DALLAS (BP) — Following an Oct. 27 dialogue with 22 executive directors of Southern Baptist state conventions, Great Commission Resurgence Task Force chairman Ronnie Floyd addressed several issues on which he felt the record needed to be “set straight.”
1) The Great Commission Task Force is not considering any abandonment of the Cooperative Program. “We are asking questions about how the Cooperative Program can remain our central system of missions funding, not whether it will remain so,” Floyd said.
2) The task force is not considering any recommendation that Southern Baptists partner with any para-church or non-Southern Baptist ministry such as the Acts 29 church planting network. “We are thankful for what every Great Commission church, denomination, and ministry is doing for Christ,” Floyd said, “but we are assigned the task of looking at how Southern Baptists — very specifically — can work together more faithfully.”
3) The task force is not trying to determine the work of search committees and trustees currently seeking new leadership for the North American Mission Board, International Mission Board and the SBC Executive Committee.
4) The task force is not seeking to diminish the work of either state conventions or local Baptist associations. "To the contrary, we want to forge a future that maximizes Southern Baptist work at every level — and change is happening at every level,” Floyd said.
5) The task force is not devoting its time or energies to a discussion about specific theological issues discussed within the Southern Baptist Convention. “This is not about Calvinism, anti-Calvinism or any other ‘ism,’ ” Floyd said. “This is about faithfulness to the Great Commission — period.”
6) The task force is not planning to wait until the June 2010 SBC annual meeting to release its report and recommendations. “Our avowed intention is to bring as much as we can to the February meeting of the SBC Executive Committee,” Floyd said.