{"id":1761,"date":"2011-03-30T05:00:47","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1761"},"modified":"2011-09-22T07:31:50","modified_gmt":"2011-09-22T13:31:50","slug":"the-new-namb-7-years-sure-goes-by-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1761","title":{"rendered":"The New NAMB: 7 Years Sure Goes By Fast!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve never visited Alpharetta, Georgia, the home of the former North American Mission Board and the newly reinvented NAMB.\u00a0 However, it appears that there must be some glitch in the time-space continuum that causes not only months, but years, to accelerate at an astronomical rate.\u00a0 How else to explain how 90 days turned into two weeks <\/a>or, more recently, how seven years suddenly became 10 months.<\/p>\n

There must be some logical explanation for the time warp that the new NAMB\u00a0appears to be stuck in.\u00a0 When Dr. Kevin Ezell\u00a0was elected President of the new North American Mission Board, he told Dr. Ed Stetzer that he would take the first three months on the job to get the lay of the land:<\/p>\n

I know there are a lot of expectations, but I want to take the first 90 days and just listen. (Stetzer\u00a0interview with Ezell here<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In less than two weeks as President of the new NAMB, Dr. Ezell started making significant changes.\u00a0 You know what they say about time and having fun?\u00a0 As departments were consolidated and long-time employees “who were already thinking about retirement”\u00a0<\/em>were offered incentives to retire early<\/a>, President Ezell announced — prior to the end of his listening tour — that even more radical changes were on the way<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n

“There is going to be considerable change,” Ezell said. “A lot of the changes will not be directed to competency of people because we are going to be doing some things so drastically different. What does that look like specifically, I don’t know yet. But we are working on that as fast as we can.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even as Dr. Ezell hedged on what the drastic changes were going to look like, he knew before the end of 90 days that the changes would be so radical that he likened\u00a0the “changes coming to NAMB to a company that had been making washing machines and now will be making cars.”<\/em><\/p>\n

One does not need to be\u00a0the engineer on the Star Ship Enterprise to figure out that the speed at which the new NAMB\u00a0appears to be traveling will result not just in a bumpy ride, but could well cause the disintegration of the Convention as we know it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That the leadership at the new NAMB has moved so quickly to\u00a0completely rebuild a new vehicle\u00a0whose seats will be\u00a0filled with\u00a0nearly 100%\u00a0church planters — everyone else will either be booted off the bus\u00a0entirely or relegated to sit in a few seats in the back of the bus <\/a>—\u00a0should come as no surprise, even though the GCRTF’s Final Report called for\u00a0<\/p>\n

“at least 50% of the ministry efforts of our North American Mission Board be\u00a0given to assist churches in planting healthy, multiplying and faithful Baptist congregations in the United States and Canada.”\u00a0 (GCRTF Final Report, page 10<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I know that “at least 50%”<\/em> could mean more than half.\u00a0 But,\u00a0no one can credibly argue that “at least 50%”<\/em>\u00a0means that church planting should receive upwards of 80-90% of NAMB\u00a0funding.\u00a0 I have heard from reliable sources that this is exactly what NAMB’s\u00a0understanding and implementation of the 50% number will be in reality.\u00a0 For the leaders of the\u00a0new NAMB to so stretch the meaning of that phrase much beyond 60% for church planting would not only violate the spirit, intent, and language of the Final Report, but it would also strain credulity.<\/p>\n

However, if the new NAMB’s\u00a0leadership — Dr. Ezell and the Board of Trustees — are willing to disregard the 50% mark for church planting, then they are apparently even more willing to completely re-interpret what the number seven means.<\/p>\n

On February 9, 2011, the Trustees of the new NAMB voted to implement sweeping changes<\/a>\u00a0to one of Southern Baptists’ two missions sending\u00a0agencies. \u00a0NAMB\u00a0President Kevin Ezell described the changes:<\/p>\n

“This is a massive overhaul,” Ezell\u00a0said. “We believe it’s going to be an historic overhaul.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While no one that I know of has argued against bringing needed changes to NAMB, there has been much concern over the scope and the timing of the proposed changes, particularly in light of the GCR\u00a0Final Report and Recommendations relating to strategic partnership agreements between NAMB\u00a0and the various Baptist State Conventions.\u00a0 After Cooperative Program money is forwarded to the SBC from the various State Conventions, NAMB\u00a0— a recipient of CP funds — returns a portion of the money to the States to help\u00a0pay for jointly funded missionaries.<\/p>\n

