NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — New Southern Baptist Convention president Frank Page warned his fellow SBC leaders Sept. 18 that the denomination must retain its relevancy in a rapidly changing world.
“I thank God that the [SBC's] battle for [biblical] inerrancy was fought,” said Page, pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C. “But we must understand that that battle is not the only battle. And while we must always be vigilant in that area, it is not good enough to just be right. We must be also be relevant.”
Page, who was elected in June without support from many in the denomination's inner circle of conservative leaders, spoke during the fall meeting of the SBC Executive Committee. The meeting was held Sept. 18-19 in Nashville, Tenn.
Noting he is “cautiously optimistic” about the denomination's future, Page nonetheless warned committee members that the SBC faces challenges in the future.
“In the eyes of many…we have become an archaic, burdensome bureaucracy that has no relevancy for today or the days to come,” he said. “To see that which is said out there and felt by many frightens me. But I thought it myself, honestly, many times. I've wondered where are we? Where are we going to be?”
Using the story of the valley of dry bones from Ezekiel 37, Page likened the denomination to the valley of bones, noting that only God's power can cover them with sinews and flesh and make them walk again.
“I challenge you, Executive Committee; I challenge you, entity presidents, to hear the word of the Lord. I'm not talking about clever gimmicks. I'm not talking about new philosophies,” he said.
Page said the denomination's difficulties result from not relying sufficiently on God's power. “We have become an arrogant people and we must recognize our undeservedness and that without him we can do nothing,” he said.
Page called for “a Holy Ghost revival” in the denomination. One obstacle to such revival, he said, is the divisions that exist in the denomination, which were laid bare by the controversies that erupted on the floor of the SBC annual meeting in June.
“Your people need to be brought together like never before. There are factions out there that frighten me,” he said. Page encouraged Southern Baptists to pray, “God, would you bring us together? Bring us together in a cooperative mission task. The Cooperative Program matters. That's why Greensboro happened, that's why I got elected, because the Cooperative Program does matter.”
During its meeting, the Executive Committee declined to move forward with most of the motions referred to it from the SBC's annual meeting. The meeting produced a record number of motions from the floor addressing a host of topics in SBC life. Such motions are customarily referred first to the agencies to which they are most pertinent.
Among the motions the group declined to recommend for further action by the denomination were:
— A motion “that the Executive Committee…complete a comprehensive study of the make-up and function of the boards of trustees of all SBC agencies. This study is to include, but not be limited to, the size, purpose, scope of responsibility and frequency of meetings of each board as well as the specific minimum qualifications for trustees reflecting the unique task of each agency served.”
The committee's staff recommended no official action on the motion, but noted in a subcommittee meeting dealing with the referral that much of the information that the motion called for is already available to Southern Baptists in the SBC Annual and its governing documents, all of which are available online.
— A motion to amend SBC Bylaw 26 to reduce the voting threshold — from a two-thirds majority to a simple majority — for overturning a decision to refer a motion made from the floor of an SBC annual meeting. Several messengers at the convention's annual meeting attempted to establish internal inquiries into controversies at the denomination's two missionary-sending agencies — the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board. However, those motions were referred to the boards themselves.
The convention's staff recommended killing the motion because “issues involving the internal operations or ministries of the several [convention-related] entities should be sufficiently compelling to sustain the two-thirds vote required to preempt the referrals normally made to the entities involved.”
— A motion attempting to limit the terms of service on the boards of SBC agencies to single seven-year terms. Currently, agency trustees serve terms of four or five years, and are routinely elected to second terms. Several Southern Baptist bloggers disaffected with the denomination's conservative elite noted, in the months prior to the SBC annual meeting, that many SBC trustees are drawn from a small pool of large-church pastors, their spouses and other family members.
— A motion that the convention instruct its nominating committee to “appoint no less than one pastor or layman under the age of 40 to each of our committees and boards” in order to broaden participation by younger leaders. Many SBC boards — including the Executive Committee — are heavily weighted with members who are male, white and over the age of 50.
Members of the workgroup that first dealt with the referral said such a move could open the floodgates for quota-type systems for underrepresented groups on SBC boards, and should not be mandated. The convention's staff recommended that the motion be declined so the denomination would not “depart from the long-established and well-accepted selection process for service by Southern Baptists who are well qualified, without regard to their age, gender or ethnicity.”
The committee members declined all of the motions without discussion or recorded dissent. There were two other referrals dealing with the Cooperative Program — the convention's unified budget — that committee members had not addressed by press time for this article.
The committee also approved two amendments to convention governing documents. One dealt with the hiatus period between terms of service on SBC boards. It doubled the amount of time, from one year to two years, that a person must wait after rotating off the board of one SBC entity before being eligible for appointment to another entity's board.
C.J. Bordeaux of North Carolina, chairman of the body's administrative subcommittee, said the measure was intended as a way to “broaden the tent” of nominees to Southern Baptist boards.
The second was a recommendation that came partially in response to a motion from the SBC meeting to investigate the finances of SBC agencies, with a focus on “the administrative budgets of entity presidential offices, including but not limited to the reimbursable expense accounts, travel expenses, housing and office expenses, and the amount of Cooperative Program dollars spent, if any, to maintain the private residences and staff of those entity executives.”
While the Executive Committee' staff said it would not recommend intruding on the autonomy of the boards of the various SBC-related agencies, it affirmed the intent of the motion to ensure fiscal accountability within the denomination.
The recommendation included amendments to the denomination's business and financial plan document designed to provide more clarity and uniformity in financial reporting among the agencies.
Both provisions passed without dissent.
-30-