Editor’s note: After this story was written, members of the South Carolina GCR task force established a Facebook group page to “inform S.C. Baptists about our report and to encourage discussion concerning the issues at hand.” The initial stream of comments at the SCBC GCR Forum centered around the question of whether SCBC-affiliated universities should be allowed to seat trustees from outside South Carolina, as proposed in recommendation 9 of the GCR report. The forum is open to any South Carolina Baptist with a Facebook account.
A week and a half after its Aug. 1 release, the report of the South Carolina Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Resurgence Task Force had generated modest feedback at its official web page.
Likewise, discussion of the report’s recommendations via other online media – including blogs, Twitter and Facebook – was light. The Baptist Courier received two letters in support of the report.
At the GCR report’s web page (http://www.scbaptist.org/gcr-report), readers were encouraged to submit both comments and questions, and task force chairman Ralph Carter responded online to the questions.
As of Aug. 11, two readers had posted comments praising the recommendations proffered in the report, and three readers questioned some of the report’s proposals, including one that would allow SCBC ministry partners – the three Baptist universities, in particular – to seek trustees from outside South Carolina.
At the heart of the GCR report are recommendations that, if adopted by SCBC messengers in November, would increase South Carolina Baptists’ contribution to the International Mission Board by nearly 22 percent over the next three years and move the SCBC toward a true 50/50 split of Cooperative Program receipts with the Southern Baptist Convention over the next five years.
To pay for the initiatives, the report calls for cuts to the SCBC’s seven ministry partners (Anderson University, The Baptist Courier, Charleston Southern University, Connie Maxwell Children’s Home, North Greenville University, South Carolina Baptist Foundation, and South Carolina Baptist Ministries for the Aging) and recommends that pastors encourage their churches to increase CP giving (see related story).
At the GCR report’s web page, one reader commented: “There is nothing in this report I cannot wholeheartedly endorse. The obvious trade-off between funding and trustee selection for the [ministry partners] was extremely fair, while at the same time retaining veto powers for the convention. The most exciting part of this report for me is the increase of funding going toward international missions. We are making what I believe to be proper course corrections for the future.”
Another reader expressed concern over recommendation 9 in the report, which calls for allowing the SCBC’s ministry partners to have as many as five of their 25 trustees from out of state. “This could be a deal-breaker,” the reader posted. “If we are South Carolina Baptists and our money is coming from South Carolina Baptist churches, then we should have only South Carolina Baptists on these boards.”
Carter posted a reply, focusing on the three SCBC-affiliated universities and noting that they would receive cuts ranging from $130,000 to $170,000 under the GCR report’s proposals and that trustees “bear a moral responsibility – to assist the universities financially as much as possible.”
“Limiting our institutions to finding trustees who can be of great financial assistance within the state of South Carolina does narrow the field considerably,” Carter said. “By being able to look to neighboring states it opens the door to find untapped resources – evangelical Christian businessmen and women who have a heart for Christian education as well as graduates of our institutions who live outside South Carolina.
“If these are men and women who love God, are conservative theologically, members in good standing of a cooperating Southern Baptist church, why would we not welcome their help? We work with other states to do missions on a national and global level, why not employ their help in educating our students?”
Another reader described America as the “third most lost nation in the world” and said that 80 percent of churches in South Carolina are either declining or maintaining the status quo. “Would it not be better,” the reader asked, “to try with a greater amount of effort and money to reach the millions of lost people here than to increase our resources to other areas before we reach our own people for Christ?”
Carter responded by noting that South Carolina Baptist churches last year received $500 million in undesignated offerings. Of that amount, he said, $29 million was forwarded to the SCBC, and $6 million was spent outside North America. He said that for each dollar SCBC churches in South Carolina spend to reach a world of 7 billion people, they spend $81.30 to reach a state of 4.5 million people.
“While a person in South Carolina can live and die and never receive the gospel,” Carter said, “he can’t perish without passing literally hundreds, if not thousands, of churches in his lifetime. He will have ignored billboards, personal invitations to attend a variety of church activities and, hopefully, at some point, someone will have even shared with him on a personal basis the gospel of Christ.
“But here is the staggering difference: About half the known people groups of our world have never even once heard the gospel. Additionally, the world seems hungry and receptive to the gospel in many places while we all recognize that many in our home state are gospel-hardened.
“We need revival in South Carolina, just like every other state in our nation,” Carter said, “but money is not the answer to our crisis. For the most part, our churches, while feeling a huge crunch at the moment due to our economy, have ample resources. Our greater need is to witness a movement of God. I believe if we will demonstrate a renewed sense of urgency for the lost of our world, it will move the heart of God.”
Carter told the Courier he recently met with associational directors of missions from across the state and “received a very favorable response” to the GCR report. “They were complimentary of the committee, its report and the spirit of the report,” Carter said. “Several voiced the fact that they thought it would bring healing over an issue that has divided us for the last few years.”