Great Commission Resurgence

Reflection on the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force Initial Report : Part #2

/ Steven Ruff / Leave a comment

Component #2: “We believe in order for us to work together more faithfully and effectively towards the fulfillment of the Great Commission, that our North American Mission Board needs to be reinvented and released. Therefore, in order to do this, we will ask Southern Baptists that the North American Mission Board prioritize efforts to plant churches in North America and to reach our nation’s cities and clarify its role to lead and accomplish efforts to reach North America with the Gospel.”

 The GCRTF envisions a restructure of the North American Mission Board. NAMB has had its share of problems over the past few years that have led to a decreased effectiveness. Constant turnover of leadership at the top, duplicated ministries (down the associational level), and a broad focus have contributed to this ineffectiveness. Many would say that NAMB is broken. I would not go that far as to agree. This envisioned restructure is centered around the belief that the planting of healthy new congregations is the most effective way to reach North America. Dr. Ronnie Floyd, Senior Pastor of FBC Springdale, AR and Chairman of the GCRTF said, “This reinvention of the North American Mission Board that we envision will implement a direct strategy for planting churches in North America with a priority to reach metropolitan areas and under-served people groups. We desire for the North American Mission Board to encourage Southern Baptist churches to become church planting congregations. Regardless of the size or location of our churches, we want each to have a vision for and get involved in planting churches some way, somewhere in North America. It is our desire that at least 50% of the ministry efforts of our North American Mission Board be given to assist churches in planting healthy, multiplying, and faithful Baptist congregations in the United States and Canada.”

 The task force is calling for the following specific actions to be considered, including church planting, pastoral leadership development, local church assistance in evangelism and discipleship, and putting more Cooperative Program money where it will be most effective. The task force is also recommending the dissolving of “cooperative agreements” between NAMB and state conventions, where NAMB forwards portions of their CP budget dollars back to the state. Dr. Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and task force member states, “The idea of Cooperative Agreements is simple – the North American Mission Board (and originally, the Home Mission Board) established agreements with each state convention in order to avoid overlap, confusion, and duplication of work. When the Great Commission Task Force recommends the phased elimination of these agreements, we are calling for the North American Mission Board to rethink how it should relate to the state conventions so that the mission board retains a more focused ministry of assisting Southern Baptist churches to reach North America. In the year 2009, about $50-million dollars was routed through these Cooperative Agreements. Many of these dollars were spent on the salaries of workers in the state conventions and associations. The monies are allocated and channeled in way that are difficult to trace, much less prioritize.”

 The goal of dissolving these agreements is to streamline the work of NAMB, increase productivity, and improve accountability of CP dollars. There are parts of this component that I like and some I don’t like. I agree with the focus on church planting and leadership development. Aspects of these cooperative agreements trouble me greatly. Also in the initial report the task force envisions giving priority to the top 100 metropolitan areas of North America. While I understand that these large urban centers require more effort and resources (due to population), what about the other areas of North America? What about the pioneer regions of North America where lostness is just as real? What about the rural areas of North America? Will funding to reach these types of areas be sacrificed for the sake of reaching the top 100 metropolitan areas? There are still many questions left to ask, and answer.

Reflections on the Great Commission Resurgene Task Force Initial Report : Part #1

/ Steven Ruff / Leave a comment

Better than a month ago, the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force released the interim report of their work leading up to the final report to be given at the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in Orlando this summer. This report was the first of two to be made public (the other in early May) sharing their progress. I have written on the origin and function of this task force. You can read it here. Simply, the purpose of the GCRTF is to examine ways in which the SBC can more effectively carry out the Great Commission and report its findings to the messengers at the annual meeting in June.

This highly anticipated initial report has prompted much discussion across the SBC. Many articles have been written about it the state newspapers. Bloggers have critiqued it, giving  their own reasons why it will and will not be beneficial to the church. State convention executives have even gave reasons as to why they can and cannot support the recommendations contained in the report. In the grand scheme of all things SBC, my opinion won’t make any difference. Denominational structure won’t shift because of what I write. My words won’t change the course of current policy.  However, being the pastor of a small church (defined by the SBC as having fewer than 200 in the primary worship service), which is the make-up of approximately 85% of all SBC churches, my opinion may matter after all.

The initial report contains six components which may or may not be presented in the form of formal recommendations that require a vote for passage. When the final report comes out in May, there may be more or less than these initial six. Over the next three posts, I want to share each component, what it means, and my thoughts on each one.

