{"id":918,"date":"2010-10-15T10:01:03","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T16:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=918"},"modified":"2010-10-15T10:01:03","modified_gmt":"2010-10-15T16:01:03","slug":"the-gcr-a-new-war-between-the-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=918","title":{"rendered":"The GCR & A New War Between The States"},"content":{"rendered":"

With great excitement and enthusiasm, 95% of the messengers\u00a0(including this one)\u00a0at the Southern Baptist Convention’s Annual Meeting in Louisville, Ky in June 2009 approved the creation of a Great Commission Task Force.\u00a0 The mandate, as authorized by the messengers, was straightforward and unambiguous:<\/p>\n

authorize the President of the Southern Baptist Convention to appoint a Great Commission Task Force charged to bring a report and any recommendations to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Orlando, Florida, June 15-16, 2010, concerning how Southern Baptists can work more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great <\/span>Commission.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Task Force did indeed bring their report and seven recommendations to Orlando.\u00a0 The messengers, even fewer in\u00a0number than the year before, approved the report and all seven recommendations as a whole.\u00a0 In the end, the report and recommendations were approved\u00a0only after\u00a0Component Three, “Encouraging Cooperative Program Giving and Other Great Commission Giving,”<\/em> was revised to give the appearance that the Cooperative Program was strengthened.<\/span><\/p>\n

This apparent strengthening of the Cooperative Program came about after a somewhat\u00a0contentious\u00a0debate, a split vote on the\u00a0floor which should have gone to a\u00a0written ballot, parliamentary shenanigans that are inexcusable, and some fast wheeling and dealing by the Task Force to save their report.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because of the negative consequences that I see from an “independent\/societal giving” model, I was hoping that the Cooperative Program, as opposed to “Great Commission Giving,” would truly be strengthened.\u00a0 And, even though the overwhelming majority of messengers to the Convention approved what they thought was a strong CP statement, I\u00a0came away from Orlando convinced that there were\u00a0some that day, including many within the SBC establishment,\u00a0who\u00a0thought (and knew)\u00a0otherwise.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Now, several months after the GCRTF Report and Recommendations were “overwhelmingly” approved, including the revised Component Three, we are\u00a0beginning to see\u00a0divergent interpretations of just what happened in Orlando.\u00a0 We have\u00a0state conventions,\u00a0such as Louisiana<\/a>, Kansas\/Nebraska<\/a>, and perhaps North Carolina<\/a>, issuing strong affirmations of the Cooperative Program.\u00a0 Other state conventions,\u00a0like Florida<\/a>, Kentucky<\/a>, are looking at their CP allocations and overall giving in a new light.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Most state conventions, including New Mexico where I serve, are\u00a0cutting their budget because of overall economic factors, but are not otherwise changing\u00a0their CP allocations.\u00a0 Right now, it appears that most state conventions will not move to make any radical changes to their CP allocations, although New York did increase the percentage amount that they forward to the SBC by .25%.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What does all this mean in the life of our churches, associations, state conventions, and the SBC as a whole?\u00a0 To answer that question, let’s review the mandate that the Task Force was given by the churches\u00a0who comprise the Southern Baptist Convention:<\/span><\/p>\n

a Great Commission Task Force charged to bring a report and any recommendations\u00a0. . .\u00a0concerning how Southern Baptists can work more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Task Force, approved by 95% of the messengers, was\u00a0supposed to\u00a0bring back a report and recommendations that would help\u00a0ALL Southern Baptists (not just a select group) work “TOGETHER” to fulfill the Great Commission (not the GCR).\u00a0 Now, almost 1 1\/2 years since the creation of the Task Force and four months after the final report was approved in Orlando, can anyone honestly say that\u00a0the report and recommendations have\u00a0brought Southern Baptists TOGETHER?\u00a0 From almost the beginning until the end, including the lack of transparency, this entire process has not united us, but rather has divided us.\u00a0 Seems strangely familiar to the Health Care overhaul, but I digress.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

What we are witnessing is a\u00a0growing division among Southern Baptists that will increasingly manifest itself as a new\u00a0“war between the states.”\u00a0 One state convention will buy into the GCR vision while another state convention will not.\u00a0 Some individual Southern Baptist pastors and churches will\u00a0look favorably upon the GCR recommendations while others will continue to have questions and concerns.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

But, unless\u00a0you equate\u00a0being faithful to the\u00a0GCR with\u00a0being faithful to the\u00a0actual Great Commission (which unfortunately, some are already doing),\u00a0then just because\u00a0autonomous state conventions or autonomous churches choose not to accept the GCR vision does not mean that they are any less committed to fulfilling the Great Commission!\u00a0 The Great Commission should always unite Southern Baptists and bring us closer together.\u00a0 After all, isn’t that what we voted for in 2009!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With great excitement and enthusiasm, 95% of the messengers\u00a0(including this one)\u00a0at the Southern Baptist Convention’s Annual Meeting in Louisville, Ky in June 2009 approved the creation of a Great Commission Task Force.\u00a0 The mandate, as authorized by the messengers, was straightforward and unambiguous: authorize the President of the Southern Baptist Convention to appoint a Great…<\/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":[3372,433,434,3392,868,3393,996],"class_list":["post-918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooperative-program","category-great-commission-resurgence","category-southern-baptist-convention","tag-cooperative-program","tag-gcr","tag-gcrtf","tag-religion","tag-sbc","tag-southern-baptist-convention","tag-transparency"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-eO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918","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=918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}