Month: November 2009

SBTC Exec. Board elects officers, renews agreements

LUBBOCK–The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Executive Board, meeting Oct. 28 in Lubbock following the SBTC annual meeting, elected a new slate of board officers and renewed affiliation agreements with Criswell College in Dallas and Jacksonville College in Jacksonville, Texas.

The new board officers, all elected by acclamation, were: John Meador, pastor of First Baptist Church of Euless, chairman; Hal Kinkeade, pastor of First Baptist Church of Springtown, vice chairman; and Barbara Smith, member of First Baptist Church of Lindale, secretary.

Chief Financial Officer Joe Davis reported that Cooperating Program receipts through the SBTC were $18,028,596 through September, which was a .49 percent increase over the prior year but significantly less than prorated gains made in 2007 ( 14.95 percent) and 2008 ( 9.54 percent). The total CP budget for 2009 is $23,919,054.

Davis reported that giving through the SBTC toward the Annie Armstrong Offering for North American Missions was $66,686 short when prorated through nine months; Lottie Moon giving was $588,546 ahead of projections due mostly to one large gift; and Reach Texas State Missions Offering giving was $1,716 ahead through one month.

In other business, the board:

>Approved the use of 1.16 million in surplus funds to be disbursed to 14 different ministry areas, including $300,000 for the new SBTC Foundation as it grows its reserve funds; $220,000 for the SBTC Disaster Relief ministry to develop a feeding unit in the Rio Grande Valley; $125,000 for the “God’s Plan for Sharing” statewide evangelism effort; and $100,000 to the International Mission Board for missionary deployment. The $100,000 is in addition to $100,000  given throught the IMB in June to offset shortfalls in the Lottie Moon Offering form International Missions.

>Established the Ina Smith Reach Texas Endowment honoring the first gift of its kind to the SBTC Foundation from Ina Smith, who included the SBTC in her will. Thus far, the convention has received $127,000 following the probate of Smith’s estate. Rather than contributing the gift into the new endowment, the board voted to make those funds available to pay for a portion of the preparation costs of estate documents for a limited number of SBTC church members.

The convention would cover costs of preparation of estate documents for SBTC church members who bequeath gifts to the local church and to either the Ina Smith Reach Texas Endowment or the SBTC.

“By making these funds available in this way we believe that Ms. Smith’s gift will multiply into millions of dollars for kingdom work,” the board motion read.

CRISWELL & JACKSONVILLE

The affiliation agreement with Criswell College provides the equivalent dollar amount of 3.25 percent of undesignated CP receipts given through the SBTC with a review of the agreement due before Dec. 31, 2010. Criswell is amid changes in its ownership, moving from operating as a ministry of First Baptist Church of Dallas to independent status.

Under the agreement with Jacksonville College, an associate degree-granting school owned by the Baptist Missionary Association of Texas, the school will receive the equivalent dollar amount of .75 percent of undesignated SBTC CP receipts.

HYMN SINGING

The night before the meeting, board members witnessed a closing convention session with an evangelistic outreach that drew more than 500 people to make salvation decisions with SBC President Johnny Hunt preaching in the Civic Center theater and Team Impact performing and preaching in the exhibit hall.

After hearing a report on the evangelistic event from the SBTC staff, board member Steve Cochran of Longview led the board in a prayer of thanksgiving for the souls saved and in singing the hymn “To God Be the Glory.”

RECOGNITION

The board also honored with Scripture plaques two outgoing board members, Ron Garcia of Pecos, who served from 2000-09, and Andy Jackson of Malakoff, who served from 2003-09. They also honored outgoing board chairman Dale Perry of Tyler.

Our best meeting yet

It’s time to use superlatives; the 2009 SBTC annual meeting was the best of the 10 I’ve attended. I missed the first two and might be inclined to discount the first one because of the unique nature of an inaugural meeting. All that aside, I’ve never been to a more upbeat, enthusiastic Baptist meeting. Even the mood of folks clustered in the hallways was exuberant. In one sense it was puzzling. The occasion was not as unique as last year’s 10-year anniversary celebration. It wasn’t the largest meeting we’ve had, though our attendance was well within the average range for our meetings.

