This is a rough, uncorrected transcript of an audiotape recorded and transcribed by the North American Mission Board.
Harry Lewis: Let me just say I appreciate you gentlemen coming. As we said we are recording this and I am understanding that is okay with everyone to do that. I am just going to go around and ask us to introduce ourselves, and I am Harry Lewis. I work in the area of state relations in the executive office, so that is part of why I would be here. Terry Fox is chairman of the Missionary Personnel Subcommittee and David Crump is the vice chair. Randy Singer is special assistant legal counsel for the administrative office. You have met Chris McNary. Chris is the strategy coordinator for the West. When these issues first came to light Eduardo DoCampo was coordinator. Eduardo is in the National Guard, and so periodically he gets activated. With a number of troops coming back from Iraq he is a chaplain. He was activated to help those families get back together, so in that process he went ahead and took a leave of absence because he didn't know how long he would be gone, so we replaced that position with Chris. So, if you gentleman would introduce yourselves.
Ed Smithers: Certainly, my name is Ed Smithers, I am a lawyer in California and I am here on behalf of the CCBA.
Dewey Squires: I am Dewey Squires. I am here representing the executive board of the Central Coast Baptist Association. I am a pastor there. I have been there a long time and I am actually a witness to much of what happened and would be glad to share with you some of the things from a historical standpoint and it might help to clarify some things doing that. Also I am a Board Certified expert in Baptist Quality constitutions and bylaws.
Mike Stewart: Mike Stewart. I am a missionary in Gilroy to the Central Coast Baptist Association.
Harry Lewis: Again thanks for coming. Let me just share a little bit about how we work with state conventions. That may help a little bit because there are 42 conventions that we have cooperative agreements with. One is the Canadian Convention, which is a national convention. One is Puerto Rico. That is a convention that is a territory out of state. Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s these were developed and in the last two or three years we have gone back and re-negotiated those state conventions, so if you were to read one of those, you would find that it makes a statement in there that as we develop a strategy, we do our strategy mission work in partnership with state conventions and with other primary state conventions. It states in there that as we do develop a strategic mission plan with them, that plan will be in accordance with the policies of both entities, so if you have a policy that is narrowed by one entity, then obviously that would be sort of the river banks for which we would work together and not the broader. If it was the California convention that was narrowed, then we would abide by that. If it the North American Mission Board that would be narrowed, then we would abide by that. That is the agreement. We developed that strategy plan in coordination out of cooperative strategies team and in this case Fermean Whittaker or his designee. The implementation of that is by the state convention. The North American Mission Board does not do the administering of the plan, the administering of the staff or that sort of thing, that is done at the local level, then we would come back and evaluate that process at the end and see if the strategy was successful. The strategy is funded through a cooperative budget, so in that cooperative budget will be jointly funded personnel and non personnel, so in the areas of church planting, evangelism, ministry evangelism, associations… different things, so that will vary somewhat, but generally it will be the same at every convention. It will vary depending on the strategy of the request by that state convention, so generally if you were to look at one of those budgets, it would be an item that has been requested by the state convention and agreed upon by the North American Mission Board or can pass by the homage. That will give you just a little bit of understanding about our working relationship because we are different in what we do as compared to what in the International Mission Board would do, and how we find missionaries and how we work with them, whereas the International Mission Board does direct missions, their staff, International missionaries are jointly funded and in the case… the employer record would be the employment would be the local association and not the state convention and not the North American Mission Board. So, that is just a little bit of a background on how we would work in this issue. Back several months ago I was made aware that there was an issue that had been brought to our missionary personnel committee, well actually to our staff here, Peter Kendrick. So, once that happens he will notify whatever coordinator is working with that state. In this case it was Eduardo DoCampo. Our conviction is that the missionary is not our employer and that should be dealt with at the local level, so that is not an issue for us, that is something the local association should deal with, and we asked our partner, the state convention, because that is how we relate… if an association desired some of the service's strategy input from the North American Mission Board they would need to go through their state convention to make that request. We don't work directly with an association. So, in that partnership we went back through the state convention and said this is an issue that had been raised, would you push that back because we feel it should be at the local level, and give clarity on that and we will move forward.
Speaker: Can I just ask a question here and maybe it is going to move our agenda along with it. Is it okay if I call you Harry?
Harry Lewis: It is.
Speaker: Okay. Harry, we have a letter from Mr. DoCampo and it is in that binder that I gave to your counsel, Randy. It is the second item. It is the October 12, 2005 letter. Obviously I am here as a counsel, so I am just trying to figure out what is at issue and what is not at issue, and what we are going to be talking about today. Is this still the current state of affairs? This letter says that the matter was closed and remains closed, so I am… simply before we start on your agenda, and I certainly appreciate your agenda, I need to understand if this is working off of, which I hope is the case, and then we can move on to some other issues, and if it is not, then I think we should know that as well.
Harry Lewis: That issue… my understanding was that when I went back and historically looked at things, Dr. Whittaker talked with my… and confirmed that their was compliance with the Baptist Faith and so on, and at that point I have records from Peter Kendrick, who stated that this satisfied the questions and we were moving forward. I think what changed was when there was an investigative task force committee set up and that seemed to extend the process. Had that not been done, I don't think you would have been sitting here, but that is just my opinion. But I know in conversation with Peter and seeing his E-mails that was the catch.
Speaker: Why I ask, is that this letter is after the investigation and again I am just trying to get some clarity here from North American Mission Board's position. Is that closed, or is that an ongoing investigation, because the letter says it is closed, but here we are in Alpharetta, GA, so I would like to know.
Harry Lewis: In my opinion it was closed back then. There have just been a lot of things… the issue of requirements of the investigative committee. They ask _____ 8:48 records repent. In my opinion this has kept this open, and we explaiEd that we didn't make accusations, and therefore there was nothing to repent on, but I think that is what has kept the issue on the table rather than allowing it to be closed.
Speaker: Is it closed from North American Mission Board's perspective as to Mike Stewart? I understand you have some issues about the repentance that has been requested by the CCBA, but just as to the allegations against Mike Stewart, is that aspect closed?
Harry Lewis: Well, it was at that point. Now I think since then there may be some concerns. What I am trying to do is get it closed and make sure it is closed.
Speaker: As are we.
Harry Lewis: Yeah, and so I think we came to a recognition. We tried back in February to come out and see Mike so that we could make sure that all of the questions had been answered and today is the first day we have been able to get everybody to do that. We accepted Dr. Whittaker's statement as adequate, but for whatever reason the issue continues to remain in question and so hopefully today will clarify if there is still anything left over.
Speaker: Okay, let me just try one more time. The way I look at this, is that I have sort of divided it into two groups. One would be the repentance aspect, which I understand is probably still open in your mind. Then there is the wrongdoing of Mike Stewart. On that avenue of the wrongdoing of Mike Stewart, are we on the same page that aspect is closed as indicated in this October 12, 2005 letter? That is my understanding, and if I am wrong, please tell me because it alters how this meeting…
Randy Singer: I don't think anything is closed until we have a good working relationship going both ways. I am not willing to sit here and say this aspect is closed, this aspect isn't closed. my goal, and what I hope we can do is walk out of here with kind of a working relationship where we can pick up the phone, talk to each other, deal with each other's partners and not have to have these kinds of meetings that we are in right now, so I don't want us to say this aspect is closed, that aspect isn't closed. I think we are all here today; everybody is in the room, let's put everything on the table and let's go through it and if there are still issues at the end of the meeting, let's identify what those issues are. I don't want to foreclose anything at the start of this meeting.
Speaker: Randy, this has been one of the most difficult things for us in the association to deal with because we are not getting straight answers from North American Mission Board. We are told there was no North American Mission Board investigation, and then we are told the investigation is closed, and I don't understand how you close something that never happeEd, and now we are told that everything is open and frankly I don't know where we stand.
Randy Singer: Okay, well all I am trying to say is this. We are in partnership with the state convention and we work in partnership with the association with our missionary. In order to do that we have to have a reconciled relationship.
Speaker: We agree. We want that.
Randy Singer: All right, and that's what we are trying… until that is done both ways, I don't see things as being closed, open… I don't know about an ongoing active investigation. I am not saying there is an ongoing active investigation, but I am saying that it is clear to me that we are not in the kind of partnership that we need to be in with a missionary association.
Speaker: Really you are talking more about the spiritual aspects in that we need to get together on the same page spiritually right?
Randy Singer: Yeah kind of, but I can't really divide it that easy. You know it is facts. It is spiritual. The whole thing is one big issue to me. I just can't compartmentalize. It is spiritual things versus factual things; I mean I think it is all related.
Speaker: Maybe this would help you to know that Mike had no input in the investigative report. I was not on the committee, by the way. I decliEd because I already had some issues with Ron Wilson, and I thought it might color the investigation and I did not want to do that, so I was not on the committee, but I followed their work and was on the executive board. At the time that the committee was appointed, Mike excused himself from the board meeting. There was a free and open discussion in his absence. He never had any contact with the investigative committee unless they requested it, so the report that came out of it was not Mike's report, it was that committees report.
Speaker: I did not know that.
Speaker: That is an issue that we need to talk about in terms of our association in North American Mission Board, but not your appointed missionary. That is not his report.
Speaker: Dewey, let me say I don't know of any investigation that North American Mission Board did.
Speaker: This was how it was first presented to us, and that is why we reacted probably in a way that was distressing you, because we were distressed.
Speaker: When the information came, that was immediately pushed back down through to the local association. I don't know of any… an investigation to me would indicate that we went out and interviewed people to try to find out if the facts were true or not, and we did not do that. That I am aware of. It has not happened even through today.
