How many Southern Baptists should be going to the nations?

What would be a proper proportion for God to call and lead to proclaim the gospel to those who have not heard? How many would He desire to be available to impact 6 billion people around the world compared to those needed to witness to 300 million in our own country?

Currently .03 percent of Southern Baptists go overseas to serve with the IMB—that’s less than one out of every three thousand. What if one-tenth of 1 percent went as missionaries; we would have not 5,000 but 160,000 missionaries. Could not 99 percent of our members provide the support for 1 percent to go as missionaries? That would be 1.6 million missionaries—a number sufficient to fulfill the Great Commission.

Why have we fallen into a pattern of disproportionate use of resources and so few willing to take the gospel to the nations? Is this the way God desires it to be, or have we succumbed to a myth regarding the call to missions and allowed Satan to distort our understanding of God’s will?

Spiritual Warfare & Missions, #4 Jerry Rankin

6/4/2010

$148.9 million Lottie Moon offering shows missions commitment

6/4/2010

By Don Graham

RICHMOND, Va. (BP)--Southern Baptists stayed true to their passion for telling the world about Jesus in spite of a weakened economy and sluggish recovery, giving $148.9 million to support international missionaries through the 2009 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. It is the third-largest Lottie Moon offering in history.

“We are not disappointed as God proves His faithfulness through Southern Baptists, and giving through Lottie Moon reflects the heart of our churches and their Great Commission commitment,” said Jerry Rankin, International Mission Board (IMB) president. “Constituting more than half of the IMB’s annual budget, the Lottie Moon offering dramatically impacts our ability to take the Gospel to the lost world.

“I am deeply grateful for the increase in giving, some $7.6 million above the 2008 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, and for the sacrifice made by Southern Baptists during these difficult economic times.”

More than $4 million of the $7.6 million increase came from a special “over and above” offering challenge issued last summer by Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary President Daniel Akin and others. The extra funds allowed the IMB to send missionaries placed on hold by financial shortfalls earlier than planned and prevented even deeper reductions in the IMB’s global missionary force.

Because of Southern Baptist support, missionaries and their national partners were responsible for baptizing more than 506,000 believers and starting 24,650 new churches across the globe in 2008.

“For this year’s total to be the third highest in the history of the offering is remarkable given the economic challenges that continue to impact many across the U.S.,” said Wanda Lee, Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) executive director/treasurer. “It is truly a testimony to the faithfulness of God and the deep-rooted commitment among Southern Baptists to share Jesus with those around the world who have yet to hear of His love. We are grateful for WMU leaders and members who champion the missions cause in their churches through personal involvement and by urging Southern Baptists to give sacrificially and pray fervently for missions.”

While the $148.9 million offering meets the requirements for the IMB’s 2010 operating budget, it doesn’t allow room for growth or reversal of budget cuts.

“This generous offering will allow us to meet our operational needs but most of our capital needs will be postponed for another year,” said IMB financial chief David Steverson. “With our other major sources of income holding steady or only slightly declining, we are grateful that, for now, we don’t anticipate further reductions in our missionary force below 5,000.”

Last year IMB trustees were forced to curb appointments of new missionaries and suspend two short-term missionary programs entirely, initiating a gradual reduction in the IMB’s global missionary force. The reduction will lower missionary numbers from approximately 5,600, reached in 2009, to 5,000 but will not involve recalling any personnel because it will be accomplished through natural attrition — completions of service, retirements and resignations.

“We are grieved that budget limitations will force us to continue to restrict new missionaries being appointed,” Rankin said. “This is not just a disappointment to individuals and families called of God to serve overseas, but it means many unreached people groups will be deprived of hearing the Gospel yet another year. We are rethinking our strategy and adjusting our organizational structure for greater efficiency in order to stretch our budget as far as possible.”

Seventy-one percent of the IMB’s budget is spent on missionary support, including housing, salaries, medical care and children’s education. It averages $43,800 annually per missionary.

Though the $148.9 million offering is $7.6 million above 2008 giving, it is $1.4 million below the 2007 record offering of $150.4 million. It is also $26 million short of the 2009 goal of $175 million.

Every penny given to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is used to send and support missionaries — nothing is taken out for administrative, promotional or other costs.

Don Graham is a writer for the International Mission Board.

To learn more about the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, go to imb.org/offering.

Jerry A. Rankin: Giving Churches Ownership

We must acknowledge that a spiritual revitalization of born-again church members sharing their faith is the essential foundation for a Great Commission resurgence. Compelled and empowered by the Holy Spirit, Christians whose lives have been truly transformed by God’s grace cannot be restrained from proclaiming the gospel. Such a grassroots movement will permeate our communities, spread across America and do whatever it takes to take the gospel to a lost world.

Making disciples will become an exponential movement when churches are teaching all that Jesus commanded and modeling Christlike character and service. Discipleship will be manifested in a compassion toward others and grace-filled witness that will draw people to Jesus Christ. To the contrary, too often the public profile of Southern Baptists is one of controversy, political action, attacks on culture and mutual alienation rather than one that draws people in the marketplace and neighborhood to our precious Savior.

We long for a fresh move of God among us in which a Spirit-filled lifestyle will infect our society and result in strong and growing churches equipped to fulfill God’s mission. But we cannot wait passively for that to happen, excusing our negligence and lack of devotion to the responsibility to take the gospel to the nations and under-churched areas of our nation. As long as churches are deciding how to use billions of dollars given for “the Lord’s work” and Southern Baptists allocate hundreds of millions of dollars to support various programs cooperatively, we must do what we can to give greater priority to our Great Commission task.

When it comes to applying financial resources to the Great Commission, there is little that can be done to change the current system without someone being impacted negatively. The case is made that we cannot do more until people give more and churches allocate more to the Cooperative Program. Actually, the SBC doesn’t have a good track record of designating more for missions when additional funds are available.

The restructuring in 1997 eliminated three agencies with the pretense that a streamlined structure would make more money available to missions. However, there was a net decrease in funding to the two mission boards and the Executive Committee and ERLC received the increases. The same thing happened when Guidestone relinquished its portion of CP; those funds went to ERLC, the EC and the seminaries. When funding to the Baptist World Alliance was terminated, instead of additional resources going to the mission boards, the Executive Committee created a new program of conducting conferences around the world.

Blaming individuals and churches and waiting on stewardship to improve is evading responsibility and attributing the problem to an elusive solution. The trends clearly indicate personal stewardship is diminishing and church allocations to the Cooperative Program continue to decline despite massive efforts of promotion, education and information.

I believe the solution is to create a new paradigm—something no one seems willing to talk about. I envision a system of cooperative funding that will be so compelling that churches will give priority to supporting it, and it will stir the hearts of individuals to give generously and sacrificially. There are three factors we must courageously embrace for that to happen:

1. Focus the Cooperative Program on fulfilling the mission of God.
2. Reflect integrity, transparency and efficiency in the use of CP.
3. Give churches ownership of the Cooperative Program.

I want to address the third suggestion in this post first but alert readers to three additional factors that will subsequently be addressed as issues which invariably arise in this discussion:

4. The fallacy of societal paranoia.
5. The debilitating dependence on subsidy at all levels.
6. The potential of church planting movements sweeping our nation and the world.

I have found that people and churches will give generously, but they want to know exactly where it is going, what it is accomplishing and want to be involved with what they give to. It was a past generation that was satisfied to give to generic causes without any direct accountability for use of the resources. Churches have discovered a smorgasbord of options for doing missions and the denomination is no longer the default channel. We tell churches to give to CP and they get to support 10,000 home and international missionaries…they don’t know them, don’t know what they are doing and will never hear from them, but just trust us and send your support. And by the way, we will use about 70 percent of what you give for other purposes enroute to that missionary support!

Let’s pretend for a moment that it is the 21st century! Churches don’t need the IMB to arrange a mission trip or contact with an overseas partner. Let’s assume we are no longer our own worst enemy in which entities compete with each other for church donations, as was the case in 1925. With electronic banking and transfers it is really not necessary for local states to collect Cooperative Program gifts from the churches on behalf of the SBC. Let’s acknowledge that it is not really cooperation for states to determine how much they keep without collaboration with SBC entities and then simply pass on the remainder.

We have tried to convince churches that they get to cooperate in all the work of the state convention, Baptist colleges, SBC seminaries, missionary work and a host of other ministries by just making a regular financial contribution. They don’t have to do anything. But is simply giving truly cooperation without involvement and ownership in the decision of what one gives to?

The case is made that churches do have ownership of what the states and the SBC do through the votes of their messengers at the respective annual conventions. But in reality those complex and massive budgets are formulated by staff and executive committees and then ratified by messengers who happen to be attendance, seldom representing more than 10 percent of the churches. All of the churches are then forced to give to everything or nothing. It doesn’t exactly create a sense of ownership and willingness to sacrificially support a plethora of ministries and administrative functions that don’t seem to have anything to do with the Great Commission.

As mentioned in the previous blog, the IMB is the largest recipient of CP. We and our missionaries promote it vigorously. In confronting pastors of churches which designate a negligible percentage, I have never had one tell me they don’t give more because they want more to go to the state convention! But they don’t have a choice. If they bypass the state convention, SBC entities receive the funds, but the church is reported as giving “zero” to CP and is considered non-cooperative!

