Tom Law is the interim executive director of the Baptist Convention of Iowa. He was brought in after our previous executive retired and is trying to help us restructure and refocus our ministries here in Iowa. He is, to say the least, an expert in how NAMB policies are affecting state conventions.
On March 19, 2012, Kevin Ezell wrote an article titled “CHURCHES, NOT INFRASTRUCTURE, BEST WAY TO REACH NEW AREAS”. This was his attempt to outline the strategy which the North American Mission Board (NAMB) was implementing with regards to the State Conventions that relate to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). These new relational mechanisms were most pointedly focused at the State Conventions outside the South. Since then the “new work” states have been scrambling to understand how this will affect them, most particularly in the area of funding and staffing.
The irony is that I have not spoken with one State Executive Director who disagrees with Kevin with regards to the need for redesigning state infrastructure. Most had come to this conclusion and were in the process of restructuring. In fact, just the week before this document become public I had shared the same concepts with our state leadership as we began designing a new structure for Iowa. Therefore, the difference is not in the concept but in the implementation.
The current structure has been seventy years in the making. It was the best missiology available at the time and seemed the way to get things done more effectively and efficiently. Changing this in a year or even a few years is difficult and will require a lot of working together. That, in fact, is what I am hearing from the State Execs. Kevin stated “Being a missions agency also requires us to think in missiological ways.” The state conventions, especially the “new work” conventions” need a “missions agency” that will help them think “missiologically” developing strategies together that will be transformative.
What I feel we are experiencing is an organization that has decided that planting new congregations is the solution to all of the problems. Although I think that church planting is part of the equation I think that the problem goes much deeper. In fact, I think that it is a discipleship issue, but that is a topic for another article. NAMB, in spite of its denial, is becoming a Church Planting Network and just like the carpenter whose only tool is a hammer NAMB sees every problem as a “nail.” This does not work in carpentry and it certainly does not work in God’s Kingdom.
Unfortunately, Kevin Ezell and NAMB are going down the same road that their predecessor traveled some 70 years ago. Kevin correctly pointed out, “Historically, when Southern Baptists began work in North America outside the South, we sought to replicate state convention structures just like we have in the South. Thus, the same staffing model would be present in both places.” Yet we currently have a push being developed and promoted by those same southern boys who think that they know what’s best for the rest of the country.
There are at least three things wrong with the current strategy.
- Although the NAMB leadership is correct that the cities have become a magnet for people and are growing at the expense of the rest of the country they are promoting old strategies that have proven fruitless in years past. The most obnoxious of these strategies is thinking that throwing money at a problem will solve it.
- The primary question being asked is how many of the resources that are being sent to a “new work” area can be redistributed into church planting and how fast can we accomplish this. No real missiology has gone into this approach other than blindly accepting that more new church plants will automatically produce a healthier convention.
- Finally, rather than come alongside the state conventions to discover what is best in the culture in which the churches are to be planted they have proposed that the “new work” areas generate more funds or redirect funds that are currently coming to pay for outsiders to plant churches in cultures they do not understand using methods that have worked elsewhere but have not proven effective in the places where the planters now works. Although NAMB “tips its hat” at the missiological imperative of indigenous workers it has ramped up the numbers before helping us establish mechanisms to discover, train and launch those indigenous planters, therefore, forcing us to rely on outsiders in order to “hit” their numbers (notice I said their numbers not our numbers).
As I have observed the landscape in the “new work” arena I have discovered a few things that are not being addressed by this new strategy.
1) NAMB has focused on getting more church plants started. It has been decided that the best way to accomplish this task is to put more money into direct support of church planters. This allows for more church planters to be recruited and paid to plant churches. But we don’t necessarily have the infrastructure to support this process much less to make it replicable.
a) Although state conventions in the “new work” areas have been around for as long as 70 years in many places they are still dependent on outside (NAMB) funding and outside personnel. We have not done enough to create the leadership pipeline (or farm club) that will produce the indigenous church planters and church leaders necessary to make church planting replicable.
b) This new strategy only exacerbates the problem by suggesting that we need to make more money available to bring in more people from the outside to plant more churches that in all likelihood will fail in short order because they do not have any indigenous roots. The money will run out. The winters will be too cold for the southern boys. The people too slow to respond and the freshly minted church planter will return to the south where the picking’s are easier (or at least they think they are).
c) Finally, artificial countrywide goals for church planting have been determined without any consideration as to whether there are people to do the planting or places in which to plant churches.
2) So, although we do not need “state infrastructure” like we have in the south we do need some kind of systematic way of developing local leaders, discovering which of these leaders can become planters, promoting their indigenous planting efforts, and helping them develop other church planting leaders whom their churches can send out.