Speaker: Okay, well that is helpful now that we are all here hearing that.
Speaker: At least nothing official anyway. Nothing on behalf of our board. We can't say what any individual has done, but as far as North American Mission Board that has not happened.
Speaker: Well that is a good start to find out sort of what we are all going to be talking about this afternoon.
Speaker: Can I ask the question one different way and then we can move on. Does your group take any issue with the factual aspects of the report? Does your group have any reason to believe that wasn't accurately or fairly done? Putting aside the repentance to one side for a moment, because I think that will allow us to streamline better.
Harry Lewis: I don't believe that I can speak for everyone because I don't think we discussed that whether we thought it was factual or not. I have not had that conversation with any of the gentlemen here.
Speaker: Is there a North American Mission Board position on that?
Speaker: We didn't take an official position. I think we focused on the repentance issue because that was the one thing that came to us that we cannot do because it would be hypocritical to do it when we didn't feel like we made an accusation.
Speaker: Fair enough.
Randy Singer: Let me give you my perspective, because I came into this thing very late. I mean really… so I am just reading the documents okay. I am not involved. I am not talking to people. I am not interviewing people; I am just reading the documents. I probably would question how unequivocally the report said that Mike supports the Baptist Faith in Message 2000. Looking at the editorials you have done. Now, I am just trying to be honest. I look a those editorials to me and those are written to advocate against the Baptist Faith in Message 2000. So, that is how I look at it, but on the other hand, that is an associational investigative report. I didn't read it to second guess what they said; I just read it to say okay that is what they found. I think at the point in time that the association had said we investigated, here is our report, and Mike Stewart supports the Baptist Faith in Message 2000. Mike Stewart says I support the Baptist Faith in Message 2000. The other issue with regards to church. I understand Mike. I don't have this first hand, so I am just reading the documents. I understand you said I would have done some things differently with regards to the meeting where the people went over there to join the church membership wise. I also understand that the civil lawsuit was won by the association.
Speaker: Okay, I am prepared to speak to that in that great detail because I … that lawsuit for about 18 months and that was a fabulous result for the church because a criminal was thrown out of the church and that church is now a functioning Southern Baptist Church.
Speaker: Okay, so I mean that is what it looked like to me from reading the investigation.
Speaker: The association was not appointed to the lawsuit.
Speaker: It was brought by three women…
Speaker: Members of the church.
Speaker: Right. The bizarre fact is that we don't really need to get into that unless you really want to.
Speaker: Can I just go back to one more point? When you say North American Mission Board hasn't done an investigation. I have seen correspondence here where there are indications that Ron Wilson was acting not on behalf of North American Mission Board, but on his own. That is a correct statement?
Speaker: That is correct. I sent Mike an E-mail that basically stated our position and that is that there are only two people who can speak officially for the board and that is the President and the chairman.
Speaker: Very good. So it looked very much to me like reading the documents; it sounds like your has as well that Ron Wilson may have been doing his own investigation if you will, but that was not under the umbrella of North American Mission Board. He was acting outside of North American Mission Board. Is that correct?
Harry Lewis: That would be correct. Ron has stated as a North American Mission Board trustee he has a right to investigate any association in California.
Speaker: As an individual he does.
Harry Lewis: As an individual? But he says as a trustee.
Speaker: He can do it as an individual, but not on the behalf of North American Mission Board.
Speaker: Exactly. He can come and make recommendations which this board would probably follow because they tend to support their trustees for whatever state, but as far as officially no, he cannot speak for North American Mission Board. But he can certainly come and speak on the behalf of Ron Wilson to our board.
Speaker: I would encourage you to make that distinction plain to him because he starts many conversations with “as a trustee of the North American Mission Board”.
Speaker: I understand.
Speaker: He just needs to clarify that he is speaking on behalf of his own concerns.
Speaker: No individual trustee speaks on behalf of the North American Mission Board. We speak as a board.
Speaker: Well that I think is one of the points that was distressing from the local level was to hear that he was wielding a rather large club here on behalf of the North American Mission Board and then it turns out that he really wasn't acting on the behalf of the North American Mission Board, although I have to tell you at least from a legal perspective, and that is the area that I deal in, he certainly gave the impression of apparent authority which probably means something to your counsel over there that he was acting on behalf of the North American Mission Board, so I do appreciate your canter on that one. Thank you.
Harry Lewis: In theory he was the past chairman of our board of trustees about two years ago, so he would certainly understand who can and who cannot speak on behalf of the board.
Speaker: That helps from our perspective.
Speaker: Our concerns that we do have and I don't know whether we will get to address them because we certainly do have a boatload of them are not coming from Ron Wilson. I want to make sure that you understand that.
Speaker: I would like to speak with you about the issues regarding Baptist Faith and Message, but Harry go ahead and finish what you were…
Speaker: Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack your agenda.
Harry Lewis: No that's fine. What I wanted to put here were two original issues that came up because those were the two that I think prompted the investigative report by the association. Two issues that we asked California convention to address and push down to a local level and then they can just tell us the response to that. Let me say again. We have not done an investigation, so if there is some verbage in here that says the investigation is closed, that is just a misspeak… it is a matter of semantics I think.
Speaker: Can I ask for clarification Harry? If we wanted an investigation. It would certainly be legal to do that. We have every right to do any investigation we want to.
Speaker: Sure, but you would be following your policy which starts at the local level. Your policy says that it starts with the local supervisor and then it goes to the state convention.
Speaker: Sure we would follow protocol.
Speaker: and then it goes to your personnel unit and then it goes to your President.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: So you would be following that procedure if there was an investigation.
Harry Lewis: which the concerns I have, you can call it whatever you want to have… came from the local… not from Ron Wilson, so we
Speaker: It didn't come from the local supervisor. That wasn't addressed though.
Harry Lewis: The report… you have some questions.
Speaker: Basically the original issues are the last three things are that Mike had suggested that you guys would like to discuss, so let me ask… Randy is there anything on the first two issues that you want to address?
Randy Singer: Well I guess I was kind of doing a narrative and got maybe half way through. My point was I probably… you ask me is there anything I disagree with about the report and I am looking at it from a different view. I am coming at it after the fact and not a first hand witness, but I do disagree with some of the conclusions that were reached, but those are local conclusions. I think what has happeEd though is that since that report came out so strong against the North American Mission Board. I mean lets at least… we are brothers in here… our goal is reconciliation, so let's be as honest as we can about everything. That report was a slap at the North American Mission Board. There is no… that's the way that I read it. When a report comes out that strongly and says you have sinEd and you must repent and here is the box you check to repent. How can you look at that as anything other than a slap at the North American Mission Board? Once that happeEd, I think we got… whereas I thought the … put to bed because we said locally do and investigation and see if this stuff is true. Locally they said it wasn't true, but now we have these kind of counter issues that arose as a result of the report, and I am sure that is what Terry wants… I haven't talked to Terry or David before this meeting and I have no idea what their issues are, but that is kind of the way I looked at it… wow, we have to get together and have a meeting because we can't operate with partners that way and you wouldn't want us to operate with you that way. If we send an investigative report that said to you, here is two boxes, check this one to repent and otherwise you are out of reach of fellowship because you have acted un-biblically I think you all would say we have some serious issues with the North American Mission Board. So that is… just putting the shoe on the other foot that is the way it felt to me when I looked at that.
Speaker: I can certainly appreciate that. Can you appreciate from our end if we think Ron Wilson is good for his word and says I am acting on the behalf of the North American Mission Board and carries on his course of conduct? That is how the North American Mission Board would be implicated in the report. That is the position that the CCBA was starting from and it sounds like that was an erroneous position.
Speaker: Well the CCBA said two things. One is Ron Wilson repent and two is the North American Mission Board repent. So, I think you all drew a distinction, but I just disagree that we acted in a way that is un Biblical and requires us to repent and to check that box and do the things required.
Speaker: We can disagree about that, but the strong feeling of the association was that the North American Mission Board did not handle this according to their own stated procedures, nor did they follow the biblical model. You know we can maybe discover that is not exactly what happeEd, but that is what it looked like and what was presented to us. I need to say here, Randy, that the North American Mission Board was very reluctant to share with us anything very specific. They wouldn't even tell us… they, I guess you … you guys wouldn't even tell us what the specific charges were, you just say it is about this issue and we never heard what the specific charge was that went to the personnel committee. We thought that was extraordinarily odd that we were investigating something that is rather vague.
Randy Singer: Well… I guess… I don't want to walk down the path. I just want to counterpoint what seems to me… the report was very specific about what the charges were.
Speaker: Well we were told that it was about these areas, so that's what the investigative… honestly we don't know what was said to the committee. I am sorry; I don't want to engage in that. I am sorry I really don't want to be an adversarial relationship. I hope that we will have a better understanding when we are through.
Speaker: Look, we needed to do this a long time ago. Get in a room, put the issues on the table and resolve them. I think this is healthy.
Speaker: I am anxious to have Terry talk about concerns that he might have and hear concerns you all have as well.
Speaker: Well I think the main concern for us is relational. I don't care to listen to anything negative about Mike Stewart. I don't care to do that. I'd hope he wouldn't care to hear anything negative about me. We don't have time for that. I pastor a 6000 member church. I have a million things to be doing today and our funding; our partnering with Mike is our issue. It is not whether he stays in the position he has. You guys in California can fund whomever you want to. We have some guidelines at the North American Mission Board and either good or bad, trustees get to decide those and see what is defiEd in them and what stays with them and we raise some concerns… I want to go back to the lawsuit at some point. I have some real concerns about that and …
Speaker: The Santomos lawsuit?
Speaker: Yes sir.
