  SBC entities report to messengers Written by STAFF Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2007 LifeWay to ‘build bridges’ SAN ANTONIO—Building bridges, staying focused and concentrating on what really matters are priorities LifeWay will emphasize as it seeks ways to provide Southern Baptists with meaningful and relevant resources, said Thom S. Rainer, LifeWay’s president. “It isn’t always easy to build bridges,” Rainer said during LifeWay Christian Resources’ June 12 report at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in San Antonio. “And bridges are only as strong as their effective means of support. In the same way, building effective ministry bridges requires the well-known and time-tested principles of our faith. For LifeWay, building on [the foundation of Jesus Christ] is where we begin.” Any effort to win the lost, disciple the saved and impact the culture will collapse among manmade efforts unless firmly built on the foundation of Christ, Rainer said. One of LifeWay’s initiatives that has brought focus, Rainer said, is the “Invitation” CD, a compilation of inspirational music interspersed with a gospel presentation. LifeWay has sold the CD at cost in order to make it widely available. “Through our desire to see people won to Christ, our passion for ministry to people and churches and our determination to be biblically sound and culturally relevant, LifeWay will continue to be a servant to the church, a co-laborer in the harvest and bridge builder to the lost. And our foundation is nothing less than the bedrock of Jesus Christ.” Lost world waits, Rankin tells SBC International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin told Southern Baptist messengers June 12 the stories of persecuted Christians everywhere serve as evidence of a lost world desperate to hear the gospel. “Numbers can be overwhelming,” Rankin said, noting that “1.6 billion people have not yet heard the name of Jesus. … Yet God’s desire is for all the world to know him, and he sent us with the responsibility to be his witnesses. Rankin reported that in 2006 Southern Baptist missionaries and their partners baptized more than 475,000 new believers, planted some 23,000 churches and discipled more than 500,000 Christians. Rankin also praised Southern Baptists for enabling God-called missionaries to go by giving the largest Lottie Moon Christmas Offering in history, a goal-breaking $150,178,098. “Because of your faithfulness in giving,” Rankin said, “784 new missionaries were appointed and sent out to the ends of the earth.” Ethics entity issues call for reformation Richard Land thanked messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention for approving an “encouraging increase in funding” for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, promising that the SBC entity will continue to be at the forefront in calling Southern Baptists to pray for reformation in America. During his June 12 report to the convention, Land, president of the ERLC, said the commission is the SBC entity most dependent upon CP receipts since more than 90 percent of its funding comes from the Cooperative Program. Earlier in the day the convention approved an increase in the ERLC’s share of Cooperative Program funds, from 1.49 percent to 1.65 percent of receipts sent from the states to the convention’s national and international ministries. “The Baptist Faith and Message affirms a call to involvement with the world,” Land told messengers, reminding that Christians are to be the salt of the earth and light of the world. Those who teach there is a gap between a social gospel and a personal gospel are failing to completely understand the biblical revelation, Land said. “There is only one gospel; it is a whole gospel for a whole people. We live in a society that is desperate to hear an authentic word from God, from God’s people sold out in obedience to him,” he said. GuideStone reports financial strength GuideStone Financial Resources enjoyed a banner year, O.S. Hawkins, president of the SBC entity, reported to Southern Baptist Convention June 12 in San Antonio. GuideStone Funds marked its fifth anniversary in 2006, with Hawkins noting that it has been named the fourth-largest mutual fund headquartered in Texas and the largest Christian-based socially screened registered mutual fund family in the United States. For medical plan participants, Hawkins said the transition to a single provider network reaped rewards, as more than 57 percent of Personal Plan participants received no rate increase or reduction in premiums for 2006. “We have a retention rate of 98 percent,” he said, “and we’ve had thousands of new participants over these last few years.” Hawkins emphasized the need for wellness initiatives to help contain future medical insurance costs and announced new insurance benefits for Southern Baptist seminary students, Also, Hawkins reported that effective Sept. 30 of this year, GuideStone will relinquish its Cooperative Program allocation. This decision was announced during the SBC Executive Committee’s February meeting. NAMB introduces new president The North American Mission Board thanked the messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting for the largest Annie Armstrong Easter Offering ever—$58.5 million—and its new president, Geoff Hammond. Introducing Hammond and his wife Debbie, NAMB trustee chairman Bill Curtis said NAMB’s president search committee conducted a thorough 10-month search, resulting in the unanimous election of Hammond on March 21. “This is one of the greatest privileges of my life,” Hammond said. “It’s a long way from a Southern Baptist missions hospital in Ogbomosho, Nigeria, to the North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, Ga. I’m