3) Finally, we in the “new work” states need a “missions agency” not a church planting network that promotes church planting and develops “exponential” or “catalyst” type gathering to rally the troop. This missions agency would:
a) Come alongside the state conventions in the new work areas to help us think strategically and missionally using good missiology. There is a world of difference between coming alongside to help and informing to instruct. The latter is what we have now; the former is what we need.
b) Help us know how to restructure and streamline our organizational processes in order to make them more effective and efficient rather than simply saying that NAMB is no longer going to “fund” infrastructure. It takes a level of infrastructure for cooperative program funds to flow both ways. It takes a level of infrastructure to make sure church plants are initiated properly, assessed adequately, held accountable, and who produce disciples that develop disciples and plant new congregations. It takes a measure of infrastructure to cast a vision, challenge the status quo, and draw the churches together to do more as a coordinated body than we can as independent entities.
- i) Help us find those mechanisms for connecting our people with the larger Southern Baptist family so that they do not feel they are living and working in isolation.
- ii) Help us discover ways of collaborating across state lines so that we can pool our resources and not have to “reinvent the wheel” in each of our locales.
- iii) Help us discover ways to doing more with less as the funds are withdrawn from infrastructure and invested in church planting.
c) Help us discover or devise replicable systematic discipleship processes that will produce disciples who disciple others who in turn disciple others and so forth. What we have now is a push to plant new congregations thinking that this will be the panacea that solves all of our problems.
d) Help us discover and devise church planting models that are culturally applicable to our environment and appropriate to penetrate the lostness.
e) Not only have a church planting network but help us connect to the dozens of strong evangelical church planting networks around the country that will help us plant churches in our states.
f) Help us develop leadership pipelines or farm clubs that will grow up leaders, pastors and church planters that are indigenous to our states rather than needing to recruit these from other areas.
g) Work with the seminaries to develop graduates that think missionally and have a strong missiological understanding of how to “parse” culture creating new methods to share the ageless message with different peoples and cultures.
There are numerous other aspects of the “missions agency” that we do desperately need, but this will get the conversations started toward discovering what is best for the “new work” states and how we can bring the transformational message of Christ to the lives of those people among whom we live and work.
Thomas L. Law, III
May 24, 2012
Dave,
Maybe you can help me here. From what I read Brother Law has some serious concerns about the new strategy. Or, is he saying these are just concerns that can be worked around as NAMB continues in its direction?
Tim, I don’t speak for Tom, but I know him. I am on the Executive Board, so I know that his attitude is that he is going to do the best he can under the circumstances.
I think it would be safe to say that he is concerned with the way NAMB is strategizing, but that he will attempt to make the best he can of things as they are.
He’s not some kind of angry firebrand who is out to get Ezell or anything. He agrees with NAMB’s objectives, I think, but not with the implementation.
I have scanned the article but must leave for most of the day. I would like to read it more closely and comment later today.
It appears to me that the only objections to NAMB’s changes are coming from (1) the “new work” states, and (2) the “established work” states.
Other than that, everyone seems to be getting behind this thing.
More specifically, the problem is with the way NAMB and the state conventions are relating.
It should also be noted some of the new work states and some of the established work states are happy to get “behind this thing.”
Yes that is correct Matt including Iowa. However, we have to be willing to discuss the issues we face. We don’t want to blindly follow a plan without addressing some obvious flaws. If the constructive criticism is taken with the right attitude, it will make the implementation better, especially for new work states. I suspect NAMB leadership is looking at the same elephant we are but from at a different angle. As you know, one six doesn’t fit all. Every culture generally presents a new set of opportunities.
A Work in Progress, Gene
This article reinforces what I’ve been saying for many years. The BEST way to start churches is when Churches start churches. NAMB needs to concentrate on DR, PR, Chaplaincy and ministry support and leave the church planting to local churches who have a burden for community’s and regions. Historically and with ample biblical evidence churches do a better job of starting churches – not conventions! Churches are the divinely ordained institution God placed here during this present dispensation for the purpose of glorifying God and propagating the Gospel. State and National Conventions and other entities of the SBC are to help and enhance churches of the SBC, not run rough shod over them. Funding for new church starts would be greatly enhanced if state conventions and local associations of churches would seek to partner together and pool their resources for the purpose of church planting rather than sending floods of cash to NAMB who will in turn send funds for church starts that are not willing to identify with the SBC in a significant way just so that NAMB can boast achievement in the numbers game. That being said, I am off…
Rev Kev
Home for a moment…
Kev, you lack some facts here. NAMB’s church planting effort will be far more closely tied to local churches than before. In fact, no plant will be made that does not have ties to an existing church.
As far as SBC identification goes, NAMB has detailed requirements and just clarified the matter of other networks. Perhaps you missed that here.
NAMB has set out some bold plans but I haven’t seen any chest thumping over numbers, rather NAMB has taken steps to reduce the numbers of phantom church plants reported by the states. I believe you to be uninformed here.
Kevin,
I couldn’t disagree more with what you are saying above for the following reasons:
1) We have far too many dying Churches who are unwilling to support Church planting.
2) We have far too many small Churches who can’t support Church planting.