Speaker: I am happy to address anything on that you have.
Speaker: I guess these are more practical than legal, but I understand that Larry Lewis, who used to be with the home issue board sigEd or spoke against the lawsuit?
Speaker: Different lawsuit.
Speaker: Different lawsuit… okay I know there are two here so.
Speaker: Dr. Lewis wasn't involved in the Santomos Baptist Church.
Speaker: Which one was he involved in?
Ed Smithers: There was a second lawsuit involving Las Lomos.
Speaker: So the association has been involved in two lawsuits?
Ed Smithers: No. This is really important. I don't mean to be a lawyer here, but I do have to because that is kind of what I do.
Speaker: I am just getting straighteEd out, so just go ahead and help straighten me out.
Ed Smithers: It is hard when I have a tie and it is the middle of the day, I do feel like a lawyer.
Speaker: I understand.
Ed Smithers: The CCBA was a party to the second lawsuit. The CCBA was not a party to the first lawsuit. The first lawsuit was brought by three ladies who had been basically disenfranchised by Santomos Baptist Church. Would you like to talk about that lawsuit?
Speaker: Yeah, could I? I would like to ask clarification at this point.
Ed Smithers: Sure.
Speaker: So, what you are telling us is that the association had absolutely nothing to do with it. There was no tie to the association whatsoever. These were just three individuals who met at Starbucks and got together and just decided this is something that needed to happen, or was there a little bit of tied to the association? Or no?
Ed Smithers: What had happeEd was these three ladies discovered that their church had basically been sold, a part of the property had been sold that they knew nothing about and so they contacted the association, Mike Stewart, requesting help and I think you have seen the documents, there was help. It turEd out the person in charge actually was a criminal. There was a long investigative report by the Campbell Police Department making out a good grand theft fraud claim. Unfortunately where we live in Santa Clara County claims like that don't get the attention of the district attorney because the district attorney says I have drug cases and murder cases. This looks like a civil matter, so they didn't act on the police recommendations to have a criminal action and the civil action went forward and was successful and got that gentleman out of the church and got the church back on track.
Speaker: What was his name?
Ed Smithers: Mike Nichols. Pastor Mike Nichols.
Speaker: Did he appeal that or is it done?
Ed Smithers: That is a done deal, Randy.
Speaker: So what is the status of that church now? I mean I know this it is still in existence, but did they get another pastor?
Ed Smithers: I think there is a search committee going on right now. They have had an interim pastor and they are building it up slowly but surely, so it is on the right track.
Harry Lewis: That does clarify, thank you. I appreciate it.
Ed Smithers: You're welcome.
Speaker: Now in his settlement, by the way, with the court, Mike Nichols agreed that he would never pastor a Southern Baptist Church again. It is kind of an odd settlement.
Speaker: He was the pastor?
Speaker: Yes?
Speaker: Now you are calling him a crook?
Ed Smithers: It is not just me calling him a crook. That is the police calling him a crook and actually he was up on a federal weapons charge as well. This is an unusual case let me tell you. This was a very creepy guy, and that is not a legal term, but he was a very creepy guy.
Speaker: They had about ten members in that church right?
Ed Smithers: Give or take.
Speaker: So, three of them are your clients/plaintiffs right?
Ed Smithers: Correct, on a shareholder derivative. If that helps you here.
Speaker: Okay, so the other seven, I am assuming are either family or backers of the pastor some how.
Ed Smithers: Mostly family.
Speaker: How did you… once the lawsuit civil judgment is entered, which basically keeps him from selling this property right?
Ed Smithers: Wouldn't that be grand… no he had already sold the property. How it came into a legal situation was that these three women saw that there was a sold sign on his parcel, so… no.
Speaker: So is it for damages then?
Ed Smithers: No it was to get control of the church back.
Speaker: Okay. This is a specific performance lawsuit over who runs the church basically.
Ed Smithers: In essence, yes. We weren't able to unwind the property transaction. He sold the property for roughly a million dollars give or take. That ship had sailed by the time we got to civil court, so at this point it was constructive trust to try to get some of these moneys back and displace him as the pastor because he is basically bleeding the church dry of funds. There was about $300,000 that went out in “love gifts” and I am making quotes here for the record to his family members, to his twin sister, to his father. It was just graphed on a scale that personally I don't see.
Randy Singer: What happeE d to these seven members that supported him? That was the majority of the church right?
Ed Smithers: Yes.
Randy Singer: So they are going to hire another pastor that they are more comfortable with than this guy? I mean what you have really done is you have gotten the pastor out and a search committee set up. I mean that is basically it?
Ed Smithers: Right and the church has been functioning. There have been a lot of repairs to the church. It had fallen and just repair of broken windows and that sort of thing, so the church is back functioning as a church.
Speaker: Randy, are you asking about the other seven members that were say relatives of Mike Nichols?
Randy Singer: Well were they friends or relatives or what were they?
Ed Smithers: One was a twin sister, one was a friend. They both were defendants, the twin sister and friend and they were part of the settlement agreement. We took a judgment against the corporation. The church was a nominal defendant as on a shareholder derivative action and there was a settlement to three individuals. Part of which was Mike Nichols would not re-up if you will as a pastor of a Southern Baptist Church.
Speaker: All of those people left the church. So they are not involved in the church.
Ed Smithers: I think you should understand one thing because it is really quite remarkable about that suit, and that is Mike's brother, Al Stewart, was the lead lawyer in that suit. He is a lawyer in Dallas. He is a very accomplished lawyer and he donated I don't know how many hours and dollars to that, but he did that completely pro bono, which is really a remarkable feat because it was a complicated case. It was very actively defended by a fairly prominent local firm in San Jose.
Speaker: Was it a bench trial?
Ed Smithers: We actually never got to a trial. What had happeEd was their counsel pulled out when we took an un-imposed judgment against the corporation and then we settled the case on the morning of trial. They got a new lawyer, the three individuals got a new lawyer and we settled it that morning before we picked the jury.
Speaker: I guess Augie was involved.
Speaker: That is the other one. The other one is I don't know what you call it, but this Santomos is what we just have been talking about.
Ed Smithers: Las Lomos.
Speaker: Las Lomos is a guy who was a pastor in a non SBC church and who was hired by an SBC church and the issue is whether they (all talking) or whether ceased, and it was a judgment… I have seen the paper on that. There was at least an opinion and I am sure it went to judgment by now.
Ed Smithers: Right. That was a full blown trial. That was a full blown bench trial and the issue was that if you have a nondenominational church coming in and trying to take over Southern Baptist church, does it trigger the church's constitution. It seemed… and I did that … it seems pretty common in Southern Baptist churches that there is language in there to the effect that if you cease to be a Southern Baptist church the property and assets will go to the association or to the state or to whatever and this constitution had the property go to the CCBA and so the issue for the court was whether this group had ceased to be a Southern Baptist church. They actually voted to dissolve and then a group of machinations that only happen in trial it seems… they tried to undo that under the guise of a gentleman named Hank Holley. Dr. Lewis came in to testify on behalf of Hank Holley's group and that is where Augie Boto I think fits into our equation here today.
Speaker: This has not been an issue of discussion with the North American Mission Board before, so I am interested about that. Why are we talking about… that has been an issue that we have had with the executive committee.
Speaker: Because there is a lot of concern. Pastors talk and people talk and as chairman personnel committee, our committee has been very concerEd because you guys are not off the radar screen. All of these lawsuits and stuff going on in California, preachers talk. You are one, and nothing official from the North American Mission Board. This is a preacher talking.
Speaker: Okay. So it is just ….
Speaker: Stuff we heard. Absolutely. But it is information that comes to our personnel committee. Otherwise I wouldn't have anything to do with it today. I wouldn't have time to mess with it.
Speaker: I would rather you hear it from us than just scuttlebutt. I was just curious because that had never been an issue with the North American Mission Board.
Speaker: As you can you tell it is not like we have looked into it in great detail because we are trying to figure out what these two lawsuits…
Speaker: You can tell we have a lot of strategy working…
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I notice it did not show up on the agenda that was sent to us, but it apparent that you read through the opinion.
Speaker: in the Las Lomos case….
Speaker: Is that correct?
Speaker: I have read through two things. One is a proposed, I would guess it is something filed by Ed, which is a proposed findings and opinion, and then I read a two page, which I guess is the judge's opinion, so I read those two things.
Ed Smithers: Right. I don't understand it to be on our agenda, but I am happy to talk about it from a professional viewpoint and actually from a greater good viewpoint. That was a very good thing to do because now that is going to be started… that is a Spanish speaking mission and that is going to be back doing Southern Baptist works and not lost to a nondenominational faith who we weren't really quite sure what he was going to do with it. Well, heck I was, I was a trial lawyer. He was going to flip the property and take the money, but I am glad that all of that didn't happen.
Harry Lewis: Terry did you have any other concerns?
Terry Fox: At some point I want to talk about the Baptist Faith and Message whenever that is appropriate.
Speaker: Why don't we talk about that now? I think that is probably the key issue that kind of brought this to light. Some of the other things at least did not …
Ed Smithers: You will be happy to know I am not going to speak on the Baptist Faith and Message.
Speaker: Mike, let me just ask a question. I mean obviously when our cooperative agreement with California says that we operate under the policies of both entities; the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 will be a policy that we would operate under because we are a Southern Baptist convention agency. We understand that there has been some controversy over that document… whether some folks want to use the 1963 version such as the Baptist Convention of Texas… does that. In Southern Baptist opinion, there is only one Baptist faith and that would be the current one. Any succeeding one would be documents of an existence, but they are not in effect currently, so I guess that was the question back when I read the E-mails from Dr. Whittaker that basically said that you were in agreement with the Baptist Faith and Message. It doesn't mention the current one or the 2000 version, so what would be your position?
