Most headlines about IMB news emphasize the communications staff reductions announced yesterday but The Christian Index’s Joe Westbury has a good article that notes what is probably the most salient news from Richmond:
IMB: No further mandatory staff reductions
No further International Mission Board missionaries will be required to leave the field as the agency enters its second and final chapter of getting the agency back on financial track.
That is the news from the 170-year-old missions agency the day after it eliminated 30 Communications positions and announced to staff it was shuttering their department on April 29.
Today’s development gives breathing room to personnel around the world who were awaiting news of whether their positions would also be eliminated.
There is a pretty good summary of the entire downsizing business at our flagship SBC entity in the article. A few noteworthy points:
- The voluntary retirement incentives offered last year were accepted by sufficient numbers to put the IMB in a position of not having to make additional mandatory missionary reductions in order to be at a sustainable number of personnel. That’s good news.
- IMB made a practice of keeping the high Lottie Moon goal ($175 million each year beginning in 2009) and budgeting and spending the money even though LM receipts never got to within $20 million of the goal. I wrote four years ago that “a goal becomes meaningless when it is unattainable.” I never realized that IMB was spending to the goal all these years; hence, the $210 million deficit. That’s all water under the bridge but the Index article mentioned it.
- IMB is reducing the LM goal to $155 million for 2016 which means, I presume, that they are budgeting that amount and spending it rather than $175 million. Good move.
- The current round of possible reductions is the so-named “Hand Raising Opportunity.” It will include some incentives but not as many or as much as the VRIs of last fall.
- IMB had 450 stateside support personnel. This is an enormous number but I don’t know if it is about ‘industry standard’ for mission sending agencies or not. Manifestly, that number will be reduced considerably.
- Painful though they may be, the reductions are essential to the continuance of IMB’s mission. From my informed but not fully educated position in the SBC hinterlands, we must get to the number of overseas personnel we can safely, adequately, and responsibly support.
- Opinions abound, we are Southern Baptists after all, but I trust that we have the administrative team that can get this right.
Baptist Press has an article here and IMB has their press release here.
My church was surprised by the amount of the Lottie Moon offering. Pleasantly surprised.
[Dave Miller could do a much better job of this…but he’s away.]
Spending only what is given while encouraging more giving is a sound strategy. God is responsible for the rest of the strategy.
I think we might be a little too caught up in the eschatological possibilities when our commission is expansive but simple and not essentially eschatological in nature.
I also think there is a heavy sigh of relief that goes with solving for the reality we actually have at hand. But the impact of this set of changes is fairly broad and largely balances on a very simple thought: younger, somewhat less-experienced missionaries now are putting on the mantle of leadership for the sake of the entire Convention during a time of moderated growth. One cannot imagine undertaking this kind of strategic shift without an ever-growing commitment to prayer.
Sound strategies indeed! Prayer is needed indeed! Prayer that God’s will be done and He be glorified and exalted. That we be humbled under his mighty hand.
There’s Lots of better fiscal news from the IMB these days – it seems we (through our IMB leadership) are now being better stewards of what the Lord has provided us.
I also agree about the abundance of opinions – Southern Baptists sure have those!
But let us not forget that even though our mission force may be smaller, “younger”, and perhaps less experienced – the same Holy Spirit is still guiding and the work The same promises of God or still in effect! The same gospel still saves! And none of this catches our sovereign God by surprise!
Our purpose, yeah even David Platt and his staffs purpose, is to honor, obey, and serve Christ and certainly that has not changed!
Let us keep that focus.
*The same Holy Spirit is still guiding and leading the work.
One of your best, bro.
I sat last night at dinner with IMB personnel and asked if there was confusion, disillusionment and bad morale in their country after many of the leaders had left.
NOT AT ALL!!
That’s what they said. They are sad, missing those who have left, and trying to figure things out, but they are carrying on in Christ’s name. One of the VRI units stayed on in a volunteer capacity (there’s a term for it, can’t remember).
Folks, we’ve lost a treasure with our experienced personnel but the young whippersnappers are pretty amazing as well.
The IMB will carry on.
Thanks for this news. I’m always the last person to know anything about the downsizing of headcount at the IMB. This is the first definitive information I’ve seen that quantifies where things are relative to headcount as a result of the VRI.
Two bottom lines shine out to me relative to this downsizing:
(1) I believe that the brightest focus should be with trustees, from 2008 until now, who didn’t step up to the plate and intercede. The whole reason they exist is to give overall guidance to the organization. They were asleep at the switch.
(2) Regardless of who is to “blame”, things are now on an upward track.
Hopefully we can collectively learn from this and appoint trustees who independently pay attention to what is happening and proactively steer the ship.
Guys in the pews, like myself, should acknowledge that the IMB remains a first tier missionary organization.
Roger Simpson Oklahoma City
“… spending to the goal all these years …”
As someone who spent an executive career in corporate America, the outcome of IMB’s fiscal irresponsibility was predictable. As noted by a 30-year IMBer in a previous SBV article “Our leadership has failed us.” Businesses fail for making such blunders, but the church of the living God should be better stewards.
So, get rid of most experienced field people because they are over 50. It seems the younger ones would have had more chance of forging a new career back home. I find the decision to target over 50’s very telling.
I worked in a business once which decided to cut senior staff from the payroll because they were drawing the highest salaries … a way to put more profit on the books. What the CEO failed to consider was that the senior folks were also the most experienced and seasoned leaders, familiar with how to make the business work. When they left, the company’s junior executives that were put in charge made mistakes and lost accounts; the company was not able to compete with its competitors and dropped into the red on its books (not more black). Twenty years later, it is still struggling … while the over-50s that were cut found lucrative positions with competitor firms.
I realize that this is the narrative offered by IMB/Platt critics but it is in many ways a deficient one.
1. “Get rid of” is a snarling misrepresentation of reality. Not a single mssy was ‘got rid of.’ Not one.
2. The conclusion that our overseas workforce is now less experienced and therefore less effective is premature. The former assertion is almost certainly true; the latter is speculative.
3. I have not seen any critic offer a workable, realistic alternative. Not my friend Rick P, not my occasionally acerbic (but still appreciated) friend Lydia, not anonymous IMB personnel. No one.
When all this VRI, HRO, reset, recalibration, re-strategizing is done for the short term, it will be evident that new IMB leadership did, not just a creditable job of tackling the massive problems that had accumulated at IMB, but a great job.
William,
Here’s my workable, realistic alternative: reduce the force as needed to balance the budget, but also put in place a hiring freeze for two to three years in order to get the payroll down without having to bring home so many veteran missionaries. Sure, there would still have been cuts, but it would not have been nearly so drastic.
At the same time, an effort could be made, in the missions videos sent to our churches during LMCO, to address the missionary funding crisis directly, so that the message of our financial crunch actually makes it all the way from Richmond to the sanctuary of every SBC church—something that evidently had not taken place prior to the VRI policy’s adoption.
I think those are reasonable steps but not realistic in light of the staggering numbers, both money and personnel. It might have been more realistic 7-8 years ago. I think it would be disastrous to tell prospective mssys that there is a hiring freeze for “two or three” years (an indefinite number that might extend to four or five, as the numbers warrant.
IMB needed about $35 million annually to fix the problem. I don’t think your suggestions would have done anything but further degrade the organization financially.
I think a freeze for 2 or 3 years would have been a good idea.
William,
I think you are so right about the hiring freeze. It’s a terrible (albeit well intentioned idea) because it would have a chilling effect on missionary recruitment. Seminary trained and ready missionaries are not going to wait for “several years” to be appointed by IMB – they will seek out other mission sending orgs and be on the field by the time IMB might lift the freeze. Also, it would hurt the seminaries as without a sending agency (IMB) actually sending out graduate missionaries – the likelihood of them goig to seminary elsewhere would rise.
Painful, heartbreaking, sad – all those words (and more) identify the reality of the downsizing that has taken place – BUT if this momentary pain will put IMB back on solid footing for the long haul – its pain we need to be willing to endure.
SBC Plodder, Tarheel, et. al:
As usual you cut to the core of the situation. Regardless of whatever happened in the past, the current downsizing is absolutely necessary and appropriate. My only comment is that maybe different words besides “Opportunity” could be used to describe phase 2. So my comments are only peripheral to the main action that the IMB is doing.
On a scale of one to ten — ten being maximal support — I support Platt and Company with an eleven. If the IMB would have scrapped euphemisms and replaced them with something like “Phase 2 of the headcount reduction package” then my score would rise to a 11.5.
There is not much in common between me and Howard Cosell. However, borrowing from him I say, “tell it like it is”.
Roger Simpson OKC
LOL….I understand what you are saying, Roger.
Euphemisms – especially for matters such as these almost always sound better in the discussions where they are determined than they do in reality…LOL