3) We have far too few medium and large Churches who can’t sustain the numbers of new Churches that need to be supported and many of which don’t want to start new Churches, but rather work on building their own kingdoms.
4) Church planting is the way of the NT Church – that’s how Paul did it, that’s how the diaspora did it as they moved out from Jerusalem (albeit forceably). The hope of the world is not DR, Chaplaincy, PR, and all these other programs – rather it is the local Church. And so we need more local Churches, not more para-Church programs.
5) A state DR director told me to my face that one of the biggest issues he has with DR is that once they leave there is not enough Gospel witness left on the ground. He applauded Ezell for wanting to marry Church planting with DR. He saw that DR had a huge flaw and believes the key to fixing it is Church planting.
6) Every statistical survey on missiology for the past 30 years (going as far back as C. Peter Wagner) has shown that the greatest evangelism strategy ever invented is Church planing (see #4).
For all these reasons and many, many more NAMB is doing exactly what it should do – plant Churches. Everything else is extra-Biblical (you never see DR, PR, or Chaplaincy, or state evangelism conferences, or state conventions, or national conventions for that matter in the Bible – just Churches being planted).
Mr. Law seems to be singing from the same songbook as a few other state leaders these days. His premise that “I think what we are experiencing is an organization that has decided that planting new congregations is the solution to all of the problems,” is either intentionally misleading or indicates that Mr. Law has paid little to no attention to many of the initiatives and announcements coming from NAMB in the first five months of this year.
Ezell has noted several times on his webcasts that he talked too much about church planting in his first year—even apologized for it. But he’s repeated over and over again it’s not all NAMB is doing. Anyone who sees the daily feed from Baptist Press would no that too. I just looked at their last two months of back issues and most of the stories from NAMB are NOT about church planting. There are several (at least four) about GPS, NAMB’s evangelism initiative with the states. One about NAMB taking more responsibility for Appalachian Regional Ministries. One about NAMB adding increased clout to its chaplaincy ministry. In his recent trustee presentation Ezell talked about NAMB’S new emphasis and support for bi-vocational pastors. Even a new ministry for pastors wives called Flourish!
This charge from some state leaders that NAMB is only doing church planting is causing them to lose credibility.
Totally unfair, Robert. I don’t know you, but I know Tom. He has credibility with people who know him. He is not a traditionalist who is just trying to hold on to the status quo. You should see the restructuring he is leading us in here! No status quo about it.
But he works incredibly closely with NAMB – every day. Everything the BCI does is dependent on NAMB funding.
Look, I don’t mind if you disagree with his ideas – that’s fair. But he has credibility around here. And accusing him of lying is outside the pale.
Dave–I shouldn’t have worded it that way. I do think Iowa Baptists need to look back and ask if the current way is working. ACP says 76 churches in Iowa in 2001, today there are 96. I know there are other measures, but when it comes to winning people to Christ and discipling them, has the current way worked?
And we have been doing that.
Tom has us examining ourselves to the core and we are undergoing a radical reorganization.
Robert,
You are right and we have seen that what we are doing has not worked. Our strategy team has devised a new model which I would encourage you to look at. You can find it on our web at http://www.bciowa.org. We feel that smaller organic units will help us relate better, discover those with leadership potential, develop those leaders, engage new church plant opportunities and make a significant impact for the kingdom. We are going to have to unlearn some things so we can earn some new things. It is going to take time and a lot of hard work to build a new model, but as you have pointed out our current model is not producing the results we need.
Mr Kelly,
You missed the point entirely. The key word is implementation. Regardless of what Mr Ezell said or didn’t say, the implementation is extremely cumbersome for new work states. I don’t know of anyone who objects to church planting. However, there has to be a pipeline built beforehand as well as an infrastructure with definable goals and accountability. A Work in Progress, Gene
NAMB has been described in private by one SBC power broker as a “150+ year continuous disaster”. That’s very different than what the folks in the pews are told when it’s Annie Armstrong time. I am thankful that Kevin Ezell has “kicked the dog” – we are now seeing the dog howl a bit. (State Execs and DOMs – “dog” metaphor used to represent the entire system and not aimed at you. I like my dog.) I would far rather see a clearly defined focus – plant churches – that we can all agree is in our great commission (practicing saying it) mandate than the fuzzy objectives we’ve been living under. There’s clearly room for different opinions for how churches get planted, but I like the approach of plowing through the talk and just doing it. The proof will be in the pudding. I think things either turn around with bold action or we scrap this “150+ year continuous disaster” (and also sacred cow) and put our money to use elsewhere.
I think it’s a mistake to see NAMB as the owner and state conventions as the dog. NAMB is the dog biting the hand that feeds it.
Apparently my metaphor is lacking. All I’m really saying is that the whole system – NAMB and State Conventions included – needs to take a hard look inside and be shaken up a bit. I think that’s happening because Kevin Ezell has picked a path. Indecision is worse than no decision, and we don’t have indecision. If the state associations decide this isn’t working, they can cut NAMB funding. If the churches don’t like that, they can cut state convention funding. Looks like to me that in this instance, the convention is working (maybe painfully) as it should to flesh out who we need to be.
