{"id":849,"date":"2010-09-30T05:00:09","date_gmt":"2010-09-30T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=849"},"modified":"2010-09-30T05:00:09","modified_gmt":"2010-09-30T11:00:09","slug":"was-bobby-welch-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=849","title":{"rendered":"Is Bobby Welch Wrong About CP?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I like Bobby Welch.\u00a0 I have only met him on one occasion, around ten years ago when I was serving as an Associate Pastor of FBC Poinciana, near Kissimmee, FL.\u00a0 The Senior Pastor and I took a group of folks from our church to\u00a0a F.A.I.T.H. Evangelism Training event\u00a0at First Baptist Church of Daytona Beach.\u00a0 Pastor Bobby’s enthusiasm for reaching the lost — whether in your own hometown or half-way around the world — was contagious!\u00a0 At the conclusion of the training, I asked Pastor Bobby to sign a copy of my F.A.I.T.H. New Testament, which he graciously did.<\/p>\n

Maybe I’m biased, but as a native Floridian who was reared in a Southern Baptist church\u00a0in the middle of the state, I\u00a0always looked to pastors like Bobby Welch\u00a0and\u00a0Orlando’s Jim Henry\u00a0as heroes in the faith.\u00a0\u00a0Leaders of\u00a0“mega churches,” these men never came across as a celebrity pastor or a rising star.\u00a0 Whether watching\u00a0Jim Henry’s video series on Deacons or\u00a0seeing Bobby Welch’s “Everyone Can” bus tour, it seemed that “what you saw was what you got.”\u00a0 At least from my vantage point as a grassroots pastor of a Southern Baptist church, men like Bobby Welch and Jim Henry had (and still have) a down-to-earth servant attitude that appears to be sorely lacking in many within the SBC establishment.<\/p>\n

It was with a servant’s heart and a compassion for seeing the lost won to Christ that Bobby Welch served Southern Baptists as President of our Convention from 2004-2006.\u00a0 As a large church pastor,\u00a0he led FBC Daytona Beach to give 15% of their undesignated receipts to the Cooperative Program each year.\u00a0 When only “a handful of mega churches” give at least 10% or more to CP each year, why would\u00a0Daytona Beach send so much money\u00a0to the Florida Baptist Convention (pre-Imagine If<\/a>)\u00a0and the SBC?\u00a0 Perhaps Bobby Welch\u00a0answered this question\u00a0best when he told Baptist Press in 2006<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Baptists\u2019 best bounce for their Baptist buck is through C.P. [the Cooperative Program],\u201d Welch said during his president’s address. \u201cWith the Cooperative Program, everyone can. Your dollar works seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, all around the world, non-stop — even when you\u2019re snoring, asleep, it\u2019s still working.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Was this hyperbole or did Bobby Welch really mean what he said?\u00a0 Considering that he led his church to consistently and sacrificially give 15% of undesignated receipts to\u00a0partner with other churches — large and small — to fulfill the Great Commission, I would say that he was\u00a0speaking and living out the truth.\u00a0 If he says that the Cooperative Program is the best way to fund missions, then I believe that he means it.\u00a0 I can’t envision Bobby Welch saying that “he thinks CP is important and\u00a0worthy of honor and affirmation as the most effective means of mobilizing our churches and extending our outreach,” <\/span>and then take actions which\u00a0even appeared to undermine\u00a0his word.\u00a0 I can\u00a0envision quite a few current pastors in Florida and elsewhere who would say and do exactly that.<\/p>\n

Four years after he spoke these words,\u00a0Welch made what appear to be his only public comments on the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force and its recommendations.\u00a0 In an interview with Will Hall of Baptist Press, Bobby Welch, former pastor of mega church FBC Daytona Beach, former President of the Southern Baptist Convention, and current (although probably soon-to-be former) head of Global Evangelical Relations (that doesn’t plant churches, does it?), he spoke words of wisdom for anyone willing to listen.\u00a0 Maybe you missed reading what he had to say back in June<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s never too late to learn from one of the SBC’s finest servants.\u00a0 Welch said:<\/p>\n