Mike Stewart: I am going to go back and I will answer that question. I want to go back to the statement that Randy made about that I had admitted that I made mistakes and those issues with Santomos Baptist Church did not read that in the report. You are taking that from verbal cues from Dr. Whittaker which I do not know what Dr. Whittaker said to this. I have never seen in anything in writing… what he said… so I do not know if people, what they are telling me… is exactly what he said. I am going purely on hearsay of what other people said that they said that I said. So that is where you got that information, not from your report. Secondly the Baptist Faith and Message 2000…
Speaker: Mike, let me stop you there for just a second. I would rather hear from you. I mean I don't want to know what Formean thinks you said, I want to know from you.
Mike Stewart: I am very proud of what happened in Santomos Baptist Church. I am thrilled that Jesus Christ was glorified in reestablishing that church. They have 30 members now and they are on the verge of calling in a new pastor. They are independent, autonomous and totally owners of all of their own property and I am thrilled to death with the result that we got for them and had a leadership from the Lord, but we did everything with the executive board. Our association was extremely well governed and our board has meetings and minutes and it talks about everything much like your board does. There was nothing done with Santomos Baptist Church that was not approved, and as an employee of the Central Coast Baptist Association was under that authority to make sure I fulfilled their desires and wishes to give the best result possible. So, that is where I stand on Santomos Baptist Church. The individual who made the claims was not an eye witness of any of those issues. It had already happeEd and certainly was working on his own hearsay. With Baptist Faith Message 2000 we have never had a controversy.
Speaker: Hang on to that thought. Baptist Faith Message 2000. I just want to followup on a couple of things on Santomos if I can. I understand on the civil lawsuit side I understand that pretty thoroughly. What I was talking about was… was there a point in time at which the association and you acting under the board's authority asked a group of people to go over and join this church for the purpose of becoming members so you would have a majority of the voting members of the church and could basically institute new policies and get a new pastor, that kind of thing?
Mike Stewart: No.
Speaker: Did that ever happen?
Mike Stewart: No.
Speaker: Okay, was there anything like that… that happened.
Mike Stewart: Like what?
Speaker : Like you asking a bunch of people to go join this church so they could be voting members and basically take over the church?
Mike Stewart: What happened in the meeting that was discussed was that the members of the church came to the meeting of one of our member churches and asked the pastors in that meeting would they help them. I do believe they did that on the advice of the counsel. The previous counsel… before my brother and Mr. Smithers came in, and they asked members of… and many of them had been former members of Santomos Baptist Church. They told a story and they asked them to come. Once those pastors were in that room and they decided they were going to help… I don't have a veto on that.
Speaker: Right, so this wasn't an association meeting, this was just a meeting of pastors?
Mike Stewart: This was a meeting of the members of pastors in churches to come to and they wanted their help. There were only three people and I imagine they felt pretty lonely.
Ed Smithers: So you have this scenario here that these three women go to this other church and are asking for assistance.
Speaker: That is what I am trying to figure out.
Ed Smithers: Right it has been open to the association on this.
Speaker: That's what I am trying to figure out.
Speaker: A meeting at another church?
Ed Smithers: A meeting at another church.
Speaker: So these three women have a meeting at another church. You are there. A number of pastors are there. The three women say can you all send some members over to join our church to help us get control of the church back… basically, I guess is what they are asking.
Mike Stewart: They don't say that.
Speaker: But I mean you know that is kind of what… that is what I would assume if I am there.
Mike Stewart: Well you can assume that, but they don't say that.
Speaker: okay.
Mike Stewart: They don't say that to them. They say they need their help and they want to reestablish the church and get more people so the work can go forward and reach more people. They were down to death's door with three members and actually the pastor and five family members, and there were two other people. One was his personal friend. There was only one person that was floating in this whole thing. Also, you need to know that the pastor had transferred all of the rest of the assets into his own name. the rest… there was one building that was left had already been secretly transferred at the county recorders into his own name without any church authorization… without these three courageous women who were under incredible stress from this person and threats to stand up. That would have been lost to the work of Jesus Christ.
Randy Singer: Did you speak about that one way or the other at that meeting.
Mike Stewart: I may have. I don't recall exactly what I said.
Randy Singer: Okay. Were you in support of it?
Mike Stewart: I was in support of saving the church.
Randy Singer: By asking people to go out and join?
Mike Stewart: I did not ask them to go out and join.
Randy Singer: But you were in support of that idea?
Mike Stewart: I was in support of the church getting help.
Randy Singer: In that way?
Mike Stewart: I was in support of the church getting help. However the association decided they needed the help.
Randy Singer: What I am trying to distinguish is this… I am not trying to run around issues. I am trying to say if a church… if three members of a church feel like the pastor is taking the church's land and money, they go get Ed, or your brother or whoever they can and they go to court and say we need an injunction for this guy taking money. Me… this is just one guy's opinion. I am not speaking on behalf of our trustees or anybody else, this is Randy Singer. It feels like it is not proper for pastors or anyone else to get together and say okay they have ten members, let's get ten more to join their church and this thing goes away, because we all know that is what happeEd. They got ten new church members.
Ed Smithers: I don't think we want to get too much into a deposition mode, but what I would like you to understand is that before all of this happeEd, Mike sat down with Mike Nichols and sat down with Tom Serper and tried to work this out under your structures if you will for not going to court and trying to work this out, so this just didn't happen at the snap of a finger. There were attempts to work this out internally and then these women were so completely disenfranchisic up to the point where they couldn't attend services. Mike Nichols would lock the door, and just from a lawyer's perspective they were sent from heaven plaintiffs. It is a little old woman and her two daughters, and it was just appalling what this gentleman was doing to these women.
Speaker: I actually pastored those women at the time of the end of the lawsuit because they were attending the church that I am currently serving as well. I am an intentional interim pastor. They are timid souls normally. It is amazing that they would do this. It is amazing that they would have the courage to do this. They are timid souls. They don't have a lot of organizational abilities themselves. They wouldn't have known how to do it unless they could go to somebody and say help us, which is what they did. Now, you know it is not like this was something that everybody in the association said that is the best strategy to do. There were some people in the association who though that was a good strategy and they wanted to try it. I did not think it was the best strategy to do this. I will probably make Ed club me. I didn't think it was the best strategy to do. I don't think there was anything unethical. I know those people were saying… the folks that were wanting to go there. They were talking about saving the church. They weren't talking about voting somebody out. They saw that this was a church that was about to go down the tubes and it needed some help. That is all I ever heard anybody talk about. We need to go over there and save that church, so it wasn't like we gotta go over there and get rid of Mike Nichols.
Mike Stewart: The question you should be asking is what were the options that you would choose in that situation. What would you do to save the church?
Speaker: I would have tried to reconcile with the pastor okay? I would have then talked to my lawyers.
Speaker: Done.
Speaker: But what I wouldn't have done is said let's get enough people to go over and join that church so that we can have majority control. To me that feels like a hostile takeover.
Speaker: You and I are going to agree about that, but I will tell you that Mike's heart was pure on it because I talked a lot with Mike at the time and it wasn't a take over from his heart. He was just wanting to save the church and encouraged the people who wanted to do so.
Speaker: What it created for us, and just being honest, I am glad we are having this… is a very negative perception. I mean you guys are putting a different spin on it and we heard, because frankly we have been trying to get together with you for months and it hasn't worked out and we are finally here, but I can assure you in Southern Baptist life, the idea of talking people into joining one church to another one doesn't sell and it has been a huge concern in our committee, so I am glad we are having this discussion.
Speaker: The reason I didn't agree with it is because I have been a consultant for a long time about bylaws stuff and I know how to take over a church in California. I have seen it happen too many times and this is how you take over a church in California. I have seen it used for the wrong purposes.
Speaker: Me too.
Speaker: This was a time that it was going to be used for the right purpose, but I didn't feel personally comfortable with it and others did and I don't criticize them for that. I just didn't feel comfortable with it personally.
Speaker: I am not defending this pastor either.
Mike Stewart: I did not join the church. I did not have membership at the church. I did not attend services at the church as a missionary. These pastors of local independent autonomous churches listeEd to these three ladies who were members of the church and asked them for help. Those pastors, whether you agree with it, I agree with it or whatever, if they decide they want to help, they are going to help. We had a prayer meeting at the church for the association to pray for the church and the association encouraged people to show up for the prayer meeting. We did not tell people to come over there and to take over the church.
Speaker: And in fact they didn't as I recall. They weren't voted in and it was sort of a flash in the pan. Certainly in retrospect it doesn't seem like a great idea, but I don't know if you try cases and you are in the heat of battle sometimes, not everything you do is in retrospect brilliant, so that was something that perhaps could have been handled better. At the end of the day it really didn't have an effect one way or the other on the lawsuit.
Speaker: We tried them for 13 years and then they… themselves.
Speaker: You are an honest man.
Speaker: As I heard our investigative committee report, what they are saying is that Mike did not do anything unethical as a part of that process. We accepted that as an association.
Speaker: I understand. Our perception is not favorable of it.
Speaker: I am sorry, your perception was what?
Speaker: The perception of Mike being involved in that was not favorable to us. It might have been to you guys, but it wasn't to the trustees who heard it. And again you guys have helped clarify some of this, but the waves we got out of California was the Mike was involved in it and that Mike was at the meeting where this was decided and …
Speaker: Were any of those parties at the meeting? That you heard any information from?
Speaker: I trust them.
Speaker: That's a different question.