Meant to say “Indecision is worse than a bad decision”
Depends how bad the decision was, I guess.
Thanks for your thoughts Tom, and I agree completely. Funding church planting is a good idea, but it’s not enough. In Arizona, the state focused on the idea that healthy leaders grow healthy churches, and those churches plant new churches. I know in Iowa, there is a shortage of healthy leaders because they are over-worked, under paid and many are bi-vocational. Planting new churches won’t support these leaders. The most successful plants I have ever seen came out of local churches who had leaders who invested in new leaders who planted new churches. Many of the new leaders were bi vocational guys, but their pastors believed in and invested in them. My fear is that we are leaving behind existing churches to focus on new churches, but where are the new leaders coming from?
While I have not kept up with these changes as much as have those in the state/regional conventions, Brother Law’s comments make sense to me. It seems to me that what Bro. Ezell is doing is attempting to take a dysfunctional organization and make it healthy by giving it a specific focus: one that is rather narrow and will require that the organizational energy move in that direction, viz., church planting primarily, to the exclusion of the infrastructure issues that NAMB has supported for however many years. While such a focus may be worthwhile, it ignores the root issue at NAMB, which is its dysfunction. Unless and unless that is dealt with, the dysfunction will continue to be a problem. It may not manifest itself in the same way, but it will manifest itself. In fact, it is possible that Bro. Ezell did not intend to ignore input from state/regional conventions, but the organization itself proved ineffective at doing so because of its dysfunction. I will repeat something I have been saying for several years now: if we want a healthy NAMB, we must first put the focus and resourses into making it healthy before repurposing the organization.
John
I’ve been in meetings with Tom. He is frustrated by NAMB’s dictated changes (not negotiated with Iowa) but he is not some sort of anti-Ezell crusader.
I think we all realize Ezell stepped into a dysfunctional SBC entity and I for one appreciate many of the changes he has made.
My point is simply thi: if we want NAMB to be a healthy and purposeful entity which accomplishes its purpose, it must first be healthy. Without making it healthy first, no matter how carefully or specificially it is focused, the continuing dysfunction will manifest itself, sooner or later, in one way or another. And the powers that be–beginning with Ezell and the Trustees of NAMB–have to first admit there is dysfunction (on an organizational level, not necessarily an individual one), and next, be willing to deal with it.
John
John
Although I have hardly any first-hand knowledge of inner workings of either the NAMB or the state conventions, I can say, on the basis of 18 years of church planting and missionary experience, your ideas here seem to make a lot of sense to me. I am curious to know if you have had the chance to have any input into strategy development at the NAMB. Admittedly, there may be other factors involved that I don’t understand, but I would hope that Kevin Ezell and other leaders at the NAMB will give careful consideration to these ideas.
My question above, by the way, is directed to Tom, if he is reading the comments here.
I don’t know how much Tom is going to be able to join the discussion.
I’ve spoken with our state exec and given him my views on this. Namely, this: The CP funds to to the state. A certain amount of that went to Nashville, to NAMB, and back to the state in the form of funding of certain programs within the state. If those programs were needed in the state, then it’s our state convention’s duty to continue them, and if that means keeping more of the money funneling through here on its way to Nashville, then so be it.
First Alabama, then the USA, then the uttermost parts. And frankly, we’re not doing well in Alabama and the USA.
IF the task is to make disciples, that is.
Can I put forth an ignorant question so that the rest of you can point out how stupid I am?
Where, exactly, do we see a Biblical command to plant churches?
I find a Great Commission to make disciples. I do find that disciples seem to organize themselves into churches, even when Paul was only in town for a few weeks, but I’m still trying to find how “plant churches” became the command rather than “make disciples.”
So help me out, please…
There is no command to plant churches, it is (or should be) a bi-product of evangelism. If we reach new people, they are discipled and gather together and they are the church. The issue comes from our concept of “a church” which is an official organizational entity complete with building, staff, constitution and all that jazz. The concept of “planting a church” is not a New Testament concept, because the church is a group of Christians gathered together to worship and learn and pray. As you get a group of believers, there is an elder or leader or shepherd or pastor who is mature who begins to lead and teach and shepherd. The church then emerges as the believers assemble, worship and have all things in common. It’s like “planting a family” or “planting a community”. A family happens with people come together and build a family. A community happens when people come together and community happens. So, in the ancient/future model, should we change the concept to finding people, sharing the gospel, having a shepherd who teaches them and cares from the and let that develop? That is another blog, and I don’t want to hijack this one.
“The issue comes from our concept of “a church” which is an official organizational entity complete with building, staff, constitution and all that jazz. ”
Dan, I agree that church planting should be a by-product of evangelism. Your concept of “church”, as too many have come to know it, is quite a contrast in the description offered by Mike in his reply that it is “a gathering of blood bought believers.” You have adequately described the organized machine I have observed in my lifetime, in which the Holy Spirit has little room to act. In fact, if you were to lift the Holy Spirit out of the American church at large, 95% of the stuff would still get done! Doing church without God is easy!