A lot of churches, small and large, do not want more of their mission dollars going to subsidize Baptist colleges than to sending missionaries to reach the nations. There are those who would give far beyond their current level of CP support if they could be assured it was going directly to evangelism and church planting. They are not convinced that administration of the bureaucracy doesn’t consume an inordinate amount.

It is time to divide CP into two separate programs and eliminate the connectionalism that is a contradiction of our denominational polity. Churches can own the decision of how much to give to state causes and to SBC programs. It is not really too complicated to write two checks or make two bank transfers instead of one as each church feels led by the Lord to do. We would probably reach the ideal 50/50 proportion more quickly, but I am confident there would be an increase in total allocations to give churches ownership of that decision rather than it being imposed on them.

I commend the GCR task force for recognizing designated church gifts to both state and SBC entities and ministries as “Great Commission Giving.” But how much better would it be to allow any designated gift to an approved recipient of Cooperative Program funding to be considered CP? I don’t think this is a threat to adequate support of every entity and ministry. Most churches would continue to give more to the total generic formula as they are doing now. Churches that give just a small percentage to CP would give much, much more if they could give beyond the generic allocation to causes dear to their heart.

The primary argument I have heard against dividing CP is that it would destroy our cooperation. But that cooperation has resulted in declining support for years. Is stubbornly holding on to an antiquated legacy of cooperation more important than creating an innovative approach to stimulate giving? Which has the greatest potential: holding churches in bondage to generic giving or giving them ownership in how they cooperate and support what we do together?

Paying to Fulfill the Great Commission

Jerry Rankin Blog

This article is an introduction to a series of posts I will writing on “paying to fulfill the Great Commission.” The convention has convinced Southern Baptists that you and your church don’t have to do anything; the measure of commitment to the Great Commission is how much you give through approved channels for state and SBC entities to do the job of reaching a lost world. Churches may start dozens of new churches, lead their state in baptisms and invest millions of dollars in missions but are not considered mission-minded and cooperative nor are their members worthy of board positions if the percentage allocated to the Cooperative Program does not measure up to expectations.

Let me quickly add that I am not bashing CP. The International Mission Board and everything else we do as Southern Baptists would cease were it not for this amazing program of cooperative support. The IMB gets as much as all other SBC entities combined; a lot is being said about how much is kept by state conventions, but we receive more CP than dozens of states combined. So, please don’t construe anything I say as criticism of CP as I suggest in subsequent posts a new approach to “doing more together” to fulfill the Great Commission

The Cooperative Program is a miraculous system for denominational support. I have witnessed other mission agencies suffer high rates of attrition as their missionaries are unable to sustain support through individual fundraising. Our seminaries are among the largest in the world. The extent of what we are able to do through voluntary contributions of cooperating churches is phenomenal. We dare not do anything that would erode what I believe to be divinely inspired and created by wise and visionary leaders.

However, I believe it is critical that some changes be made to reconstruct the Cooperative Program to be relevant for the future, appeal to the mindset of our churches and result in a significant increase of resources needed to fulfill the Great Commission. An additional 1 percent here and there is not going to make a great difference in global impact. There is no way needed changes can be made without becoming a “win-lose” proposition for entities and between state and national work. I am going to suggest some changes that I sincerely believe could double receipts to CP and enable us to fund a radical advance for impacting lostness in America and around the world.

But first I need to acknowledge that even this will not make a great difference without a grassroots change in life transformation of the redeemed, quality discipleship and a strategy of “doing” rather than paying others to fulfill the Great Commission. Subsidizing state conventions and SBC entities, including mission boards, cannot substitute for what local churches and every believer must do!

Many other commentators on the GCR have mentioned the need for a more authentic approach to evangelism. One speaker called it a “shrink-wrap” presentation of the gospel in which people respond because they don’t want to go to hell, but they don’t want to die to carnal living and self-centered values. No repentance is involved. Something has to be suspect about an approach to witnessing that doesn’t result in life transformation. When those making professions of faith never follow through with baptism and identification with a local church and have to be coerced to attend and give, we should not expect them to share a persuasive witness with others.

Jesus sent us to proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom in which God is glorified by the reign of Christ as Lord of one’s life, but we have resorted to proclaiming a gospel of salvation instead. Don’t think I am disparaging the simplicity of the gospel; I was saved by praying a sinner’s prayer in childlike faith. However, once people give intellectual assent to the premise of our presentation and sign on the dotted line, then it should not be an exercise in futility to persuade them to tithe, attend church, serve the Lord and live according to Christlike character.

Which brings us to the second aspect of our dilemma—a lack of discipleship. Too often discipleship is neglected or is simply approached as an introduction to church membership. One doesn’t become a disciple of Jesus Christ by being injected with information and knowledge, even of God’s Word. Discipling comes from relationship—a growing relationship with Jesus and with mature believers who walk alongside mentoring, encouraging and modeling Christian maturity. Knowing what to do and how we are to live doesn’t necessarily result in that becoming a reality.

In his book, Every Member Evangelism, J. E. Conant said, “The Great Commission is sufficient authority to send us after the lost, but it is not sufficient motivation; it is not the authority of an external command but the impulse of an indwelling presence that sends us after the lost.” Knowing we are to witness and do missions doesn’t result in it happening. It will not be driven by guilt and another program of mobilizing for witness. It is only the compelling power of the Holy Spirit within us that will compel us to reach a lost world.

When we recognize we are undeserving sinners saved by grace, there will be the motivation and impulse to share our faith with others and do whatever it takes to reach the lost. This is what is happening in so many places overseas. People’s lives are changed; they cannot be restrained from telling others what Jesus has done for them in spite of persecution, social pressure or government restrictions.

A third flaw is our tradition of a highly subsidized methodology and paying others to do it for us. We pay professional church staff to do the work of the church instead of a handful of gifted ministers equipping the members for witness, teaching and serving. Our programs demand expensive facilities and budgets that make it impossible for “offerings to the Lord” going to fulfill the Great Commission.

Beyond the local church, we pay the state convention, missionaries and the SBC to do the work for us. One of the critical issues in response to GCRTF proposals reflects an acknowledgement that the work of state conventions is based on subsidized resources that will be devastated if any changes are made. There will never be enough money to sustain all our denominational programs and stimulate any advance in fulfilling the Great Commission.

I believe we can do more and make our financial resource go further by reprioritizing what we do. This will create a more compelling motivation for stewardship and cooperative support. But there won’t be a significant difference without a spiritual renewal that brings about massive grassroots involvement in witness and missions, churches reproducing and starting churches and a paradigm shift from paying someone else to do it for us. Stay with me as we explore these issues.

America and the Rest of the World Part 2

Jerry Rankin Blog







Certainly there are needs in our own country. There is no question spiritual renewal is the key to more effectively reaching the lost. But a Great Commission Resurgence is about the relative proportion of resources we devote to reaching a lost world. Not only does America represent less than 5 percent of the world’s population, it is where 45,000 Southern Baptist churches are located, hopefully sharing the gospel in their communities.

That same 5 percent of the world’s population is where 1,200 Southern Baptist associations are working with churches to reach their towns and cities. It is the same 5 percent of the world’s population where 42 state conventions are working. It is the same small proportion of the world’s lost among whom the North American Mission Board is directing its strategies and resources.

America is where Southern Baptists are already investing almost $12 billion while making available only $300 million to reach the other 95 percent where there are few resources. We have over 100,000 pastors, church staff and denominational workers here in America among 5 percent of the world’s population and say we are doing enough to send 5,000 missionaries to reach the rest of the world. Oh yes, and there are a few more churches other than Southern Baptists who are seeking to reach this 5 percent in America, as well.

But the most outrageous thing being advocated by many, is that we need to give even higher priority to reaching people where we live and channel even more resources into the needs here rather than doing what is needed to reach the world with the gospel. If what we are doing was working and effectively evangelizing America, that suggestion might have some merit, but why put more resources into something that is not really working very well?

God loves the whole world; so should we. Jesus died for the whole world, not just for our nation or our kind of people. As the body of Christ in the world today, He has left to us the responsibility of carrying on His work and fulfilling His mission. If we don’t reach the nations, who will? We are His people. We are the ones who have the Word of Life. We have been blessed to receive the hope of salvation. When will we get serious about sharing it with the rest of the world? If not now, when?

The Empty Tomb is a research organization in Chicago that tracks the stewardship and giving patterns of churches and denominations. In their last report they noted that the International Mission Board had set a goal at the turn of the century of engaging all remaining unreached people groups. This goal would require 8,000 missionaries and was an essential step in fulfilling the Great Commission. The Empty Tomb report observed that Southern Baptist church members gave enough financially to make this goal feasible. However, the SBC had demonstrated by how they were utilizing resources allocated to the denomination that the goal of the denomination was not to fulfill the goal!

