There is evidence of mounting concern among Southern Baptists over the direction the Southern Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Resurgence Task Force is taking.
Don KirklandFor example, Missouri Baptists are recommending that the report of the task force be given at the Orlando meeting of the SBC in June, but that action on it be delayed for a year. Missouri wants time to determine the GCR’s impact on state ministry.
In South Carolina, North Greenville University is voicing its own misgivings about the GCR.
At its April 15 meeting, NGU’s board of trustees authorized letters to be sent to key SBC and SCBC leaders, but primarily to Ronnie Floyd, chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention’s GCR task force, and to Jim Austin, executive director-treasurer of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.
The board’s action and the reasons behind it are a Page One story in this edition of The Baptist Courier.
This Courier issue also is carrying a personal perspective by North Greenville’s president, Jimmy Epting. It is entitled “What All South Carolina Baptists Should Know About Our Convention Funds.”
The article is long, but it also is important. It is well worth your investment of time.
The two letters authorized by North Greenville’s board are not identical. There are common concerns in both, however. The letters are linked by objections to the plan called “Great Commission Giving.” It is feared that GCG will weaken loyalty to the Cooperative Program. GCG praises the pick-and-choose practice of designated giving, a reality in Southern Baptist life. Of concern to many is the threat this poses to those ministries not picked and chosen.
“Your proposals,” the letter to Floyd says, “will greatly handicap the work of the Southern Baptist Convention, the South Carolina Baptist Convention, North Greenville University and other state ministries.”
The letter to Austin includes a local concern, also about money. It recommends that the convention use any budget surplus to restore the SCBC budget to $34 million (it is $32 million now), and “return at least the 6 percent decrease for all South Carolina Baptist Convention ministries.”
This action by North Greenville’s trustees is a bold stroke taken at a time when no Baptist institution or its president wants the charge of “self-serving” hurled at them.
Any such condemnation of North Greenville University and its president would be unfair and without any basis in fact.
The presidency of Jimmy Epting at North Greenville University has been played out before an admiring and appreciative audience of South Carolina Baptists.
If Epting ever was daunted by the challenge before him when he took the helm of a struggling and nearly dead institution, he was bolstered by a faith that God had work to do through both him and the school that he hoped would be restored to new life, to continued service.
He heard the same cries that others of us heard that North Greenville needed to close its doors. “Let’s at least give the school a decent burial,” one alumnus of the school told me at the time.
Epting carried his hopes and concerns to South Carolina Baptists. He went from association to association, from Baptist church to Baptist church with a message that revealed how dependent he was, and is, on his Lord and the Baptists. “Folks,” I heard him tell many audiences then, “there are months when we’re not sure we can even make the payroll at North Greenville. We need your prayers – and we also need for you to send us your students.”
These days, North Greenville and the other Baptist universities – Anderson and Charleston Southern – are flourishing. Each is accomplishing for the cause of Christ what was intended from the start and what South Carolina Baptists expect of them now.
Jimmy Epting will quickly brush aside any praise offered to him for the success of North Greenville University.
For his genuineness and leadership, Jimmy Epting has endeared himself to the denomination he serves. His heart beats for God, for North Greenville, for the ministries of Southern Baptists. He is unmatched in his evangelistic zeal. No one has more concern for the lost of this world. And no one is more convinced of this: As Southern Baptists rightly renew their commitment to accomplishing the Great Commission, of reaching Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth with the gospel message, we must not overlook or undervalue the fertile fields of Jerusalem.
Jimmy Epting has earned the respect and admiration of South Carolina Baptists. And he has earned the right to be heard.