Fortunately, there has always been a remnant “Church” of blood bought believers within the “church” which has been on mission with the same “ancient/future model” to reach a world for Christ through evangelizing, discipling and expanding (planting churches) … a “Church” which is truly focused on the Great Commission, rather than a mission to maintain itself. The organized beast with all its “jazz” and multitudes of unregenerate members really has no spiritual aptitude to plant churches of the genuine sort.
Perhaps, it’s not a matter of looking for a future model, but a return to the ancient path which will set our course straight.
Doug,
I don’t think you will see a specific command in Scripture that says, “Go plant churches”. Especially, if by “Go plant churches” you mean something like “get a group of people together, buy a building, write a constitution, and give yourself a name”.
But I think there are several places where church planting is assumed. Even in the Great Commission those things are lived out in the context of a local church. We can’t rightly “baptize”, “make disciples”, “teach”, apart from a gathering of blood bought believers. The Great Commission assumes church. And I think if you extend this to Paul’s ministry and some of the instructions he gave to Titus and Timothy I think church planting is assumed in many places in the NT.
I think in many peoples minds “plant churches”=”make disciples”. But I could be wrong. I’m no church planting or missiological expert by any means.
Mike, you are my hero.
Dan,
Thank you. But I believe you have me mistaken for someone else. That wasn’t me in that Spider-man photo.
2 Timothy 2:2 comes as close as needed, methinks: ” And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”
I serve in Montana and have also served in Wyoming, so I do understand some about the new work areas. We are dealing with some of the mandates here in Montana. Our DOM is now a church planting startegist, meaning we do not have a DOM. Our Association is being run by our “A-Team” (Team leaders) and doing a pretty good job. Here is my hope: As Tom stated, changes were needed. Ezell has implemented change, change that many see as positive. Some of those changes have happened very quickly (too quickly), and the pendulum has swung (maybe too far). So, if the “Toms” will speak while cooperating, and the “Ezells” will listen while pushing change, then Southern Baptists may end up with a very good NAMB strategy. I am praying this occurs. Praying no one “takes their marbles and goes home” because they don’t like the change. Constructive criticism from those involved with the work should help us to become a greater force.
Steve in Montana
“Go therefore, and make disciples . . . ” I have been a Southern Baptist since before I was born. I grew up in a small, rural congregation in the South, attending Sunday School, VBS, revival meetings, the whole ball of wax. However, I was not discipled very well until I actually arrived in Seminary. Now, I’m the pastor of a small, rural congregation in Iowa, and I’ve seen that the people in this 146-year-old congregation have not been discipled, either. I agree that the issue is discipleship, but no one seems to know how it’s done most effectively among people whose lives are consumed by everyday life. I have come to conclude that until the people in the churches WANT to become disciples, it won’t happen. I have no power to MAKE them WANT to become disciples, so . . . how does NAMB’s shouting at us to plant churches find reality in the real world, since church planting is the natural outflow of true disciples?
By the way, I have tremendous respect for Tom Law. He’s a poor guy who jumped (got thrown) into the middle of a tempest and is just trying to make some sense of it, both for his own sake and for Iowa’s. My 2 cents’ worth.
If I am understanding Tom correctly, we are reading him wrong if we see this about pitting discipleship over against church planting. Church planting is one of the most important tools for making disciples. But just throwing money at it, sending out some folks to plant churches, and saying, “Get after it,” will not accomplish the job, either of planting churches, or making disciples. It will require some creative thought, and strategic missiology, and it will require working together with local believers in the cities and new work states that understand better than newly implanted people from outside the cultural and contextual considerations involved.
“it will require working together with local believers … than newly implanted people from outside …”
Amen! More “creative thought and strategic missiology” should have been directed initially by NAMB to equip and mobilize troops already on the ground …rather than scrambling to recruit another army. Perhaps a focus by the “new” NAMB to fund fixes to the “old” NAMB would have been a more effective (and loving) route to treating what ailed in state ranks, rather than defunding that which didn’t comply with the new church planting model.
Generally speaking:
As a pastor, I don’t want a state convention or a mission agency to stand in the position of ‘the expert’. I look to both as partners. I am happy to lead my church to give to both so that as other churches are in need of help they have a type of clearing house of resources available today. If the church I pastor has a need and we think our local association or state convention may be able to offer help via funds, dialog, moral support or an army of believers who can show up with help we know they are a moment away.
I’m not looking for a mission agency to tell me the best method or most paradigm is the most successful for my setting or situation. Nor do I want such a ‘resource’ made available with the funds we commit for gospel work.
