Does anyone remember the promise of the Covenant for a New Century related to the North American Mission Board? If so, you know the promise never became a reality.
The former Radio and Television Commission was merged into the new organization to provide “a strategic focus (for) the use of communication technologies in the evangelization of North America.”
The Brotherhood Commission was to provide a “focus upon the mobilization of volunteers for mission, disaster ministries and missions education.” The Home Mission Board’s contribution was to be an emphasis on evangelistic witness and ministry.
The covenant approved by messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meetings of 1995 and 1996 even provided the structure for the new organization. There were to be three major divisions: 1. North American Evangelization, 2. Mission Technologies and Communications and 3. Mission Volunteers and Education.
But the promise never became a reality.
Instead of exploring ways to expand the use of media in evangelism, the radio and television arm of the organization was told it had to move to a “pay as you go” position. Much of the $5.5 million from the Cooperative Program used to support the RTVC in 1996 was redirected to other ministries as NAMB attempted to demonstrate the new organization could put more dollars “on the field” than the three separate organizations had.
NAMB continued to put some funds into its media ministry as long as the ministry existed, but the money was booked as a loan to be repaid. Radio ministry was the first to falter. The RTVC had been the largest distributor of public service radio programs in the world. That soon ended. Now NAMB no longer produces public service radio programs.
TV followed. FamilyNet built up debt under the “pay as you go” mandate. Finally, NAMB sold the ministry. Basically the new owner took over its debt. The result was a tragic fall from a media ministry that permeated the nation to one 30-minute show on a network Southern Baptists used to own.
Missions education fared no better. Some insiders described it as a “stepchild” receiving little encouragement. The decline in missions education among boys (RAs) became so desperate that national Woman’s Missionary Union, the organization that began RAs, approached NAMB about transferring the responsibility back to it.
NAMB staff also decided not to produce new material for Challenger-level RAs (teens). But the protest of state conventions and churches changed that, and new material is coming soon.
An upward blip on the downward slide of missions education for boys did occur on the 100th anniversary of RAs in 2008. NAMB committed money and effort to promoting RAs that year and the number of boys involved increased.
To be fair, missions education was trending downward when the Brotherhood Commission was folded into NAMB. Still NAMB has done little to reverse the trend. Some new products have been developed, but NAMB has not fulfilled the ministry assignment of “[assisting] churches by involving their members in … missions education.”
Since its beginning, NAMB has been a dysfunctional organization. Combining three different cultures and employees from three different ministries into one organization is an enormous task under the best of circumstances. But NAMB did not start under the best of circumstances. HMB President Larry Lewis offended some movers and shakers when he challenged some of the directions of the Covenant for a New Century.
The Implementation Task Force, charged with implementing the Covenant for a New Century, did not want any of the former presidents of the three entities that were merged into NAMB to lead the new organization. Instead the task force tapped its chairman, Bob Reccord, to lead the new entity.
A 2006 report by NAMB trustees detailed problems inherent in NAMB leadership from its earliest days. For two years, trustees worked behind the scenes to solve problems, but finally pressure from the outside forced the issues into the spotlight. That report led to Reccord’s resignation. In retrospect, it is clear that the commitment of midlevel staff members and pressure from trustees were primary reasons the organization maintained some relationship to its ministry assignments during those years. Three years later, another NAMB president is forced out. This time, the trustees were not as forthcoming as in 2006. Trustee chairman Tim Patterson of Florida declared the resignation was a personnel matter and information would be kept confidential.
It is public information, however, that Patterson had said privately he had enough votes in the trustee executive committee to fire President Geoff Hammond at the regularly scheduled Aug. 11 executive committee meeting. Only pressure by other NAMB trustees caused the meeting to be expanded to a full meeting of the trustees.
Southern Baptists are left to wonder what happened between May of this year when the NAMB trustees praised the leadership of their president and Aug. 11 when they forced him to resign. Patterson said there had been problems since the beginning. We will not challenge that. Hammond alienated several important constituencies and, according to some, agency morale was at an all-time low.
But how can Southern Baptists trust the statements of the trustees when the leadership is not honest with them? Southern Baptists do not need to be protected from the truth. Southern Baptists need to be told the truth. We are not to be manipulated by media spin. We are to be trusted as brothers and sisters in the Lord.
Southern Baptists deserve enough information to be assured the trustees acted in the best interest of the convention. Recent legal steps by the SBC have made it clear that every SBC entity, including NAMB, is owned by the convention and trustees are accountable to the convention for their actions.
Adding to all of this is the fact that in May, Patterson announced his support for combining NAMB and the International Mission Board into one board. That idea was floated by some of the members of the recently formed Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. Without information from NAMB trustees, one can only wonder if there is some kind of connection between the two events.
For the third time in 12 years, Southern Baptists’ domestic missions program finds itself in turmoil. Such a history scars an organization and detracts from a missions strategy to reach North America for Christ. Southern Baptists need an effective domestic missions program, a program where reaching this part of the world for Christ is the paramount objective, a program that utilizes all the tools available in a holistic strategy, a program that combines the strengths of churches, associations and state conventions.
Southern Baptists need for NAMB to be a reality and not just a promise.
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