Component #1: “We believe in order for us to work together more faithfully and effectively towards the fulfillment of the Great Commission, we will ask Southern Baptists to rally towards a clear and compelling missional vision and begin to conduct ourselves with core values that will create a new and healthy culture within the Southern Baptist Convention.”

Basically, this component calls for all SBC churches to come together around one central vision that is missional in nature. The term missional basically means to take on the mindset, attitude, and practice of missionary living in everything you do, instead of just “doing” missions. The task force calls for the SBC to embrace and pursue eight core values as part of this new vision: Christlikeness, truth, unity, relationships, trust, future, local church, and kingdom. I believe this is a good starting point. Unless the convention comes to terms with where it wants to go, the remaining components do not matter. Every local church has their own vision based on their local context. Embracing this vision and these core values will collectively give the convention a unified direction to move in.

Track of Cooperative Program Gifts

/ Steven Ruff / Leave a comment

In yesterday’s post, I made several observations relating to the Baptist Press article on the budget shortfall at the IMB. Due to these shortfalls, there may be delays in some missionaries arriving on the field. One of the observations I made was that I believe it may be necessary to change the percentages of Cooperative Program giving to allow more funds to arrive on the mission field. The Cooperative Program is the Southern Baptist’s unified giving program for funding missions that has been in place since the early 1900’s. The CP is about percentages. The local church designates a percentage of the undesignated receipts to be given to the CP through the state convention. The state convention then designates a percentage (based on messenger vote) to retain in the state and a percentage to forward to the SBC for the mission boards, seminaries, and other entities. It is along these lines of designated percentages that funds make their way to our missionaries.

The South Carolina Baptist Convention retains 59.56% of CP dollars coming from the local church and forwards the other 40.44% to the SBC. It is best to look at this through a real-life example. Let’s say that a church gives $100 to the CP in the state of South Carolina. 59.56% of that $100 stays in the state. This percentage is broken down as follows:

30.4% – South Carolina Baptist Convention Ministries
25.56% – South Carolina Baptist Institutions
2% – Womens Missionary Union
1.6% – Church Staff Retirement Plan

40.44% of that $100 is forwarded to the SBC. The SBC has a consistent distribution plan for all CP dollars that are collected from the state conventions. Here is that plan:

50% – International Mission Board
22.79% – North American Mission Board
22.16% – Six Seminaries
3.4% – SBC Operating Budget
1.65% – Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission

The local church’s gift of $100 at the SBC level amounts to $40.44. The gifts, at their final dispersed amount, look like this: International Mission Board ($20.22), North American Mission Board ($9.21), Six Seminaries ($8.96), SBC Operating Budget ($1.37), Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission (.66).

In my opinion, here in where the answer rests. It is not so much as the amount the church itself sends, it has to do with the amount that the state keeps. Now, I understand that each state, including our state of South Carolina, have ministries and programs the leadership deem important and worthy of Cooperative Program dollars. When it comes to the funding of missionaries where their only source of support comes from the local church, through the state convention, can’t we do better? Again, in my opinion, I believe we will see a recommendation come from the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force in June of 2010 relating to this area of CP percentages. Listed below is what other state conventions retain/send to the SBC as a matter of comparison.

Florida Baptist Convention  (60%,40%)
Georgia Baptist Convention  (58.6%, 41.2%)
Alabama Baptist Convention  (58%,42%)
Mississippi Baptist Convention (66%,34%)
Hawaii Baptist Convention  (69.4%, 30.6%) 
Tennessee Baptist Convention (58%, 42%)
California Baptist Convention (72.1%, 27.9%)

Taking The Lead

/ Steven Ruff / Leave a comment

 Now that the SBC Annual Meeting in Louisville is over it is time to digest and give great thought to the events and decisions made over those few days. I will not take time to make my observations now. I will detail them in a post later, I have other things going on right now. I will make a comment one one of the major topics of the meeting, which is the Great Commission Resurgence. There was a motion made for the SBC president to appoint a task force to study the Great Commission Resurgence, which you can read here, on how Southern Baptists can  work “more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.”

I am a big fan of Dr. Thom Rainer. I enjoy reading his work. Essential Church, Simple Church, Surpiring Insights from the Unchurched are just a few of his titles that I have enjoyed. There has been alot said about the GCR through all the news outlets and other blogs. Dr. Rainer made a powerful statement regarding the GCR. You can read it here.  Dr. Rainer states that any success that the GCR will have will be when it begins with each one of us. He has taken the lead and committed himself to a personal great commission resurgence. I applaud him being out front and calling for this resurgence to begin personally. Lord, give us the desire for it to begin with us personally.