I don’t know how to undue what has been done in days past without upsetting most. I notice it upsets those who have devoted their lives to the agencies when people talk about them without regard to their feelings or assumed calling. I notice it upsets those (like myself) who discover that we’ve been giving (over generalization, I know) to an “administrative machine” [my words] rather than a co-laborer in the harvest field.
I think our day as Southern Baptists looks as exciting as the early days of our existence. It’s good to be in a place where we know it is better to look to God than to the administrative machine. It’s good to rediscover and reclaim, so long as what we rediscover is breathed from the Holy Spirit and what we are reclaiming is from the God breathed pages of Scripture.
Where are the churches, associations, state conventions, and denominations who will be bold enough to put it all on the line actually live out the bold claims of the 16th century reformers and the like?
“We believe that the Word contained in these books [the Bible] has proceeded from God, and receives its authority from Him alone, and not from men. And inasmuch as it is the rule of all truth, containing all that is necessary for the service of God and our salvation, it is not lawful for men, nor even angels, to add to it, to take away from it or to change it. Whence it follows that no authority whether of antiquity, or custom, or numbers, or human wisdom, or judgments, or proclamations, or edicts, or decrees, or councils, or visions, or miracles, should be opposed to these Holy Scriptures, but on the contrary, all things should be examined regulated and reformed according to them.”
Tom,
Much of what you said here makes sense, but there are some things that I believe you overemphasize to the detriment of the need for change:
1) You seem to put way too much priority on immediate “indigenous” Church planting efforts. What I mean is that you seem to say “we need our plants to be indigenous first and foremost”, but that never happens – in the Bible or on the mission field. Always is it outsiders who bring the message of the Gospel to new areas and plant Churches. Then the effort is taken up by those in the area. When the IMB wants to start an indigenous Church planting movement, they don’t hold training sessions in the area for those interested and build infrastructures to immediately start indigenous Churches. NO, they start Churches in villages and towns and call people from those Churches to take them over and to go and start other Churches. So you often need outsiders to start Churches if you don’t already have the personnel to do so yourself.
2) You put far too much emphasis on the necessity of indigenous planting. It’s as if you are speaking of Iowa like it is Malaysia. It’s not. It might be Heaven, but it’s not vastly different from N. Missouri or Southern Illinois and Indiana. And those are much different from N. KY and Southern Ohio. That is to say the culture is not so vastly different that these “Southern boys” as you call them can’t minister there quite effectively. Let me just throw some names out there to make my point – Rick Warren, Vance Pittman, James MacDonald (all of whom planted successful Churches far from the culture where they grew up). Then consider men like John Piper, Sinclair Ferguson, and Alistair Begg (all who pastor Churches – and quite well – in areas far from their native cultures). So, indigenous Church planting by Americans (or even Canadians) in northern and western cultures can be done quite successfully. I think you give “Southern Boys” (though most Church planters I know actually aren’t so “Southern”) far too little credit (especially in regard to your winters, but mostly in regard to their aptitude to adopt to a slightly different culture).
3) You place too much emphasis on the need for infrastructure. Again, when we look at the Early Church, the Reformation Church, the Church of the 1st and 2nd Great Awakenings, and the Early SBC Church, we just simply don’t find a lot of infrastructure there. Yet, they were successful in proclaiming the Gospel to the lost and planting Churches. As David Platt has rightly pointed out “The Word of God and the Spirit of God are enough to do the work of God.” Jesus says to pray for workers for the harvest, not the infrastructure to go out into the fields properly equipped and supported.
4) Finally, you place too little emphasis on the local Church as the means by which people are discipled and equipped for Church planting. If these new Churches do their job properly when planted, then within the next 10 years you will have hundreds of individuals who have been raised up through these new Church plants to be planters themselves. And you won’t have had to lift a hand to equip any of them. They will have been equipped through the local Church and given a hands-on apprenticeship right there in the Church where they were led to the Lord. And that’s exactly what it should look like.
So Tom, I do think NAMB has the correct strategy here – but in order to see that you must get past our 50-100 year way of seeing how to “do” Church and instead look at the ancient way of making disciples. It was far more successful then and I believe it will be far more successful now than what we’ve been doing lately.
D.R.,
Tom, having extensive experience with the IMB himself, is plenty capable of answering this, but I wanted to throw in my 2 cents worth as well.
My answer to your point #1 is, it depends. In IMB work, there are all kinds of different church planting situations. Though it is not an IMB site, the following webpage gives a pretty good overview of basic concepts and terminology describing different approaches to church planting (applicable, I believe, to both an international as well as a North American setting).
http://www.efca.org/church-planting/reachglobal-church-planting/definitions-terms
In many places, the preferred model with the IMB is catalytic as opposed to pastoral church planters. I think the following quote from the link is relevant here: “Catalytic church planters may start a ministry training center instead of a mother church as a base for their training and church planting efforts.”