here by God’s grace and I’m thankful to Southern Baptists for praying for me as a missionary’s kid, an IMB [International Mission Board] missionary and as a NAMB missionary.” Hammond’s presentation to the convention then focused on the NAMB’s primary objectives: “We have drawn together all of our responsibilities under three main objectives: sharing Christ, starting churches and sending missionaries with our Acts 1:8 partners.” “It will be a flexible, multifaceted approach that brings local churches, associations and state conventions together with a plan that can be customized for each mission context. The team will continue its work with a view to making this an emphasis at next year’s convention.” Hammond said starting new churches continues to be a vital part of NAMB’s strategy to evangelize the United States, Canada and the U.S. territories. “We have church planting missionaries and church planting leaders strategically located for the express purpose of church planting. We need to plant churches in people groups, population segments and geographical areas where there is a need for Bible-believing, evangelistic churches.” Hammond said NAMB studies show that when a new church is started with the intention of planting another church within the first three years, that original church grows faster. “God blesses the church that gives and we need to see a great movement in North America of churches planting churches, planting churches planting churches…” Hammond said. Seminaries report successes, challenges GOLDEN GATE Jeff Iorg, president of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, said in his June 12 report to messengers that the seminary serves as both a reminder and an extender of the national identity and diversity of Southern Baptists. “We have a distinctly West Coast, and western U.S., cultural feel—a reminder that Southern Baptists are a national denomination with a growing national identity. But you should also know that we are all, from whatever backgrounds, committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ and his kingdom.” The second important contribution Golden Gate Seminary makes to Southern Baptists, he said, is being on the forefront of developing leaders who minister effectively in the multiculturalism of American life. MIDWESTERN SEMINARY MBTS’ foundation for a strong future is in place at the seminary’s half-century Seminary President R. Philip Roberts said as he began his report to the Southern Baptist Convention June 13.
“We gladly take our stand with Southern Baptists everywhere, taking part in the greatest missionary enterprise in world history,” Roberts said. “What a thrill it is to know that we unite with five other seminaries, two large mission entities and numerous other organizations and state conventions to help carry out the Great Commission in our generation.” Roberts cited MBTS’ mission statement to biblically educate God-called men and women to be and to make disciples of Jesus Christ throughout the world. “That is our mission today, and it has been for 50 years,” he said. Roberts also mentioned Midwestern’s record-breaking 1,096 student headcount. NEW ORLEANS SEMINARY New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary president Chuck Kelley used his convention report June 12 to give testimony to God’s faithfulness and to say thank you to Southern Baptists for their help in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which left the campus flooded. The dramatic restoration of the NOBTS campus is nearing completion and serves as one of the bright spots in the city’s efforts to recover from the storm. While the total bill for the NOBTS renovation will reach $56 million, Kelley said that God has been faithful. “God has now provided $55 million, just one more million left,” Kelley said. “That’s because of the sacrificial giving of Southern Baptists.” SOUTHEASTERN SEMINARY Jesus’ Great Commission served as the focus of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary’s presentation to messengers. Akin introduced SEBTS’ new mission statement, adopted in October 2006 by the seminary’s trustees: “Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary seeks to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by equipping students to serve the Church and fulfill the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20).” Akin cited a goal of increasing enrollment to more than 3,000 by 2010. He praised SEBTS’ new doctor of education program and the soon-to-be revamped doctor of ministry program as assets to the school and catalysts for growth. SOUTHERN SEMINARY Southern Baptist Theological Seminary gladly uses the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as a guide in hiring professors butholds professors to standards that go beyond the BF&M in order to ensure their commitment to God’s truth and their compliance with the wishes of the Southern Baptist Convention, seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. said June 13 in his report to messengers. “If you’re going to hire a seminary professor, you want the one who most comprehensively embraces the truth taught by the Scripture and embraced by this denomination,” rather than “those who merely meet the most basic requirements,” Mohler said. “That means that you would expect and you should demand that the presidents of your seminaries, as they do, and the boards of your seminaries, as they do, take that responsibility seriously to inquire of anyone who would teach at our seminaries what they believe on any conceivable issue to make sure that there be no error, that there be no heresy, that there be no lurking misconceptions that would do injury to the next generation of Christian preachers.”
