By Byron Day, BCM/D President and Pastor of Emmanuel Church, Laurel, MD
Byron Day, BCM/D President and Pastor of Emmanuel Church, Laurel, Md.
The Southern Baptist Convention 2010 in Orlando Florida promises to be one of the most important meetings in recent Southern Baptist History. The progress report of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force has certainly generated great discussion and at the very least will cause some concern.
The report was delivered to the SBC Executive Committee on Feb. 22, 2010 by Task Force chairman Ronnie W. Floyd. Floyd and all of the Task Force members are to be commended for their prayerful and diligent work. The Task Force has responded well to its charge to bring a report and any recommendations to the Southern Baptist convention meeting in Orlando, Fla., June 15-16, 2010, concerning how Southern Baptists can work more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.
The report states that Southern Baptists need a new and compelling vision for the future and that this new vision put forth by the Task Force be accepted and endorsed this June by the convention. I have read the report and I am concerned that the recommended changes may prove to be a pill that is too large to swallow at once. In my opinion the overall tone of the report suggest that the North American Mission Board is lacking in performance and appears to be somewhat of a mild rebuke. The report asks Southern Baptists to embrace a new vision stated in six components some of which would have direct impact on our state convention.
The second component is one that would have the most direct impact on our convention. The recommendation by the GCR Task Force is that Southern Baptists charge the North American Mission Board (NAMB) to renegotiate its cooperative agreements and budgets with the goal of eliminating these agreements within four years. In my opinion, this second component implies that State Conventions have not done a good job managing resources and that national oversight is now required. Moreover, in order to ensure accountability, only projects approved by NAMB would be funded. This would mean that projects deemed necessary by the churches in our convention that support the cooperative program would not be able to have access to funds that would enable us to do great commission work without NAMB’s approval. I cannot speak for other conventions, but I believe the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware does an excellent job managing all of its resources.
Another component that caught my attention is component number four which calls for State Conventions to reassume their primary role in the promotion of the Cooperative Program and stewardship education. I was unaware that this was the primary role of State Conventions.
One of the most difficult things to do is to get Baptists to agree. The GCR Task Force Report in its present state, in my opinion, is a pill to big to swallow. While I can embrace most of the report’s recommendations, I hope that the Task Force will reconsider and modify those components concerning the role of the State Conventions in this proposed new vision of missional strategy.
I agree with Byron Day’s assessment of the GCR Report. “A pill too big to swallow” is a good analogy, and I might add that this is especially dangerous when it is the wrong pill. I believe the GCR committee is working hard to find a solution to winning the lost in America and Canada. I served various churches in the South for 19 years and have been a DOM in Maryland/Delaware for over 10 years. From my perspective much of this report reflects a megachurch, southern US, Anglo, CEO/Corporate Strategy approach. The strategy seems to be that if we set up a direct strategy for church planting which is overseen by NAMB then everyone will fall in line and do as they are told to get the job done. The problem with that is that most church planting that is successful is contextual and indigenous. Though the GCR committee denies that this is a top-down strategy, that is exactly what it is. How can you wipe out the cooperative structure NAMB has with state conventions without devastating the contextual planting strategies as well as disrupting the lives of thousands of home missionaries and their families who are wondering what the future holds. One reason I answered the call to be a home missionary when I had been a pastor of a large multi-staffed church was to come to an are where there is great opportunity to plant churches, realizing that NAMB would offer a support base financially. As James L. Sullivan, former president for many years of the old Baptist Sunday School Board, that we are held together in our cooperative work through a “rope of sand.” That is a relationship built on trust. What I hear is that the GCR committee no longer trusts state conventions and associations, but will trust the NAMB leadership which they say has not done their job effectively. This just does not make sense to me. This is “Twilight Zone” material…I pray the GCR committee will see the possible repercussions if the report is passed as is. There is much good in the GCR report and hopefully the good parts will not be harmed by only one part which will cause more problems than solutions.