The GCRTF, in their Final Report, said this about the\u00a0existing cooperative agreements\u00a0and future strategic partnership agreements:<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, we are convinced that the Cooperative Agreements must be replaced with a more appropriate structure and pattern of cooperation. Thus, we call for the leadership of the North American Mission Board to budget for a national strategy that will mobilize Southern Baptists in a great effort to reach North America with the Gospel and plant thriving, reproducing churches. We encourage NAMB to set a goal of phasing out all Cooperative Agreements within seven years (emphasis added)<\/strong>, and to establish a new pattern of strategic partnership with the state conventions that will penetrate lostness\u00a0and ensure greater responsiveness to the Southern Baptist Convention and greater effectiveness for NAMB in the appointment of missionary personnel and church planters. (GCRTF Final Report, page 11<\/a>)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0Also at the NAMB\u00a0Trustees’ Meeting in February, Dr. Ezell<\/p>\n

indicated NAMB hopes to have new integrated strategic partnership agreements signed with each state convention by the end of March.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Might I ask, “March of what year?”\u00a0 March of 2011?\u00a0 Now, I’m no math whiz or Federation engineer (although my last name is Scott), but when did a seven year\u00a0phase-out become a 10 month phase-out and phase-in?\u00a0 Oh, wait.\u00a0 That’s right.\u00a0 Ten months is\u00a0“within” seven years.\u00a0 How could I have missed that.\u00a0 There’s just one slight problem with that math — the Progress Report of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force, issued on February 22, 2010, originally called for a four year phase-out:<\/p>\n

Our vision is that the North American Mission Board is to free at least 25% of the cooperative budgets annually in order to penetrate the lostness of North America more effectively.\u00a0 Each partner will be considered individually, rather than collectively.\u00a0 Therefore, at the end of these four years, the North American Board will be completely free from these present agreements.\u00a0 It is understood that state conventions will manage their budgets accordingly. (GCRTF Progress Report, pages 21-22<\/a>)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dr. Ezell\u00a0must not have a clue as to how the State Conventions work.\u00a0 Most Executive Boards, such as the one I serve on for the Baptist Convention of New Mexico, meet quarterly.\u00a0 Our next meeting will be the third week in April.\u00a0 It would be impossible for the BCNM to sign a new strategic partnership agreement by the end of this March, even if we wanted to.<\/p>\n

In all likelihood, what should have been a seven year\u00a0phase-out has been accelerated to the original four year\u00a0time frame, in violation of the intent, spirit, language, and “legislative history”\u00a0of the GCR\u00a0Final Report and Recommendations.\u00a0 If I didn’t know any better, I would think that the leadership at the new NAMB was intentionally trying to put State Conventions between a rock and a hard place if not out of business altogether.<\/p>\n

What draconian cuts will State Conventions like the BCNM be faced with, even in year one of a supposed seven<\/del>\u00a0four year phase-out?\u00a0 What jointly funded missionaries will NAMB\u00a0no longer fund because they don’t plant churches?\u00a0 Will our Collegiate\u00a0leader have to be let go?\u00a0 What about our Student and Children’s leaders, both jointly funded between NAMB\u00a0and the BCNM?<\/p>\n

Perhaps as the new strategic partnership agreements are rolled out, State Conventions will come to understand — perhaps the hard way — that they will have to “manage their budgets accordingly.”\u00a0 <\/em>Truer words could not have been written.<\/p>\n

Our church has generously contributed to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions.\u00a0 Those missionaries include some of the finest men and women that I have known, both here in the Land of Enchantment and around this great country.\u00a0 They are about fulfilling the Great Commission — which is not just church planting, but so much more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It saddens me to think that this year may be the last year that our church forwards 100% of the Easter Offering to the new NAMB.\u00a0 If funding for non-church planting missionaries is cut beginning in 2012, then I will ask our Budget and Finance Committee and our Missions Development Committee to “manage our church budget accordingly.”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

After all, the GCR\u00a0tells us that the local church is both primary and central in the life of the SBC.\u00a0 In other words, the buck stops at the local church.\u00a0 Besides,\u00a0we can give\u00a0to our local association and the BCNM\u00a0and call it\u00a0“Great Commission Giving.”\u00a0 Something tells me that if the new NAMB doesn’t\u00a0figure a way out of the time-space continuum, that the next seven years will fly by — just not in the way that they envisioned or hoped!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve never visited Alpharetta, Georgia, the home of the former North American Mission Board and the newly reinvented NAMB.\u00a0 However, it appears that there must be some glitch in the time-space continuum that causes not only months, but years, to accelerate at an astronomical rate.\u00a0 How else to explain how 90 days turned into two…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,10,24,35,37],"tags":[92,3367,124,134,338,341,433,434,3383,583,691,728,868,3393,936,943,986],"class_list":["post-1761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baptist-convention-of-new-mexico","category-cooperative-program","category-great-commission-resurgence","category-religion","category-southern-baptist-convention","tag-annie-armstrong","tag-baptist-convention-of-new-mexico","tag-baptist-state-conventions","tag-bcnm","tag-easter-offering","tag-ed-stetzer","tag-gcr","tag-gcrtf","tag-great-commission-resurgence","tag-kevin-ezell","tag-namb","tag-north-american-mission-board","tag-sbc","tag-southern-baptist-convention","tag-star-ship-enterprise","tag-strategic-partnerships","tag-time-space-continuum"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-sp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2678,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761\/revisions\/2678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}