The GCR Task Force: Flexing Muscle They Ain't Got by Peter Lumpkins

When Dr. Al Mohler made the motion in Louisville, KY last June for the Southern Baptist Convention to instruct President Johnny Hunt to appoint a special task force to study how South Baptists could be better at doing missions, he insisted the purpose of the committee was to "ask questions" of ourselves to see if we can do better.

At one point, he became very passionate, insisting rhetorically, "What are we afraid of?  We should be willing to simply ask questions about the way we're doing missions!" (paraphrase).  The SBC voted for the president to appoint a committee. Who would be against that? (for the record, I voted for the motion).

I get the impression now, however, the task force is strangely morphing into something the Southern Baptist Convention did not authorize.  I most certainly did not with my vote.

To what do I refer?

Simply put...

The Southern Baptist Convention authorized a task force to study our situation.  What the Southern Baptist Convention definitively did not do was issue a mandate to change our structure.  In point of fact, Al Mohler unequivocally stated the task force was not about structural change, assuring the 2009 SBC messengers the purpose of the motion was to get a committee in place to ask the right questions of ourselves.

I think it clear the GCRTF is beginning to flex some muscle they simple do not have. 

For example, if I may...

Ronnie Floyd seems to think the search committees of NAMB (TBA), IMB, and more recently, The Executive Committee should look to them to gauge how to proceed.  The Florida Baptist Witness reports:

"Three times in an e-mail interview with the Witness, Floyd emphasized the search committees of the respective entities should be “very prayerful and watchful of the work of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force” when asked if the GCR Task Force may be considering recommendations that could alter the structure of those entities" (//link, emphasis added).

What work of the Task Committee?  My understanding was the committee was about studying the situation.  Asking questions.  In the short time the committee has been together, what possible conclusions could they have reached?  Unless, of course, a priori ruled the course.

In referring to three high-profile leadership positions becoming vacant  Floyd noted the changes at SBC entities are “obvious” evidence that God is “working in a special way in the Southern Baptist Convention.”  Interesting.  That's definitely not what folk thought only a few weeks ago when NAMB trustees squeezed Dr. Hammond.  Nor was it considered a "God-moment" when Logan Clark was dismissed from Nashville. 

Even more significantly, why would Floyd think such when their task force is only "studying" the situation about being better stewards of CP dollars?  Unless, of course, one assumes the task force is assigned to deal with the vacancy of three major leadership positions.  Again, whether or not any entity has a leader should not concern whether we are or have been good stewards of CP dollars. 

Floyd's message to the search teams is "we are very open to assisting them in any way they request.”  I'm wondering out loud if Floyd is asking the right question.  The task force was not assigned a consultative role to search committees.  Indeed since we're talking about being good stewards, one has to wonder if Floyd and the task committee are being good stewards of the short time they have meeting with search teams for vacant positions.  Is there a relationship to being better with CP dollars here I am missing here?

I am sorry.  I really am.  I am just about always on the side of the denomination.  I've been accused of toting a "company line."  Nevertheless, there is already talk about structural change in the SBC which was definitively denied it was what this committee was going to be about.  Now Floyd is suggesting search teams keep an eye on GCRTF work.

Grassroots Southern Baptists need a trumpet to sound.  We'd better start asking questions of this task force. 

And ask questions quick.  And not be intimidated (or shamed) into not asking questions like I get the impression some were in Rogers.

Questions are good.  Mohler himself rhetorically asked, "What are we afraid of?"

Bottom line:  The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force is assuming a role they were not given.  The SBC appointed a study committee.  We did not issue a mandate.

With that, I am...

Peter

Comments

[Bob Cleveland]

Bingo. Attaboys and Waytogos, from here.

What with all the stuff we DO hear, who wants to stake their career on one of the now-vacant positions? With the GCRTF playing with the rules, in the background?

[Tim G]

Peter,
You could have been subtle :). I have been wondering the same thing. Sure does not make much sense when one reads the papers, blogs and tweets. Many questions are running through my mind and I see yours as well.

[Tom Bryant]

Very good stuff, Peter!

[peter lumpkins]

Bob, Tim, and Tom,

Thanks. I appreciate both your readership and input.

Grace enough for all.
With that, I am...
Peter

[joe white]

Peter,

We are living in a unprecendented time; and I am praying each day for the GCRTF. However, I too wonder why the search committees from these entities should be "prayful and watchful" of "recommendations" a study committee might present in June 2010. I hope the members of the GCRTF realize that their "work" is to bring suggestions about how we as Southern Baptists can fulfill the GC better, nothing more.

May God continue to bless us, protect us from ourselves, and give us clear direction.

[Geoff Baggett]

Peter,

Could not agree more. But, then again, many of us prognosticated that this would be the way things would go down. Far too many folk see this as the grand opportunity to morph NAMB into the IMB, among other things.

Truly, study of our current situation has absolutely nothing to do with consultation.

[Les Puryear]

Excellent post. I think you have identified the perspective which each GCRTF member needs to keep in mind. My only fear in all this is that the three search committees may feel pressured to meet a time constraint to put forward their man before the GCRTF makes its recommendations in Orlando.

[Dave Miller]

I just want it stated for the record that I did NOT authorize Peter to use my photo in this post!!

[Chris Roberts]

So the task force is asking questions of the SBC, studying strengths and weaknesses across the denomination in order to make recommendations next year.

They're studying the denomination.