Mohler said he had planned to report on other items but chose to speak about the hiring of seminary professors in light of discussion at this year’s annual meeting. Messengers adopted a statement June 12 acknowledging that “the Baptist Faith and Message is not a creed, or a complete statement of our faith, nor final or infallible” and that “it is the only consensus statement of doctrinal beliefs approved by the Southern Baptist Convention and as such is sufficient in its current form to guide trustees in their establishment of policiesand practices of entities of the Convention.” Mohler, who served on the committee that revised the BF&M in 2000, said, “I promise you that we are guided by the Baptist Faith and Message as we envision any issue that comes before us, as we envision the hiring process and the establishment of policies within not only The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, but all of our seminaries.” In response to a messenger’s question, Mohler explained why seminaries need to ask questions of professors beyond the issues addressed by the BF&M. For example, though the BF&M does not address the practice of speaking in tongues, Southern Baptists want the seminary to ask whether prospective professors speak in tongues and not hire those who do, he said. Mohler also reported that enrollment in Southern’s master of divinity program, Southern’s central degree for training pastors, has achieved record levels. “The Lord has blessed what has taken place on the campus of Southern Seminary, such that we are now experiencing a record enrollment. SOUTHWESTERN SEMINARY Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson, in his June 12 report, said the seminary is honored to be one of six ships in the Southern Baptist armada of seminaries that are fighting against the tide of liberalism, neo-orthodoxy and ecumenicalism. “We are moving upriver committed to the absolute lordship of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are moving upriver committed to the inerrancy and sufficiency and the necessity of the Bible to order our faith and our practice,” Patterson said. Patterson addressed several points of criticism that have been leveled at Southwestern, one being that the seminary has become fundamentalist. “One-half true,” Patterson said. “When my automobile breaks down, I always want a fundamentalist auto mechanic, not an experimentalist one.... But our fundamentalism is a fundamentalism of commitment to the fundamentals of God’s Word and not to legalism, which will kill as sure as liberalism will.” Patterson addressed the issue concerning speaking in tongues and private prayer language. Many people have taken issue with a statement issued by seminary trustees in October 2006, which stated: “As it concerns private practices of devotion, these practices, if genuinely private, remain unknown to the general public and are, therefore, beyond the purview of Southwestern Seminary. Southwestern will not knowingly endorse in any way, advertise, or commend the conclusions of the contemporary charismatic movement including ‘private prayer language.’ Neither will Southwestern knowingly employ professors or administrators who promote such practices. Patterson said the seminary’s position follows the scriptural instruction, “Forbid not to speak in tongues.” But he emphasized that Southwestern is a Baptist seminary and there are consequences that flow from that affiliation. “We are not an institution belonging to the charismatic movement,” Patterson said. “Consequently, we have stated openly, and state it again, that we will not be the progenitor of charismatic doctrine whether it is what began in the troubled church at Corinth, or continued in Montanism, or is common in our present day.” The third criticism Patterson addressed was that Southwestern is not ecumenical. “Once again, that is a half-truth,” Patterson said. “It is absolutely the case that we can and must cooperate with other people when it comes to matters of co-belligerency on moral issues.... Furthermore, when it comes to the possibility of soulwinning and evangelism, we can show the ‘JESUS’ film with anybody who believes that salvation is by grace through faith alone. But, ladies and gentlemen, when it comes to planting churches, we plant Baptist churches. They pay the bills.” Patterson said this is nothing new for Baptists. Regardless of whether a person traces Baptist history back to England or to the Anabaptists in southern Germany and Switzerland, Patterson said Baptists have historically been separatists. SBC President Frank Page allowed Patterson extra time to field questions from messengers. Patterson responded to questions about: Southwestern Seminary’s new homemaking concentration. “It is homemaking for the sake of the church and the ministry and for the sake of our society,” Patterson said. “Folks, if we do not do something to salvage the future of the home, both our denomination and our nation will be destroyed.” How the seminary equips its students and faculty for worldwide missions. “We believe that every faculty member, first of all, ought to go somewhere to a Third World mission field at least once every four years...,” Patterson said. “By the same token, we tell every student who comes that sometime in their sojourn here, ‘You will be expected to go to a Third World mission field.’” What the seminary is doing to prepare for the unique challenges of the 21st century. “To establish the gospel of Christ in men’s hearts, it is still the greatest single mountain we have to climb. We can only climb it in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are doing everything we can through missions and evangelism, but more than that, through the entire curriculum to point everybody to understand this world, meet it head-on with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and let’s take as many as we can with us to heaven.” Whether trustees and employees of the seminary are allowed to sign the Baptist Faith and Message with written or unwritten disagreements or exceptions. “To the very best of our ability, we cover everything with a prospective faculty member long before they get down to the point of signing,” Patterson said. “Then, when it comes time for their official introduction and election, in a chapel service we bring out the desk of B.H. Carroll and put it there on the platform. We bring out the chair of B.H. Carroll and we put it there on the platform. Dr. [Craig] Blaising, our provost, stands on one side and I stand on the other side. There is before him a copy of the Baptist Faith and Message. We watch as he puts just his signature, and only his signature, on it. There are no annotations.” A transcript of Patterson’s report to the convention, along with the questions and answers, can be found on his website, www.paigepatterson.info
ISSUE: CONTENTS
Stacey Billger | TEXAN Correspondent Michelle Covington | TEXAN Correspondent Stephanie Heading | TEXAN Correspondent By Jerry Pierce Managing Editor Tammi Reed Ledbetter | News Editor Tammi Reed Ledbetter | News Editor Cari Phillips | Southern Baptist Texan TEXAN Staff Stephanie Heading | TEXAN Correspondent By TEXAN Staff Kay Adkins | TEXAN Correspondent Stephanie Heading | TEXAN Correspondent Norm Miller | TEXAN Correspondent TEXAN Staff Jerry Pierce | Managing Editor Gary Ledbetter | Editor Jim Richards | Executive Director MORE... |
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