Speaker: Mike's client is the church, not the pastor too, so his concern is to save the church, not to save the pastor's job. He didn't go after the pastor's job, but he was concerEd about saving the church.
Speaker: Mike, how long had the pastor been there when all of this started?
Mike Stewart: about six years give or take.
Speaker: Six years? And up to that point there had been no problems with him in the association or with the church or … I mean six years is a long time to stay at a church, especially…
Speaker: This church is in a troubled district.
Speaker: The attendance was constantly declining where it got to this ten person level where suddenly the church decisions could be made over the dinner table at the Nichols' house. That was the majority of the members.
Speaker: This church at one time had tolerated a transvestite on staff. I mean this church has had trouble…The most interesting thing positive about their history is… this was Rick Warren's church when he was growing up.
Speaker: Really? Wow.
Speaker: Yeah, his dad was pastor at that church.
Speaker: The reason I ask that is the church I pastor, you pastor 6000 members? I have 600. Anyway the church I pastor was in the same situation as that one whenever they call me to pastor they were running 20. There had been a hostile takeover try and it didn't work. They raised up and found a pastor to come in. I have been there for 15 years and we never went to court. It is what I am saying. There are ways to do it and other ways to do it. So you know it worked for us. I am not saying it would have worked out there, but if he had been there for six years, I would think he would have had time to build relationships within the associations and other people to see exactly what might have been going on.
Ed Smithers: Maybe to help clarify your perceptions on the second lawsuit, I don't think I have ever seen a case where a client tries so diligently to resolve this before going to court. I don't want to talk about what offers were on the table by CCBA, but there were some extremely generous offers in retrospect and the other group would have been well advised to take them because they lost on everything in court, so if we talk about the effort to reconcile, CCBA, went the extra mile and then some.
Speaker: I appreciate that.
Speaker: If I remember the investigative report is sort of one of those things that would have the right motives, but maybe the wrong method was kind of a conclusion of that. I don't know that… I mean when I think about it, a lot of what has happeEd in this …
Speaker: You talking about the first lawsuit?
Speaker: The investigative committee doesn't address the first one.
Speaker: As the process began, part of the issues were based on Biblical grounds of Matthew 18. If were to look at this, I would do it on Corinthians and there it says it is better to lose than to take it to court before … so we want to put it on that same Biblical ground, you might have lost something, but you know Paul was tried in the Corinthian church and said in their group among you aren't you wise enough to make these kinds of decisions.
Speaker: I understand the difficulty of all that.
Mike Stewart: Has the North American Mission Board ever had a lawsuit.
Speaker: I couldn't answer that.
Speaker: We have defended plenty. I don't think we have initiated one since I have been here. But I am not philosophically…
Mike Stewart: But you did go to court?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: There were quite a few actually published decisions if you just punch Southern Baptist Convention into Lexxus you are going to find quite a few lawsuits which were all precedents we had to deal with in the second lawsuit to understand where the court's jurisdiction ended and where the church's jurisdiction began. It is actually a fascinating legal issue.
Speaker: Regarding your personnel policies, where does this play a part? I have read your policies and did the analysis for our executive board. I am not sure where…
Speaker: I can't help you on that. We adhere to the policies, but we also fund relationships and partnerships. The North American Mission Board is involved in partnerships, so it is not just the technical end of it, but we want to feel very comfortable about the people we fund from several different areas.
Speaker: This isn't a policy matter then?
Speaker: Theology is one of those things. I think it is within the guidelines of policy. It doesn't violate policy.
Speaker: Okay thank you.
Speaker: Legally I can assure you that it doesn't violate.
Speaker: Okay, just a concern, but not a violation of policy.
Speaker: Okay, that is fair enough.
Speaker: Since we are on this topic. I have in my notes here… did you say there was an issue raised to your level about the Las Lomos church?
Speaker: No, not in committee. From pastors in California. From friends.
Speaker: Okay, so not through the formal channels, but through informal channels?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Terry, I am not aware of any other issues that have been brought to our missionary personnel team here, Peter Kendrick, other than the two that were listed here.
Ed Smithers: Are there any other questions I can answer on Las Lomos before we moved to the Baptist Faith and Message? I am the right guy.
Speaker: Yeah, Las Lomos just came up because I was researching the association and Terry heard a couple of things about it, so… it wasn't part of the investigative report or the association.
Speaker: One question for the record would be to ask… establish who is authorized to speak for the North American Mission Board?
Speaker: Are you talking in terms of the lawsuits?
Speaker: Well… just period. As the North American Mission Board has established his President and trustee chairs authorized to speak on the behalf of the agency…
Speaker: On a day to day basis, our executive or our moderator, but when we enter into things like… and actually like Las Lomos, that is a vote of the executive board.
Speaker: But in terms of day to day operations, meetings, gatherings and things, speaking for the association, what else, not the lawsuit, but just in general.
Speaker: It is not that different than what you said about the North American Mission Board.
Speaker: Any chance of appeal on Las Lomos.
Ed Smithers: Interesting question. They filed a notice of appeal. Whether they actually follow through with it… the courts just required an appellate bond to be posted to protect the CCBA interest. We have doubts whether an appellate bond will in fact be posted, so I think either way the property is going to turn over within the next 30 days and then the CCBA is going to be involved in starting a Spanish speaking mission there and it is going to be back on track. Again, a real success story.
Speaker: Anything else on that?
Speaker: Mike you were about to share about your position on the Baptist Faith Message 2000.
Speaker: I sidetracked you on the other issue.
Speaker: Could I read the policy and Mike could respond as to whether he follows the policy… would that work?
Speakers: Sure.
Speaker: Here is what the policy says. Mission personnel are to maintain theological convictions consistent with the most current Baptist Faith and Message as adopted by the SBC, so you can state whether your convictions are consistent with that.
Mike Stewart: They are. There has never been any controversy.
Speaker: You agree with all of 2000?
Mike Stewart: Practice exactly what your policy states. We follow the policy partners as well.
Speaker: Before we get too far down this road, would it be helpful to actually hear from someone who was there at the… what was it the 2000 convention?
Speaker: No not the 2000 convention. We are talking about what the local association did because that is where the controversy generated.
Speaker: Right. I am sorry. I am talking about the local situation.
Speaker: The merger meeting between the former Santa Clara Valley Baptist Association and the former Central Coast Southern Baptist Association become the current…
Speaker: We actually have someone who was there who might be able to shed some light on what occurred.
Speaker: I was a member of the joint task force for the committee and I was on the subcommittee that did the bylaws. The recommendation that came to the total task force and bylaws that made no reference whatsoever to the Baptist Faith and Message. When the whole group came together, there was discussion… there was some that wanted a very strong statement and some that wanted no statement. The compromise was our current statement which says that we follow the Bible for our standard for Faith and practice, which by the way the Baptist Faith and Message says that is consistent with the Baptist Faith and Message and that the Baptist Faith and Message is a historic reference in these areas. Mike supported that proposal in the joint task force. He thought that there should be a statement about the Baptist Faith and Message and he was criticized for being the swing vote. We would probably still have been in that meeting if there had not been a swing vote. He did the right thing. He led them to compromise and came up with something that everybody could… well, everybody could eventually support and so the bylaws were recommended at the meeting where the merger took place there were 150 people who registered as messengers from the two associations. One person who was there who eventually brought charges against Mike proposed different wording. Mike explaiEd that there was a procedural reason why that wording was there and they would pretty much unravel the whole merger deal if it hadn't been that wording and so on. The association heard him, the associated voted, and the vote was 148 to 2. At that point the gentleman who brought the complaint… he did say he presented a second motion. He actually didn't. He got very upset and left the meeting. That was the first time we had ever seen him at a meeting. He had not attended any of the meetings where we had talked about the upcoming merger, at informational meetings or anything like that. That was the first meeting he had ever come to. Mike could talk about his attempts to make sure things were okay between him and that gentleman. That would be hearsay for me to say it, but I will tell you that at the time that the vote took place, Mike made a public statement before the association that he personally supported the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 and that he had voted for it. I specifically remember that wording. He took a fairly strong stand. Now, the articles that were written that you think were written in opposition of the Baptist Faith and Message, if you read them carefully they are not against the Baptist Faith and Message, they are against the way it is used, and we have a right to debate whether it is used properly or not, and that wasn't… you know it is how it is used is the question. As far as his statement of belief about the Baptist Faith and Message. He has been strong about that, so… that is what happeEd. I was a witness to it. That was it.
Speaker: Dewey, my understanding is that Baptist Faith and Message is part of your constitution and bylaws, it is just not a requirement for a church to become a member of the association.
Dewey: Yes… that's
Speaker: I have not seen the constitution bylaws, so…
Dewey: Well I can read it to you if you would like. Baptist Faith and Message actually says we can write our own if we want. That is the statement. Any group large or small can write and publish to the world their own statement of faith. So, that is not contrary to the Baptist Faith and Message either. The statement that is in our bylaws sometimes in fact we think we follow the Baptist Faith and Message more arduously than some of those folks that attack us. What it says is that the Bible is… this would be our bylaws.
Speaker: This is 5.04?
Dewey: 5.04, if it is important to you to know. The Bible is the sole authority upon which all doctrinal issues are settled. The Baptist Faith and Message is a broad general description of historic Baptist doctrines and is a reference in these matters. In any discussion it would be appropriate to bring in the Baptist Faith and Message if somebody wanted to. It is referenced right here. Currently we do actually ask petitioning churches what they believe about the Baptist Faith and Message. So… we are not required to do so, but we do.
Mike Stewart: That is an associational issue. That is not a missionary issue.
