In his first report to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) as president of the North American Mission Board (NAMB), Kevin Ezell urged Southern Baptists to define reality by confronting some brutal facts about their church-planting and missionary numbers.
Acknowledging Southern Baptists’ fondness for big numbers, Ezell charged, “We like to remind ourselves how big our denomination is … how many missionaries we have and how many churches we plant.”
Yet biblical stewardship demands accuracy, the former Louisville, Ky., pastor insisted, declaring a need for transparency, effectiveness and efficiency — “not smoke and mirrors.”
Borrowing an expression used by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, Ezell asserted. “You have heard it said Southern Baptists plant as many as 1,400 to 1,500 churches, but I say unto you: In 2010, we planted 769,” Ezell noted. The new NAMB will count only church plants for which it can obtain a name, address and information on its church planter, he said.
NAMB, he said, is working on a mutually agreed upon definition of church plants and a system to track them across the 42 state conventions. “If Walmart can track how much toilet paper is sold in an hour, we should be able to track how many church plants are done in a year,” he quipped.
The mission board will be committed to planting healthy churches, focusing on quality, not quantity, Ezell said. “We plant only Southern Baptist churches. All of our church plants agree to give to the Cooperative Program. All of our church planters agree to the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as the theological guide for their ministry.
“And you have heard it said NAMB has over 5,100 missionaries serving in North America, but I say unto you: We must be clear,” Ezell continued, giving the following account: 3,480 of NAMB missionaries are jointly funded with state conventions; 1,839 are spouses; 1,616 are Missions Service Corps volunteers; and 38 are national missionaries paid in full by NAMB. In addition, NAMB has 3,400 chaplains, including 1,350 military chaplains, and 955 students currently are serving as summer missionaries, he noted.
“But we must put more missionaries on the field; we must take better care of our missionaries,” Ezell challenged. Twenty NAMB missionaries were commissioned following Ezell’s report.
“Please know I am striving to bring a sense of strategic focus and efficiency to North American missions,” he told SBC messengers. With that goal in mind, NAMB has reduced the size of its Alpharetta, Ga., staff by 38 percent, saving approximately $6 million a year, and has trimmed its budget by $8 million, including cutting travel budgets by half, Ezell noted.
“But NAMB is not taking one step back,” he maintained. “We intend to do more with less infrastructure.” In introducing NAMB’s new Send North America strategy for church planting that aims to help Southern Baptists penetrate lostness through regional mobilization, Ezell said, “Already 80 percent of NAMB resources that are invested through the state go to unreached areas, but this strategy will send even more in this direction.”
Ezell concluded his report by spotlighting Southern Baptists’ disaster relief ministry, which now has more than 85,000 trained volunteers and more than 2,000 units.
“This year, we’ve seen flooding, fires and tornadoes,” he noted, adding that Southern Baptists have responded to 40 separate incidents, including recently assisting those impacted by the nation’s deadliest tornado in Joplin, Mo.
Appearing at the convention was Maj. Gen. Douglas Carver for the final time as chief of chaplains for the U.S. Army.
In 2007, Carver became the first Southern Baptist to be named the Army’s chief of chaplains in 50 years. After a distinguished military career, Carver and wife Sunny will retire later this summer to Charlotte, N.C.
“It’s been my honor to wear the nation’s cloth for 38 years, supporting 2,900 chaplains of all faiths to 300,000 soldiers serving in 80 different countries, including during wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and in the Horn of Africa, defending us so we can serve God freely,” the two-star general said. “When you send a Southern Baptist chaplain to the field, you can be assured we are bringing God to soldiers and soldiers to God.” (BP contributed)
Share with others: