Coming through this Easter season, I strongly encouraged our congregation to give\u00a0sacrificially\u00a0to the Annie Armstrong Offering for North American Missions.\u00a0 While a few of our church leaders know my reservations about the direction and vision of the new NAMB, I did not express that concern with the members at large.\u00a0 With new changes announced at NAMB on\u00a0an almost\u00a0weekly basis, I knew that there would be time to ask the hard questions that need to be asked regarding our church’s continued investment and partnership with the new NAMB, but this\u00a0Annie Armstrong season was not the time.<\/p>\n
Having met our church goal of $7,500, our Missions Development Committee agreed to add an additional $5,000 to the Easter offering as we have done the past four years.\u00a0 Having received a letter a few weeks ago from Dr. Ezell\u00a0congratulating our church on being our Association’s\u00a0top overall giver and the top per capita giver\u00a0to last year’s\u00a0Annie Armstrong\u00a0offering, it is with some\u00a0sadness that\u00a0I think this maybe the last year our church will be in a position to receive such a letter.<\/p>\n
Why should that be?\u00a0 Because our church may determine that our investment of missions funds would be better spent by\u00a0increasing our partnership\u00a0with other entities — IMB,\u00a0Baptist Convention of New Mexico\u00a0or our\u00a0local Association — while decreasing our partnership with the new NAMB.\u00a0 Part of me finds this kind of thinking strange.\u00a0 However, the level of strangeness has been considerably lessened knowing that Dr. Ezell, the President of the new NAMB, Bryant Wright, President of the SBC, and other pastors in the recent past themselves made those same determinations about investing their\u00a0mission dollars in the old NAMB.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In legal parlance, we call that precedent.\u00a0 It is not controlling precedent, because no other ecclesiastical body can control or dictate\u00a0what the local church does.\u00a0\u00a0The examples of prominent pastors — some of whom are now in leadership within the SBC — routing CP money away from the State Conventions and the old NAMB\u00a0and designating\u00a0those funds\u00a0for the IMB\u00a0or certain seminaries has become a persuasive precedent.\u00a0 Each\u00a0autonomous church must determine\u00a0how much weight to give to this relatively new precedent.\u00a0 But,\u00a0going forward, we cannot ignore the precedent.\u00a0 And, for those now\u00a0in leadership to argue for their own precedent to be ignored or reversed would be, in a word, hypocritical.\u00a0 If it was good enough when others led the old NAMB, then it should be good enough now when a new leadership is in control of the new NAMB.<\/p>\n
That brings me to the question:\u00a0 “What are churches investing in when they send CP and Annie Armstrong money to the new NAMB?”\u00a0 That is a question that begs for an answer, but unfortunately, what answers the churches have been given are less than clear.\u00a0 These fuzzy answers lead to more questions, not less.\u00a0 Even\u00a0the new NAMB’s\u00a0sleek, simplified mission statement raises questions:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe North American Mission Board exists to work with churches, associations and state conventions in mobilizing Southern Baptists as a missional force to impact North America with the gospel of Jesus Christ through evangelism and church planting. . .\u201d (article here<\/a>)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The new mission statement seems to move the new NAMB toward a full-blown church planting network.\u00a0 As I have stated previously, I do not have any objection to church planting.\u00a0 I continue to believe that the new NAMB’s\u00a0rapid and radical reorganization\u00a0to an almost exclusive churh planting focus is both short-sighted and contrary to the GCRTF Final Report approved in Orlando last year.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n
But, the Trustees of the new NAMB must believe that the majority of messengers in Orlando — representing about 10% of all SB churches<\/a>\u00a0— voted for even more radical changes than the GCR\u00a0document stated.\u00a0 That must be why they voted for the new mission statement and to consolidate the new NAMB’s ministry assignments from nine to the following six:<\/p>\n
— assist churches in planting healthy<\/a>, multiplying, evangelistic SBC churches in the United States and Canada;<\/p>\n
— assist churches in the ministries of evangelism and making disciples;<\/p>\n
–assist churches by appointing, supporting and assuring accountability for missionaries serving in the U.S. and Canada;<\/p>\n
— assist churches by providing missions education and coordinating volunteer missions opportunities for church members;<\/p>\n
— assist churches by providing leadership development; and<\/p>\n
— assist churches in relief ministries to victims of disaster and other people in need.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In and of themselves, these six ministry assignments sound solid.\u00a0 However, in light of the new mission statement emphasizing evangelism and church planting, how are we to read the ministry assignments?\u00a0 Is the\u00a0 mission statement interpreted in light of the ministry assignments or are the ministry assignments interpreted in light of the mission statement?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I’m not sure grassroots Southern Baptists could even begin to know the answer to that question at the moment (although the leaders at the new NAMB\u00a0probably have a pretty good idea).\u00a0 However, it seems to me that it would only make sense if the six consolidated ministry assignments were interpreted and implemented according to the mission statement.\u00a0 That means that evangelism, particularly through the church planting model, will be what drives the new NAMB bus.\u00a0 All other riders — collegiate ministries, student ministries, resort ministries, etc. — who are not somehow directly related to planting new churches have already been or will be told to get off the new NAMB\u00a0bus and find other transporation (i.e., funding).<\/a><\/p>\n
A new NAMB\u00a0bus has been built and is already motoring down the highway.\u00a0 I do not expect that the bus will slow down or that riders other than church planters will be added to the seating capacity.\u00a0 Realistically, I think that it would be foolish to try to stand in front of the bus and yell, “STOP!”\u00a0 All you would have to show for your efforts\u00a0are the treadmarks of the bus on your backside.<\/p>\n