reflections on the kansas city imb meeting

I am a little late on my post this week due to my trip to the IMB meeting in Kansas City. I want to give you my impressions. I know that there will be a great deal of discussion regarding the latest actions of our board regarding a change in the wording of the controversial policies passed in November 2005. You can read the new wording and the rationale here.

Positives:

1. The Spirit of the board continues to be very good. Even those of us who have been in the minority on these highly volatile policy issues are treated with great respect and kindness. The meetings have been a model of how Baptists can disagree and continue to walk together as brothers.

2. The missionaries. I am continually amazed at the quality of the missionaries we are sending on the field. This trip I had the privilege of approving some new missionary candidates who are related to one of our church members! They have a very exciting assignment in a remote part of the world in a place where the gospel has not yet penetrated. How exciting it was to get to know them and to tell them how our church would continue to hold them up in prayer. Our team heard some incredible stories of how the gospel is reaching the nations in unprecedented ways. I am in awe of how God is using these incredible men and women around the world.

3. I am very pleased that the "policies" have been downgraded to "guidelines". A guideline denotes more flexibility and wiggle room. Of course, I would rather we not have what I consider to be a non- biblical guideline in place, but at least we are not in the untenable position of having it as dogma.

3. The rewording of the baptism guideline does two things that I consider steps in the right direction. One, it states that a person should be baptized "under the authority" of their local church, as opposed to being baptized "in" a local church. The implication of the old policy was that a person should be baptized in a church building in order for that baptism to be valid. Though the guideline is still somewhat landmarkist in my opinion, it has improved with that clarification.

4. An amendment was made to the baptism guideline stating that the candidate who fails to meet the requirements of the guildeline is to go back to the local church and ask that body to help rectify it. The board made this change in recognition of the complaint that this policy was an assault on the autonomy of the local church. It is good of the board to be sensitive to this complaint.

5. There seems to be a growing number of trustees who have recognized the potential damage that has been done as a result of the policies. These changes are a step in the right direction. I hear regularly from missionaries, staff and IMB leadership of how what they believe to be narrow policies have affected everything from recruitment to morale. The board must respond to this in tangible ways. I believe we are beginning to do that.

What I Wish was Different:

I realize I am walking a fine line here in attempting to not violate trustee policy regarding criticism of board policy decisions. The following observations are not about policy decisons per se, but rather unresolved issues that I am hopeful will change.

1. It is incomprehensible to me that Wade Burleson is not allowed to serve on committees. I know that he is controversial, opinionated and confrontive, but since when have we as Southern Baptists disqualified people for those reasons? The SBC would not exist if this had been our history. You may not like him, but the guy does his homework, has passion for the work of the board and many many Southern Baptist's agree with his sentiments. The continued sequestering of Burleson only makes us look bad. What it says to Southern Baptists is that if we don't like the opinions of a particular trustee, we just won't let him serve. It says that we value conformity over diversity. It says that we don't have the maturity to accept differing opinions. It says that we don't like people who broadcast their views in public to serve on the board. It says that we don't value openness. For all the seemingly good reasons to continue to punish Burleson (and there may be some who believe they have very good reasons), they are greatly outweighed by the negatives.

2. It is my understanding that our regional leadership of the IMB, those who are leaders of the different regions across the world, were prepared to give a report to the board of their perspective on the affects of the new policies to missionaries on the field and candidates coming into their regions. The chairman would not allow that report. If this is true, it is difficult for me to understand why we as a board are not allowed this critical information. It is not that we don't have the time or don't have the interest. I have heard various rumors regarding the severe loss of missionary candidates as a result of the new policies, I would like to have objective information and numbers. Our decisions are not complete without it. It only makes people suspicious when information is suppressed or at least seemingly suppressed. We are all big men and women on the board who are fully capable of comprehending whatever report our staff and regional leadership wants to give us. In fact, we have a mandate from our convention as trustees to make good decisions with good information. The chairman may have a good reason for not allowing it or ruling it out of order, I am only saying that it gives the appearance of suppression of information and that is not a good impression. Despite what some may think, perception of the truth matters as much or even more than the truth itself.

Bottom Line: It was a Great Meeting

Despite these two things that I would have changed, it really was a very good meeting. I applaud chairman Floyd's good spirit and the way he conducts our meetings. They are always filled with prayer and praise and a loving spirit. His good leadership has brought our board together and I believe great progress is being made. Our Lottie Moon Mission offering last year was the biggest ever! There are many reasons for us to be exceedingly optimistic about the future of world missions and for us to be excited about the work of Southern Baptists around the world. The SBC is one of the only denominational entities left that is doing evangelical missions around the world. And we are doing it better than anyone else.

If you are one of those missionary candidates who is considering leaving the SBC for another mission organization, I would say that despite our seeming dysfunction, God is continuing to bless in amazing ways. I will tell you what my dad used to tell his congregation while I was growing up, "If you ever find the perfect church, don't join it- because the minute you join it, it won't be perfect anymore!"

God continues to use broken vessels. He continues to get the glory in spite of our occasional missteps. His work in the IMB continues in a great way.