We take pride is supporting 5,000 international missionaries, but that is only .03 percent of Southern Baptists. It is not even one out of every three thousand church members, yet it strains our resources to support that number. If we were really serious about reaching the world and recognized God had blessed us as a denomination to fulfill His mission, would it not be unreasonable that 1 percent our church members would be called to go as missionaries? That would be not 5,000 but 160,000! What potential would that have for eradicating lostness and taking the gospel to all peoples!

Could not the remaining 99 percent of our church members support the 1 percent who go as missionaries? What is the problem? It is a matter of disproportionate use of resources. We have determined we will do other things with our money than reach a lost world—comfortable spacious buildings and programs that serve the redeemed. We choose to keep most of the money at home while providing a token of resources to reach the rest of the world.

Years ago while serving as Area Director for South and Southeast Asia, I had the responsibility of dispersing the budget for more than 500 missionaries in the 15 countries of that region. We monitored receipts to CP and LMCO knowing it would affect the resources we had available. Even though there were usually increases in these income streams, it was never enough to meet our budget needs. I was the one who had to determine which programs would be cut back, which new initiatives would be deferred, etc.

One year, I had just received a population update for the countries under my administration. In exasperation of trying to stretch our budget resources I divided the amount of our annual budget from the mission board for field work and missionary support by the population we were trying to reach. The answer was 1.7 cents. I acknowledge that that really didn’t mean anything, but the thought occurred to me, “We don’t give two cents for the salvation of the people who are lost around the world!”

IMB welcomes 46 new missionaries in final appointment of Rankin's career

By Don Graham

RICHMOND, Va. (BP)—Tommy Reed* was soaked to the bone. Half-a-world from his native Tennessee, the 27-year-old missionary was caught in a torrential downpour as he rode his motorcycle to a Bible study in a remote Philippine village.

He found shelter under a thatched-roof shed and stumbled upon the woman who would one day become his church-planting partner — and his bride.

Reed worked with another missions organization at the time. He and his wife were among 46 missionaries appointed by trustees of the International Mission Board (IMB) in two services, one held Wednesday, May 5, at Broadview Missionary Baptist Church, Broadview, Ill., and the other Thursday, May 6, at First Baptist Church, Jackson, Miss. The appointment services were the last for outgoing IMB President Jerry Rankin, set to retire July 31.

Karen Reed,* Jim’s wife, remembers that rainy night, now more than 20 years ago. The shed Reed stumbled into was owned by Karen’s family. They’d never befriended a foreigner, much less entertained an American in their home. But the Filipino family invited him inside anyway, and since he couldn’t go to his Bible study, Karen’s father asked him to share the Gospel with them instead.

Reed spent the next 16 months teaching Karen’s family about Jesus, eventually leading Karen, her mother, brother and sister to Christ. In 2006, Reed and Karen were married and are now heading to Southeast Asia to plant churches together.

Though the Reeds’ romantically inspired tale is unusual, it shares a common thread with the stories of all new appointees in the sense that every missionary’s call is unique.

GOD’S VOICE

Shawn Smith* remembers hearing God audibly confirm his calling to missions at age 18 while attending a youth camp.

“My Bible study leaders encouraged us to focus on prayer as a two-way conversation with God. One night, as we were singing, I was praying to God about my future,” Smith says. “I told Him that I wanted to go to the mission field, but that I would not unless He led me there.

“I asked God if that was His will for me. Then I waited in silence. After some time passed, I heard an audible ‘Yes.’ Startled, I jumped up and looked around. Everyone was still singing. I realized that God had spoken.”

Smith and his wife, Elise,* along with their three children, are now bound for Central Asia.

RETURNING TO HOMELAND

As a pre-schooler in Taiwan, Lee Chen* first heard the Gospel from American missionaries who visited his kindergarten.

“They gave us candy, crackers, milk and pencils. They also brought the love of Jesus,” Chen says.

Those seeds finally began to grow when Chen turned 16 and was invited to church by one of his classmates. Thirty years later, Chen and his wife, Lucy,* working with another missions organization, became one of the first Chinese missionaries to South Africa. Now the Chens are returning to their homeland to spread the Gospel in East Asia.

LAUGHED AT

Amy Sweet* remembers being laughed at when she told a room of accounting professionals interviewing her for a college scholarship that she wanted to use her “accounting skills to positively impact others,” possibly by working for a non-profit organization.

“This wasn’t the first time I received this reaction, but it was what I desperately wanted to do,” says the 26-year-old Texas accountant. “I began to pray, and God opened a door for me to impact lostness.”

Sweet is now moving to South America to plant churches and serve with the IMB’s finance department.

FIRST BELIEVER

Church wasn’t an option for Michael Kim,* whose parents strictly forbade him from attending the lone Presbyterian congregation in the South Korean town where he grew up. As eldest son, he held the role of family priest, responsible for leading ancestor worship rituals. But he was drawn to Jesus nonetheless and became a believer at age 16, the first in 38 generations of his family.

His new faith enraged his parents, who beat him, threatened to disown him and threw his Bibles into the fire. Kim eventually smuggled a Bible into his room and read secretly in bed, hiding under the sheets. By the time he finished college, he’d read through the Bible seven times.

“In order for me to hear the Gospel, there was a long flow of blood, sweat and tears of Western missionaries to Korea,” Kim says. “As a debtor of the Gospel, I am … heading to Southeast Asia to share the Good News of Jesus.”

RANKIN’S APPOINTMENT MILESTONE

The appointment services marked a milestone for Rankin, bringing the number to 101 he’s been a part of during his 17 years as IMB president. In that time Rankin has seen more than 10,000 men and women sent out as Southern Baptist short-term and career missionaries.

“I want to thank you, Southern Baptists, because of your faithfulness in praying, for your heart for a lost world, for your faithful giving to the Cooperative Program [that] has enabled them to go in obedience to God’s call,” Rankin said.

He challenged the new missionaries to stay focused on their vision and passion for sharing the Gospel, something he found essential during his 40-year service with the IMB.

“It’s so easy [to get distracted] living in a foreign country where you get caught up in just surviving; taking care of your family and all of the bureaucracy and red tape and hassle of congested crowds,” Rankin said.

“Even though he was threatened, stoned, beaten, imprisoned, eventually martyred … [the Apostle Paul] was undeterred because he had a passion for a lost world to know Jesus Christ as Savior. You’re here tonight because you had a very distinct sense of God’s call to the mission field.

“As [Paul] expressed in that final message of farewell to the Ephesian elders, ‘I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, in order that I may finish my course, and the ministry I’ve received from the Lord Jesus Christ.’ That was Lottie Moon’s life verse. My life is of no account; my only purpose, my only passion, is to faithfully fulfill the calling of God to share Christ with the lost world.”

*Names changed.

Don Graham is a writer for the International Mission Board.

IMB trustees elect officers, tap Meador as potential interim president

5/6/2010

By Erich Bridges

CHICAGO (BP)--International Mission Board trustees elected new officers during their May 4-5 meeting in Chicago, continued their search for a successor to IMB President Jerry Rankin and made arrangements for interim leadership if the search extends beyond Rankin’s July 31 retirement.

Should a new leader not be in place by the end of July, trustees tapped IMB Executive Vice President Clyde Meador as interim president, beginning Aug. 1, “to serve until a new president is elected and assumes his responsibilities.”

Meador, 65, from Albuquerque, N.M., has been executive vice president since July 2003, directing many of the board’s day-to-day operations. A veteran missionary and mission administrator, Meador and his wife, Elaine, served in multiple assignments in Asia for more than 25 years before he joined the IMB home office staff in 2001.

The trustee presidential search committee continues its work — and continues to ask Southern Baptists to pray it will find the right person for the job. Committee chairman Jimmy Pritchard, pastor of First Baptist Church, Forney, Texas, said there was no firm timetable for a selection.

“We are making progress but have not been able to arrive at a consensus at this point,” Pritchard said. “We will get there. We’re just not quite there yet. We are waiting and working and praying, and God in His time will give us a consensus.”

NEW OFFICERS

In their annual election of new officers, trustees elected Pritchard by acclamation as board chairman. He succeeds outgoing chairman Paul Chitwood, pastor of First Baptist Church, Mt. Washington, Ky., who led the trustee board for two years as the IMB launched a major global reorganization. Pritchard will continue in his role as leader of the presidential search committee.

Also elected unanimously were Tim Locher, a retired airline pilot from Hendersonville, N.C., as first vice chairman; Joe Hewgley, a property manager from Rogers, Ark., as second vice chairman; and Kathy Towns, a small business owner from Arcadia, La., as recording secretary.

The trustees also appointed 46 new missionaries recognized during services at Broadview (Ill.) Missionary Baptist Church in the Chicago area and First Baptist Church, Jackson, Miss.

FINANCIAL OUTLOOK

David Steverson, vice president for finance, reviewed the IMB’s 2009 financial statements during his report. He also predicted the final 2009 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions will top the 2008 offering of $141 million — despite the ongoing economic difficulties faced by Southern Baptists.

“We do a projection the first couple of weeks in March, which we share with the finance committee, and we monitor the receipts on a weekly basis,” Steverson said. “The closer we get to the closing date, the more we are convinced that Southern Baptists are responding and we will see an increase when the books are closed on May 31.”

