Editor’s note: The following report is a compilation of news articles produced by the Florida Baptist Witness, newsjournal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, and the Biblical Recorder, newsjournal of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. The articles were based on separate interviews with SBC president Johnny Hunt.
The strongly worded 10-point declaration, “Toward a Great Commission Resurgence,” released April 27, was a needed “shock” for an unhealthy Southern Baptist Convention, according to SBC president Johnny Hunt.
Johnny HuntThe document has been signed by 2,500 individuals, including 100 from South Carolina. Hunt said he expects to be asked to appoint a task force to study the declaration’s recommendations at the upcoming SBC annual meeting in Louisville.
The declaration initially asserted that the denominational structure was “bloated and bureaucratic,” but after strong reaction from some denominational leaders, the controversial Article IX, “A Commitment to More Effective Convention Structure,” was softened – while still calling for a streamlining of the structure. The entire declaration was re-released the following day, April 28.
“It was a little more coarse than my heart normally presents,” said Hunt, “but I think it had a good effect. And I would say that, in this sense, it shocked the system. We needed a shock. We’re not breathing healthy.”
Hunt said that the 10 commitments called for in the Great Commission Resurgence document reflect “what we hear from grassroots pastors and grassroots leaders of local churches across America,” and are not just his feelings and those of its primary author, Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Seminary.
The GCR effort is not his agenda but reflects a growing movement among Southern Baptist pastors and lay people – and especially among younger pastors with limited loyalty to the denomination – who are concerned about the SBC, Hunt said.
Hunt said he hopes the GCR effort would actually result in greater support of the Cooperative Program, rather than less, as some critics have suggested.
“I say this as a local church pastor: My people need to know more about what we’re doing with the funds and making sure we’re being the best stewards” of money given to CP, Hunt said.
“I would like to see churches give more money than ever before. But as it gives it, I would like to see bureaucracy ceasing to grow so much larger,” Hunt said, describing a future scenario in which a state convention would determine that it has enough funds to do its ministry and can give more to national and international missions causes.
“I hope it would come to the point they say, ‘You know what, we don’t need to grow the bureaucracy any larger. Let’s just send that money on.’ I’d like to see that happen in a greater amount,” Hunt said, acknowledging there may be some state conventions that need the assistance of other state conventions.
Hunt’s church, First Baptist, Woodstock, Ga., gives millions to missions and has started numerous other churches, but he received criticism last year when running for the SBC presidency regarding Woodstock’s giving just 2.2 percent of its undesignated funds for missions through the Cooperative Program.
Ten percent has become an implied leadership standard, even as average church gifts have sunk to just over 5 percent. In the 30 years since the “conservative resurgence” launched, the churches of only four SBC presidents have given as much as 10 percent, a fact that a committee commissioned by the SBC Executive Committee said contributed to the decline of CP giving overall. Executive Committee president Morris Chapman’s church, First Baptist in Wichita Falls, Tex., was one of the 10 percent givers when he was SBC president in 1991-92.
“I feel sometimes – that bureaucracy is speaking down to church and holding us accountable, such as, ‘Here’s what Johnny Hunt gives through the Cooperative Program. Question mark. Would we want someone to lead who has no greater commitment to CP?’
“There we have speaking down to the pastor. Now this is an opportunity for us to speak back up to the state and ask, ‘What is fair?’
“Should it be the church holding the denomination accountable – or should they be holding us accountable?” Hunt asked. “If the church is king, anyone else that speaks to us is a prince speaking to the king.”
Asked about several high-profile SBC leaders who have not endorsed GCR, Hunt said he met with Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Seminary and a former SBC president, and had a 40-minute telephone conversation with Morris Chapman, SBC Executive Committee president.
Patterson, Hunt said, thought the declaration was a “great document, but I leave it to his conscience as to whether he would publicly sign it.”
Although Hunt and Chapman had a “very commendable time of sharing,” Hunt said they saw the matter differently, perhaps because “he’s sitting as an executive director and I’m out there with the pastors every week,” adding that Chapman is “certainly – with pastors a lot, too.”
Hunt said a motion will be offered at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Louisville in June, directing him to appoint a task force to study the GCR declaration and bring a report and recommendations to the 2010 annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.
Expecting the task force likely will be comprised of 12 persons, Hunt said although he is not ready to name specific persons he would appoint to the “very fair committee,” the types of people he anticipates naming would include leading pastors, a state convention executive director, a seminary president and a college president – without speaking exhaustively of the potential makeup of the group.
Hunt also confirmed that he will be nominated for re-election as SBC president in Louisville. Ken Whitten, pastor of Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz, will nominate him, Hunt said.
Hunt said he hopes the annual meeting in Louisville will focus more on the denomination and what it can do to get healthy, rather than focus on national issues, like policies being pursued by President Barack Obama.
While the “Baptist family” is apt to want to address policies Obama is “instigating” that give many Christians “heartburn,” Hunt said just as he has avoided taking public stands on national public policy issues in order to focus on the needs of the SBC, “I wish we would spend more time focusing on our health.”
Hunt said the annual meeting focus should be on how to turn around the denomination, which he said begins with the pulpits.
“There is no evangelistic church without an evangelistic pastor. There is no missions-minded church without a missions-minded pastor. There is no generous church without a generous pastor,” he said.
“I really believe it’s more of a real work of God in the life of us pastors” that is most needed in SBC life, he said, rather than focusing on denominational entities and executives.