{"id":758,"date":"2010-09-16T05:00:50","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T11:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=758"},"modified":"2012-03-02T16:17:18","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T23:17:18","slug":"the-slow-death-of-the-cooperative-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=758","title":{"rendered":"The Slow Death Of The Cooperative\u00a0Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>With the election of Kevin Ezell, Senior Pastor of Highview\u00a0Baptist Church in Louisville, KY, as the new President of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Program\u00a0moves ever closer to\u00a0its ultimate demise as SBC “leaders” march our great Convention toward a radical and complete redefinition.\u00a0 I would like to say that I am surprised by the choice, but for anyone who has closely followed the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force’s\u00a0deliberations (as much as one could follow\u00a0closed and sealed meetings<\/a>), including the debate and implementation of the Task Force’s recommendations at the SBC Convention this past June and for anyone who has clearly comprehended SBC President Bryant Wright’s thoughts on radically redefining the SBC<\/a>, the election of Kevin Ezell is consistent with the reigning philosophy of certain elites who are in positions of power within the Convention.<\/p>\n

Shortly after moving to Louisville in the late summer of 1994, my wife and I began searching for a church where we could grow and serve.\u00a0 After visiting a few churches in the area, we made our way to Highview\u00a0Baptist Church one Sunday morning.\u00a0 After our first visit, we knew that Highview\u00a0would be our new home church.\u00a0 Even though we grew up in a medium-sized Southern Baptist church in Florida, we were immediately comfortable with the large size (around 1,500 in worship) of the church.\u00a0 Even more importantly, we fell in love with the people that we met.\u00a0 After a few weeks attending, we\u00a0felt led to join this body of believers and we moved our membership to Highview.<\/p>\n

We quickly became involved in a young couples Sunday School class where we met\u00a0other couples our age,\u00a0some who attended seminary and some who did not.\u00a0 It was at Highview\u00a0that we met Len and Missy, who remain dear friends to this day.\u00a0 After about six months, my wife and I were asked to help teach a Special Needs Sunday School class for adults.\u00a0 Wanting to plug in\u00a0and serve, we said yes.\u00a0 For the next year, we had the joy and privilege of teaching these wonderful people.\u00a0 I\u00a0hope that we were a blessing to those in our class, but I truly believe that Brenda and I received the greater blessing through our experience.\u00a0 In March of 1996, we left Highview\u00a0to answer God’s call to pastor Guston Baptist Church, about one hour outside of Louisville.<\/p>\n

Kevin Ezell\u00a0had not yet arrived at Highview\u00a0when my wife and I left.\u00a0 We therefore did not have any experience at Highview\u00a0after Dr. Ezell\u00a0was called as pastor.\u00a0 I have no doubt that Highview, under Pastor Ezell’s\u00a0leadership,\u00a0continues to have a\u00a0tremendous Kingdom impact in Louisville and the world.\u00a0 I have never met Kevin Ezell, although I have in recent days talked with those who know he and his wife.\u00a0 I do not know any of the NAMB\u00a0trustees who served on the Presidential Search Committee that recommended Dr. Ezell\u00a0for this position.\u00a0 Therefore, I will not comment upon the personal merits of Dr. Ezell’s\u00a0nomination and election as President of the North American Mission Board.\u00a0 However, that does not mean that as a pastor of a cooperating Southern Baptist church that I cannot comment on the wisdom of choosing someone like Dr. Ezell to serve ALL Southern Baptists as the leader of one of the greatest missions agencies in the world.<\/p>\n

There will be some who will defend Dr. Ezell’s\u00a0election by saying, “God spoke; the trustees listened; case closed; no questions will be taken; end of story; get over it.”\u00a0 Well, before we get over it, we perhaps need to ask some questions of those trustees who are supposed to represent Southern Baptists.\u00a0 Sometimes, like certain Senators and Congressmen, the trustees of OUR Southern Baptist agencies need to be reminded that the people still have a voice in what happens in our Convention.\u00a0 Trustees and leaders within the SBC hierarchy\u00a0ignore grass-roots Southern Baptists at their own peril.\u00a0 Maybe\u00a0some leaders\u00a0have forgotten\u00a0that it was\u00a0grass-roots pastors and the people in the pews of small and medium-sized churches throughout the Convention\u00a0that helped the CR succeed.\u00a0 If these same leaders continue head-long down the path of the GCR, they may one day wake up and find the most enthusiastic supporters of the CR are no longer following.<\/p>\n

