{"id":787,"date":"2010-09-23T05:00:17","date_gmt":"2010-09-23T11:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=787"},"modified":"2011-09-29T00:35:38","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T06:35:38","slug":"heroes-villains-in-the-sbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=787","title":{"rendered":"Heroes & Villains In The\u00a0SBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It is my hope and dream, knowing the autonomy within our convention, that the leaders within our state conventions will take a radical, prayerful look at this priority,” Wright said. “State leaders could be the real heroes here. They are controlling the funds. The Southern Baptist Convention has no authority in this area. It is my hope that there will be a radical reprioritization so that we can bring about these thousands of people groups who have practically no witness of the gospel.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Byrant Wright, President of the Southern Baptist Convention<\/p>\n

Haven’t we had enough radical change in our country in the last two years?\u00a0 Apparently not, according to new SBC President Byrant Wright.\u00a0\u00a0Restating his vision\u00a0to radically reprioritize (and redefine) the Southern Baptist Convention<\/a>, he continued his\u00a0call to dismantle<\/span> change\u00a0the autonomous Baptist State Conventions and the Cooperative Program.\u00a0 The above quote by Wright\u00a0(full article here<\/a>), which I have no reason to believe is inaccurate, speaks volumes about where he and others would like to take our Convention (it’s not a denomination, no matter how many times certain leaders say it) in the coming years.<\/p>\n

Even\u00a0if certain politicians feign ignorance of the\u00a0definition\u00a0of certain words (i.e., “is”),\u00a0most people understand that words have meaning.\u00a0 When you put words together to form sentences and paragraphs (as I’m doing in this post), you generally have an idea that you are trying to convey.\u00a0\u00a0We may not always speak or write\u00a0as clearly as\u00a0we would like (and none of us do), but we cannot be so ignorant to think that\u00a0our words\u00a0are devoid of meaning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which\u00a0brings me to Bryant Wright’s quote above.\u00a0 Speaking to members of the SBC’s Executive\u00a0Committee and other leaders assembled in Nashville this week, President Wright challenged\u00a0Baptist State\u00a0leaders to be the “real heroes” in the radical reprioritization of how we fund missions within the Convention.\u00a0 How can these Baptist State Convention leaders be heroes in fulfilling the Great Commission\u00a0and taking the Gospel to unreached people groups overseas?\u00a0 After all, no one wants to be a villain (or a rebellious spy in the desert or a skunk or a liberal).\u00a0 The answer to this question is not a mystery.\u00a0 Wright’s words to\u00a0members of the EC were not spoken in a vacuum.\u00a0 To understand them in context, one need only read Bryant Wright’s own words in\u00a0a guest editorial <\/a>that he wrote for\u00a0Georgia’s\u00a0Christian\u00a0Index<\/em>,\u00a0published\u00a0on November 5, 2009.\u00a0\u00a0Among his proposals were:<\/p>\n

That each state strive to keep no more than 25-30 percent of the CP funds in state. Funds staying in state currently range from 43-86 percent (see documentation here<\/a>). The local church should be the primary vehicle<\/a> in carrying out state and local missions.<\/p>\n

This is a major change that would need to be implemented over 3-5 years to allow the state conventions to adjust in their planning. But implementation toward this goal needs to begin immediately with the state CP budgets that will be planned in 2010.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a pastor and an elected leader within the Baptist Convention of New Mexico, I\u00a0believe that Wright’s vision, if implemented, will decimate not only our State Convention, but\u00a0all 41 State Conventions and Fellowships that partner together to fulfill Christ’s mandate to\u00a0take the Gospel to “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the\u00a0earth<\/em>.”\u00a0 Perhaps that was part of the transparent conversation among members of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force, but we won’t know that until\u00a0the records are unsealed in 15 years.<\/a>\u00a0 Of course by then, it will be moot.\u00a0 For Wright and other establishment leaders, the Great Commission seems to be primarily about the ends of the earth (and certain seminaries, but I digress).\u00a0 With 90% of New Mexico residents lost without Christ, all of\u00a0whom would spend an eternity in hell, separated from a loving and holy God, I’m not willing to see a Convention of autonomous Southern Baptist churches destroyed in the process of a radical makeover of the SBC!<\/p>\n

And so, I have now just outed myself as a villain.\u00a0 You see, State leaders COULD BE THE REAL HEROES if we just let go of the funds.\u00a0 What that means is that\u00a0States forward 70-75% of all CP money to Nashville, to be divided among the various SBC entities and agencies.\u00a0 That leaves 25-30% for State missions and evangelism for a population like New Mexico\u00a0that is 90% lost.\u00a0 And don’t be fooled.\u00a0 That\u00a0level of lostness, while it may not be as high in\u00a0all states, is almost as high, whether you live in the deep\u00a0South or the desert Southwest.<\/p>\n

If State leaders do not let go of the funds, then they are, by implication, villains.\u00a0 If\u00a0State Baptist Convention leaders do not buy into Wright and the\u00a0establishment’s vision, then understand that\u00a0they will be labeled the opposite of heroes.\u00a0 If\u00a0State Executive Directors,\u00a0like Louisiana’s David Hankins or Arkansas’ Emil Turner,\u00a0dare\u00a0publicly question the low level of support for NAMB from its new President, then they will not be seen as real heroes.\u00a0If\u00a0pastors of small and medium-sized grass-roots churches do\u00a0not prod their\u00a0State Conventions to radically alter their CP allocations,\u00a0keeping less in state and sending far more to national\u00a0headquarters, then they obviously don’t want to be real heroes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Real heroes, according to Bryant Wright,\u00a0let go of the funds.\u00a0 But, if letting go of the funds means crippling our State Baptist Conventions by sending more CP money to an increasingly out-of-touch, elitist establishment who seek to radically redefine the cooperative nature of the Southern Baptist Convention, then call me a villain!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is my hope and dream, knowing the autonomy within our convention, that the leaders within our state conventions will take a radical, prayerful look at this priority,” Wright said. “State leaders could be the real heroes here. They are controlling the funds. The Southern Baptist Convention has no authority in this area. It is…<\/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":[124,183,3372,583,691,3393],"class_list":["post-787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooperative-program","category-great-commission-resurgence","category-southern-baptist-convention","tag-baptist-state-conventions","tag-bryant-wright","tag-cooperative-program","tag-kevin-ezell","tag-namb","tag-southern-baptist-convention"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-cH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787","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=787"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2745,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions\/2745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}