What does it mean to be Southern Baptist?
So, I read the preamble of the Baptist Faith and Message. It says that the churches are voluntarily joining together for missions, educational, and benevolent causes. Those are the three purposes of the SBC.
I would say, of course, missions is why we were founded because the Judsons, when they were sent out in 1812, they went from being congregationalist to Baptist and they had nobody supporting them. So they just called back to the states and said, “Hey, we need a convention to support us.” So the old Triennial Convention sprung up of which we’re heirs to that tradition.
So, the flavor of all the churches in the SBC, the flavors are going to be very, very, very different.
What that means is each church sets their CP amount. There is a Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, and an Annie Armstrong, and many states have a state offering as well. There’s other designated offerings for local missions and so forth. So each church does that.
I will say that one of the hardest things for a church to do is to trust their entities because, having been in IMB administration and being one of the regional leaders down in South America, we had to rent the house or buy the houses, buy the cars, maintain the property, handle traveling freight, back and forth, provide money for computers and cell phones, and things like that.
Being on the mission field is like being in the military. You give up some of your rights to be an IMB missionary. You can’t raise support. Everybody makes the same thing. As a regional leader, I made the same as my missionaries. In fact, some of them made more money than me, but I think some folks are having trouble trusting their entities with the people that are sent to them.
I spent eight months as the interim president, and I scrutinized every single application for being a professor.
There were some I rejected because they were a little bit fuzzy on the women in ministry issues. But I know that every president takes that very seriously, and the IMB takes it very seriously.
Back in 2001, every missionary had to sign the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. I met with 40 different missionaries who had some issues about that. I sat down with them personally, and we just talked through it. Some signed, some resigned.
We do have accountability, but it’s slow and it doesn’t satisfy everybody.
I have a pastor friend in California who said, “There are always foxes in the vineyard.” There are always these little things that come up. It just happens in life, whether it’s the IMB or NAMB, whether the seminaries or the entities, you’re always going to have little issues that you have to have to deal with. Some of them have to be dealt with confidentially, and they can’t answer every single concern that everybody has.
