These are our three main offerings and they account for almost all of the money received by the Executive Committee for distribution. Well, maybe not a record for the CP, that would be unreachable without Bezos and Gates pitching in hundreds of millions, but the CP may actually show an increase this fiscal year.
So, explain where ordinary Southern Baptist churches are in this takeover scheme?
They are behind our cooperative efforts and the financial channels that fuel them.
The few, the disgruntled, the gripers and complainers would have us think there is a mass movement against current SBC leadership and direction.
Not so by measurable standards.
A few points:
- The exodus crowd of three decades ago, now mostly represented by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, is about the size of a single megachurch. The latest International Mission Board commissioning service where 52 new missionaries were appointed, is about the size of the total CBF funded missionary force. I wish the CBF success in this but there is no comparison. Moderates of the 1980s and 1990s claimed 40% of Southern Baptists were on their side. Their train left the SBC station with a one tiny passenger car, not a trainload.
- The renegade network today makes much more noise than their size actually justifies. They seem to have my old alma, MABTS, securely on their side. Let them be happy there if not in any of the splendid six seminaries of the SBC. They could give a cutlass to every grad with the network logo. Have at it.
- Claims of mass church exodii from the SBC are false and partly dishonest, I suspect. Make a big splash about leaving but check the details and find that many of these churches still support SBC entities, if not the seminaries and the CP. I commend these for continuing to recognize that IMB has a global reach and strategy that is vastly superior to a church bragging about putting a couple of folks in Central America which is already overrun with Americans doing ministry. I wish them well too, but that ignores 99% of the world’s lostness.
- Maybe the takeover crowd will win an election. Maybe two. I doubt they have the wherewithal to win a dozen consecutively, which is what a takeover requires.
- The gripers and tire slashers we have with us always. Older SBCers like myself are accustomed to it.
- There are no problem leaders of SBC entities. All of our entities are led by outstanding people, even if you don’t like all their policies.
- I expect we will have a revival of trustees actually doing their jobs which is a contrast to the past few decades in many ways.
Not that it counts for anyone but me (and the brown pelicans that ate all the fish offal when I cleaned my catch) but I had the best fishing day of my long life a couple of weeks ago. The SBC is doing the same. I don’t like a few things going on in the SBC right now but all that does is make me a typical Southern Baptist pastor.
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Dawgs won the natty. Braves are World Series champs. Former Dawg QB Stafford in the Super Bowl. And don’t look now but the SEC has the top three recruiting classes. Things are looking good.
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