Investment income also has rebounded after the disastrous market nosedive of 2008-2009. However, Steverson reminded trustees that the IMB has dipped into reserve funds to cover its 2010 budget and faces significant budget limitations for the foreseeable future.

“Cash contributions were down almost $8 million [for the calendar year],” he reported. “This is reflected in both Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon [receipts]. We were able to compensate for this by reducing overseas expenditures $13 million and [U.S.] expenditures $6 million.”

MISSIONARY PERSONNEL

Meador briefed trustees on the IMB’s annual missionary personnel report. The board counted 5,441 missionaries at the end of 2009. Some significant numbers highlight who they are, where they serve and other key factors:

--Fifty-four percent of IMB missionaries are women, 46 percent are men; 84 percent are married.

--More than 56 percent of all IMB workers now serve in restricted-access locations where most unreached peoples are found. Only 38 percent work in “open” areas — “a continually decreasing number, as more and more of our personnel serve in high-security places,” Meador said.

--More than 4,300 missionaries serve in long-term assignments. About 1,120 are short-termers (two- to three-year assignments). The percentage of short-termers, already down somewhat from previous years, will continue to decrease as the IMB focuses limited resources on supporting long-term workers.

--The 2009 personnel attrition rate was 5 percent, in keeping with the average rate for the past 15 years.

RANKIN ON MISSIONS FUTURE

In his report, Rankin expressed optimism that the just-released final report of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force “lays the foundation for a renewed impetus on … cooperative efforts to reach the lost throughout North America and the world.” However, he cautioned, the report and potential actions taken on it by the Southern Baptist Convention in June “are simply a start and incentive to much that must follow in subsequent years.”

In the meantime, he challenged IMB trustees to “not wait passively for these changes to take place, but to make decisions that will move us aggressively forward in engaging all peoples with the Gospel. Our primary focus is not just doing evangelism overseas. It is penetrating lostness and giving all peoples an opportunity to hear, understand and respond to the Gospel in their own cultural context.

“You have already affirmed that we are to be more than a missionary-sending agency. Just because we are having to limit the number of personnel we can send and support, we cannot just shrug our shoulders and apologetically excuse ourselves from pressing forward to finish the task of reaching all peoples. We have to recognize the vast potential of partnership with Southern Baptists, Great Commission Christians and the network of national Baptist partners around the world.”

Personal involvement and hands-on mission partnerships are the “desire of a new generation,” Rankin stressed. “I am convinced a future generation will give and give generously, but they want to be involved, and they want ownership of what they do. They want to make a difference in the world. …

“If the IMB stays focused on the task, is driven by a compelling vision to fulfill the Great Commission and stays aligned with what God is doing around the world, the future is promising. But whether or not this makes a difference is contingent on adjusting our thinking to the demands of a changing world. …

“Even with an improved economy, we will never have enough missionaries to reach the whole world, but 45,000 churches and 16 million Southern Baptists can do it. But we must radically change our thinking as a denominational entity if we are to successfully relate to our constituency and effectively mobilize them in a Great Commission Resurgence.

“If we don’t do it and lead the way, who will?”

‘GET THE MESSAGE OUT’

Outgoing trustee chairman Chitwood urged his colleagues to explore “new and creative ways” to increase financial support for international missions in a day when God-called missionary candidates are being turned away for lack of funds.

“Estimates are that in the next 40 years somewhere between $40 trillion and $50 trillion will pass from the builders and boomers to their children and grandchildren — and to the causes they choose to support,” Chitwood said. “Legacy gifts to institutions may be down, but they are not out. Money is still changing hands. Worthy causes are still being funded. While we are still receiving an amazing amount of gifts through the Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, we could do more if we had more … .

“The bottom line is this: I give more through the IMB than I did eight years ago, because I know more. We have to get the message out in new and creative ways, not only to our churches but to individual Southern Baptists who want to leave a legacy that impacts eternity. I know of no more worthy cause than the cause we champion.”

Chitwood also called upon the board to keep moving forward in the area of theological education.

“I want to commend President Rankin for being proactive in the employment of Dr. Chuck Lawless as an advisor in theological education,” he said, and for creating four positions for theological consultants during the recent reorganization.

Chitwood urged the trustees both to expect the next president to value the role of theological education and to continue to focus on creating a culture that recognizes the importance of well-trained missionaries.

“As we better equip our missionaries to train and equip those who are being reached, we are making an investment with exponential returns,” Chitwood said. “As Dr. Rankin often says, our missionaries will not reach the world. But if those whom our missionaries reach are trained to reach, reaching the world becomes possible.”

In another action, trustees paid tribute to Jeremiah Johnson, a 21-year-old student missionary killed April 12 in a motorcycle accident in the African nation of Mozambique. Johnson, a member of Royal Palms Baptist Church in Phoenix, Ariz., was working with the IMB’s Hands On initiative, which enables college students to work on the mission field for a semester.

The trustees expressed “deep appreciation” for Johnson’s service to God and pledged special prayer support for his family in the days ahead.

The next meeting of IMB trustees will be July 20-21 in Rockville, Va., at the IMB’s International Learning Center.

Erich Bridges is a global correspondent for the IMB.

Why does God allow His children to suffer?

Why does God allow His children to suffer? I can never completely answer that question. It is the hardest of all questions both lost and saved people ask me. I have learned a lot in Costa Rica. I might even learn some Spanish before I leave. But I have learned a second huge lesson in my life. That yes God does allow His children to suffer. And that if we are smart enough to listen during our suffering we might sometimes understand why.

For two days I suffered the most intense pain I have ever suffered in my life. Yes this is a man who splintered his femur in an accident and yes if you have known me a long time who at 17 ran his Motorcycle into a 18 wheeler that was stopped at a red light at around 50 miles per hour. Neither of these paled in comparison to the constant pain of the last 48 hours.

I cried out to God all night Saturday and Sunday to please take away the pain. I begged him to tell me why I had to suffer such pain. I kept begging and begging but I was not listening. I kept getting stronger and stronger medicine. Took the antibiotics even thought of doubling them. I took 4 Extra- Strength Tylenol every 2 hours in addition to the prescription. No relief. Just before I called La Doctora from Punta Leona (What was I doing in Punta Leona, another story) a friend of a missionary family there had just had knee surgery and had a prescription for a narcotic pain killer, she gave me one and I took it before we left for San Jose; no relief, the pain only increased. I think my good buddy Ronnie was very worried about me on the way home. He even came for the surgery.

When I arrived back home in San Francisco, I had 2 Hours before La Dentista would arrive. I sat in our living room and started to pray. The pain was at its worst and for the first time I started to cry, something I wanted to do for two days, and when I spoke to God and I found myself on my knees telling God I could not take any more, that I was giving this pain to Him that it was more than I could bear. And before I knew it I told Him I was so sorry for the person I had become the past few weeks. So frustrated with Spanish so frustrated with so many cosas. And I sat there for more than a hour and waited, and waited and I truly believe with all my heart that what God said to me was thank you my son, that’s all I was waiting on. Even as I relive this IM weeping out of control; In fact the sky just burst open and its pouring down as if God is crying with me.

Three hours later God through the hands of this gifted woman God took away all my pain. It was gone and I haven’t taken as much as an aspirin since. Gracias a Dios.

Now today as I waited to return for the second leg of my Root Canal I have been reading my Bible. And what God has taken me to is what He has to say about The Body. As I read the words of Paul I remember so many times explaining to my members how important to God each part of the Body is. That the eye with all its importance cannot function without the lesser members. As I read God began to show me more of what I was to take from this experience.

I have taught and have understood for many years that what Paul is saying is that if any part of the body is not functioning the whole suffers. And remember this is the Body of which Jesus Christ, GOD, is the head of. That has always been hard for me to process; that a big toe can disrupt the Body of Christ.

Well I have to first admit that some of those cosas that have frustrated me are other members of this Body I claim to be part of. So this next part while gross, and graphic, I believe God intended for good. When La Dentista drilled trough my tooth and removed the nerve and artery and such leaving a clear path for the infection, she then pressed on the huge swelling in the roof of my mouth. When she did, and I don’t think she expected it at all, but the puss from the infection squirted out from my tooth all over my cheeks and down my neck. She rushed to grab some towels and apologized. It was brown and went up my nose and was so horrible smelling. I had never in my life thought something like that could come out of my mouth.

Today as I read my Bible I had a whole new understanding off the importance of every member of the Body, and god showed me how one small member of the Body can become so poisoned, even though no one can see it from the outside, so poisoned that they are causing so much pain to the body, that the entire body is so concentrating on the member and the pain they are causing that they ignore the head. God showed me that in us the members and in us the Body that sometimes He has to allow pain, even extreme pain so that we will turn back to the Head, so that he can remove the poison that is causing the pain. Not us, but Him.

I thought I understood this; I have lived it out, members, deacons, staff, fellow missionaries that were absolute poison to the body. But everyone wanted to take more medicine. Just ease the pain. And I many times was just as wrong; I wanted to charge in and do the surgery myself. And sometimes did. And I have paid the price.