In any case, in a region in which there are no evangelical churches at all, someone is going to have to do hands on, pioneer church planting, in order to prime the pump, and get the ball rolling, with respect to CPMs (I am not referring here to the more technical definition of CPMs used by David Garrison, et al, just to movements of reproducing churches in general). Once there are a few churches up and going, however, it is generally preferable to train locals as church planters, and to encourage and facilitate already established churches in reproducing themselves. I believe that pretty much anywhere in North America, there are at least a couple of established evangelical churches in the region with whom you can partner, mobilize workers, and do training, if you are intentional about it, and work hard enough at it.
I have some more thoughts on all this that I think are relevant on all this here:
http://sbcimpact.org/2011/08/08/building-on-someone-elses-foundation/
D.R.
I responded to most of your comments elsewhere, but wanted to say something about infrastructure. You and others seem to be reading into my comments on infrastructure what you have heard from others. I said that Kevin is correct in that we need to shrink and streamline structure. In fact, I have proposed a radical restructuring in Iowa that from 2011 to 2015 will cut out state staff in at least half. My point (on infrastructure) is that a certain level of infracture is necessary and it take time to change. At the association (what we are calling cluster) level I am calling for a volunteer staff. We are trying to flatten the organizational structure pushing things to the local church where it belongs.
By the way Rick Warren grew up in California.
Friends,
I’m on the road and therefor not able to chime in as I would like. I have just had my wife read me all your comments and I will respond as I can when I get to my destination this evening.
I have appreciated David Miller’s responses in my absence.
The Biblical mandate is decipleship and maybe one day I’ll get to share some of my thoughts on where we are on that issue. Deciples gather in what we call churches so it is difficult to separate the two. David Rogers is right in understanding my concern with strategy. Unfortunately, although I’m aware of Kevin’s comments, the way they all play out for us is in the arena of church planting.
I think this dialogue is healthy and will help us get us where we need to. E.
Tom
As president of the Northwest Baptist Convention and as one having been involved in the revisioning and restructuring of our own NWBC over the past 5 years I heartily agree with the points Tom raises. Before being elected president I was chair of the Finance Committee of the Executive Board of the NWBC and helped develop and promote the budget after NAMB began their massive restructuring. Then, as now, I believe that we in ‘new work’ areas need to grow up and grow off of outside support, we cannot immediately do so. As Tom notes what is has taken decades to create and what needs to be cannot happen overnight. From where I sit- as a small church pastor in a rural community- I acknowledge that recently NAMB has been willing to work with our regional network of churches to some degree. I still think more needs to be done in strengthening partnerships between existing churches and structures and new church plants. Yes, we require new church plants to contribute to the Cooperative Program, but in an era where associationalism is declining it seems to me that bringing in church planters with little or no connection with the existing structure will only lead to the planting of more non-SBC churches…. Without strong connections NAMB funded church plants may very well migrate to other connections- and that concerns me. I too share Tom’s concern about leadership development. Our region has begun a strong network of pastor cluster groups that meet for training, encouragement, and leadership development- but it is only a few years old. We need several more years- or an infusion of funding- to accelerate the opportunities for further strengthening and developing existing churches. Ultimately it is not the assignment of the denomination to start churches, but to assist healthy churches to reproduce.
Tom, thanks for sharing and thanks for courageously stating what needs to be said.
“We need … further strengthening and developing existing churches. Ultimately it is not the assignment of the denomination to start churches, but to assist healthy churches to reproduce.”
And that says it all, brother! That, indeed, should be a primary consideration in NAMB’s mission.
Max, the best way to strengthen the exiting congregations is to get them to reach out beyond themselves. To think and act missionally. On-the-job training is the best training.
NAMB’s assignment it to be the missions agency for the SBC in the United States and Canada. As such it is to work with state conventions, associations, and churches to reach the USA and Canada for Jesus.
David Rogers, I have not been asked by NAMB to enter into any strategy discussions. I have only been at this for about nine months. Others may have participated in strategy talks early on, but I have not gotten the impression that State Execs were included in those talks.
I do not disagree with Kevin or NAMB’s emphasis on church planting and the need for more streamlined state structures, but as you pointed out we need more strategic dialogues, not directives.
My point is that we might acually get to where NAMB and Kevin want to go faster and better if we talked about how to get there together. I thought that we were going to get to do this in the meeting called for late July. Unfortunatly, rather than a dialogue what I see being developed is a “exponential” type meeting to promote church planting. That might be good, but not what we need right now.
We need to get on the same page and simply being told what page that is probably will not get us there.
Furthermore, I am concerned that NAMB is increasingly taking on a life of its own independent of the Convention and certainly independent of the local church. The evidence is in the directives and lack of relationships with the state and local leadership. For that matter, even the State Conventions (mostly employees of NAMB) have continued to push things on the local church that the local church hasn’t asked for. A Work in Progress, Gene
D.R.
1. I can’t speak for other places but we have had those people you speak of in your first point in Iowa for almost sixty years. Not only that but I am not closing the door to those outsiders (more about this in #2). What I am saying is that our emphasis needs to be on creating a leadership pipeline to cultivate and develop local talent (disciples) that will become leaders, sunday school teachers, small group leaders, church planters, and pastors. If our primary means of starting new congregations is relying on those from other places we will never get there.
