RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) — Under a new agreement, officials at the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board have reinstated a missionary couple they threatened to fire for establishing a church that was not explicitly Baptist in the West African nation of Guinea.
Wyman and Michelle Dobbs, who have worked for eight years among the Fulbe Fouta people in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation, have agreed to adhere more precisely to the IMB's guidelines for cooperation with missionaries of other denominations, according to a news release from the IMB.
Word of the Dobbses' pending dismissal, first reported in mid-April, stirred widespread opposition in Baptist circles. Associated Baptist Press reported May 1 that IMB officials had reinstated the Dobbses. At the time, board spokespeople declined to comment on the case's specifics, citing a policy against speaking about personnel issues. But the IMB story said the reinstatement occurred only after the couple agreed to work more diligently to abide by the guidelines.
Wyman Dobbs told Associated Baptist Press May 3 that he and his wife were “very excited” that IMB officials had allowed them — under the guideline policy — to work with non-SBC churches “in fulfilling the Great Commission.”
“We recognize many opinions and concerns are out there as to why this happened,” Dobbs said, adding that he didn't have answers for those asking that question. “We're just thankful the situation has been resolved.”
Dobbs also said the prayers and support expressed by church members, missionaries and friends encouraged his family as they worked within the bounds of IMB regulations to resolve the problem.
Those regulations spell out five levels of ministry cooperation between IMB missionaries and other Christian missionaries. Each level has parameters for cooperation that are increasingly strict, depending on what kind of work the collaboration will support. For instance, the highest level involves training of ministers and missionary deployment and requires a standard of “doctrinal purity.”
Forming new churches comes in at the next-to-highest level, and the guideline there requires the cooperating missionaries to agree to the doctrinal standards expressed in the 2000 version of the Baptist Faith and Message, the SBC's confessional statement. IMB missionaries already must affirm agreement with the statement.
According to the IMB release, a document the Dobbses signed in 2003 when starting the church (called the “Tinka Agreement”) did not “adequately communicate” the parameters of partnership in church-planting to the other missionaries.
The Tinka Agreement included signatures from missionaries affiliated with the Assemblies of God, the Christian Reformed Church, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Youth With a Mission and the Swiss Evangelical Alliance Mission. IMB leaders apparently object to some doctrines espoused by the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
IMB regional leaders in West Africa said they could not determine the couples' “commitment to the appropriate level of partnership and a clear commitment to planting indigenous Baptist churches.”
After an April 29 appeal to Gordon Fort, the IMB vice president for overseas operations, the Dobbses told Fort they would agree to plant Baptist churches under the authority of IMB guidelines. However, the guidelines do allow “local churches overseas” to express Baptist beliefs and practices in “different ways according to the needs of their cultural settings.”
After Fort rescinded the move to terminate the Dobbses, Jason Helmbacher, their stateside pastor, said the couple looks forward to living without the drain of IMB scrutiny.
“Right now, they are just going to enjoy their furlough,” Helmbacher, pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church in Sallisaw, Okla., told ABP. “A huge weight has been lifted off their shoulders.”
The Dobbses will return to Guinea in early 2007.
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