I thought as I read of some things one of my favorite authors on church, Neil Cole has said. Neil is probably the most like minded person I have ever read. I do not have to personally write much because when I read him I say amen, or been there done that over and over.

Neil says and I paraphrase, that we must have every cell of Christ Body healthy.

I would say “all” myself, and that this is not possible, yes not possible if a single disciple, one disciple, is not fully following Christ. When and only when we know that every single part of Christ Body is connected to the Head and is hearing from Jesus the Head, and I want to emphasis the only Head, the only one who has paid the price of being the head, only then will there be order and unity within the Body; one mind, one purpose, and one Lord. That is what Jesus died for my friends. Please hear me, don’t force Jesus to put you on your knees in pain.

And hear me, to be okay with the status qua, to just want to cover it over, bleach it, call it something else, is a SIN against the Head. I know I’m preaching and it feels good. There are Pastors, Deacons, church members, Churches, Missionaries and organizations in the Body that are full of poison and puss that the ultimate physician is going to drill into and squeeze the poison out of. But hear me; it is He and only He that will do the surgery. But, and this is so important, for us to be happy and content with them is sin. To support something opposite than this idea is adulterous. It is sleeping with the enemy. And it is not to be so among the Body of Christ.

I know, I have been there. I went there again. And I say thank you God for removing the poison from my body once again, and loving me just the same, enough to let me suffer to the point that I can’t handle one bit more. If we disciples are unhealthy, we will never become the expression of The Body that is necessary to save this lost world. And thank God that when we become unhealthy He is the Great Physician!

Many of you will think poor Greg how unfortunate that he suffered so much these past few days.....please....don't.

America and the Rest of the Word (part 1)

Jerry A. Rankin

Most of our missionaries go through occasions of culture shock upon arrival overseas, no matter how much they study and prepare for their place of assignment. I was unprepared for the congested crowds of people when we arrived in Indonesia in 1971. There were 120 million people on the island of Java where we lived—an island about the size and shape of Tennessee, which, by comparison, has about 6.3 million people.

We worked many years in South Asia, relating to our work in Bangladesh, a country the size of Arkansas with 140 million people. If the U.S. had the same population density of India we would have three billion people. Can you imagine what that would do to our jobless rates and healthcare plans? But it wasn’t just the masses of people, poverty and disease, but the spiritual hopelessness that was overwhelming.

Researchers tell us there are still 1.3 billion people who are isolated culturally and geographically in places where they have not yet even heard the name of Jesus. That is hard for us to comprehend in this age of technology and communication when we can see news events as they occur simultaneously all over the world. But multitudes live where there are no churches and no Christian witness among them. They have no Bible in their language. No missionary is available to engage them with the gospel.

Did Jesus really mean for us to preach the gospel to all creation (Mark 16:15)? Did He really intend for us to be witnesses to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8)? Are we really supposed to go make disciples of all peoples (Matt. 28:19)? If so, how can we neglect the task—allowing masses to live a lifetime and die and enter a Christless eternity in hell—while justifying staying at home and focusing on our own needs and programs?

It is being pointed out that America has the fourth largest population of lost people of all the nations of the world. Many are sincerely saying we should not neglect the lost around us in order to divert resources to other nations. We even claim Jesus tells us to first of all be responsible for reaching those at home. While acknowledging our global responsibility, many rationalize to say we will never reach the world if we don’t give priority to our churches at home—after all, we have to build the foundation for calling out and sending missionaries.

While there are a lot of lost people in America, how many have no access to a church? Our own denomination has 45,000 churches, plus there are tens of thousands of other evangelical churches and millions of Christian believers positioned to witness to the lost where we live.

Southern Baptists, it has been 165 years! How long is it going to take before we are ready to assume our Great Commission task? That foundation is not getting stronger; it is actually crumbling! And it is not going to get stronger until we give appropriate priority to the mission to which God has called us as His people.

Often after I preach for a mission emphasis in a church the pastor will say, “Dr. Rankin, we appreciate your missions challenge. We are trying to build up our programs, reach our community, pay off our building indebtedness…then we are going to get involved in missions.” But it never happens. Churches that are focusing on their own programs and community seldom fulfill the criteria for moving on to a compelling missions involvement.

However, we could document the churches that are adopting unreached people groups, providing opportunities for volunteer mission trips, nurturing a climate for calling out missionaries and giving generously and sacrificially to missions. Invariably they are effective in local outreach and growth.

A church or individual doesn’t try to grow with the intention of eventually being obedient to God’s mission. When we as a denomination, and as local churches, are committed to the Great Commission, God will bless us in what we need to do locally. The reason there is such spiritual lethargy, negligible growth and dying churches is because we are neglecting the reason God has called us as His people.

God confirmed the call of one of our missionaries when he was interviewing for a church staff position. His role was to visit door-to-door because, as the senior pastor described the situation, “There are so many churches in our town we have to compete for members.” The prospective staff member thought, “You have got to be kidding…when billions of people don’t have any church?”

God yearns for the nations to know Him. He is not willing that any would perish. How can we justify the relative disproportion of resources, duplication of efforts, and replowing of the same ground when there are so many places the seed of the gospel has yet to be sown?

A story that impacted my call to missions was one that told of ten men trying to lift a log. There were nine men at one end of the log and only one at the other end. Which end should you go help?

Yes, we desperately need a Great Commission Resurgence to shift the imbalance of resources from America to the rest of the world.

Global consultants to focus on developing theologically grounded church plants

3/18/2010

By Don Graham

RICHMOND, Va. (BP)--A newly identified team of missionaries from the International Mission Board (IMB) will focus on helping leaders of overseas church plants build solid theological foundations.

Four missionaries will serve as full-time area theological education consultants for the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe. They will build relationships with overseas seminaries and Bible schools, developing programs for leadership training. They also intend to work with Southern Baptist seminaries to encourage and facilitate partnerships with national Baptist seminaries.

The team will be headed by Chuck Lawless, dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. The IMB hired Lawless as its global consultant for theological education in 2008 to assess the status of theological education overseas and to identify areas where Southern Baptists can help ensure the development of theologically sound churches.

“We’ve been planting churches but not always doing the best job of discipling,” Lawless says. “My prayer is that these new consultants will be another step in helping ground national pastors and lay leaders in the Gospel.”

Other team members include Calvin Morris of Georgia, who has served in the Americas since 1988, and will be the theological education consultant for the Americas; Louisiana native and 16-year missionary Preston Pearce for Europe; and Missouri native Randy Arnett for Africa. IMB leadership is still working to identify the fourth consultant who will serve Asia.

Arnett, a former IMB regional leader for West Africa, has been heavily involved with theological education during his 20-plus year career on the field, teaching in situations ranging from formal, brick-and-mortar seminaries to oral, lay-leader training sessions in dusty African villages. Arnett compares the need for solid theological education to Jesus’ story in Luke 6 of the man who built his house upon the rock and says it must be part of the spiritual DNA of every believer and church.

“We talk a lot about the right DNA in a church or the right DNA in a believer, and a lot of the time we’re thinking about obedience-based discipleship,” he explains. “We also have to look at the theological components. What are those components of that healthy church or that healthy believer that we need to instill in that DNA?

“What happens all too often is that we come in and we blow the Gospel out there … and pop the question really quickly, ‘Will you trust Jesus?’ And the person may respond, but that DNA from the beginning is unhealthy. … We don’t want to see that believer or church fall away.”

Arnett has witnessed firsthand how dangerous a lack of theological training can be. While teaching at a seminary in Togo, West Africa, he started a church with a national Baptist partner. But Arnett didn’t realize this man, who was leading the new church, was mixing the Gospel with elements of African traditional religion — the worship of spirits in nature and of ancestors.

“When it came to dealing with people’s spiritual problems, he resorted to what he knew from his African traditional religion — beating people with brooms, hitting them on the heads with handkerchiefs — doing all sorts of strange stuff that was simply way out of line,” Arnett says. “We ended up shutting down that entire church start because it had already fallen into heresy.”

The four-person consultant team’s efforts will be combined with more than 140 IMB missionaries already engaged in both residential and nonresidential theological education.

Evangelism and church planting efforts must be grounded in solid theological foundations and leaders trained in those foundations to sustain growth, says Gordon Fort, IMB vice president for global strategy. “So the question is, ‘How do we best deliver the theological education in a way that helps us sustain our objective but also meets the needs of our Baptist partners?’

“This is where I think there’s been some misunderstanding on behalf of those who feel that because we focus on evangelism and church planting we don’t care about the seminaries, about theological education, which is not true. … What we’re trying to do is have a balance between those two where we don’t divert our energy and resources from that frontline growth.”

Fort adds that he’s particularly excited about seminary to seminary partnerships.

“I believe our seminaries in the States have much more capacity and capability to do theological education than the IMB,” he says. “They have the faculty, the resources, the experience and the history.”

Don Graham is a writer for the IMB.

Machete attacks on Christian villages kill 500-plus in Nigeria

JOS, Nigeria (AFP) – UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Washington led calls for restraint on Monday after the slaughter of more than 500 Christians in Nigeria, as survivors told how the killers chopped down their victims.