2. We need people to come to Iowa but they need to think like missionaries not like pastors going down the road to the next town. Church planters (and pastors) who come to Iowa need to understand that although you may speak the same language and live in the same country you do not necessarily reflect the same culture or understand things the same. It would be naive for a young man from Alexandria, LA to think that he can replicate the church where he grew up in New Iberia, LA. They are worlds apart, not just a few miles.
3. Last year I challenged churches and associations in the Missouri State Convention to “Adopt a Country in Iowa”. 48 of the 99 counties in Iowa have no churches that relate to the Baptist Convention of Iowa. As I spoke with their leadership I encouraged the Baptist of Missouri to take a longer look, starting with cultivating friendships, discovering the “man of peace”, developing disciples, and expecting that out of those initiative a church will develop, with the expectation that this new congregation will start others.
Its not about hiring new planters its about developing a strategy that will produce disciples that disciple who in turn disciple, starting churches that start churches that in turn start others.
We need to work smarter not just harder.
We are in the process of trying to implement some of these things in Iowa. I am meeting with our church leadership to see how we can most effectively address the needs we have. Our strategy team has dveloped a proposal that we are reviewing with our leadership. You can see the initial proposal on our website: http://www.bciowa.org. We feel that we need to focus on three things: Leadership Development (Discipleship), Church Planting, and Missions. We feel that the best way for us to accomplish this is through three initiative: forming small organic cluster of churches led by cluster champions, developing stack pole churches whose pastors will grow up small group leaders and pastors to shephard the whole county, and church planting.
We have more questions than answers, but we feel that this will give us the best chance of blanqueting Iowa with the gospel.
I appreciate all of your comments. As I told Dave Miller when he asked me to write something, I want this to be constructive. I know that God wants to do something great through us and it is going to take us working together to get it done.
The sentiments expressed by your interim exec differ from what has been the usual kickback from other state execs, and I appreciate that. It is a thoughtful, serious piece.
A few criticisms:
1. The assertion that NAMB is “…an organization that has decided that planting new congregations is the solution to all of the problems” is overreaching, as noted above by Robert Kelley above. Although Tom labeled it as what he “feel[s]”, I suspect that he has sufficient data to understand this to be an unjustified assertion. NAMB is aiming for 50% going to church planting, which leaves $55-60 million for other things.
2. The manner of reference for NAMB’s church planting efforts (“The most obnoxious of these strategies is thinking that throwing money at a problem will solve it”) is, well, an obnoxious comment. The phrase “throwing money at” is an emotionally charged perjorative not fitting for the author’s otherwise thoughtful piece.
3. The author no doubt understands that some of us, when we hear denominational executives speaking of necessary infrastructure, look upon that with somewhat askance. State executives have always been capable of justifying centralized infrastructure, to excess. Let’s be candid here – NAMB has been funding state infrastructure to excess. I commend them for ending this.
4. On new work areas having to generate more funds, NAMB has outlined several levels of support to new work states based on what appear to me to be far more justifiable and reasonable parameters that whatever rationale there has been that gives us what we now have.
I will say that Tom’s best point is the questioning of “artificial countrywide goals for church planting” to be adhered to by all the church planter catalysts. It’s tough for me to see how this expectation is realistic and I’d guess it will be revisited.
In a general sense, my opinion is that NAMB would never have been able to achieve much change in the cooperative agreements with states had they attempted to tiptoe around all the legacy funding schemes, all the historic accretions of funding that make little sense now. Change had to be dramatic, rather rapid. We all like our funding.
I appreciate SBCV posting this. Why don’t you send it to NAMB for comment? I have yet to find any NAMB folks to have horns.
Mr Thornton, If it is overreacting then show me a build out. We can’t build a house starting from the rooftops. So, why are we trying that approach with churches? If we are going to plant churches, are we then going to build them through churches who aren’t reproducing disciples? If they aren’t reproducing disciples then how do we expect them to reproduce churches? I recommend a build out that starts with the fundamentals of disciple making which extends into developing small groups who reproduce which develops into planting churches that reproduce. I recommend taking a close look at Real Life Ministries in Post Falls, Idaho. A Work in Progress, Gene
William,
Thank you for the complement.
As for the criticisms:
1. It is my observation that everything NAMB is doing is done through the prism of church planting. Even things that are not in the church planting arena. What’s more that subject shadows all other conversations and may keep NAMB from taking the role of mission agency as seriously as I would like them to.
2. You are correct I should not have used that much hyperbole and I apologize.
Tom,
I appreciate your leadership in Iowa. You are helping us get beyond our sacred cows and broken paradigms and traditions and assisting us in refocusing on loving Jesus and obeying His commands.
A Work in Progress,
Gene
Thanks Gene. You guys are making the job here in Iowa easier and I am excited about what God is going to do through us. Blessings, Tom