The Great Commission Resurgence Committee

The messengers attending the Southern Baptist Convention annual session in Louisville seemed to overwhelmingly embrace President Johnny Hunt’s appointment of a committee to study and implement his dream of a Great Commission Resurgence.

Since most of the GCR declaration deals with issues like the lordship of Christ, making the gospel central in our lives, loving God and others, a commitment to the sufficiency of Holy Scripture, and healthy kingdom churches I am supposing that the preponderance of the committee’s time will be spent on helping us establish and achieve spiritual goals unless, of course, the first seven Articles were just a ruse to disguise the real intent of the GCR.

I believe our SBC president has pure motives and sincerely wants to see God use our Convention to produce a weeping, sweeping, reaping revival followed by a Great Commission Resurgence that will miraculously impact our world for Christ.

However, some have looked at Article VIII askance, because they are not clear on how broad the parameters should be drawn for methodological diversity. A biblically informed methodological diversity sounds good and appropriate, but some have great difficulty accepting styles of worship and methods of ministry that are foreign to their way of thinking. Perhaps their suspicions are well founded in some cases. But just who is to determine what methods are biblically informed?

Article IX of the GCR declaration suggests that streamlining convention structures might facilitate a wiser stewardship that just might provide more money for missions and ministry. Article IX has been a bit troublesome for some folks who fear that streamlining or restructuring really means downsizing and could impact them in some negative way.

Hunt is concerned that there are 1,700 individuals just waiting for the SBC to provide funding so they can be appointed as international missionaries. Our seminary professors are underpaid. We also have a continent to reach for Christ. Church planters are crying for funds to start new churches.

Our needs seem to be greater than our resources, but that is generally the case when you have visionary leaders who dream big dreams. There are multiple places were Cooperative Program dollars can be spent wisely.

So, what will this committee recommend to the Convention? There are some things they can’t recommend. They cannot recommend anything to state conventions or local associations, because they have no jurisdiction over them.

Article IV of the SBC Constitution specifically states: “While independent and sovereign in its own sphere, the Convention does not claim and will never attempt to exercise any authority over any other Baptist body, whether church, auxiliary organizations, associations, or convention.”

In a prudent and proactive move Dr. J. Robert White, executive director of the Georgia Baptist Convention, asked GBC President Bucky Kennedy to appoint a committee to study the flow and the use of mission funds and resources of the state convention.

So, what can the Task Force appointed by Hunt do with reference to Article IX? How can a committee propose to streamline the national convention structure? What can be done? There is no significant change that can be made without great difficulty and sacrifice on the part of some leaders, agencies, and institutions.

It has already been suggested that the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board be merged. Would that be a wise and prudent decision? Probably not.

How could the president of a combined missions agency possibly fulfill all the obligations and speak at all the functions required of him? Church planting models for NAMB and the IMB are vastly different. Furthermore, the spiritual needs of North America might be overlooked with the crying needs of unreached people groups worldwide.

If the combining of two mission boards has already surfaced will the combining of some of the six seminaries be next? I mean, if some contend that one mission board could accomplish the work of the two existing ones surely someone else might suggest that three seminaries could be operated with less money and with greater efficiency than six.

Or maybe the committee will urge the seminaries to make their baccalaureate programs self-supporting and use Cooperative Program money only for post-baccalaureate programs as they were originally commissioned to do.

Others might question the need for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission to have two offices – one in Nashville and another one in Washington. To others having the two offices is an absolute essentiality with our culture being what it is today.

Then, of course, there are those who think the funds directed to the Executive Committee for the SBC Operating Budget have become excessive, but in reality that still amounts to less than 2 percent of the total expenditures.

Since this blue ribbon committee has no authority over state conventions they cannot mandate that state conventions give more money to the national convention. In fact, to do so assumes that the national convention’s work is more important than the work of each individual state. That is not necessarily true.

So, what is the solution? Perhaps one or more of the above scenarios will be suggested by the GCR Task Force. Surely, we can all tighten our belts in a time of economic crisis. Good stewardship must always be a priority.

Georgia Baptists can be grateful that our SBC president placed Georgia Baptists’ executive director on the Task Force. I believe J. Robert White’s wisdom and fair mindedness will balance and bring greater effectiveness to the Task Force. We will prayerfully and eagerly await their report at next year’s convention in Orlando.

However, there is also a biblical principle that

cannot be ignored here. It is the principle of the tithe. If God’s people would just tithe, He promised that the storehouse (the church and its missionary enterprises) would be full. Pastors who expect their members to tithe should also lead the church to give a tithe to support our great ministry and missionary enterprise.

Hayes Wicker, pastor of First Baptist Church in Naples, Fla., may just have the perfect answer to all the questions posed by those who are discussing the GCR. Being the creative and innovative thinker he is, Hayes has come up with what he calls the Great Commission Connection.

Even before the annual session of the Convention in Louisville Wicker began the process of identifying 500 families in his church who would become a part of the GCC. He has already begun to contact the leadership of all our SBC agencies and those who serve Florida Baptists through their state mission board.

He is connecting each of the 500 families in his church with an IMB missionary family, a NAMB missionary family, an SBC seminary faculty family, and a Florida State Mission Board family. His GCC church families will pray for those various families with whom they are connected and begin to save their monetary change at the end of each day and place it in some kind of “piggy bank.”

Wicker believes the average family will be able to save $300 a year – money they will never really miss. If 500 families are able to do that – well, you can do the math. The total amount at the end of the year will be $150,000; and that money will be placed into the church coffers exclusively for the Cooperative Program. That money will be given in addition to the regularly budgeted Cooperative Program amount.

However, there is one thing this task force must be sure to remember – a quotable statement that was made at the convention in Louisville. Here is the statement: “The churches do not work for the denomination; but the denomination works for the churches.”