Funerals took place for victims of the three-hour orgy of violence on Sunday in three Christian villages close to the northern city of Jos, blamed on members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group.

While troops were deployed to the villages to prevent new attacks, security forces detained 95 suspects but faced bitter criticism over how the killers were able to go on the rampage at a time when a curfew was meant to be in force.

Media reported that Muslim residents of the villages in Plateau state had been warned by phone text message, two days prior to the attack, so they could make good their escape before the exit points were sealed off.

Survivors said the attackers were able to separate the Fulanis from members of the rival Berom group by chanting 'nagge', the Fulani word for cattle. Those who failed to respond in the same language were hacked to death.

One local paper said the gangs shouted Allah Akhbar (God is Great) before breaking into homes and setting them alight in the early hours of Sunday. Churches were among the buildings that were burned down.


The Vatican led a wave of outrage with spokesman Federico Lombardi expressing the Roman Catholic Church's "sadness" at the "horrible acts of violence".

The UN chief told reporters he was "deeply concerned".

"I appeal to all concerned to exercise maximum restraint," he said.

"Nigeria's political and religious leaders should work together to address the underlying causes and to achieve a permanent solution to the crisis in Jos."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged "all parties to exercise restraint", but also called on the Nigerian government to "make sure the perpetrators are brought to justice."

"The Nigerian government should ensure that the perpetrators of acts of violence are brought to justice under the rule of law and that human rights are respected as order is restored," the chief US diplomat said.

The death toll was initially put at a little over 100 but then shot up. The information ministry said pregnant women were among those killed and around 200 people were being treated in hospital.

"We have over 500 killed in three villages and the survivors are busy burying their dead," said state information commissioner Gregory Yenlong.

"People were attacked with axes, daggers and cutlasses -- many of them children, the aged and pregnant women."

Survivors wail as children, women buried in Nigeria

Much of the violence was centred around the village of Dogo Nahawa, where gangs set fire to straw-thatched mud huts as they went on their rampage.

The explosion of violence is the latest between rival ethnic and religious groups. In January 326 people died in clashes in and around Jos, according to police although rights activists put the overall toll at more than 550.

"The attack is yet another jihad and provocation," the Plateau State Christian Elders Consulatative Forum (PSCEF) said.

However the archbishop of the capital Abuja, John Onaiyekan, told Vatican Radio that the violence was rooted not in religion but in social, economic and tribal differences.

"It is a classic conflict between pastoralists and farmers, except that all the Fulani are Muslims and all the Berom are Christians," he said.

Fulani are mainly nomadic cattle rearers while Beroms are traditionally farmers.

A curfew imposed after January's unrest is supposed to be still in place but Christian leaders said the authorities did nothing to prevent the bloodshed.

The PSCEF said it took the army two hours to react from the time a distress call was put through and "the attackers had finished their job and left".

Witnesses said armed gangs had scared people out of their homes by firing into the air but most of the killings were the result of machete attacks.

"We were caught unawares ... and as we tried to escape, the Fulani who were already waiting, slaughtered many of us," said Dayop Gyang, of Dogo Nahawa.

Gbong Gwon Jos, a Muslim resident of Dogo Nahawa, told The Nation daily he received advanced warnings of the attacks.

"I got a text message about movement of the people."

Rights activists said the slaughter appeared to be revenge for the January attacks in which mainly Muslims were killed.

Locals said that the attacks on Sunday were the result of a feud which had been first ignited by a theft of cattle and then fuelled by deadly reprisals.

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan placed security services in Plateau and nearby states on red alert to contain the violence before he sacked his chief security advisor.

Convoluted Priorities By Jerry Rankin 3/8/2010

If there were any question about the need for a Great Commission Resurgence and a study of our structure and programs it has been dispelled in the convictions and positions that have surfaced from many prominent voices. It is evident where resistance will come to recommendations from the GCRTF at the convention in June.

Many will be pointing out how the recommended changes will impact what we are doing as a convention—but isn’t that exactly the point! Watch for those who stand to lose entitlements of a system that hasn’t been moving us toward effective engagement of the lost. Dr. Morris Chapman found a receptive audience in speaking to the winter meeting of State Executives last month in passionately pointing out that the purpose of our denomination is not the Great Commission but cooperation.

Apparently it doesn’t matter whether we impact a lost world or accomplish anything else as long as we cooperate together. In fact, it was said that the formula for Cooperative Program allocations must not change. I now understand why for 17 years I and my staff have been meeting with the budget workgroup of the Executive Committee, presenting our required report on funding needs, but nothing is ever done. It is just a meaningless exercise of denominational bureaucracy.

A mighty move of God could open the world for harvest with thousands of missionaries poised to be deployed to the nations, but we could not do anything about it as Southern Baptists. More important than actually reaching a lost world is every entity getting their share. The priority is reflecting our cooperative commitment to all our programs as if everything we do is of equal value.

The above scenario is not altogether hypothetical. God is using global events to open unprecedented doors of opportunity to penetrate previously restricted and unreached people groups with the gospel. War, political disruption, economic uncertainty and natural disasters are turning the hearts of people all over the world to a search for spiritual answers that only Jesus can provide. Thousands of missionary candidates are in the appointment process but cannot be sent.

What our convoluted priorities are practically saying is, “It is better to let the lost multitudes never hear the gospel and go to hell, than change the way our denomination functions.” It is too bad that we have a system in which only two percent of our resources are given to reach a lost world that Jesus died to save. It is unfortunate our denomination can channel only 17 percent of Cooperative Program allocations to international missions because we have to sustain everything else we are doing. We can’t expect to cease a valid ministry, compromise programs that serve ourselves and our own churches in order to provide resources to get the gospel to those who have never heard! That, in essence, is what is being communicated.

One of my exasperations in working cooperatively with other convention entities has been the difficulty in nailing down the purpose of what is being done. On Mission Celebrations, which used to be World Mission Conferences, is a mission event hosted by local associations. IMB, NAMB, WMU and State Conventions all send personnel to speak in the churches, report on what we are all doing in missions, supposedly to enhance mission awareness. Pressing to know if there is an outcome that is supposed to result from this event, I am usually told that the event is an end in itself. Nothing is done that actually enlists and equips the church for missions involvement once the week is over.

Participation in Jericho Weeks at Ridgecrest and Glorieta rapidly declined when it became obvious that this mission week was more about profiling the cooperation of IMB, NAMB, WMU and LifeWay than accomplishing anything that would significantly advance missions. What about annual state convention meetings and associational meetings? Is there any outcome that made a difference, or do we continue to expend time, energy and expense on just being who we are?

Cooperation is about us; it is self-centered, self-promoting and maintaining everything every entity is doing without any concern for priorities or results. The Great Commission is not about us, our programs and sustaining what we have always done; it is about others. It is about a lost world. It is about consolidating our resources and focusing our energies to proclaim the gospel to those who have never heard, to win the lost and see the kingdoms of the world become the kingdom of our Lord.

I wonder which is God’s priority. Yes, He is pleased with unity among God’s people. He is honored by anything we do cooperatively for His sake. But not to the neglect of His mission! Cooperation is the means through which we work together, not an end in itself. Why couldn’t our cooperation be for the purpose of fulfilling the Great Commission? Now that would be a quaint idea!

© Copyright 2010 Jerry Rankin Blog

Sickened By The Ugliness Of Their Own Sinfulness

'Let us be found faithful,'

'Let us be found faithful,' Chitwood tells trustees

3/4/2010

By Mark Kelly

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (BP)--Paul Chitwood knelt with six other believers in an overseas province where all of the nearly 100 million inhabitants know little or nothing about salvation through Jesus Christ. They prayed God would send Southern Baptist workers to tell the people there about the Good News.

“Yet I flew back to America knowing how unlikely it would be that God would send an IMB missionary there because we are in the process of reducing our mission force by several hundred people,” Chitwood told trustees of the International Mission Board (IMB) during their March 3 business session in Memphis, Tenn.

His voice filled with emotion, Chitwood, chairman of the board of trustees and pastor of First Baptist Church in Mt. Washington, Ky., challenged his fellow board members to be passionate advocates for the Great Commission cause of taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

“To most of the world, how to know God is still a mystery. But we know the mystery has been solved,” Chitwood told the trustees, who were about to appoint 61 new missionaries in a service at nearby Bellevue Baptist Church. “Some have heard and not yet believed, but over a billion have not yet heard. Our labors and our struggles are so that all may hear. Thank God for those who are willing to go and share their lives among the nations that all may hear.

“God has given us a small piece of the greatest endeavor He has undertaken,” Chitwood added. “Let us be found faithful, doing our part.”

Chitwood’s impassioned plea closed out a two-day meeting in which trustees also heard an update on Southern Baptist relief efforts in Haiti and Chile, received an “over and above” check from a group of Texas Baptist churches and recognized the leadership of Lloyd Atkinson, who served in South America in the 1970s before having various leadership roles in the IMB’s personnel office.

‘AN INSPIRATION AND A BLESSING’

Atkinson, a senior consultant who served as the IMB’s vice president for mission personnel from 1999-2009, retires March 31.

