SBC ExComm Plenary Session One

Direct funding of missionaries by churches is a direct affront to smaller churches and ethnic churches. If we move to each church supporting their own missionaries, then we leave small and ethnic churches behind. How do we mobilize African American and Latino missionaries when White household wealth is 18-20 times higher than African American and Latino households. If we leave the Cooperative Program behind, then we pass by the smaller and ethnic churches.

Entity Reports came next and they were rapid fire.

NAMB: Kevin Ezell gave a brief overview of the work of NAMB in helping to mobilize churches to be on mission and to raise up missionaries. There is a Send North America Tour that is going across the country and Dr. David Platt is the primary speaker. There will also be a 2015 Send North America Conference in Nashville on August 3-4. They opened up registration 10 days ago and have already had over 5,000 people register. It will be at the Bridgestone Arena and could be a joint conference with the IMB. It might be the largest missions conference in the history of North America.

There is a new emphasis on revitilization and on encouraging of pastors. Many pastors are very discouraged across the country. NAMB has entered into a partnership with Focus on the Family to develop a Pastoral Care Line starting October 1st. The number is 1-844-Pastor1 and will be 100% confidential.

Guidestone: O.S. Hawkins gave a report on how Guidestone is managing the retirement and insurance funds of Southern Baptists. They are moving toward the completion of their longrange plan and Dr. Hawkins is preparing to hand the entity off to new leadership in a few years. Guidestone has had very high ranking investment funds over the past few years and has been awarded many accolades and #1 rankings by different organizations.

Insurance Plans are up 9% this past year and the renewal rate is at 97-98%, so as people are shopping around, they are returning back to the Guidestone plans in high numbers. Guidestone has filed suit against the Federal Government over ObamaCare and there is an injunction on the lawsuit involving abortificiants. There is a hearing coming up in December on this. Guidestone does not provide abortificiants and refuse to submit on that issue.

Guidestone started in 1918 as a relief organization to take care of old pastors who have worked hard for the gospel and in are in need in their older years. That work continues. Guidestone has stopped taking CP money for mission dignity for older pastors. The neediest of the pastors and their widows get over $600 a month from the “mission dignity” program. The financial base for this work has come from over 6,000 donors who give each year and monthly. Guidestone is trying to build a broad base to care for these old pastors and their widows.

Lifeway: Thom Rainer said that the gospel of Jesus Christ is at the base and is present in all of Lifeway’s Bible Study materials. As Southern Baptists, we sometimes focus on the bad news and what is going wrong in our society. Dr. Rainer shared his personal testimony about how he came to Christ when he was 12 years old and was led to the Lord by his football coach who he has just reconnected with. There is good news for us to share about Jesus and His salvation.

For the first time in the history of Lifeway, over 150,000 students went to one of the Lifeway student camps. They all heard the gospel and we believe that there was a record number of students who came to Christ this summer. Lifeway takes no CP money, but through their work they are able to get the gospel to students who also heard about a passion for missions. Students gave money to missions at the camps this summer as well. Lifeway is giving $300,000 to both NAMB and the IMB collected from students at the Lifeway camps.

IMB: Gordon Fort, Senior VP of the IMB spoke in place of David Platt, who is in Thailand. We live in the day of the greatest advance of the gospel in history. As funding in the U.S. has dropped, the IMB has had to decrease the number of missionaries to 5,000. With open doors everywhere around the world, this is not the time to drawn down on missionary involvement and appointment. Dr. Fort went around the world to talk with national and indigenous leaders around the world to work on mobilization because the work must be done. He told stories about what is happening around the world with committed indigenous and national leaders that Southern Baptists partner with. From these meetings, Dr. Fort began to work with indigenous leaders on a strategy regarding what the IMB could do to help believers all over the world in their work.

All over the world, indigenous and national leaders are starting their own missions boards and movements. In Brazil, they are offering to pay missionaries on their own. In China, there are 3 conventions of Baptists larger than the SBC. They are wanting to send 100,000 missionaries around the world. They do not have the finances that we have, but they can do something that we cannot do. They know how to suffer. They are asking for training materials and are ready to go. From the Ukraine to Siberia to Brazil and Uraguay to China and Thailand, believers around the world are rising up and are taking the gospel further than we ever could. We are now moving into a partnering role with them. The Gospel is bearing fruit and is reproducing all over the world. Again and again. In Nigeria, 118,000 believers gathered for the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Nigerian Baptist Convention representing 2 million believers. They have sent out 500 missionaries around the world. Southern Baptists started that convention in the late 1800s and are now seeing fruit. The SBC was formed to take the gospel to the nations. That is what we must do.

Dr. Floyd used the example of Gus Malzahn coming into his office in the mid 90’s with the idea of the HUNH offense (Hurry Up No Huddle) and how Shiloh Christian went 29-1 over the next two years after they implemented. That concept has spread all over football now. It is based on a sense of urgency and fast-paced movement so that more plays could be run so that there are more opportunities to score.

In our churches, we need to recapture a “strong sense of urgency.” We need to move and we need to move fast. Lostness is growing. Our world is becoming more dangerous. Desperation is rising. There is a deep, growing sense of conviction that is growing that if God does not reign down His mercy upon us, we are headed for destruction. But, at the same time, there is a recognition growing that admits that we cannot fix ourselves. We do not have the capacity to fix our situation.

