SBC Meeting Addresses Leadership, Mission, Money, Personal Morality
by Allie Martin
June 14, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention's 2006 annual meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina, have hammered out some critical decisions about the denomination's leadership, mission, and witness. Among the actions undertaken during this June 13-14 gathering are the election of new officers and some controversial measures regarding outreach funding and alcohol use.In perhaps its most important vote, the SBC has elected Rev. Frank Page, a South Carolina pastor who had said it would take a miracle for him to win, as the denomination's new president. According to an Associated Press report, Page was the choice of several pastors, many from a younger generation than the current leadership, who have complained that the denomination suppresses debate over worship styles and doctrinal details.
Hailing New Leader's Vision, Honoring Past Leader's Legacy
The SBC's new leader says his election is proof that rank-and-file Southern Baptists want a new style of leadership. Receiving 50.48 percent of the first ballot vote, he beat out two more prominent candidates: the Rev. Ronnie Floyd of Arkansas and Rev. Jerry Sutton of Nashville, Tennessee.
Page had strong support on Internet "blogs," personal web pages where a variety of opinions and topics are discussed and updated. He believes the bloggers made a big difference and says these individuals "watch and look and listen, and so obviously that impacts public opinion."
The SBC's newly elected leader says the Internet is "simply another venue for people to go to, to find out what people are saying and thinking." While this venue "may have an inordinate amount of influence beyond its number," he asserts, "it cannot be ignored anymore."
Page, the pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, South Carolina, will serve for one year with an option to run for a second term. He says he will work to attract new leaders to the SBC as well as those pastors who are strong supporters of the Cooperative Program, the main mission-sending program for the denomination.
But even as the messengers hailed their president-elect, they also paused to honor one of the Convention's outgoing leaders. The Southern Baptist North American Mission Board (NAMB) has been challenged by the recent resignation of its president, Rev. Robert Reccord, whose accomplishments and improvements at the NAMB during his nine-year presidency were noted and listed at the meeting by a Baptist delegate from Georgia.
An internal investigation was launched following a Baptist newspaper report alleging that Reccord had misspent funds, funneled contracts to a friend, and approved manipulation of a missionary count. Reccord resigned in April after the investigation cleared him of wrongdoing but criticized his management style.
At last night's annual meeting session, chairman Bill Curtis said he and the rest of the NAMB are grateful for Reccord's service to that organization as well as for his "difficult decision" to step down from his position as its leader.
A Call for Spirit-Empowered Evangelism
Another issue that has been taken up at the annual meeting is the SBC's progress toward outgoing president Bobby Welch's goal of baptizing one million new converts in the year that began last October 1. With less than four months remaining until the deadline, only a few thousand new baptisms have been reported, and many Southern Baptists feel a miracle might be required to put the benchmark within reach.
However, a fiery message delivered by Rev. Fred Luter reminded listeners of the evangelism-and-outreach-focused theme of this year's annual meeting: "Everyone Can and I'm It."
Luter is pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, which was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and now meets in three different churches in three different cities. While that tragedy caused his congregation to put its plans on hold, Luter says he is encouraged by the first chapter of Acts, which tells believers to wait for the Holy Spirit to empower them for the job of evangelizing the Earth.
In his rousing sermon, the New Orleans pastor told his fellow Southern Baptists that the SBC's evangelism goal can be met with the Holy Spirit's help. "The text says, 'But you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me,'" he thundered.
"The Holy Spirit will give us new power," Luter continued, "power to walk right, power to talk right, power to preach right, power to sing right, power to serve right, power that enables us to share the gospel, power that enables us to witness, power that enables us evangelize, power that enables us to win the lost at any cost!"
Messengers Find No Percentage in Church Giving Guideline
Delegates to the Greensboro meeting took up the practical business of missions -- namely, how to fund them, when they addressed a report from an ad hoc committee that encouraged churches to give ten percent of undesignated receipts to the Cooperative Program.
The SBC and state Baptist conventions developed the Cooperative Program so churches could support Baptist mission work with one monthly gift. However, giving has dropped nearly four percent over the past 25 years. The ad hoc committee drafted the report suggesting the ten percent gift last February; however, the SBC Executive Committee removed all references to that guideline.
Mike Stone, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Blackshear, Georgia, moved in the opening session of the 2006 business meeting that the original language be put back into the report, once again advising the ten percent gift and encouraging the SBC to elect leaders from churches that give at least that amount to the Cooperative Program.
In making his case for the re-insertion of the language, Stone urged fellow messengers to realize that the SBC is at a historic juncture. "In the life of the Southern Baptist Convention," he contended, "much as we needed strong, convicted leadership theologically in 1979, I believe we need that same level of challenging ourselves -- not so much theologically but now missiologically."
The messengers turned the motion down, however. The SBC delegates rejected the motion to reinsert the references to the ten percent in the report, voting it down by a two-to-one margin.
Delegates Approve Strong Language Opposing Strong Drink
Another controversial measure that came up before the Southern Baptist assembly sparked some debate, but passed nevertheless. The resolution dealing with alcohol use by SBC members not only expressed opposition to the drinking of alcohol but also stipulated that no one who does so may be elected to serve with any entity of the denomination.
A messenger from Florida spoke against the anti-alcohol resolution. "I do not think that we can be more holy than Jesus Christ," he said. "Christ turned water into wine. If indeed, as we have said, this is a matter of Christian liberty, then we cannot at the same time say that this is a matter of righteousness."
Another messenger, however, encouraged support of the measure from a personal perspective. "I spent two years and seven months in prison, and it all started with drinking beer when I was eight years old," the delegate said. "I think that we as Southern Baptists -- but, more importantly, we as Christians -- need to take a stand against something that's destroying our nation."
The resolution was approved, and the messengers proceeded to other items on their agenda. Other business included a resolution dealing with home schooling, which was scheduled for debated late on Wednesday, and approval of the transfer of responsibility for stewardship education in the SBC to the Executive Committee from LifeWay Christian Resources, thus consolidating stewardship with SBC Cooperative Program promotion.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