And just where is the ruling class within the SBC leading?\u00a0 Exactly where they told us they would take us — to radically redefining what it means to be a cooperating Southern Baptist church.\u00a0 While many people thought that the Cooperative Program was saved and strengthened when the GCRTF magnanimously agreed to revised language regarding “Great Commission Giving,” the reality is that the Cooperative Program, as we know it today, will cease to exist if the philosophy of the GCRTF continues to dominate within the SBC.\u00a0 What, exactly, is that philosophy?<\/p>\n

It is a philosophy that thinks that the pastor of a church whose budget is $6.2 million, but who led his church to contribute only $10,000 in 2009 to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions<\/a>, is the best person to lead the North American Mission Board.\u00a0 It is a philosophy which believes that small and medium-sized SBC churches, many of whom give sacrificially\u00a0at levels of 10% or more to the Cooperative Program, should not dare question why certain mega-churches, whose pastors serve in key leadership positions within the SBC, only give less than 3% to CP.\u00a0 It is a philosophy that\u00a0shows its disdain for State Conventions by\u00a0promoting and encouraging direct giving to SBC entities and agencies outside of CP channels.\u00a0 It is a philosophy which tells churches to keep sending your money to the SBC, but refuses to divulge the salaries and benefits\u00a0of those who are serving the Convention.\u00a0 Even Congress doesn’t do that!\u00a0 It is a philosophy that says\u00a0the agencies and entities\u00a0are accountable to the churches of the Convention, but in reality has created a ruling class that thinks\u00a0they\u00a0are no longer accountable to\u00a0rank and file Southern Baptists.<\/p>\n

For years, many politicians thought that they could vote one way in Washington and tell their constituents back home something different.\u00a0\u00a0 And for years they got away with it.\u00a0 Not anymore.\u00a0 Witness the defeat of many long-time elected leaders who have been thrown of out office by a weary and fed-up electorate.\u00a0 Over time, the politicians\u00a0simply lost touch with the\u00a0people they were supposed to represent and it finally caught up with them.<\/p>\n

For many leaders within the Southern Baptist Convention, they have lost touch with\u00a0the average Southern Baptist.\u00a0\u00a0With their words they\u00a0say one thing — “we support the Cooperative Program” — while\u00a0with their actions they demonstrate a level of cooperative giving that most Southern Baptists, including this one, find quite the opposite of “support.”\u00a0 Maybe I’m alone in how I view the radical redefinition taking place before our very eyes.\u00a0 I don’t think that I am.\u00a0 Surely there are others, in churches of all sizes, who see what is happening to our Convention.\u00a0 Only time will tell, but I believe grass-roots Southern Baptists are\u00a0beginning to see the dis-connect between\u00a0what our leaders are saying and what they are doing.\u00a0 And when those same leaders overreach because they think they have a mandate for radical change, they just may find that the people and churches\u00a0they represent aren’t buying the hope and change that they’re selling!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the election of Kevin Ezell, Senior Pastor of Highview\u00a0Baptist Church in Louisville, KY, as the new President of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Program\u00a0moves ever closer to\u00a0its ultimate demise as SBC “leaders” march our great Convention toward a radical and complete redefinition.\u00a0 I would like to say…<\/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":[10,24,37],"tags":[489,583,625,691,728,868,3393,921],"class_list":["post-758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooperative-program","category-great-commission-resurgence","category-southern-baptist-convention","tag-highview-baptist-church","tag-kevin-ezell","tag-louisville","tag-namb","tag-north-american-mission-board","tag-sbc","tag-southern-baptist-convention","tag-southern-seminary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-ce","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758","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=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3198,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions\/3198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}