“Lloyd and his staff have led in an era of growth beyond what anyone would have dared imagine a few years ago,” said IMB President Jerry Rankin. “Lloyd has demonstrated not only superb leadership skills as a team builder but also conscientious commitment to the values and policies of this board.” Speaking directly to Atkinson and his wife, Sue, Rankin added: “It has been a wonderful journey. You have been an inspiration and a blessing.”

“I am so optimistic about the future. God’s hand, I believe, is on this board,” Atkinson told the group. “God called all of us a long time ago to carry out the Great Commission and that Great Commission is still in our hearts. I’m looking forward to the days ahead even being greater than they are now.”

OVER AND ABOVE

The trustee board also received an “over and above” check from Bryon McWilliams, pastor of First Baptist Church in Odessa, Texas, and president of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. That state convention sends 55 percent of its Cooperative Program missions receipts to national and international missions causes — a percentage well above that of most state Baptist conventions. It also was the SBTC that presented an “over and above” check for $100,000 to the IMB during the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Louisville, Ky., in June 2009.

“I am thrilled to be part of a state convention that is so missionally minded,” McWilliams told the trustees. “Today it is my pleasure to represent the more than 2,000 Southern Baptist of Texas Convention churches and give another check for $100,000 … to the IMB.”

HAITI AND CHILE

Terry Lassiter, IMB strategist for the American peoples, reported on the entity’s relief efforts following major earthquakes in both Haiti and Chile. In Haiti, joint relief efforts with Baptist Global Response, Haitian Baptists, Florida Baptists and the North American Mission Board are focusing on food, shelter and medical needs, especially in areas being missed by the larger international relief effort, Lassiter said. A total of $1.8 million has been donated to the IMB for Haiti relief and $475,000 of that already has been targeted for specific projects.

In Chile, Southern Baptist missionaries in the country deployed only minutes after the Feb. 27 earthquake to begin assessing needs and ministering to survivors, Lassiter reported. Two missionary assessment teams are converging on Concepcion, the city most affected by the quake, to bring badly needed food, water and medicine. An initial release of $50,000 has been approved to launch that effort, which will be conducted in partnership with Chilean Baptist churches and Baptist Global Response.

MEGACITY MISSIONS

A project in a major North American city is helping Southern Baptist missionaries better understand how to evangelize the megacities in which they will be serving overseas, said Gordon Fort, the IMB’s vice president of global strategy.

The purpose of the project is to help new missionaries, many of whom grew up in relatively small communities, understand how to share the Gospel in the post-modern environment of an ethnically diverse megacity, Fort said.

The program, which completed its second four-month cycle in January, challenged its 13 participants to learn how to live in an apartment-dwelling, mass transportation environment and required them to engage the people they encountered with the Gospel, Fort said. Over the four months, a full 41 percent of the people engaged indicated they were not interested, yet three salvations were recorded, five home or Bible study groups were started and one church was planted.

It was exciting that “in a city like this — post-modern, with its ethnic diversity, many people as hardened to the Gospel as any place in the world — your missionaries in those four months found responsiveness that we will continue to build on ... ,” Fort said. “These excited, enthusiastic new missionaries were coming in, struggling with the city, trying to learn how to live in a city, adjusting themselves to the city, but coming to love the city.”

‘WHAT AFFECTS OUR MORALE’

Dramatic changes in IMB structure have occurred in recent months and people ask board leaders how the reorganization has affected morale among the missionaries, said a key leader for missions work among Central Asian peoples.

“By and large, the average worker on the frontlines is hardly aware that anything has happened. They are simply continuing to do what God called them to do,” said the leader, whose name is being withheld for security reasons. “Reorganization is not what affects the morale of our leadership team and keeps us awake at night. What affects us is lostness.

“We have overwhelming lostness facing us and we are being told we are going to have to address that lostness with fewer workers. That’s what keeps me awake at night,” the leader said. “What keeps me awake at night is getting calls from churches ... that have qualified people in the pipeline [to become missionaries] ... and having to tell them, ‘Slow down. We can’t take you this year. Maybe we can’t take you next year. We don’t know.’”

Deciding how to allocate scarce missionary resources among vast numbers of lost people is extremely difficult, the mission leader said.

“I’ve got somebody ready to go to that place, but I’m going to have to say no because we don’t have the money to send them,” he said. “How do we prioritize? It’s like asking which of your children you are going to save. ... That’s what breaks my heart.”

In other business, trustees:

— Adopted a resolution of appreciation for Robert E. Brown, a Masters missionary to sub-Saharan African peoples since 2004, who died of a heart attack Jan. 7 while on family leave in the United States.

— Heard a request from the chairman of the board’s presidential search committee that Southern Baptists set aside March 13 as a day of prayer and fasting to ask God to direct their path.

— Listened to the first reading of a temporary bylaws change that would save money by eliminating the January and July 2011 trustee meetings. Trustees will vote on the proposal during their May meeting in Chicago.

— Received a report about a medical missions mobilization summit set for July 8-10 at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, Ga.

The next meeting of the trustees will be held May 4-5 in Chicago. Two appointment services will be held in conjunction with this board meeting. The first appointment service will be May 5 at Broadview Baptist Church, Chicago. The second appointment service will be held May 6 at First Baptist Church, Jackson, Miss.

Mark Kelly wrote this story on behalf of the IMB.

The 50% Myth

Churches send on average less than 7% of there total income to their State Agency. Then 14-57 % goes to the SBC where 50% goes to the IMB. So the 50% everyone talks about is 50% of 14-57% of only 7%. It is really less than 2% of Church Income!

Preliminary report of the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) Task Force

Creativity, new paradigms needed to reach lost world, Rankin says

3/4/2010

By Mark Kelly

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (BP)––The Feb. 21 preliminary report of the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) Task Force deals with some of the areas where Southern Baptists “are languishing in the task of the Great Commission,” International Mission Board (IMB) President Jerry Rankin told the entity’s trustees March 3.

While much more needs to be done to focus the denomination on evangelizing a lost world, Southern Baptists “must be creative and willing to explore new paradigms … for the sake of mobilizing the resources impacting a lost world,” Rankin said.

The comments, which came on the second day of the IMB’s two-day meeting in Memphis, Tenn., specifically addressed proposals to allow the IMB to work directly with unreached people groups present in the United States, to shift 1 percent of the SBC budget from the Executive Committee to the IMB and to create a new category of giving called “Great Commission Giving.”

NORTH AMERICAN MISSIONS

Rankin said he sees significance in the door being opened for the IMB to work directly with unreached people groups in the United States.

The geographic restriction in the IMB’s ministry assignment “has created a debilitating dichotomy in our denominational strategy,” Rankin said.

“Reaching these ethnic people groups, many of which are from areas that are closed or restricted to a Christian witness overseas, represents a potential for engaging their language and society with the Gospel as it invariably flows from those reached in America to relatives in their homeland,” Rankin told the trustees.

At the same time, however, such a change would not result in the IMB assigning missionary personnel to the United States, Rankin said. Pulling a missionary away from an unreached people group of 10 million people would not make sense just to engage a few of those people in an American city.

“If this recommendation is adopted by the convention, I anticipate we will organize to make a concerted effort to work with NAMB (North American Mission Board), state conventions, local associations and in response to requests of local churches, to identify unreached ethnic people groups and utilize our personnel and resources to train stateside entities to understand and witness to those with other cultural worldviews,” Rankin said.

BUDGET SHIFT

While Southern Baptists do need to be more effective in reaching their own country, evangelizing unchurched cities and reversing the decline in baptisms, the task force’s final report must give greater emphasis and channel more resources to reaching the thousands of unreached people groups around the world, Rankin said.

While he appreciates the additional $2 million in funding represented by shifting 1 percent of the Cooperative Program allocation budget to the IMB, Rankin said it is more significant that the barrier of allocating 50 percent of that budget to the IMB is being broken.

“Yes, we want to see baptisms increase and America evangelized, but that is comparing 6 billion people to [250 million] lost people at home where there are already 45,000 churches working and 97 percent of our financial resources are being applied,” Rankin said. “It comes down to a decision of whether or not Southern Baptists want to settle for sending and supporting 5,000 missionaries, or to provide the resources to do what it takes to be aligned with God in reaching the nations.”

The “Covenant for a New Century” reorganization of the SBC in 1997 eliminated several SBC entities and consolidated their functions into a more streamlined structure that was supposed to free up more money for missions, Rankin noted.

“What actually happened was a total reduction in the allocation to missions while the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and Executive Committee received increased funding,” Rankin said. “The reduced allocation of 1 percent to the Executive Committee will be a sizeable portion of its budget. However, like other areas of the convention, [the Executive Committee] has allowed its role to expand beyond providing administration and facilitating services to the convention to engage in ministry assignments such as Empowering Kingdom Growth and Global Evangelical Relations as well as Cooperative Program promotion.”

‘GREAT COMMISSION GIVING’

One of the more surprising recommendations in the GCR task force report was acknowledging designated gifts to convention entities at the state and national level as “Great Commission Giving” while affirming the Cooperative Program as the primary channel of support, Rankin said.

“Many strong mission-minded churches are being alienated and treated with condescension because of their level of giving to the CP,” Rankin said. “I plan to speak to this in the future –– not to criticize the Cooperative Program, but to suggest it needs to be re-created for the 21st century.

“We are the largest benefactor of CP, but it is floundering, putting our future in jeopardy,” Rankin added. “I suggest we could not only increase but double Cooperative Program receipts for the work of our convention and the Great Commission task by giving ownership and flexibility to the churches, removing the contradiction of connectionalism between the SBC and state convention and promoting it with transparency and integrity.”

Rankin said he would be blogging on that subject at rankinconnecting.com.

The trend of decline among Southern Baptists is evident and the consequences of not creating a new paradigm of Great Commission cooperation are disturbing, Rankin asserted.

Whether the task force recommendations are adopted or not, “it is a new day for Southern Baptists,” Rankin added.

“These initiatives cannot be put back in the can; they will be the incentives for new paradigms created by a new and younger generation of leadership,” Rankin said.

“…We must be creative and willing to explore new paradigms for serving Southern Baptists for the sake of mobilizing the resources impacting a lost world.”

Mark Kelly wrote this story on behalf of the IMB.

61 New Missionaries

61 new missionaries sent out to tell others that 'Jesus is the answer'

3/4/2010

By Alan James

CORDOVA, Tenn. (BP)--As “Jennifer” held the hand of a dying man in the intensive care unit of a hospital, she knew God was calling her to a career in missions.

A nurse for the past five years, Jennifer had already felt God’s call to missions. As she watched that particular encounter with eternity, she realized that people are dying every day without a relationship with Jesus Christ. She is unable to share her real name because soon she will be traveling with her family to an area resistant to the Gospel.

“I knew it was now time to tell an unreached people about the Great Physician,” Jennifer told a crowd during an International Mission Board (IMB) missionary appointment service March 3 at Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn.

Jennifer and her husband were among 61 missionaries appointed that evening. The total number of IMB missionaries now stands at 5,413. And many like Jennifer and her husband are working in areas that are resistant to the Gospel.

“It’s our job to go to the world,” said Steve Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church.

“It’s not our job to tell the world to come to us.

“One day we’re going to make it to heaven and … we’re going to see people of every nationality, every tongue, every skin color, every kind of person you can imagine … so many different kinds of people and yet all people created in the image of God,” he continued.

One new appointee shared how her work with international students while attending college confirmed her heart for the nations — especially those in South Asia.

“They heard about Jesus for the first time,” said the woman. “I became burdened for all nations to know Him.”

Another shared how her trip to the gym in a Muslim country confirmed her call to career missions.

“While exercising, a woman approached me,” she said. “She whispered that she’d seen me in a dream, and God told her I could explain how to be saved. When she accepted Christ, God confirmed His call on my life to be a light.”

Many others around the world, like that Muslim woman in the gym, are discovering that God speaks their language, said Gordon Fort, IMB’s vice president of overseas operations.

Fort, who served 11 years in Botswana with his wife and children, told how some of the villagers reacted when they saw the JESUS film translated into the language of Setswana.

“Those people were startled and astounded that Jesus spoke their language,” he said.

“As people around the world discover that Jesus Christ died on the cross for every language, every people, every tribe, every nation, they are being transformed.”

Fort told about a Muslim-background believer in Bangladesh who was tortured by a group of Muslims and told to recant his faith or they’d cut off all his fingers.

The man replied, “You can cut my body into a thousand pieces, and every piece will cry out the name of Jesus.”

Fort asked, “Why would a man do this?

“Jesus spoke their language,” he added. “[God] knew their heart and their longing for spiritual truth, and they were putting their faith in Jesus Christ.”

During the past three years, IMB missionaries and their Baptist partners have baptized an average of 500,000 people a year, Fort said.

Jerry Rankin, IMB president, challenged those in the crowd to join God’s work overseas.

“The call to missions is not just for an elite few such as these sent by the International Mission Board,” Rankin said.

Too many people are not going to the mission field because they claim, God has not called me. The Great Commission was given to every church and every believer, Rankin said.

“Many times we have a stereotypical idea of what a missionary is — a pastor, church staff or seminary graduate,” he said. “Did you hear those testimonies tonight? … A businessman, doctor, teacher or coach.”

“How grateful we are that we’re able to send out these 61 new missionaries,” he added. “But how many more will it take? How many more until the whole world knows Jesus?”

Alan James is a writer for the IMB.

New Ministry

Please pray for the new ministry God has brought me to. A fellow student that is in his last trimester started working last year at a halfway house. This eventually led to a ministry where he began to disciple 6 men on Thursdays at a park downtown.

A few weeks ago he approached me about joining him in preparation of his leaving in April. I was very excited because if you know me Discipleship is my passion and this ministry would be great preparation for Mexico and allow me to practice my Spanish and hopefully allow God to use me to change the lives of these new believers.

Well after just one week, the leader of this ministry is in the States and I will be leading today. Is God stretching me or what? Pray for me and these men, and that God will prepare me by April to help this ministry flourish.

FOUR MISSION ‘MYTHS’

In his remarks to trustees, Rankin said that before “fading away into the sunset” he intended to use his remaining board reports to review “where we are in our mission task, why we do what we do and the foundational principles of our mission.” He used the first such opportunity to confront four “prominent myths” that “create misinformation and distort perceptions” about IMB strategy and work:

-- “Evangelism and missions are one and the same.”

“One does not do missions without evangelism. Witnessing, winning and discipling people into the kingdom as Christ-followers is the heart of the mission,” Rankin stressed. But failing to understand the “subtle distinction” between the two leads many churches and Christians to conclude they are primarily responsible only for evangelizing the people who live right around them — or people around the world who are immediately responsive to the Gospel. It also leads to another assumption that has long hindered missions: Since salvation is the “sovereign work of God, we don’t need to be concerned about results.”

Such misunderstandings continue to lead many Christians to relinquish the mission task to “an elite few ministry professionals and missionaries who work on their behalf,” Rankin lamented. As for concentrating exclusively on responsive regions and peoples, he added, “we could probably double the number of reported baptisms each year by concentrating our missionary force in a handful of open and responsive countries, but that would hardly be fulfilling God’s mission, as it would result in multitudes never hearing the Gospel.”

-- “Church-planting movements are a humanly designed strategy to speed the completion of the Great Commission.”

The notion that authentic, rapidly growing church-planting movements — led by lay believers, often amid persecution — are just another mission program or strategy “is a blatant misrepresentation of the work of God,” Rankin charged.

“There will never be enough missionaries to reach the whole world. The only possibility of everyone having access to the Gospel is through a grass-roots network of indigenous, reproducing churches being planted in every community,” he said. “It is a matter of pride to assume that an almighty, sovereign God is dependent on the human instrumentality of educated, mature Western missionaries to teach and train and lead before [local believers are] qualified and capable of sharing their faith with another.

“I find it appalling that there are those who actually advocate slow growth, taking years to disciple new believers to maturity, requiring seminary training of leaders before they can pastor a church or share their faith. … Certainly training is valuable, and our reports reflect the priority that is being given with the number of those being trained [by IMB missionaries and their ministry partners] growing from 30,000 to more than 200,000 in the last decade. We believe in theological education. … But which church is healthier and more spiritually vital — the one reproducing and sharing their faith, or those which never start another church and see negligible numbers coming to Christ?”

-- “Our mission strategy of reaching all peoples is based on Matthew 24:14 and a desire to hasten the return of Christ.”

In Matthew 24:14, Jesus Christ declares that the Gospel “will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Reaching all peoples in order to hasten the end of the age, however, “has never been voiced or intimated by me or anyone responsible for strategic leadership at the International Mission Board,” Rankin stressed. “Yet it continues to be voiced by critics of our passionate devotion to what our Lord has mandated us to do. The time of our Lord’s return is in the Father’s hands, and we will do nothing to change that timeframe. We could never presume to interpret the Father’s criteria for what it means to fulfill the Great Commission. My frequent use of Matthew 24:14 is simply to glorify God that this prophecy is being fulfilled as the Gospel is being proclaimed among all peoples and nations.”

-- “Advocating a certain priority or objective nullifies or excludes others.”

Prime examples of this myth, Rankin noted, include the perceptions that because IMB missionaries focus on evangelism, reaching unreached peoples and partnering with Southern Baptist “mega churches,” they are no longer committed to theological training, medical and humanitarian work, aiding established churches in evangelized areas or working with smaller Southern Baptist churches to mobilize for missions.

“Such reasoning is illogical and so far from the truth as to be ludicrous — were it not representing the perception of so many, even among some of the ranks of our missionaries,” Rankin said. “It doesn’t seem to be simply a misunderstanding, but an intentional way of holding on to a narrow, personally convenient position. …

“We must realize there will always be critics and detractors,” Rankin concluded. “We must do a better job of communication. We need to be sympathetic and patient with those who resist change. We need to minister to those who are challenged and stressed by change. But we must not be deterred from moving forward in the task our Lord has committed to us.”