Speaker: Yeah and that's…
Mike Stewart: The missionary issue is do I agree with the Baptist Faith and Message support, and I do. I have stated that. I have stated it in my association and we voted on it. Had it not been from my efforts, it wouldn't have showed up in 5.04 as it did. I wanted to make sure personally that it was in there somewhere because it is under the discipline part, which is where we are going… if we have a doctrine issue with the church, I want it as part of the association that any of our pastor churches have the right to bring that into the discussion and have the constitution protected. That was a good place for us. That was an associational vote. An overwhelming vote to do that and on our side of the table, there is no controversy. It has been very plain in our association and there have been only perhaps one or two individuals out of 105 churches that have taken an issue, and they have not taken an issue on any specific doctrinal issue. You have no matter before you doctrinally that we have failed do you? Do you have an issue in our association that we have…
Speaker: I have an issue with your writing, but that is between you and me.
Mike Stewart: In…
Speaker: Because I know what you wrote.
Mike Stewart: So do I.
Speaker: So do I.
Mike Stewart: We are free to do that in this country. It is one of our great things as Baptists we have the freedom of conscious and freedom of thought, and everybody gets to determine how they want to interpret what people right.
Speaker: Exactly and the North American Mission Board has guidelines and freedom of who they fund.
Mike Stewart: Sure.
Speaker: Just like my church has the freedom of where it sends its money.
Mike Stewart: Sure.
Speaker: Based on relationships, that goes back to the beginning of our meeting.
Mike Stewart: No one is debating that.
Speaker: I have a question that I think could fit in perfect here. Mike, I ask you this… we are talking legal here today, I guess. Your two lawyers are here. Why do you have your lawyer here? Why did you bring your lawyer here today?
Mike Stewart: Why did I bring my lawyer?
Speaker : Does he really need to answer that? You have your lawyer here.
Speaker: Based on the fact that we knew he was bringing his… yeah.
All talking at once.
Speaker: It is a simple question.
Ed Smithers: It is a simple question, but if the secret of this meeting is reconciliation and getting forward a solution, I cannot see how that could possibly move us down the road toward that.
Speaker: Well I think the spirit of the question and the meeting is this… I mean Mike has the freedom to write what he wants; the North American Mission Board has the freedom to associate financially with whoever they choose to associate with. We are only going to do this together. If we choose to partner together. I mean you know you have to choose to partner with us and we have to choose to partner with you.
Mike Stewart: That would be a mistake in partnership. You don't directly partner with us right?
Speaker: well… we partner with the state convention to support the association.
Mike Stewart: So this isn't you and the state convention coming together right?
Speaker: I am sorry Mike, say that again.
Mike Stewart: About the partnership with us, you said you were with the state convention and league with them.
Speaker: No, we have chosen… at various points in time we have chosen not to partner with various entities of Southern Baptist Life because you know partners…
Mike Stewart: I agree with that. You have full authority. What I was trying to clarify, was just as the local missionary varies discussion about how you only relate to state conventions, that is a decision you would make in partnership with the state convention or that you make independently.
Speaker: Well yeah we do it both ways. Sometimes we agree with the state partner. Sometimes the state partner has chosen well we can't cooperate with this person and we do and sometimes we don't and they do so…
Mike Stewart: So, you would feel comfortable doing it independently?
Speaker: I think we have in the past.
Speaker: and let me share… the state convention.
Speaker: Let me just finish my thought real quick and then I will turn it right back over here. I think the reason Terry asked the question is that if we are going to really be partners, then when we meet together we don't need lawyers in the room. We don't need to set up a meeting for three or four weeks. I know this meeting had to be this way because there is a lot of tension in the air. But, if we are going to partner, we got to get past all of this.
Speaker: Right, that's why I am asking. I mean what got … why did you have to have a lawyer here today?
Speaker: Again, I don't think that is a very fair question. I certainly agree with Randy that there is tension in the air. We have lawyers here and hopefully we are going to move toward a reconciliation where Randy and I drop out of the process. I think that is everyone's vote. As much as I love Georgia, I don't want to fly back out to Georgia, so that is as far as we are going to go on that.
Speaker: Could I go ahead and just respond? We do have… there are times when the state convention… again in cooperative agreement ask that nobody take a unilateral… make a unilateral decision, so lets say in your case… lets say California we no longer want to fund Mike. We would say then you need to talk to us first because we may want to continue that. We have had that example where a state convention quit funding a staff person. We say we don't think he was fair. We continue to fund and help funding him until we could place him in another position. The other side of that… we can do that as well. We would not do it unilaterally, but we would discuss it with him and if they disagree we would say that's fine, you can go ahead and fund, but we will not choose to do so, so it works both ways, but our goal is to try to protect. Nobody makes a unilateral decision. We discuss it. If we can't come to agreement then…
Speaker: Thank you. That helped clarify.
Speaker: Do we have a right to partner or not partner? Is there any legal reason Randy that we have to partner? That is why I am confused with having a lawyer here I guess. I am confused with the legal part versus our partner relationships, that is why I was asking the question. I think sometimes the content of the question may seem a little hostile. The reason I am asking is I am trying to discern over here as the chairman of this committee, legally do I have to fund Mike or not or our committee, and that is why I am asking.
Speaker: We have the freedom to fund, but we have to work with the state conventions to make those kinds of decisions. I think… I mean I don't want to put words in your mouth. There is a lawsuit involved that Ed was the lawyer on… is one of the reasons you are here, and I think the other reason is it is just kind of to the point where we do bring lawyers in a room and sit down together. I think was Terry is saying is… we have got to get beyond that, and if we can't get beyond that…
Speaker: We didn't know what to expect when we came here. We didn't know if you might…
Speaker: Why? Who told you to expect something different?
Speaker: We never received a verification about who was going to be attending the meeting. That was one thing. We knew who we thought was going to attend the meeting, but we didn't receive a final verification.
Speaker: Can I hold you just a second?
Speaker: We never responded?
Speaker: I don't think that is true.
Speaker: That is not true because I was not on the job at the time that the meeting was getting set up and there was an E-mail or a letter where Brother Mike asked who was I and why was I going to be at the meeting. He was told that I was replacing Edwardo DoCampo, so it listed everybody from the North American Mission Board that was going to be there…
Speaker: Early on.
Speaker: Very early on.
Mike Stewart: Actually the list changed about four times. All of the E-mails…
Speaker: So did the dating of when we were getting together.
Mike Stewart: Absolutely. We are all busy.
Speaker: No, no you were busy.
Speaker: You know what I don't think this is going to get us anywhere… whichever who did the scheduling.
Mike Stewart: Let me…
Ed Smithers: No stop for a minute. Sometimes when the lawyers are involved, it is a good thing I have found and I know that is somewhat …
All talking.
Ed Smithers: People think that they have agreements, Randy will tell you this, and they really don't and the lawyers say okay is there an agreement on all of this stuff, and many times you get a clean resolution where everyone understands what deal is going forward, so I know sometimes it is intimidating to have lawyers in the room, but my experience is…
Speaker: No it's not.
All talking.
Ed Smithers: Moving toward the goal line and getting the issue resolved.
Mike Stewart: I would like to ask a question and that would be. We have dealt with your two main issues that you had concerns about, Santomos Baptist Church where you have learEd that we were not a client in the case at all. There were no…
Speaker: That is what you explained to us. I heard your side of it.
Mike Stewart: No that's…
Speaker: Don't put words in my mouth. I
All talking.
Speaker: I am talking about as a person sitting around this table. I heard what you said, but don't put any…
Mike Stewart: I am not trying to put any…
Speaker: I haven't drawn any conclusions yet.
Mike Stewart: Okay fine. Let me put it this way. I appreciate that you need to have time to process.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Thanks for permission to do that.
Mike Stewart: I wasn't giving you permission I was simply making a statement. We made the statement that Santomos Baptist Church was a local church decision by counselors we were not involved with, not Ed Smithers: or my brother who was previous counsel. They gave him counsel. They did their thing… local churches do that. We don't have… really from our perspective you don't have any real good handles there to say that the association acted inappropriately because we are not officially involved in anything with that case or that group. Those folks were members of our association, yes and our pastoring association dealt with it, yes, but they did that on their own. They have the right to do that in our country… to seek counsel and get…
Speaker: Mike, let me say this… I will let you interrupt me and then I will back down. The minute you walked in that room you are not an individual person. You are a missionary funded partnered with the North American Mission Board. The minute when you became a part of that meeting, I don't care where it was, it brought… it implied that the association was involved in that. Do you not see that? Or … By the very sake of what you do, you are partially funded by the North American Mission Board.
Mike Stewart: That was my job.
Speaker: You are the…
Mike Stewart: That is my job to show up when we have troubled churches. Regardless of what I decide to do with it or communicate to my executive…
Speaker: Regardless of the conclusion, I am saying the very fact that you were there brought the association into it.
Mike Stewart: Yes, I was supposed to be there.
Speaker: Okay.
Mike Stewart: It was my job. To help my churches.
Speaker: I thought maybe you were walking away from the process. You haven't said… do you agree with the process? I know you agree with the conclusion. Did you weigh in at that meeting? About people joining the church… how the strategy and how… You may have answered that, but I didn't hear you.
Ed Smithers: We have been down this road I think.
Mike Stewart: As I said none of the people you got information from were in the meeting.
Speaker: So you are not going to answer my question?
Mike Stewart: I already did answer the question. It is on the record of what I said. Secondly I have answered the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 question. According to the policies that you have, these are the two issues you have with our association with myself personally. Is there something else we need to do to get reconciliation? What else is left?
Speaker: What about your relationship with Ron Wilson? Who happens to be a trustee?
Mike Stewart: He is an individual. I am not operating on his behalf.
