptist to contact its board. At the Executive Committee, we have done this by supplying a generic email address that will always contact whoever the chairman of the board is. That email address is “chair@sbc.net”. (We would have used “chair@SBCEC.org” since there is really no “chairman of the SBC”, but the EC does not maintain a separate email server.) So far as I know, none of the entities have yet adopted this method of contact, but I would encourage them all to consider it, given the statement made in SBC Bylaw 15E which underscores that trustees represent the constituency rather than entity staff.
The email address for our chairman will, starting this year, always be printed at the top of the page in the Annual that lists all our EC trustees. The Annual is always posted at SBC.net, but this year’s will not be ready to post for another few weeks.
As for site redesign being beneficial, yes, again I agree with you. In our own defense, however, I would say that our budget and staff reductions over the last 8 years or so to redirect funds to the IMB make prioritization of website endeavors all the more important, and redesign of the EC site ranks pretty low in that queue. (Our total staff count is presently 29). I will try elsewhere in this thread to explain where trustee info can be found.
Lastly, the reason your motion was jointly referred to all the entities and the EC was because SBC Bylaw 26B required that it be so referred. This will be more apparent in Item 110 on page 96 of the new Annual (when it is printed). I do not expect most Southern Baptists to have that much familiarity with the SBC’s bylaws, but this rather arcane provision is one with which the Committee on Order of Business must attempt to comply annually as motions are presented.
Thanks for the response Dr. Boto. I tried to word it in such a way that it would get sent to each entity and not be ruled out of order. That was the outcome I expected and hoped for. I trust that the trustees will give it a fair hearing.
I think your email idea is an excellent one, and would cost little to nothing to implement. It’s difficult to balance privacy and availability, but with enough thought it can be done. It’s easy for me to cast stones, and I apologize if I offended. A overhaul of the EC website would be a major undertaking, and I know far too well how priorities change when budgets are tight. Thank you for your commitment to the SBC and to God’s kingdom.
Augie,
I greatly appreciate your service to the SBC. You’re an invaluable resource and mentor to many, and thank you again for personally guiding me through how to best present my motion and recommendation to change the SBC calendar to adopt and orphan & widow care Sunday. Just wanted to give you a word of encouragement my friend.
James
Luke – I assure you that I was not at all offended. Again, I agree with your sentiments, and was just attempting to add more light to the issue. (And I am “just Augie”, I am not a “Dr.”, but thanks for the honor.
James -Thanks a ton.
All – I overlooked the fact that NAMB has a similar way of contacting their trustees. Perhaps others do too, but if so, be sure to add that piece of info here. NAMB’s email address to get to any of their trustees is “Trustees@ NAMB.net” If you message is to a specific one of their trustees, just put that name into the subject line.
“To me it’s ridiculous that we have to rely on someone besides an entity to make it easy to contact trustees. The EC has the list of trustees on their website, also, but site is difficult to navigate and in need of updating, in my opinion.”
Amen. Good motion, thanks for making it… I said to friends sitting near me as soon as the words left your lips… “That will be referred to each entity to do with as they wish, and will then die.”
Hit submit too soon….
But I think we should make the motion every single year until they do it. It’s common sense.
I actually would like a way to contact by email, and someone smarter than me could figure out a way to do that. The question is do the entities see the trustees as representing the people, or just as a rubber stamp to the plans put forth by each entity. If they are representing people then we need to be able to contact them easily.
It’s a little unfair to presume that trustees don’t take their jobs seriously or merely and perfunctorily approve leadership proposals.
Your motion will get a response. They always do. A formal motion always gets a response.
No presumption here. Just saying those are the two most basic ways to look at trustees. As with most all matters in the SBC, there is divided opinion on the matter I’m sure. The trustees that I know of personally serve admirably with the spread of the gospel as their highest goal. Still, everyone needs accountability.
The only solution I have for contacting them is to google their name/city and see if their church has a website with contact info – particularly their official email address.
William,
Thanks for the kind words about the site and the podcast (everyone needs to subscribe). We added these back in the fall when the 2016 lists came out. And YES, we will update them when the 2017 annual is released. Until then…we wait.
I’m a new at-large addition to the ERLC board this year. In my experience, Bart Barber tweets about you, and no one really has a problem finding you. 🙂
But, just in case some don’t have it, I’m: whiteheadlawllc.com, Jon at. Trustees always have the job of listening, so if you feel strongly enough to write, I’m game to read. Any reply e-mail isn’t likely to be ground-breaking, but its fine by me if Southern Baptists feel more comfortable reaching out to trustees by email.
Thanks.
I once contacted the chairman of the trustee board of one of our entities. My request was that he share a letter I had written with the other trustees on the board. Within a few hours I had an email from the president of the entity. That was problematic for me because the letter I had written was about the entity president. When I responded to the chairman to express my frustration with him forwarding my email to the president, he told me that was common practice. He said he always forwarded emails he received to the entity president. Regardless of whether or not my concerns were valid, the email should not have been sent to the entity president without my knowledge. I hope this is not common practice with our entities.
