Well, highly unlikely that we would yet some state conventions are in a position to do just that because of their definition of what constitutes a church in friendly cooperation.
Baptist Press reported recently on how Indiana Baptists amended their bylaw regarding cooperating churches.
The new State Convention of Baptists in Indiana (SCBI) rule provides “a personal and proactive approach to dealing with churches that have not met the basic requirements of being a ‘cooperating church with the SCBI,'” the group reported…
…Under the amended church cooperation bylaw, approved overwhelmingly, the SCBI will make efforts to communicate with churches who have not met cooperation guidelines. Churches are considered in cooperation with the SCBI when they agree with the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, give to the Southern Baptist Convention Cooperative Program or the state mission offering, and submit basic statistical information to the SBC annual church profile. To that end, a team of SCBI representatives will meet with the church in question to discuss any problems and determine whether the church desires to reaffirm cooperation.
The clause in bold is the curious one and I provided the emphasis.
I was speaking recently with a pastor whose church is a cooperating church in a local Southern Baptist association, state and national Southern Baptist bodies. The church gives to the association and Cooperative Program and is aligned doctrinally with all of the bodies. The pastor told me, however, that he doesn’t bother with the Annual Church Profile (or Report as my state labels it). He isn’t opposed to providing data but doesn’t see it as worth the trouble. When pressed, he admitted that his view was that financial data on his church wasn’t anyone else’s business. He had no objection to reporting of membership, attendance, and baptism statistics.
The Indiana Baptist bylaws, as amended, now call for a process of church discipline (er, outreach) for the churches that among other offenses fail to submit basic statistical information via the SBC annual statistical profile.
My suspicion is that a church that fails to file the statistical report will not be excluded on that basis. I’ve never heard of any state or association excluding for lack of such. Most state conventions are happy to receive Cooperative Program contributions from these statistically phantom semi-cooperative churches and I suspect that the state bodies, Indiana and elsewhere, would be loath to exclude merely because of a failure to file the ACP. Besides, thousands of of SBC churches do not file the ACP. In spite of that some basic data is available on these churches elsewhere with records of their contributions given to and through the state office being available.
Nonetheless, it is striking that there is even the threat, the possibility, of a church being branded non-cooperative and potentially excluded solely on this basis.
I doubt it will happen anywhere but I’m trying to visualize a committee of stern-faced Baptist sent by the state convention to meet with a pastor whose church has failed to send in their data.
Big Ecclesiastical Brother?
Interesting.
Just trying to help with the non-political content here. Dave is suffering…
There are some good reasons for requiring *basic* church data (name of church, address, name of pastor, contact informaiton). I don’t know of any compelling reasons for requiring much more than this…but I encourage the filing of the entire ACP and always did so myself.
Really? Are some state/local associations so focused on numbers that they insist on them to be in “good association” with the local church? Really? Do they not understand that some bi-vocational pastors have to use their time wisely to maximize their ministry’s impact on the local community? Statistics do nothing, nothing for me. Brokeness for lost people does. This saddens me that this is even being discussed.
At our association’s annual meeting a few weeks ago, we relaxed the definition of “participation” for cooperating churches to include any financial support, physical attendance/involvement at various meetings/events of the Association and/or by submitting an Annual Church Profile each year. Doing any of these things keeps a church in good standing with the Association.
Your “and/or” makes me wonder if that was the intent…and somehow, it slid past the proof readers and past the people who said “Sure, whatever, we don’t read our book of reports before voting.”
That was the intent. We had a good committee that worked on the entire document and it was before the churches 60 days before we voted on it. In fact, our Executive Board saw the wording and gave their approval over 6 months before messengers voted on it. We believe it honors autonomy, encourages freedom and increases trust. We’re not sitting around waiting and hoping for a reason to kick someone out. We’re trying to give each church many ways to be connected.
I meant if that was the intent in Indiana as well–sorry, I was unclear.
David, I’m curious if there is concern in your association about churches that don’t file ACP or file a barebones ACP and what action might be taken.
Thanks
We would certainly encourage them to do so. Our clerk has the responsibility of encouraging our churches to report. She has done an excellent job over the years very often with 100% of the churches reporting. If she has a problem getting info, I’ll make a phone call, send a text, email, FB message or maybe even have lunch with a pastor to see if there is a hangup somewhere in getting it done. Most of the time it all works out.
Our association is unique and I’m sure that makes a difference. We are in Michigan and have 14 churches. I know all of the pastors, try to stay in touch, visit their churches, help them with resources, provide regional meetings for fellowship, etc. I feel my ministry is to the pastors and the churches and, if I serve them well and earn their trust, they’ll most likely submit the ACP and cooperate in other ways. I’m trying to build bridges and form connections between myself and the pastors and to help them get to know each other.
I/we don’t disparage churches that have small attendance and membership nor do we get on their case when they have no baptisms. I let them know we are here and are willing to serve alongside them in any way we can.
We have a provision in our constitution that says if a church doesn’t participate for a period of three years in any of the ways I mentioned in a previous post, our credentials committee will investigate the matter and encourage the church to step up in some way.
I hope this makes sense. Things are different here with a few churches but we are spread out over 11 counties. I do a lot of driving and make use of the internet to try and keep in touch. Hopefully the pastors and churches are learning that I’m here for them; they’re not there for me. My desire is to serve them as I am able.
This verse encapsulates my ministry mindset – 2 Corinthians 11:28 (NASB) – Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.
Our church always has trouble with this because we don’t count and I’d rather not take the time to guess the numbers on all of their categories. So, in effect, the SCBI is requiring churches to count?
No need to panic here and go to barricades. I get a polite reminder letter about an unfiled ACP. Maybe the associational missionary will ask about it. Nothing more onerous than that. If any state or association has taken action on an statistically absent church I’d like to know about it.
Money sent to the state office is tracked and reported whether the church wants it to be or not,
I’ve never known of a baptist pastor who couldn’t be awakened at 3am and not be able to immediately give his average attendance and average weekly offering.
Then why even make this policy if there’s no plan to enforce it? It seems like a waste of time and is dishonest. Maybe the reason is just to greatly encourage churches to aim for compliance and that’s the best way they can think of to stress their expectations. I agree with those who don’t think this will be enforced.
It didn’t help ACP compliance when pastors and churches were shamed for low baptisms and cooperative program giving.
Do churches exist for State Conventions or do State Conventions exist for churches?
The latter, of course; however, the zeal of some for denominational and especially cooperative program conformity has led to the shaming on the basis of non or under compliance.
Seldom have I heard a state convention employee disparage a low CP or non-filing church. Often have I heard a cadre of fellow pastors. We see it here regularly from some.
I have a hard time explaining exactly why a church should give their financials and even attendance to the greater denomination. The usual reasons offered by the LifeWay bean counters aren’t compelling.
That said, if a church doesn’t want to provide a little basic info (name, address, name of pastor, contact info) they aren’t cooperative.
These ACP compliance clauses to be considered in friendly cooperation go way back. It looks silly to put them on the same level as the BFM but that’s where they are. See my quotes on the IN example in the OP.
There are some benefits that come with SBC or state convention membership, so those entities have some basis for requiring *some* info of member churches.
I’ll stay on the lookout for stern faced suits coming to enforce data collection on uncooperative churches.