Money – Our Southern Baptist Sickness? tagged: , , , ,

Money – Our Southern Baptist Sickness?

Posted by in Baptist Life

This past June, NAMB President Geoff Hammond  introduced a new national evangelism initiative at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Indianapolis.  The new plan is called God’s Plan for Sharing (GPS).  The initiative is currently in its pilot stage, and is set for launch in 2010.  It is an ambitious plan, with an ambitious goal … taking the gospel to every person in North America by 2020.

On November 20 Joe Westbury, Managing Editor of the Christian Index, penned a rather scathing evaluation (with the help of Editor J. Gerald Harris) of NAMB’s approach to GPS.  In particular, he took issue with NAMB’s funding of the initiative … or lack thereof.

Citing historical SBC mass evangelism programs, all the way back to the Good News, America campaign of 1986, Westbury demonstrated a pattern of reduction in budgeting since that time.  Interestingly, NAMB’s 2010 budget has no line item for the current undertaking.  I also find that to be curious, but Westbury and Harris seem to be disturbed about it.

I would like to point out a few quotes from Westbury’s article:

“In September 1999 NAMB launched its national media campaign for the emphasis, which had been conceived in the waning years of the Home Mission Board …the television spots would reach more than half of all individuals in the country between the ages of 18 and 54 at least twice.”

“For once, even if briefly, Southern Baptists had a national image campaign that could hold its own against that of the Mormons and United Methodists.”

“Ernest Kelly knows a thing or two about finances and balancing budgets – and how you fund evangelism.”

“The bottom line is that past NAMB evangelism initiatives cost between $3 million and $5 million, not adjusted for inflation, with those costs being largely funded by the national agency. The most recent media buys cost $500,000 in addition to production costs. Without such detailed accounting that information would be lost for future administrations to evaluate and build their own budgets. Knowledge, and a sense of history in such matters, is power. How NAMB will fund the most ambitious undertaking in the denomination’s history without line item budgeting and without that initiative rearranging its budget is yet to be seen.”

Perhaps I’m the one missing something here …

Why do we need national media campaigns to do evangelism?  Why do we need TV advertisements?  Why should sharing the Gospel cost millions of media dollars?  And why do we need to compete with the Mormons in the realm of touchy-feely TV ads?

So, NAMB has not budgeted millions for TV ads, magazine ads, and radio spots.  I say, “So what?”  It appears to me, based upon Geoff Hammond’s comments in a November 14 interview with Westbury and Harris, that GPS is designed to be more than a campaign.  It has the makings of a “state of mind” at NAMB, reaching into every department and activity.  Hammond describes such strategies as ads on Google and Facebook, as well displays in Wal-Mart in pioneer areas.  Sounds to me like some innovative ideas for different times.

So … we spent $5 million on one campaign in the early 90’s and $3 million in 2000.  And how did that work out for us?  No big changes in our evangelistic direction or significant growth in our churches as far as I can see.

Personally, I grow weary of the campaigns.  For as long as I have been a Southern Baptist, I have seen one campaign after another … all promising to take something to the “next level.”  Every year the Baptist Sunday School Board turned out a new Sunday School campaign.  They were pretty much the same products in new packages.  Even now almost every book or piece of literature has an EKG (Empowering Kingdom Growth) logo on it.  I still don’t get that one.

And now we have a new evangelistic campaign.  Great.  Admirable.  Will it have a dramatic impact upon the evangelistic efforts of Southern Baptist churches?  I doubt it.  But at least NAMB is trying.  At least they’re working to fulfill their mandate.

Westbury and Harris’ evaluation reflects, in my opinion, the unfortunate notion that glorious campaigns, huge events,  and great piles of money are required to have success in anything.  I’ve come to realize that it’s sort of our Southern Baptist sickness.  Money, that is.  We’ve become accustomed to having too much of it in centralized locations and entities.

When will our leaders wake up and realize that bigger is not, necessarily, better?  The generation that we have lost (and continue to lose) doesn’t give a rip about media campaigns.  They care about relationships, networking, friendships, and investment of personal time.  You can’t buy those with TV ads.  It takes time, relationships, and caring.  It takes work.

Do we really want to have a kingdom impact?  Do we really want evangelistic growth?  Do we really want a kingdom explosion?  Then let’s get all of these millions that we have invested in evangelistic campaigns, opulent state convention offices, huge staffs and expense accounts, and redundant SBC infrastructure into the hands and pockets of risk-taking church planters … without all of the bean-counting strings attached.

Now THAT would be an awesome “campaign.”