Speaker: I think it would be important to get that resolved. I would like to encourage you to do that.
Speaker: We have requested that he would reconcile, but…
Speaker: Did he respond that he wouldn't or…
Speaker: Actually he told the investigative committee that if he was found in the wrong that he would apologize, and instead of apologizing, he wrote twice to all 100 churches of our association to attack the committee and to attack Dr. Stewart, so we didn't really feel like that was an active reconciliation, and that is eventually what led to his problems at the state convention, is … but we don't need to go into that. It is not a state convention.
Speaker: I would like to leave at least a couple of minutes at the end of the meeting after we have gone through the issues with you gentlemen to talk about how we can make sure this Ron Wilson thing doesn't happen again. In other words someone, pretending if you will, that they are acting on behalf of the North American Mission Board using that as an intimidation factor when in fact they are not acting on the North American Mission Board. I just want to make sure that we leave a little time at the end.
Speaker: I didn't think that was on the agenda, but I guess we are going to add to it.
Speaker: The North American Mission Board trustee interference with the CCBA governess . That is what I understand that to be, so we don't have a repeat. I don't want to jump ahead on you…
All talking.
Speaker : I guess you know it is not going to resolve in reconciliation when you have an investigative report that issues mandate to a pastor who is a trustee of the North American Mission Board and not in the association and the North American Mission Board is an agency in its precedent. I mean you know that is just not a good… when you do that, you can expect the kind of reaction you got from Ron Wilson… because I mean you know… the investigation… I mean I think his point in that process is there were some allegations made and an investigative committee was set up to determine these two issues that Mike raised a couple of minutes ago. Did he act improperly in the Santomos lawsuit? Does he support the Baptist Faith and Message 2000? Then the investigative committee doesn't just say, no not guilty. It says not guilty for Mike Stewart, but guilty for Ron Wilson, guilty for Bob Reccord and guilty for this pastor. Here is what you all need to do. When Bob Reccord didn't know he was a subject of this investigation and Ron Wilson didn't think he was either.
Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt. That is true and not true. It is true in the sense that the charge of the investigative committee was fairly narrow to start with. As you may know sometimes when you start an independent investigative committee, you know what…you follow where it goes. Here it went directly to Ron Wilson not having any support and using his position as a trustee of the North American Mission Board to basically intimidate some of the local people.
Speaker : The thing I am getting at is the autonomy of the various entities of Southern Baptist life and for the association to exercise authority over all of these groups and in investigation of the groups where they were being investigated. I mean that is pretty…
Speaker: That is not authority though. There were strong statements, that is true, but there is no authority because we cannot compel anybody to do these things.
Speaker : Yeah, but just because you can't compel. I mean we can't compel Mike to do anything. All we can say is here is how we will fund and no further. Okay. But that doesn't mean that we can't issue statements that make Mike feel or you all feel like we are exercising authority. I mean I have got to tell you that when I read the conclusion to that report and the letter that came with it, I was like wow I don't think I have ever seen in Southern Baptist Life ever… an association take this kind of … there are worse days with some of our state partners. They never went that far with regard to the North American Mission Board, sending the President a letter saying we must apologize and here is where you check to apologize ever…
Speaker: Has there ever been a situation quite this for an individual reporting to act on the behalf of the North American Mission Board spreads these allegations?
Speaker: We have had…
Speaker: This may be quite atypical.
Speaker: We have had more intense relational issues than this.
Speaker: Okay…we understand that you don't like what the investigative committee report says and we don't like the way the North American Mission Board operated, but we are not going to talk our way into feeling good about that. We need to talk our way into finding out how we are going to come to a working relationship.
Mike Stewart: I want to talk as a missionary for a second. The North American Mission Board appointed jointly funding partnered with the state convention and association employer of record missionary. This is totally my opinion and when an allegation comes up to the North American Mission Board on any missionary it would be my hope that any mission board would first take every opportunity to defend their missionary and his reputation and would be extremely careful with what they are communicating within the state, local or national leaders. It appears to me… and this is simply appearance… and when Mr. Palis gives his allegations on October 12th to Mr. Wilson. At the November trustee meeting they are heard in some fashion. Somehow they officially get to the point where Edwardo DoCampo is supposed to handle it. Within that time frame of six weeks on December 3rd there is a communication of Dr. Whittaker to investigate me based on the allegations of one pastor.
Speaker: Palis? Who is that?
Mike Stewart: He is the person who made the allegations to Ron Wilson.
Speaker: About Santomos Baptist Church.
Mike Stewart: At that point…
Speaker: Was he the pastor?
Speaker: He is a pastor in the association.
Mike Stewart: He was a pastor at… Baptist Church.
Speaker: So, he was a pastor in the association where all of these other pastors came to the …
Mike Stewart: Different topic. This is three years later. By the way, the allegations you are dealing with are four and five years old which is interesting in itself. To go forward and make things public on your leaders, especially the missionaries. Now, Dr. Whittaker, would have had two or three, and you had those and you worked with our local levels so there are problems. We would have responded to those, but it appears on a gentleman who is just watching as a missionary that our mission board who they try to support that this thing flies through the system and is automatically at the state executor, who I have to relate to every day. He has allegations on him that he says he wants evidence that it has actually gone through the system and they send him that the trustees have looked at this and they want you to do it. Now, we do a whole investigation, the scripture doesn't say you just get to make allegations. The scripture that we all have prescribed to, when you make allegations, they are not a free shot. If they are false and proven to be false, you have to go back to the chain where they were false and there needs to be repentance and reconciliation for making the false allegations. At that point there needs to be a broad statement by those involved that they support the missionary's reputation. I told Harry what was most disappointing to me was after the investigation and all of those issues that came forward I never once got a letter from the North American Mission Board or an individual from the North American Mission Board saying Thank God our missionary is innocent. This is what the North American Mission Board was praying for. What I got was silence for six months. I didn't get a six week response from them. I got silence. Nothing for six months, and then I got a call that you wanted to have a meeting on something we thought was closed and we were happy to move on. We weren't talking about it… so there seems to be a different approach of how information we provide to you was handled in a six month period, and what was given to you by one witness. This was by an entire association that was watching what was going on and where eye witnesses saw it happen. I was disappointed and I thought what the North American Mission Board did and the way you handled it was wrong. I thought you should have been my champion, not helping the critics unless you had overwhelming evidence, not interpretations, but overwhelming evidence that you knew for sure that I had acted unethically and the only way you would know that is if you had eye witness evidence to that fact, so I was disappointed. I do not want to have a bad relationship with the North American Mission Board. My prayer is for the North American Mission Board to do great work for the Lord Jesus Christ and it grieves me that I am sitting in Alpharetta wrangling with the mission board that also the Baptists support to reach the _____. So if you want my heart. My heart is for things to be right. I recognize your right and your rightful authority to choose any partners you want to, and we will not… there is no way that we can make that decision for you.
Speaker: We appreciate that and we will pray that.
Mike Stewart: Thank you.
Speaker: I need to say that Mike is a great director of missions. I chaired the director of missions search committee and he came with high recommendations from our denomination. It is proven true. Our association at one time was the weakest urban association in California. We believe that it is the strongest Southern Baptist Association in the West today. It is growing. It is dynamic and we are looking at new ways to reach people for Jesus. Mike is an amazingly creative missionary. You would do well to tap into him and the resources that he has available up there in his head because he is… and he has a great… I wish you knew his heart like I know his heart. You would feel so much better about this whole thing if you really knew Mike's heart. He just wants to reach people for Jesus. He doesn't want to be about wrangling. We are unhappy that we are having… it is great to meet all of you guys, but we are unhappy that it is under these circumstances.
Speaker: Dewey, I can assure you that this isn't something that we just wanted to do and get in here and wrangle either. I would rather be doing something else today than this. I know our time is going to get a little short. Are there…
Speaker: I'm clear.
Speaker: Randy?
Randy Singer: I just wanted to say Mike I appreciate you sharing your heart like that. That was… it meant a lot. I understand your frustration. I don't think I understand it at the same gut level that you do because I am not sitting in your chair, but I hear you and I understand your frustrations. Let me just say though, on the North American Mission Board's behalf in terms of the way this was handled. If it had been a different association and a different person coming to them, the first reaction would still be to go to the state and ask them to look into it.
Mike Stewart: With one allegation?
Randy Singer: Yeah. What I am…
Mike Stewart: One person?
Randy Singer: Yes because…
Mike Stewart : That is wrong.
Randy Singer: No … now can I finish?
All talking.
Ed Smithers: See it wasn't the lawyer interrupting. I am very quiet over here.
Randy Singer: The allegation from the pastor had to do with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 and this lawsuit. The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 issue is well documented and not just by one witness. The issue is did you speak against including it in the bylaws at the meeting? Did you write these articles against it? And does that constitute being against the Baptist Faith and Message 2000? This isn't a he said/she said issue. This is and interpretation of your writings and motions that were made in front of hundreds of witnesses.
Mike Stewart: Which were voted on by hundreds of witnesses and Baptist policy was followed.
Randy Singer: What I am saying is that those one witness issues have to do with someone coming to say Mike did this, but he is the only one that knows it. There is no doubt that you spoke what you said at the associational meeting. There is no doubt that you wrote these articles. The issue is that is that support or not?
Speaker : Randy, did you hear what I said though? And there were 150 people there to testify whether I am stating this to you accurately. He spoke in favor of the Baptist Faith and Message. He spoke against that particular motion.
Randy Singer: What I am saying is that we don't disagree about any of that. I am saying the interpretation of that is what matters and we asked the state to look into that. That is not a one witness thing… in my view.