It wasn’t until we saw hundreds of people Tuesday night walking down the hall toward the decision counseling room that it became clear. The atmosphere, the unity, the harmony, and the harvest signaled a movement of the Lord during our convention meeting. Something was in the air. Something was in our hearts.

I know several editors will say something similar about their own meeting this year. They’ll be sincere and I’d be happy for them to be right about an unusual blessing of God on their meeting. I’ve come back from our own meetings happy and grateful for what went on. I truly think this is different, though. Consider a few happy aspects of our meeting.

We didn’t have a fight. Some conventions will either have an open disagreement or use the bully pulpit to brush aside disagreement during these important two days. Some messengers will go home believing that they were abused by the majority or chair. Except for one amendment to a resolution related to the Cooperative Program, we had no closely contested question. And that one wasn’t the cause of hard feelings. I saw state staff members vote on both sides of that question. Both sides were trying to say, “We’re fans of CP and this is a good way to express it.” Those who lost the vote moved on and enjoyed the rest of the day. Some conventions will address or ignore significant fellowship questions within their bodies. We didn’t have such a question before us.

We didn’t cut our budget. I don’t brag about the mercy and provision of God. It’s not something we can earn or arrange. The fact is, some of our sister conventions have been roughly handled by the economy. Some have cut staff positions; some have reduced their budget plans by double digits for consecutive years. An awareness of God’s provision for our cooperative work in Texas buoyed the spirits of messengers and convention workers alike. Our financial report was neither dull nor discouraging?quite the opposite.

We didn’t come to a fork in the road. Some conventions are being driven by financial hardships or multiple visions for the future to reconsider the future of the work of their state conventions. Our convention has moved pretty successfully from rapid growth in ministries to constant reconsideration of how we’re organized for ministry. I don’t think a single annual meeting has passed without noting new ministries, reorganized ministries, or reconfigured resources. It may be a blessing of being only 11 years old but it lends a constant aspect of freshness to what happens within our fellowship.

We didn’t just talk about evangelism. Our own state version of Crossover has been a good idea. It has encouraged some churches and each year presents the gospel to someone who’s not heard it before. Like the SBC’s Crossover event, ours varies from place to place depending on the churches and associations that partner with us. This year was unique. It was a different kind of event. Working with Lubbock area churches, our evangelism staff hit the sweet spot with the Team Impact and Johnny Hunt evangelism rallies Tuesday night. The preparation and choice of evangelists drew thousands of people to the civic center during the last session of a business meeting of conservative Baptists. There are a lot of unexpected blessings in that fact. Those scores of our messengers who prayed with the hundreds who responded to the gospel invitation were jubilant to be so used of God. That kind of experience will bring unity and excitement to a Baptist meeting.

This blessing was, I think, based on earlier ones. Our 2009 meeting was the 12th story of a foundation that was laid in 1998. God gave the increase this year by his provision of people and resources in previous years.

Our unity is based largely on the fact that we are a confessional fellowship. We don’t have widely divergent views of biblical authority, local church practice, or our relationship with other Southern Baptists, because the essential aspects of those questions are answered in the statement of faith affiliated churches affirm. Churches also make a commitment to cooperative missions when they decide to be part of our convention. That question is settled from the start. I still believe that other state conventions, our national SBC for that matter, would benefit greatly from making their fellowships confessional in nature. Until that happens, they’ll be divided from time to time regarding things about which Southern Baptists broadly agree.

Our financial stability is greatly aided by the convention’s early commitment to adopt only those ministries requested by affiliated churches. This decision allows us to keep our staff numbers, thus our administrative costs, smaller relative to conventions of comparable size. Some of our insulation from the fi

Glory to God for souls saved, lives touched

“To God be the glory, great things He has done!” was sung by the SBTC Executive Board when the Crossover report was given during our meeting on Oct. 28. Over 500 people prayed to receive Christ on Tuesday night, Oct. 27 at a special outreach session of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention annual meeting. These precious souls filled out decision cards, allowing them to be discipled by local churches. God’s grace was on display. God used many to make this possible. Southern Baptist churches in the Lubbock area, messengers and guests from all over Texas, the SBTC staff and thousands who were not present but prayed, were the human instruments.

I sensed the presence of the Spirit of God even before my plane landed. Throughout the entire time, a spirit of anticipation was in the air. The small amount of business was conducted in a Christ-honoring way. Great preaching, inspiring singing and heart-touching testimonies were abundant. Attendance was phenomenal.

