I would like to respond to the editorial by Jim White in the Religious Herald, “SBC continues snub of the BGAV,” [July 10] concerning the nomination of individuals from the BGAV.
My name is Steve Tyree, pastor of Elon Baptist Church in Madison Heights. I was somewhat surprised last year in being nominated and elected to the committee on nominations of the Southern Baptist Convention. Our church is a BGAV church and we are one of those churches who gives their non-Virginia portion of the Cooperative Program through WM1. I am a conservative pastor who still supports the ministries of the BGAV. I also wholeheartedly support the Southern Baptist Convention and the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. I certainly have issues with some things that happen in both the SBC and the BGAV. But I continue to support both as best as I can.
I never thought I would be elected to the committee on nominations for a number of reasons. I am from a relatively small church. I have never been nominated by either the BGAV or the SBC to serve on any committee in the past. I am not a good ol' boy from either group. And, yes, they both have them. Additionally, I am not proud to say it, but I am a divorced pastor. But I was granted the opportunity to serve in this capacity. I did the best job I could do to nominate individuals from our state to serve God by serving in the SBC. I was the representative from the BGAV.
Norman Neal was the representative from the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia. We worked together well, seeking God's guidance through the entire process. Norman never eliminated a candidate because he or she was from a BGAV church. He even brought up names to be considered from the BGAV. I also brought up names from individuals from the SBCV. In many ways we looked at Virginia as a unified body.
We did, of course, have criteria to consider. We felt that the person must come from a church that supported the SBC through the Cooperative Program. We also felt they must support the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. We felt it was only fair to have candidates nominated to serve who are in support of the convention. So these were part of our considerations. We also tried to give geographic and church-size considerations. In addition to that we tried to reach out to people who had never been given opportunities to serve before, just like myself. Not everyone we asked agreed to serve, some of these being from BGAV churches.
People need to know and understand that there were only three available positions or open spots to nominate a person for consideration from Virginia this year. We had several others who were eligible for second terms. These nominations, according to guidelines, are pretty much automatic unless there is a compelling reason not to offer them the opportunity to serve that second term. So we were pretty limited in our ability to make nominations.
Again, there were only three available nominations. We also were going to nominate an additional person (these are at-large nominations) to the committee on order of business. The person we were going to nominate was from a BGAV church. This was a person recommended by [BGAV executive director] John Upton that we both wholeheartedly agreed on, but we found out in our meeting that this person was ineligible, since he was already serving on the committee on committees of the SBC. So originally we were going to nominate two out of four from the BGAV. It turned out that we nominated one from the SBCV, one from the BGAV, and one from a dually aligned church.
It was stated in Jim White's editorial that Don Davidson was the only one from the BGAV to be nominated and elected to serve. I was and am proud to have nominated Don for this position. He will do an outstanding job in serving our state and our convention on this committee. Also nominated and elected was Joey Anthony, pastor of Midway Baptist Church in Phenix, to the North American Mission Board. His church is also a BGAV church. They are actually dually aligned with both the BGAV and the SBCV. So I guess Dr. White doesn't count them as a BGAV church. This is a small rural church in central Virginia. They are a church that is faithfully serving Jesus. They had 16 baptisms last year under Joey's leadership and gave 10 percent to the Cooperative Program. I am proud to say that I recommended Joey from this church that probably has never had a person nominated and elected to serve on an SBC board or committee or a board or committee of the BGAV.
The remainder of our nominations were for individuals who were eligible for second terms. I believe that they are all from SBCV churches. There was no compelling reason not to re-nominate them. Their credentials are wonderful as they are serving God faithfully in their places of service. Yes, I too wish there were more from the BGAV serving on committees and boards of the SBC. It is not going to happen overnight. But we did make an effort to include churches from the BGAV in our nominations.
I hope that the new representatives to the committee on nominations will continue to seek balance as we did. There should be more vacancies to fill in the next year than we had to fill this year. But additionally, I wish that Dr. White would have called me, as a member of the committee, before writing an editorial that is demeaning to me, as a member of the committee on nominations, as well as the SBC. It is this whole lack of communication and trust that caused the split in the state convention in the first place.
We were not trying to eliminate people from the BGAV from consideration, but there were only three positions to fill for the upcoming year. I personally am in friendly cooperation with both the BGAV and the SBCV and any and all who seek to share Jesus with a lost world. I will “snub” none of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Please don't do what you accuse others of doing. May God bless all who share the blessed name of Jesus!
Steve D. Tyree, Madison Heights
Editor's Note: I appreciate Steve Tyree's response, which gives an insiders look at some of the nominating process. I ask pardon for overlooking Joey Anthony's election to the North American Mission Board. Unfortunately for us, Steve and Norman were replaced on the committee on nominations this year.