Editor’s note: This is the first installment in a multi-part analysis BNG will publish over the coming weeks about the work of the SBC Executive Committee. After resisting messenger directives for more than 15 years, the 86-member Southern Baptist…
SBC Cooperative Program giving declines yet again
Giving to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Program unified budget has declined in seven of the past 10 years, with receipts for the year just ended being 4.4% less than a decade ago. The SBC Executive Committee released final fiscal…
Iorg compares SBC’s diverse giving to gender dysphoria
Selective giving to the Southern Baptist Convention Cooperative Program budget is like believing children can choose their gender, Jeff Iorg told members of the SBC Executive Committee Sept. 22. Iorg, president of the Executive Committee, addressed the gathering on the…
Why won’t the SBC be more financially transparent?
Amid all the other headlines at this week’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, you might have missed an important internal debate that happened about financial transparency. To those outside the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, this may not matter. But for…
What happened to the SBC’s Vision 2025 and its $1.25 million?
Southern Baptists arrived in Dallas this week to consider how they will finance mounting legal bills after a spate of lawsuits were filed in the wake of a 288-page report published in 2022. That report detailed at length how key convention…
Why are SBC leaders supporting a group that competes with the Cooperative Program?
In a little over a month, Southern Baptists from across the nation will converge in Dallas for the 2025 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting. If you put any stock in the latest social media posts, there likely will be several…
SBC Executive Committee can’t cover expenses, seeks extra $3 million
This story was updated Feb. 19 to include a clarification on staff compensation at the SBC Executive Committee. The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee cannot meet its financial obligations this year and needs $3 million in “priority funding” from…
Faced with decreased offerings, state Baptist conventions rethink giving to SBC
When conservatives gained control of the Southern Baptist Convention in the early 1990s, leaders of state Baptist conventions paid their obeisance by upping the percentage of church offerings they sent to the national convention. Thirty years later, that well is…
Barber apologizes for ‘Monopoly money’ quip while mission board presidents say they won’t give money to launch new commission
The $2.5 million to $5 million reportedly needed to launch an independent commission to address and prevent claims of sexual abuse in Southern Baptist Convention churches will not come from the SBC’s two mission boards, their presidents said Feb. 21….
From 1925 to 2024: Why the SBC’s funding formula is being questioned a century later
To understand the behind-the-scenes conflict happening between the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee and some of the SBC’s agencies and institutions, understand first that the devil is in the details. Or in the dollars. Or in lack of trust, once…
Morris Chapman is willing to come off the bench and serve the SBC Executive Committee again
As the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee struggles to find a leader and faces attempts by other agency heads to shutter the central organizing group of the denomination, a former president says he is willing to come back and help…
Critics say this SBC missions agency appears to be in the real estate business
Rob Wilton may not be a household name to Southern Baptists. But he’s been given nine houses by a Southern Baptist Convention mission board, as documented by public records. Wilton comes from a legacy family within the SBC, which might…