The two-year effort (speaking of his SBC Presidency and “Everyone Can” bus tour<\/em>)\u00a0proved that it is absolutely POSSIBLE to rally the entire SBC to a “unity of purpose” that begins with the local churches of all sizes, shapes and forms.\u00a0 I have read that greater than 90% of CP giving comes from churches with under 2,000 in attendance, with 63% of that number from churches with attendance less than 500. Additionally, churches with attendance under 200 give more than 1\/3 of that 93% total (and more than 50% of all SBC churches have 100 or less in attendance).\u00a0 Without a doubt, when churches have that wide, deep and sacrificial level of support overall — they will, of course, respond more favorably and quickly to things that process by way of their base and commitments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Understanding this fact is exactly why I, for two years, practically lived out in that huge SBC environment via bus, car, plane, foot, etc. That, in turn, created an extraordinary grassroots groundswell for something near and dear to their hearts. It was also directly helpful immediately to their personal calling and task at their local church for reaching and discipling lost souls.\u00a0 To most on the field, this grassroots path is viewed and appreciated as a very sharp contrast to what they consider to be the so-called “top down \u2013 our idea” approach.\u00a0 The grassroots road is a road less traveled but it is the only path to our only hope — which is “unity of purpose” for the sake of lost souls! (emphasis added<\/span>)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Does Bobby Welch actually believe what he told Will Hall of Baptist Press just days before the Orlando Convention?\u00a0 Surely those numbers about churches and their Cooperative Program giving must be wrong?\u00a0 All this talk about the so-called “grassroots” and roads less traveled is just mushy, wrong-headed thinking, right?\u00a0 I mean, didn’t Bobby get the memo about how “unity of purpose” can be dreamed up behind closed doors and\u00a0imposed by the big boys\u00a0from the top down on all those unsuspecting small and medium-sized churches that keep sending in 63% of all CP contributions?\u00a0 Oh, I forgot.\u00a0 Memos like that won’t see the light of day for 15 years.<\/p>\n

Was Bobby Welch wrong about the Cooperative Program in 2006?\u00a0 Did he misspeak in his pre-Convention interview in 2010?\u00a0 As one of those grassroots pastors — a lifelong Southern Baptist — I think that\u00a0Welch was right then and he is right now.\u00a0 If the less traveled grassroots road\u00a0is closed to traffic, then what road will the “Everyone Can” bus of cooperating Southern Baptists end up on?\u00a0 If Bobby\u00a0Welch\u00a0is right,\u00a0it will end up on the road\u00a0to less cooperation, less hope, less unity of purpose, and ultimately, less souls won for Christ.\u00a0\u00a0I\u00a0suppose that Pastor Bobby\u00a0could be wrong.\u00a0 But, don’t be surprised when grassroots Southern Baptists — the ones he actually\u00a0took the time to get to know\u00a0— prove him right!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like Bobby Welch.\u00a0 I have only met him on one occasion, around ten years ago when I was serving as an Associate Pastor of FBC Poinciana, near Kissimmee, FL.\u00a0 The Senior Pastor and I took a group of folks from our church to\u00a0a F.A.I.T.H. Evangelism Training event\u00a0at First Baptist Church of Daytona Beach.\u00a0 Pastor…<\/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":[172,3372,260,364,380,390,434,555,868,3393],"class_list":["post-849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooperative-program","category-great-commission-resurgence","category-southern-baptist-convention","tag-bobby-welch","tag-cooperative-program","tag-cp","tag-f-a-i-t-h-evangelism","tag-fbc-daytona-beach","tag-florida-baptist-convention","tag-gcrtf","tag-jim-henry","tag-sbc","tag-southern-baptist-convention"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-dH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849","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=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}