Taking nine ministry assignments and condensing them into six while also reworking its mission statement to focus on church planting keeps the North American Mission Board (NAMB) on schedule with its recent orders. But initiating its first of seven years of funding changes in states like Alabama will be less restrictive than first anticipated, NAMB’s top official contends.
Directed to shift from a primarily missionary-sending agency to a church-planting agency by the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) Task Force during the 2010 Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting, NAMB’s trustees approved the change May 11.
The new mission statement reads in part: “The North American Mission Board exists to work with churches, associations and state conventions in mobilizing Southern Baptists as a missional force to impact North America with the Gospel of Jesus Christ through evangelism and church planting … .”
The six priority areas are:
• assist churches in planting healthy, multiplying, evangelistic SBC churches in the United States and Canada
• assist churches in the ministries of evangelism and making disciples
• assist churches by appointing, supporting and assuring accountability for missionaries serving in the United States and Canada
• assist churches by providing missions education and coordinating volunteer missions opportunities for church members
• assist churches by providing leadership development
• assist churches in relief ministries to victims of disaster and other people in need.
“We want to do several things, but church planting will be our primary focus,” said NAMB President Kevin Ezell. “When people think of NAMB, I want them to think of church planting.”
Ezell also said he has no plans of eliminating all funding for other ministries, and states like Alabama aren’t going to be left out of the church planting formula. “We are in the process of downsizing and shifting some funds, but I do see the need to invest in every state,” he said. “If we don’t continue to plant churches even in our strongest areas, we are going to be in trouble down the road.
“Out of the $50 million NAMB invests in the states, $10 million goes to the South, and $40 million goes to new work areas. One of the misunderstandings of the GCR was to think most money goes to the South, but that was a mistake,” Ezell said. “Eighty percent of the money already goes to the new work areas. Where we need to be more strategic is in the $40 million, not so much in the $10 million.”
And as far as disaster relief, “not one dime is being cut from the budget,” he said. “We are looking for ways … to do more with less.”
Ezell did confirm travel budgets for the NAMB staff were cut in half and that he initially considered suggesting the same plan to state convention staff who are jointly funded by NAMB. He said he decided against it after talking to convention executive directors. So while several conventions like Alabama will receive less money, Ezell said it will be up to convention staff to decide where the cuts are made.
The decrease in funding is directly related to a decrease in giving to the Cooperative Program and Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, Ezell explained.
“The giving has been less over the last two years, but NAMB has not been passing that on to the states. We’ve been absorbing it, depending on the under spend (money not being used that is earmarked for a certain ministry),” he said. “It is not healthy to depend on people not spending the money.
“I don’t believe Southern Baptists sacrifically give to have an under spend … and so [beginning in 2012] there is no under spend at NAMB,” Ezell said.
Alabama will receive about $95,000 less from NAMB in 2012, said Bobby Dubois, associate executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM). No official decision has been announced about what cuts will be made or their possible impact on jointly funded missionaries in the state — six state missionaries on the SBOM staff receive some funding from NAMB and scores of associational ministry positions across the state are jointly funded.
Ezell said NAMB would evaluate all jointly funded positions in the fall and make decisions about which ones to continue assisting in the future. Shifts in personnel funding will take place over a period of several years. (BP contributed)
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