Above, in my response to Luke’s post, I said “I will try elsewhere in this thread to explain where trustee info can be found.” I will do that in seven numbered paragraphs at the end of this comment, but before I do, I want to explain that my earlier comments should have mentioned Chris Chapman as the appropriate person to contact with any suggestions for SBC.net or its family of websites. Chris serves admirably as our Director of Information Systems. My decisions about what should be “done next” make me the appropriate person to blame for what hasn’t been done yet, but Chris should get credit for what is displayed and done well. He runs a small team of very capable people who gladly receive and assess ideas from Southern Baptists quite often, and who implement many of them. You may contact Chris at CChapman@SBC.net. He will be happy to hear from you.
Also, I must say that the most challenging and ever-present problem we face with SBC.net is not its lack of transparency, but rather the plethora of information it contains. We have attempted to mitigate that somewhat by supplying SBCSearch (basically, a “Southern Baptist Google”) but Baptists are so good at continually generating resources that finding exactly what you want is like trying to locate a poppy seed on 10 miles of beach. Any of our staff members can help you find information on SBC.net if you have any difficulties finding it yourself. I realize this is small comfort if you are searching for something after normal office hours, but I wanted you to know we are willing.
I also want to commend Jonathon and Amy for gathering the trustee contact information and presenting it. Basically, they took what we supply and resupplied it, and I am all for that, so kudos to them. Their loyal listeners will naturally find it there first.
In an earlier comment I made in this comment stream, I neglected to mention that trustee information is supplied in the manner the trustee supplied it. This accounts for some being home addresses and some being office addresses, etc.
Also, my compliments to Jonathon Whitehead for supplying his email address in this post. Other trustees have sometimes done the same. Most boards will not, however, adopt a process that allows some trustee email addresses to appear in their posted directories while others do not. Some of the reasons for persons not to disclose their email address are good, but not listing some email addresses for some trustees and listing them for others in the same directory might subject those whose email address does not appear to pressures brought about by the comparison. Also, there is absolutely NO interest in supplying the thousands of vendors out there with all the email addresses of entire boards.
Here are the various ways one can navigate to obtain the trustee contact information for the EC and the SBC entities. Rather than just supply a bunch of hyperlinks, I will blaze search trails to show how one can think through getting where you want to go and which route you think is best to get there.
1. The compilation noticed by William and supplied by SBC This Week. Go to http://www.sbcthisweek.com/ and look in the right column, toward the bottom (as William has described in this post).
2. The Directory of Services. Go to SBC.net. In the upper, right-hand corner, above the “Search” text box, is a link to the Directory. Clicking on that link provides a page where all the entities are listed, and all their trustee information can be obtained.
3. SBCSearch. Go to SBC.net and in the upper, right-hand corner is a text box with the word “Search” in it. You can type “Trustees” or “Board of Trustees” and get slightly different results, but I will let you peruse those aspects on your own. (An alternative route to the same thing is to go to the top menu, and hit the “Search” link. In the dropdown menu that occurs, select the “SBC Search Engine” option. When the search engine paints the screen, type your search term into the text box.)
4. Resources. Go to SBC.net. In the menu across the top of the home page, click on the menu choice “Resources”. Today, we are adding, as the last entry in the lower, right-hand corner of that dropdown menu, a new entry entitled “Trustees”, which will link to the Directory of Services page referred to in item 2..
5. The SBC Annual. Get on the distribution list and get a hard copy sent to you each year. Or, again, go to SBC.net to find any SBC Annual you are interested in. Click on “About” in the top menu. In the first column of the dropdown list, click on “SBC Annuals”. The first page of the most currently available Annual will appear with a link at the top of the page to download it. With a good internet connection and a recent computer, it should download in under 5 seconds. The Annual is divided into sections, and all the Trustee contact information is always in PART 5. Grab the elevator on the right side of your screen and drag it down until you see “Part 5” show up sideways on the right edge of the pages. There you will see all the trustees listed. (This is the info Jonathon re-presented).
6. Another SBC.net avenue. The same information referred to in the foregoing paragraph can also be accessed by going to SBC.net and clicking on the black “Menu” tab that is sideways on the left side of the screen. When a left bar opens, at its top, click on the “SBC Directory” tab. The entities appear there by type. For instance, if you click on “Mission Organizations” you will see the IMB, NAMB and the WMU, under each of which is a “Trustees” tab. Clicking on any one of those will produce a list of that entity’s trustees.
7. The entity websites. As William noted, some of the entities list their trustees and provide contact information and some of them do not. Kudos to those who do. Those can be found easily either by using the entity’s URL (if you know it) or by using the method describe in number 2, above. One advantage of going to an entity site is that if they provide a trustee directory, it will usually be pictorial rather than just textual.
You may wonder why the information is in so many formats and places. One reason is because, well, that’s the Internet. Another reason is that SBC.net has had different sets of users down through its lifetime, now two decades long. In each redesign, there has been an appeal by many not to discard formats they have become used to. We have seen no harm in continuing to provide the old ways to get to the information while we have added new ways to get to the information.
I hope you find this information helpful, and that if you do, you will make it known to others. But even if you do, there will still be THOUSANDS of Southern Baptists who will continue to believe that it is nowhere to be found.
Blessing to you all.
– Augie
I know that many here know Augie Boto but for those who do not he is the SBC Executive Committee’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel.
I appreciate the considerable effort here to be helpful to Southern Baptists. One thing I have found over the years is that SBC leaders and staff are willing to answer questions and help SBCers. I have no better current example than this one. Thanks.
The EC’s site is sbc.net. I consult it often for statistics.