{"id":1840,"date":"2011-05-10T06:00:11","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1840"},"modified":"2011-05-10T06:00:11","modified_gmt":"2011-05-10T12:00:11","slug":"5-guys-potatoes-investing-in-the-new-namb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1840","title":{"rendered":"5 Guys, Potatoes & Investing in the new NAMB"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the beginning of June, my family and I will be taking a trip to Dallas for my oldest son’s six-month check-up at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.\u00a0 Stephen, who turns 12\u00a0on June 22, was diagnosed in\u00a02006 with Perthes Disease, a childhood medical condition affecting his right hip<\/a>.\u00a0 After five years of living with this often-times painful condition, surgery for Stephen may be in\u00a0his future.\u00a0 While we may not be looking forward to putting our son through surgery, our family is looking forward to spending some quality time in the Dallas\/Ft. Worth area.\u00a0 I hear Six Flags calling our name!<\/p>\n

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Dealey Plaza and the Grassy Knoll<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This will be my second trip to Dallas (not counting layovers at DFW Airport).\u00a0 Last November was my first time in Dallas.\u00a0\u00a0It was just Stephen and I\u00a0on a\u00a0father\/son road <\/a>trip <\/a>to see doctors at TSRHC\u00a0and the sites in Big D, including Dealey\u00a0Plaza, site of the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a Baptist pastor, I was not only interested in the tourist sites in and around Dallas, but I was also looking forward\u00a0to eating some great Texas barbecue (which we did).\u00a0 However, one of the best places that Stephen and I ate while on our visit was at this “little” hamburger joint in the Galleria Mall named Five Guys Burgers and Fries.\u00a0 After my first Five Guys double burger, I was hooked<\/a>.\u00a0 It didn’t take me long to find the Five Guys in El Paso, a mere 90 minute drive from where I live in Alamogordo.<\/p>\n

But, what would a Five Guys burger be without french fries made from fresh potatoes (no frozen stuff here)?\u00a0 Each Five Guys franchise has a white board which tells customers where that day’s potatoes originated.\u00a0 Most of the restaurant’s fries were grown in Idaho.\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0 As Five Guys is a\u00a0business, I assume (well, more than assume) that the Idaho potato farmers do not give their crop to Five Guys (or any other\u00a0burger\u00a0place) free of charge.\u00a0 I also assume that\u00a0without the potato farmer willingly selling their\u00a0spuds to\u00a0Five Guys Burgers and Fries, that\u00a0this great chain would have to settle for\u00a0frozen\u00a0fries.<\/p>\n

Because of their commitment to using only fresh potatoes, Five Guys knows that they cannot take the potato\u00a0farmers for granted.\u00a0 In-and-Out Burger and any number of other quality\u00a0hamburger chains would be more than happy to get the best of the best of Idaho potatoes.\u00a0 And, these farmers know full well that there are many choices when it comes to who they sell their potatoes to for final french fry consumption.<\/p>\n

This potato-french fry connection involving Five Guys is a relatively simple concept to grasp.\u00a0 Perhaps because of this simplicity, someone recently used this analogy to talk about local Southern Baptist churches, Baptist State Conventions, and the new NAMB.\u00a0 There are currently over 45,000 local Southern Baptist churches that grow lots of potatoes (mission funds).\u00a0 In order to get the most bang for their Baptist buck, most SB churches give their potatoes away through what\u00a0former\u00a0SBC President Bobby Welch believes is the best way for churches to fund missions — the Cooperative Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Through CP, Southern Baptist potato\u00a0farms\u00a0(churches) give away their potatoes to citywide restaurant chains\u00a0(local associations), statewide chains (State Baptist Conventions), and national chains (the SBC and its entities).\u00a0 Some local\u00a0farms have even been known\u00a0to give their potatoes to mom and pop hamburger stands and upstart chains that are springing up all over the country in direct competition to the established chains.\u00a0 Most of the larger potato farms (megachurches) have apparently decided to start their own de facto<\/em> chains.<\/p>\n

But, just like Five Guys, none of these chains —\u00a0regardless of their size and geographic scope —\u00a0grow their own potatoes.\u00a0 They must rely upon the local farmers (churches) to give them potatoes to distribute\u00a0for ultimate consumption\u00a0(missions and ministries nationally and internationally).\u00a0 What\u00a0seems to be happening\u00a0as of late is that\u00a0new management\u00a0has taken control of the big national chains and have forgotten where their potatoes come from.\u00a0 This\u00a0problem has been particularly acute at the national chain known as the new NAMB.<\/p>\n

While the old\u00a0managers of NAMB\u00a0(and other national SBC chains) understood the importance of partnering with the local and state chains and the local potato farmers, the managers of the new NAMB\u00a0seem to view partnership as a one-way street.\u00a0 Try as they might, they cannot force anyone down the line to give them potatoes.\u00a0 And, when established potato\u00a0farms are seemingly ignored\u00a0while new farms are heralded as the best way to grow potatoes, the managers of the new NAMB\u00a0should not be surprised when these established farms begin to question the wisdom of this new strategy.\u00a0\u00a0The new NAMB can continue to ignore the established potato farmers, but they do\u00a0so at\u00a0their own peril.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because of the radical reorganization of the new NAMB<\/a>, some potato farmers are beginning to question whether or not they want to keep giving as many (or any) of\u00a0their potatoes to the new NAMB.\u00a0 Following the lead of\u00a0some of the\u00a0owners of the large potato farms who previously\u00a0decided to give their potatoes to other chains or who chose to keep more potatoes for their own restaurants, many small and medium-size potato farms are wondering whether sending their potatoes to the new NAMB is the best use of the resources that God has blessed them with.<\/p>\n

As the president (pastor) of a 500 member potato\u00a0farm in New Mexico, we have traditionally sent an extra crop of potatoes to NAMB\u00a0each spring (Annie Armstrong Easter Offering).\u00a0 In the next few weeks, we will forward a $13,000 direct shipment of potatoes to the new NAMB.\u00a0 I cannot say whether or not we will send as large a direct shipment next year.<\/p>\n

That’s because there remain too many open questions for our local farm to make a final determination as to whether or not we will continue our level of potato investment with the new managment\u00a0of the new NAMB.\u00a0 In part two of this post, I’ll\u00a0pose some questions that all Southern Baptist potato\u00a0farms must have answered before we keep sending the “free” potatoes to the new NAMB\u00a0management.\u00a0 After all, as the GCR\u00a0tells us, the buck — or the spud — stops at the local potato farm!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the beginning of June, my family and I will be taking a trip to Dallas for my oldest son’s six-month check-up at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.\u00a0 Stephen, who turns 12\u00a0on June 22, was diagnosed in\u00a02006 with Perthes Disease, a childhood medical condition affecting his right hip.\u00a0 After five years of living…<\/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":[35,37],"tags":[172,190,3372,276,292,389,411,602,3390,663,691,728,774,792,793,868,3393,966],"class_list":["post-1840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-southern-baptist-convention","tag-bobby-welch","tag-burgers","tag-cooperative-program","tag-dallas","tag-dealey-plaza","tag-five-guys-burgers-and-fries","tag-french-fries","tag-legg-perthes-disease","tag-ministry","tag-missions-2","tag-namb","tag-north-american-mission-board","tag-perthes-disease","tag-potato-farmers","tag-potatoes","tag-sbc","tag-southern-baptist-convention","tag-texas-scottish-rite-hospital-for-children"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-tG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840","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=1840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}