I simply say, “Thank you.” Thank you to the Lord. Thank you to His fine people who serve Him. May God continue to smile upon the SBTC.

First Person: Getting over our love for Darwin

Charles Darwin published his “Origin of Species” in 1859. There he presented the classic formulation of his theory of evolution. Lady Ashley, reacting to the theory at the time, remarked, “Let’s hope that it’s not true; but if it is true, let’s hope that it doesn’t become widely known.” Lady Ashley’s second hope has failed: Darwin’s theory is everywhere and has now become textbook orthodoxy. This year, universities around the globe are celebrating the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s “Origin of Species” as well as the 200th anniversary of his birth.

But what about Lady Ashley’s hope that Darwin’s theory is false? Darwin presented a bleak picture of ourselves: we are mere modified apes; we are the “winners” in a brutal competitive evolutionary process, most of whose players are “losers,” wiped off the evolutionary scene before they could leave a legacy; the traditional Christian view that we are made in God’s image is simply a story we tell to convince ourselves that we’re special.

Intelligent design supporters like me view Darwin’s theory as untrue and even as laughable: The theory purports to give a materialistic account of life’s development once life is already here, but it has a gaping hole at the start since matter gives no evidence of being able to organize itself from non-life into life. The fossil record, especially the sudden emergence of most animal body plans in the Cambrian explosion, sharply violates Darwinian expectations about the historical pattern of evolutionary change. The nano-engineering found in the DNA, RNA, and proteins of the cell far exceeds human engineering and remains completely unexplained in Darwinian terms.

Darwin lovers are quick to reject such complaints. After all, as novelist Barbara Kingsolver declares, Darwin’s idea of natural selection is “the greatest, simplest, most elegant logical construct ever to dawn across our curiosity about the workings of natural life. It is inarguable, and it explains everything.” Kingsolver is no fan of Christianity. Yet many Darwin lovers are Christian. Francis Collins, who directs the National Institutes of Health, is a Christian Darwinist. Leaving aside a healthy skepticism that regards every scientific theory as refutable in light of new evidence, Collins exempts Darwinian evolution from such skepticism: “evolution, as a mechanism, can be and must be true.”

Any theory that explains everything and that can and must be true is either the greatest thing since sliced bread or the greatest swindle ever foisted on gullible intellectuals. The intelligent design community takes the latter view, siding here with Malcolm Muggeridge, who wrote: “I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has.”

Still, it’s easy to understand why so flimsily a supported theory garners such vast support. It provides the creation story for an atheistic worldview. If atheism is true, then something like Darwinian evolution must follow. Hence, any attack on Darwin becomes an attack on the atheistic secularism that pervades our culture.

Nonetheless, even though atheism implies Darwinism, the reverse is not true: Darwinism does not imply atheism. Indeed, Christian theists who embrace Darwin abound.

The wedding between Darwinism and Christianity, however, is an uneasy one. To be sure, plenty of marriages are uneasy, and uneasy marriages are often endured because divorce can entail more difficulties than endurance. Thus, when I got involved with the evolution controversy 20 years ago, I naively thought that any Christian, given sufficient evidence against Darwinism, would immediately jump ship. Darwinian evolution, according to Cornell historian of biology Will Provine, is “the greatest engine of atheism ever invented.” Why should Christians stick with such an engine when it’s no longer needed?

Little did I realize how infatuated many Christians are with Darwin. Having convinced themselves that design is an outdated religious dogma, they embraced Darwinism as a form of enlightenment. And having accommodated their faith to Darwin, they became loath to reexamine whether Darwinism is true at all. Unlike Lady Ashley, Christian Darwinists hope that Darwinism is true. But is it really? In this year of Darwinian bacchanalias, let us soberly reassess whether Darwin’s theory is indeed true. And if the evidence goes against it, as the intelligent design community is successfully demonstrating, then let’s be done with it. In that case, reconciling Christianity with Darwinism becomes a vain exercise, solving a problem that no longer exists.

?William A. Dembski is research professor in philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of prominent books in the field of intelligent design, including his latest, “The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence in Biological Systems,” written with biologist Jonathan Wells.