To understand the “Baptist-speak” at the recent annual meeting of the Alabama Baptist State Convention (ABSC), one had to be gifted in understanding acrostics. There was a lot of talk about GPS, about NAMB, about CP and SBC. There were speakers from IMB and SBOM. But one topic — GCR — was not mentioned at all.
GPS was part of the theme for the 187th annual meeting of Alabama Baptists — The Great Commission … GPS. The acrostic stands for God’s Plan for Sharing and was a major focus in every session of the annual meeting. GPS is a national program of evangelism developed primarily by state evangelism directors with coordination by NAMB (North American Mission Board). Alabama Baptists will be involved in GPS for the next 10 years, with a special kick-off happening during the upcoming Easter season as churches band together to share the gospel across the state.
GPS involves prayer walking a community and praying for every household in that area. That is followed by distributing an invitation to an Easter church service to all the households in the area that was prayer walked. Then on Easter, pastors are encouraged to preach an evangelistic sermon and issue an evangelistic invitation.
IMB (International Mission Board) President Jerry Rankin cautioned that simply doing the four steps of GPS — praying, engaging, sowing and harvesting — will not result in effective evangelism (see story, page 4). He told messengers that unless their sharing is motivated by internal compulsion based on love of God and love of others, GPS will be a flop.
Alabama Baptists are on track for GPS to be anything but a flop. Evangelism director Sammy Gilbreath said Alabama Baptists have already committed to reach more than twice the number of homes originally anticipated. And that number continues to climb. Alabama Baptists care about lost people in our state and around the world.
That care for people was highlighted by Rankin at the beginning of his sermon on Tuesday morning. Addressing Executive Director Rick Lance, Rankin said if other Baptist state conventions followed Alabama’s example, there would not have been a need to freeze missionary appointments earlier this year.
As earlier reported, Alabama Baptists led the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) in missions support through CP (Cooperative Program). Alabama gave the largest number of dollars through the CP for the 2008–2009 SBC fiscal year. Alabama was again No. 1 when CP giving was combined with receipts through the LMCO (Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions) and the AAEO (Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions).
Alabama Baptists provided slightly more than one out of every 10 CP dollars given to SBC causes through the CP for the last year. Alabama Baptist churches give almost 2 percent more through the CP than the average SBC church, messengers were told.
All of this is reason to praise God and Alabama Baptist messengers to the annual meeting did just that. Though several references were made to the accomplishment, at no time did messengers pat themselves on the back. Rather messengers offered praise to God as illustrated in a resolution adopted that noted the achievement. The messengers resolved to “praise God for the progress that the churches of the state convention made during the past years of Cooperative Program giving.”
Although the economy is taking a toll on Alabama Baptists, messengers stayed true to their commitment of missions support through CP. Receipts to date indicate Alabama Baptists will miss their CP budget goal by about 3 percent. Still messengers kept the same division between major areas with SBC causes receiving the largest percentage in the budget — 42.5 percent (see story, page 5). IMB receives 50 percent of the SBC total.
Rankin’s reference to freezing missionary appointments was as close as any speaker came to referencing the GCR (Great Commission Resurgence) Task Force at the meeting. (Rankin did address the issue with the state’s directors of missions at a pre-convention meeting — see story, page 12 — but SBC President Johnny Hunt made no mention of the topic during his address during the Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference — see story, page 13).
GCR has been a major issue among Baptists since May of this year and especially since Hunt appointed the GCR Task Force to study how Baptists can work together to better fulfill the Great Commission. A major concern has been getting more dollars to “the frontiers of lostness” though IMB.
Some have accused state conventions of being “bloated,” “inefficient” and “bureaucratic.” Others have said if state conventions did not give more money to the SBC which channels funds to IMB, some major churches would find another way of doing missions other than the CP.
Messengers to this convention roundly rejected that appraisal of the ABSC. Through resolution, they declared their CP dollars “are managed prudently, and allocated consistently with our vision for comprehensively and simultaneously reaching our state, nation and the world.”
Another resolution also noted the SBOM (State Board of Missions) had reduced its staff by 20 percent in the past decade to pay the increased cost of operation (medical, travel, pastoral support, etc.) rather than to decrease support for SBC causes.
In a veiled reference to the GCR Task Force, former Alabama Baptist SBOM Executive Director Troy Morrison told convention messengers, “I’ve always said if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”
Alabama Baptists are a great example that the way Southern Baptists have worked together through the years is a system that works. The system does not need to be fixed. It needs more participation.
Of all the votes taken at the annual meeting, the only negative vote cast was someone who did not like the proposed site of the 2014 annual meeting. That says something about the unity and harmony among Alabama Baptists.
Registration of 892 messengers from 417 churches was down from 2008 when 969 messengers from 441 churches registered in Montgomery. The difference may be location. Historically annual meetings in Mobile and Huntsville have not garnered as much participation as meetings in the central part of the state — Montgomery and Birmingham. This is the third consecutive year that fewer than 1,000 messengers registered for the annual meeting. One has to go back into the 1940s to find such attendance patterns. It would be interesting to know the reasons behind this attendance trend since it seems to be happening in most state Baptist conventions as well as in the SBC.
The bottom line is that messengers left Huntsville talking about how to bring people to faith in Jesus Christ through GPS. They were not talking about how to rearrange convention structure through GCR. Anytime an annual meeting encourages us in the work of reaching the world for Christ it is a good convention. This one certainly was.
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