No Southern Baptist entity has faced greater challenges during the first decade of this century than the North American Mission Board (NAMB). Nor has any entity experienced greater turmoil than NAMB, and none faces a more uncertain future.
Unlike other Southern Baptist entities, NAMB began the century as a new creation — formed from the ministries of three separate parents.
In the Covenant for a New Century, approved initially in 1995 and affirmed in 1996, Southern Baptists chose to scrap the Radio and Television Commission (RTVC), the Brotherhood Commission and the Home Mission Board (HMB). From the demise of the three entities was to rise NAMB.
Each of the former entities had a successful past and loyal following. For example, the RTVC reported in 1995 that as many as 125 million people had access to its FamilyNet TV programming. Another 50 million people had access to the commission’s programming through ACTS (American Christian Television System) programs aired on the Faith and Values Channel.
Southern Baptists were an important part of the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission that resulted in religious programs being aired on ABC, NBC and CBS. More than 3,000 radio stations carried Southern Baptist programming provided by the RTVC. Some of the programs were “soft” evangelistic programs such as “Country Crossroads,” which featured Christian testimonies weaved around country music. Other programs, such as the flagship program “The Baptist Hour,” were more traditional preaching. The RTVC also had a state-of-the-art studio in Fort Worth, Texas, from which it offered assistance to other Southern Baptist entities, state conventions and churches.
The Brotherhood Commission reported more than 646,000 men and boys involved in missions through Royal Ambassadors (RA), Baptist Men, disaster relief and other volunteer missions efforts. The 1995 report said that total was the highest number in the organization’s history.
World Changers was a Brotherhood Commission ministry as were disaster relief efforts. In addition, the commission had reached agreements with HMB and the Foreign Mission Board to recruit volunteers for various projects. Missions education and involvement were the commission’s core.
HMB was like an octopus with tentacles reaching into every area of Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) life. In 1995, it reported 4,913 appointed missionaries working in all 50 states, the Caribbean, American Samoa, Guam and Canada. The Program of Christian Social Ministries reported overseeing the work of 172 associational church and community ministries directors, 173 Baptist center directors and seven weekday ministries directors. HMB facilities provided shelter for the homeless in places like New Orleans and conducted 24 AIDS conferences.
Through its programs of metropolitan, town and country and language missions, HMB targeted population groups with evangelistic efforts and started churches to reach diverse groups.
Above all, HMB was about evangelism: mass evangelism, personal evangelism, interfaith witness and church evangelism development.
The strategy was simple. HMB functioned as the catalyst to help local churches, associations and state conventions proclaim the gospel within the United States and its territories and then live out that gospel through ministries.
As a new creation, NAMB was supposed to provide “a comprehensive front-line communications strategy for evangelism and missions” by combining the resources of the three former entities. NAMB was given nine ministry assignments: appointing and supporting missionaries in the United States and Canada, assisting churches in evangelism, establishing new congregations, doing Christian social ministries, coordinating missions volunteers, involving people in missions education, sharing the gospel through communications technologies, strengthening associations and coordinating disaster relief ministries.
Today there are no radio and TV ministries from NAMB. That ministry declined from the beginning and was finally sold. Missions education is on life support. RAs has been on a downward enrollment trend with the exception of its 100th anniversary when NAMB did a major RA promotion. Disaster relief efforts continue with NAMB providing coordination and state conventions providing most of the recruitment and training of volunteers.
In the 2010 approved Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report, NAMB was again asked to change. NAMB was challenged to focus primarily on planting new churches in unreached areas as the best way to do evangelism. Following that direction, NAMB’s new president, Kevin Ezell, is restructuring the staff. Ninety-nine people were dismissed or took early retirement. Ministry centers under NAMB’s control are being closed, and funding is being directed away from every program toward direct church planting by NAMB.
To date, NAMB has been unsuccessful in establishing stable leadership. Ezell is the third president in five years. Both of his predecessors resigned under pressure from trustees. NAMB has been unsuccessful in creating an effective ministry culture reflecting the strengths of its three parents.
Some SBC leaders hope that by focusing on the single task of church planting, NAMB can find new life. Other observers believe NAMB is being set up to fail again, that the new structure is a step toward folding NAMB and the International Mission Board (IMB) into one mission board with the United States as one of many areas of work. That the IMB now has been granted permission to work with people groups in the United States is cited as support for this theory.
A more immediate challenge is the response to the upcoming Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. The offering provides 46 percent of NAMB’s total budget. The giving record of the new NAMB president’s former church to this offering — $10,000 in 2009 and none in 2008 — troubles many pastors. Some pastors of churches among the top 100 givers to the offering have shared they will give no more than Ezell did in 2011. If many repeat that pattern, then NAMB will have financial woes such as it has never faced.
Perhaps it was unrealistic to give a new entity nine ministry assignments. Perhaps the single focus of church planting will be more productive.
If so, then where are Southern Baptists to turn for leadership in evangelism through means other than church planting? Are Christian social ministries that feed the hungry, clothe the naked and house the homeless still valid? If so, then where are Southern Baptists to turn for leadership?
What is the role of missions education for Southern Baptists? Should Southern Baptists look to Woman’s Missionary Union for help with both girls and boys? Where are Southern Baptist churches to look for assistance in strengthening associational work? Do these ministries need to be done in today’s church culture, or should they be laid aside?
One can only wonder is this what was intended as Southern Baptists prepared for the 21st century?
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