Ed Smithers: That Santomos Baptist Church thing actually is a one witness. You are acting on the allegation of Chuck Palis who had absolutely nothing to do with the Santomos Baptist Church. Actually allegations of Chuck Palis as reported to Ron Wilson, so that really I think is a one witness in all canter.
Randy Singer: Okay.
Speaker: Is the guy who was supposed to be joining the Santomos Baptist Church in this guy Palis' church or not?
Speaker : He was a member at that time.
Ed Smithers: Yes.
Speaker : He is a retired pastor.
Randy Singer: You know what though; this isn't going to do us any good to walk down this path. What I really want to say Mike was that I appreciated you sharing what you shared. I wanted you to see our perspective in terms of why we would ask the state to look at this even though this is one pastor saying something.
Mike Stewart: I would agree that you have the right to ask what you need… I say that you should follow the scriptures that say specifically… leaders get allegations. There is not a person in this room who hasn't had somebody say something about them that is true or not true. There is a process. The first process is our Biblical process. We need two or three. When asked the missionary investigative committee if I was unethical or not… he says immoral or unethical in this letter to Dr. Whittaker that worked with us. When we requested the evidence, you guys had to start it, you did not send it nor did Chuck Palis, nor did Ron Wilson. Now, that is wrong. If you are going to ask for an investigation based on what you know, and you want me to investigate, then what do you know? We find it very odd that you try to back up your missionary, but you provide none of the evidence that you made the decision to make the call to Dr. Whittaker. Don't you find that to be strange?
Speaker : I guess what I would say Mike is… if the alternative is that we have people coming and saying stuff about you and don't give you a chance to clear your name, we just sit on it. I would find that to be strange. I think we go to the person closest to the field and say could you look into this.
Speaker : That is the local association though, before it goes to the state.
Speaker : Yeah, but we have to go to the state.
Speaker: The state missions director would actually be the next person in line.
Speaker: Not in our protocol. Our partnership…
Speaker: I was looking at your manual. Have you changed it?
Speaker : No. You may not have the latest version, but…
Speaker: Okay, we are quibbling.
Speaker : Let me raise something that is not a quibble and I did want to reserve maybe a couple of minutes at the end. Is there anything that you gentleman can think of that would help us… the CCBA have a sense of confidence that we are not going to have a repeat of what this Ron Wilson situation where again he reports to be acting on behalf of the North American Mission Board?
Speaker : If he had been acting on behalf of the North American Mission Board, you wouldn't have gotten any money a long time ago.
Speaker : That may be very true, but is there some sort of…
Speaker : He has no authority.
Speaker : Does Ron Wilson know this? Let me just get right to the nub of it. Is Ron Wilson going to be given a copy of this where…
Speaker : I think he understands that.
Speaker : I think it would help us to let him know…
Speaker : He is also a pastor in California.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker : And known by your convention when you let him vote…
Speaker : What I am looking for is some sort of letter… something that just puts him on notice that Ron, you are acting not on behalf of the board. You are acting as an individual because that is what we have established here today, and that is great for us, but if Ron doesn't know it then it doesn't help us going forward, and it is going to make reconciliation that much more difficult.
Speaker : That was my point in asking the question. Who speaks for the association? Because in Baptist Life of autonomy, it could rise again this afternoon. I mean it could happen within the association. Somebody could come up and do the same thing, so there is no way for an agency to say we are going to guarantee there is no way this is happening. You could write a 1000 letters to the same person and that person could still come and speak, so there is no way in Baptist life…that's kind of the nature…
Speaker : But he is your trustee.
Speaker : No, he is California's trustee, so…
All talking.
Speaker : Let me say this. Any trustee from any state that would bring a concern to this board most likely would be looked into. I don't care if you are talking about Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas…
Speaker : But it doesn't bother you that is not the Biblical standard? You are not meeting the Biblical standard.
Speaker : We are comfortable with the protocol.
Speaker: Okay, we are not comfortable with that, so we will have to agree to disagree with that.
Speaker: But here is the problem. I understand that, but you are asking us to join into a relationship with you guys… a partnership… and there is a whole lot of uncomfortability here. Let's just be honest how many times you have said that… how many times we have said that… the challenge today and conclusion in bringing this together is can we work together?
Speaker: Right and toward that we are trying to reconcile….
Speaker: and I am not saying we can't.
Speaker : When I am laying my cards on the table, one of the things that would help us reconcile is if we could have some indication that Ron Wilson has been notified. Basically work through the committee, don't go out…
Speaker : I will be glad to do that as chairman of the committee.
Speaker : Thank you… that is a great first step. Thank you very much.
Speaker : Yes, I would be glad to do that because he does not speak on the behalf of this board and I think he knows that, but I will clarify.
Speaker : I appreciate that. Thank you.
Speaker : I have clarified many things to Ron Wilson.
Speaker : I don't sense that we are all that far apart, but evidently you do. There are some things we are going to disagree with because we are Baptist, but I don't know that we are disagreeing with stuff that really has to do with missions.
Speaker : Let me say, Mike, I have never met you before today. We have E-mailed and I have talked to you on the phone once or twice. I don't have an anger towards you. I don't wish… or anything. In my prayer today as I came into this thinking I would be glorified when we walk out. Beyond that I had no goal. Other than to walk through, get the issues on the table, get a response and if you had said I don't believe the Baptist Faith and Message I still wouldn't have been mad at you. That would be your right to do that. The other issue… I mean I knew about that from reading the report, so none of that is… my understanding was… the point where I thought it was all ended, and it is continued, so then we said at the first of the year… we need to sit down and get this on the table face to face so that we can get the issue away. So that is where we started in February trying to set something up agreeing to come out or fly all the way out to California to do the reverse and spend a couple of hours with you. That has been our heart. Trying to resolve the issue and find the truth of it and then move on.
Speaker: I have a very personal problem spiritually speaking with the conclusion of the report. To call on people to repent that we feel like you violated the scripture.
Speaker : Your problems with the investigative committee with the…
Speaker : With the conclusion of that, yes.
Speaker : But, he didn't write that report.
Speaker : I am glad you clarified that. It helps me.
Speaker : The association obviously adopted the report. The executive board adopted the report, verified it and so on, but he didn't do it.
Mike Stewart: I cannot speak for the board officially, but I am sure the board would entertain any offer or symbolic gesture or anything that the North American Mission Board … they never heard anything except for the October 12th letter after you received the report that stated that everything was closed, there were no problems, and we never dealt with the North American Mission Board issues again. I am not certain what else came up because we moved on…
Speaker: We sure haven't been perfect in the process, so defending the total process…
Speaker : You know the truth is… letters go back and forth, and E-mails isn't going to get things resolved. This is the first and most important step. Sit down. I know what you look like. You know what I look like. I can hear your heart. You can hear my concerns. You know I know your lawyer doesn't have horns, and we can get issues clarified like who wrote the report, who filed the lawsuit. I mean that has been good. I think you know going forward… it is going to be critical to have the kind of communications that partners have with lawyers out of it… no disrespect, but you know out of the room and the kind of things just back and forth. I think this has been good. My goal is not to just sit here and leave this room with concerns that I didn't put on the table. I wanted you guys to hear if I had concerns or issues. You have heard. I am not going to be walking out of this room with other things I didn't put on the table, and I think you all have done that too, so…
Speaker : Do you guys have anything else?
Speaker : I will just say for the record I do appreciate you taking the time to meet with us. I think this was a helpful step forward and I agree I think it is very good to stop the E-mails and the letters and just sit down and patch through the issues. I think there are some misunderstandings factually on your end and quite candidly I learEd some things that I didn't know about this case listening to you today, so I think it has been time well spent, and I thank you for it.
Speaker : I think the process as we started… I mean I don't know how you solve all of that when you have partnerships and then there are third parties sub linked to that and so on. It is not a perfect system, but it is one that has been working for a number of years. We are always looking how to do better. Mike, one of the things that I thought about in a situation with jointly funded personnel with missionaries, association or whatever is that we are somewhat separated. You are closer ties to a state convention. I pastored in California for 7 ½ years. I was on the executive board for 6 of those 7 ½ and I was President 2 years and I was board chairman 1. You know in those 6 years on the board I never knew that we had a cooperative agreement with the mission board or a cooperative budget. It was a very good kept secret, so somewhere we have to find out because I can tell you that our team has said we want to fight for our missionaries. That is one of the things that if a state convention came in, as we explaiEd before, and said we don't want this person to be on our staff any more, we would go to bat for that person, and we have done that to the point of saying you don't get the funding until we can find a place for this person to go. So, you need to understand that part of it. So, we also would like our missionaries to stand at the champion… and we need that with people. The kingdom needs that.
Mike Stewart: I don't believe I was ever accused by any allegations that I did not…
Speaker: No, I am just saying that would be one of the goals that I would have for all of our missionaries, the 5200 plus different kinds and stripes and whatever is that they need to be telling the kingdom story out there and so I am not speaking specifically, I am speaking in generalities. Again, thank you for taking the time. You are the ones who took more time than we did today and I do appreciate that. What I would like to do is close this in a word of prayer and see where God takes us from here and it sure has been good Mike to sit down and just talk with you person to person. Father I do thank you for the opportunity to sit down and hear Mike's heart and hear the issues, here an eyewitness account from Dewey and Father to hear just the concerns that were expressed from our side of the issues, and Father even though we may not totally agree on everything, at least we can go away and say we had the opportunity to share, talk and to hear one another's heart. Father I pray today that you would just simply take control of the situation. Father that you glorify yourself through us both here in Atlanta, Witchita, Tulsa and Father there in California; we ask this in Christ's name. Amen.
All: Amen.