What time is it in the Southern Baptist Convention? Romans 13:11 says, “Besides this, knowing the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up fro sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” This is not about “chronos,” just the regular passing of time. This is about kairos – a decisive moment of time. It is a time of urgency. The Lord is coming again and we must wake up from our slothfulness and apathetic spiritual condition. God is at work and we should all want to be a part of what He is doing. God has chosen you to do what you are doing and to be where you are. How are you living out this kairos moment of God?

1 Chronicles 12:32 – who understood the times and knew what Israel should do. That is who we are to be. We must spend our days doing what really matters and what requires faith and to believe God for the impossible and to change as much as is needed to reach the nations with the gospel. We must die to ourselves and our preferences and disagreements and biases and prejudices and ways, practices, and actions that might prohibit God’s power from coming upon us as His people.

We are not the same convention when we began in 1845 or in 1925 when we began the Cooperative Program. Nor are we the same convention of 1979 with the Conservative Resurgence or 1995 when it was realized finally or 2010 when we adopted the Great Commission Resurgence. In 1845, we started a plan to mobilize the entire denomination in “one sacred effort, for the propagation of the gospel.” We must return to that one sacred effort for the task of takin the gospel to the nations.

7 Things Needed in the SBC Right Now:

1. We need to believe God for the next Great Awakening. We must realize that we cannot fix ourselves. We need a mighty move of God. We need personal spiritual revival and a corporate move of God. We need God to move regionally and nationally in ways that we cannot orchestrate. Internationally, we must take the gospel to every person in the world before they die. All of this goes together. He then brought Jonathan Edwards into the discussion and his call to churches during the Great Awakening.
2. We need to come together in Unity. We must value one another and respect and love another unconditionally. God will not bless division, envy, rivalry, or jealousy. We should not be filled with strife that results in camps and division. None of this honors God. It is how unbelievers act. We must cease rallying around human personalities. We must be Jesus people and focused on Christ.
3. We need to recapture what it means to cooperate together. Read the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 on cooperation. We should work together in spiritual harmony and cooperation. We need to trade in independence for cooperation.
4. We need to elevate the Cooperative Program, both its need and value. We can do more together than we can do by ourselves. We must work together and give together. We are in a funding crisis in the SBC. A divide is growing over this issue. All of our problems are not going away by telling people to give more money. We do not need to shame churches into giving more. Loyalty to a brand is no longer automatic. It is earned continually. We have a funding crisis not only in dollars, but also in philosophy. We must find a way to work together. We cannot be divided over the CP. We are committed to the Great Commission, but we must find ways to do that together.
5. We need to recommit ourselves to personal and church evangelism. Each of us must take part in sharing the gospel with others and working to reach people with the gospel. We must make this a top priority. We baptized as many people last year as we did over 60 years ago when there were 160 million less Americans and thousands fewer SBC churches and millions fewer Southern Baptists. We must work together in this. October 14 is a day that Dr. Floyd is calling upon all Southern Baptists and churches to come together and share the gospel with someone that day. What can we do to lead our churches in this on that particular day? Students across Baptist Campus Ministries are working that day to share the gospel.
6. We need to come to Columbus, Ohio, June 16-17, 2015. We have a cross-generational disengagement regarding what we are doing on an annual basis. The Annual Meeting must be a yearly celebration of what God is doing in the world. We need to get people to the Convention and get them excited about what the SBC is doing so they will go back to their churches and promote involvement in the SBC. Southern Baptists need to go to “exciting” Columbus, Ohio next year so that we can celebrate what God is doing and get motivated to share that. We will have 1,000 college students involved in Crossover Columbus and they will be staying over for our meeting at the SBC. Dr. Paul Kim and his wife Rebecca, from Boston, are going to mobilize 500 Asian American college students to participate in the Convention in Columbus. The IMB and NAMB will do a joint commissioning service at the Convention and the goal is to commission 100 new missionaries. We are asking all Southern Baptists to come to Columbus and celebrate God’s work and pray like never before for God to work and move in our churches and in America.
7. We need to elevate before our churches the international crisis in Iraq and Syria. Like the Holocaust in Germany, there is devastation going on now. How could such obvious evil be ignored? We are witnessing a once in a thousand year destruction of the Christian church in Iraq and Syria. The situation is worse than we can imagine. Christians are being beheaded and cut in half and women are being raped and trafficked by the thousands. This evil of ISIS has gone from one Christian place to another and has killed or forced converted those who could not leave. This is genocide. This is happening in our world and on our watch. As leaders, we all some level of influence and we all must stand and be courageous. We should not sing louder in our churches while our Christian brothers and sisters are dying in the desert. 1. We must pray for them every day that God might deliver them from wicked and evil men. Pray in our worship services. When churches are placing more emphasis on announcements than on prayer, we are in trouble. 2. Pastors and Christian leaders must educate ourselves on what is going on so we can help others understand. 3. Provide generously to Baptist Global Response and Hunger Relief so that they can help those in need. When one member of the body suffers, then everyone suffers. We must speak for these people like we would hope that they would speak for us. Among them, it is a matter of life and death.