The timing may be right to replace Southern Baptists’ two mission boards “with a new global mission structure,” International Mission Board (IMB) President Jerry Rankin said Sept. 17.
Rankin, who the day prior announced his retirement, effective July 31, 2010, broached this subject during a conference call press conference with about 10 Baptist news media representatives.
“We fully anticipated with Geoff Hammond’s resignation (Aug. 11 as president of the North American Mission Board, NAMB) and now the announcement of my retirement, it seems to be an opportune moment,” he said.
And “perhaps there is an open door to explore that possibility,” Rankin said, clearly distinguishing between “merger” and “replace.”
“A merger — it is not valid to explore the possibility. But explore a new board that is not either of the two.
“If [a new missions structure] is where we need to go, it would replace the two (boards),” he said. “That is not a merger.”
Merging the IMB and NAMB “would create a greater bureaucracy and delude what we already have,” Rankin said. “Most people out there do not comprehend how radically different the two boards are. The strategy, focus — there is no similarity whatsoever.”
One difference is NAMB’s “prolific number of assignments.”
“They really don’t have the coordinated network of resources and personnel to have [an] effective strategy,” Rankin said. “I would want that (potentially new) global mission board to be fine-tuned and narrowly focused (on reaching unreached people).”
And while the IMB does not assign missionaries to North America because that is NAMB’s assignment, Rankin admitted it would be beneficial to focus on people groups worldwide without the restriction of any borders.
“People groups that we are trying to reach overseas have segments of populations here in the United States and Canada,” he said. “I think one concerted effort would be so effective, to have one board.”
As far as NAMB’s other assignments such as ministry partnerships with associations and state conventions, missions education, disaster relief, etc., Rankin said there “might be a trickle-down effect (to state conventions),” adding “that might be an understatement.”
Rankin does not necessarily favor making specific assignments to state conventions part of the actual proposal for a new global mission board, but he did acknowledge it would likely happen. “Because of the current cooperative agreements with state conventions, there would be some ramification that would have some impact there.”
Rankin added, “The reality is that the associations are going to be and do what the churches of that association choose. The same thing is true for state conventions. The state convention is going to do and be what churches in the state convention determine.”
He also noted that churches, associations and state conventions are the future of what missions, including international missions, will look like for Southern Baptists.
In fact, it is the focus he has placed on this all-encompassing style of missions that Rankin counts as his “most significant” accomplishment as IMB president.
“[It is] an intentional effort not to do missions on behalf of Southern Baptists but seeking to multiply the resources, impact the lost world, mobilize churches, get associations and state conventions to truly be partners in the task of global missions and reaching a lost world.”
The “professional, God-called missionary,” Rankin said, works “to focus on reaching an unreached world,” while churches, associations and state conventions work with overseas partnerships in the established areas.
Being able to relinquish the parts of the world where Baptist work is established and open is “literally going to explode our impact on a lost world as we channel what our churches are more equipped to do,” Rankin explained.
“Currently more than half of our missionaries are serving in restricted areas, pushing back the frontiers of lostness,” he said. “I think that is going to become a continuing primary focus.”
As IMB personnel have shared this vision with churches, many have come on board with the strategy, Rankin said, noting 7,000 to 8,000 churches are strategically involved in overseas partnerships.
“A lot of local churches are responding … (and) state conventions are helping train and equip them,” he added.
“We’ve had a lot of associations and, to varying degrees, state conventions realizing that you don’t have a healthy church reaching people where they are that doesn’t have a healthy global missions [focus].”
And when it comes to funding global missions, Rankin wants to make sure churches, associations and state conventions are appropriately focused.
“There’s absolutely nothing that our denomination does that I do not see as valid. The local church reaching the local community … the state conventions … I can’t throw stones at any of it,” he said. “But I think it is imperative that we re-examine our priority.
“It’s not what they are doing and if they are good, but the question is are we doing everything that we ought to be doing to reach every nation and language?
“If there is a disproportionate use of resources, then, yes, I think we need to examine that.”
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