They're asking questions.

And you don't think NAMB, IMB, exec committee could possibly benefit by hearing some of the things the task force is learning along the way?

[kc]

These comments from Ronnie Floyd are NO mystery when you stop and think about past comments of our "inability to organize and have a overall national(and worldwide)strategy"...this has been manifested by suggesting having a Trustee super Board to coordinate all the works of the Seminaries, a super Board of missions to coordinate both Home and International missions efforts, and a duplicitous/conflicted comments from members of the committee(primarily J. Hunt and others) that we both need to "increase CP yet count our other efforts as missions(or GC efforts).
Johnny Hunt, listen to me, "You can't have it both ways. You've already bred mass confusion."
Any heavy handed tactics with the CP like your members have suggested with the Search committee members(from IMB, NAMS,EC) will spell defeat.
I liken the Southern Baptists "waking up" to the townhall meetings across the nation with their Congressmen and Senators. Give credit to the GCR for one thing...'they have woken the sleeping giant of Southern Baptists'.
ORLANDO will be won by small church pastors, bi-vocational pastors and laymen/women who will come and say "NO!"...not big mega church pastors.
This will be the "YEAR OF THE SMALL CHURCH PASTOR and LAYMAN/WOMEN in the SBC". Make your reservations now...they open OCTOBER 1, 2009.

[peter lumpkins]

Chris,

Thanks for logging on. First, you're simply assuming way too much by rehearsing what the GCRTF is doing. The fact is we don't know what they're doing; they are relatively silent thus far. Been to the website lately? It appears abandoned other than an occasional inspirational blog. Don't get me wrong. I have no aspirations about everything going on "behind closed doors."

What we do know is what the GRCTF is SUPPOSED to do. We set it up, recall. Also we know what the GCRTF is SAYING. And, the aggressive language Floyd makes concerning the presidential search teams about keeping an eye on the work of the GCRTF is frightening. A) That's not the focus of the GCRTF. I know. I was there and voted on another focus for the GCRTF. B) No matter who fills the vacant positions, the person will be irrelevant to whether we've been good stewards of CP dollars.

Now, if centralizing power into the hands of a few is attractive to some in the SBC, I suggest they look for a denomination which caters to a polity friendly to a centralized paradigm. SBs historically is not a good fit. Language Floyd uses smacks of centralism and attempt to hog the power over other people. I have no intention of allowing him or anyone else to more centralize the SBC. Indeed even the merging of the NAMB & IMB is another face of this strange new obsession.

With that, I am...
Peter

[Tim B]

Peter,

There are many oddities to the leaders of the whole GCR movement. For instance: The leading bureaucrats of three of our agencies have accused the SBC of being too bureaucratic. The whole idea that NAMB and the IMB should be combined seems to be an idea that would only add an additional layer of bureaucracy as would the suggestion of a "superboard." The very men who have benefited from education in our seminaries and employment by our agencies suggest over and again what a failure the convention is. Their ingratitude suggests that our convention has failed in more ways than they suggest. Some have now engaged in an "I'm more a Great Commission Christian than you" battle as young bucks accuse the generation who fought conservative resurgence of not being "great commission minded." (They remind me of the godly elderly pastor's wife who said, "I"m tired of hearing people talk about praise and worship songs as though they are a new thing. What do they think we've been doing the past eighty years.) Maybe the most puzzling thing coming from the whole movement is the astounding lack of solutions amid much criticism. I have not heard a single suggestion has been floated other than the 'combine NAMB and IMB.' NO one has suggested which bloated bureaucrats need to be dismissed. No one has suggested any viable structural change, changes in spending allocations and so forth. I can understand the task force itself being tight lipped but if anyone had viable alternative ideas it would seem that such ideas would be floated out there.

AS it stands now, unless God moves mightily, the whole endeavor has a far better chance of being a disaster resulting in minor split between megachurches&wannabees/rest and even worse weakening the cp than it does of actually strengthening our convention.

Tim B

[Tim Rogers]

Brother Peter,

As to the efficiency issue that the GCRTF has bantered about. I am still trying to understand the efficiency of a committee requesting, and receiving, $250k of CP funds to study how to better get CP funds to Missionaries. If the task of the GCRTF is to study how we can better spend funds in order to get Missionaries to the mission field, then I know where at least $150k could come.

Blessings,
Tim

[Bob Cleveland]

Methinks "leadership" was extremely clever in this whole thing. Had the Manifesto been presented to the convention in Louisville, then we could have discussed it and perhaps adopted it as a good model for the Convention as a whole. Then, the various institutions would have been charged with cleaning up their acts. Like .. they all have Boards of Trustees, and the like, who could have dealt with the issues. The Convention could even have mandated a report next year.

BUT ... by simply appointing a Committee, we bypassed the Convention's wishes as to whether this thing ought to be changed "top-down", or whether it's a goal toward which we believe we all should strive.

[kc]

to Bob Cleveland: Just remember the messengers have the last word on whether to accept, reject or modify the report and its recommendations. I am told that as of this date(10-3) GCR members as a whole still have not voted on anything or agreed to anything...and when I asked the question, "Have you at least agreed to a unanimous vote (by the GCR comm)to bring a report?"...I was answered to by a strong, "No". That's where we are.
This committee from the beginning has been a 'Keystone Cops'...with all the backtracking and explaining that they didn't mean what they said. The proof will certainly be in this 'pudding'.