North American Mission Board president Kevin Ezell has explained the board’s initiatives in church planting and evangelism in March 6 and April 9 video conferences with directors of missions and church-planting catalysts.
In a live webcast April 9, North American Mission Board president Kevin Ezell (left) addressed directors of missions and church planter catalyst missionaries. Ezell answered questions during a dialog moderated by NAMB communications group vice president Mike Ebert.In the March 6 video, Ezell largely focused on NAMB strategy for increasing the birthrate of Southern Baptist churches, redeploying missionaries and shifting the board’s budget.
The Ezell videos come at a time when several state convention leaders have expressed concerns with NAMB’s direction. Other leaders, meanwhile, have voiced support for the mission board’s strategy.
“Our mission is to penetrate lostness. We feel like the stronger churches are in North America, the stronger our overall mission will be throughout the world,” Ezell said in the March 6 video conference.
NAMB’s goal is 5,000 additional Southern Baptist congregations in the next 10 years, Ezell said. To do that, the convention must increase its birthrate and decrease its death rate for churches.
By 1900, the Southern Baptist Convention had one church for every 3,800 people in North America, Ezell said. In 2010, the ratio was one church for every 6,100 people.
“We’re losing ground. In the last 10 years, in the Southern Baptist Convention, we have averaged losing 880 churches a year,” Ezell said. “Obviously we have to plant 880 just to break even, and we’ve not been doing that.”
Missiologists recommend one church for every 1,000 to 2,000 people, Ezell said, and some state conventions in the South are achieving that goal. Mississippi has one Southern Baptist church for every 1,375 people, for example, but in New Jersey it is one for every 76,384 people. “That’s why we’re focusing on church planting,” Ezell said.
One strategy NAMB hopes to employ is for 10 churches from each association to plant two churches a year for the next decade, and another is to have one church-planting catalyst for every 1 million people in new-work regions.
“Part of our problem has been our missionaries were not appropriately distributed across North America,” Ezell said. “We have 3.5 million people in Connecticut and do not have a full-time church-planting catalyst there – then we have other state conventions that might have 5 million people and they have 23 missionaries. There was no rhyme or reason about how these were strategically located.
“So we’re trying to go back and strategically place them throughout North America – they’ll be located in areas with the highest population, and we’re encouraging them to shoot for a goal of four new churches every year,” Ezell said.
Regarding the board’s budget, Ezell said, “We have regionalized. We have downsized our staff in Alpharetta by well over 100 people, and every dime of the money that we have either transitioned out of a state budget or out of our budget here in Alpharetta is going to those regions, going to church-planter missionaries and church plants.”
NAMB’s goal is to devote half its budget to church planting, and currently 42 or 43 percent of the budget goes to those efforts, Ezell said.
Concerns expressed
In January, leaders of the California Southern Baptist Convention distributed a report detailing how changes at NAMB will impact their work. The report contained seven specific concerns stemming from NAMB acting “unilaterally,” and most of the concerns were about funding. Also included in the report were NAMB’s responses to the concerns.
“CSBC is now functioning in an unknown relationship with NAMB that, in many ways, has abandoned cooperation,” the report said at the outset. “The current relationship with NAMB is now a top-down decision-making relationship where NAMB dictates its mandates, strategy and financial support outside a formal, cooperative understanding of relationship.”
The California convention report noted concern that NAMB’s decision to move more resources to church planting will adversely impact many effective ministries in the state, primarily by eliminating ministry positions.
NAMB, in response, said executive directors in various state conventions agreed to draft a new customizable outline for relationships between NAMB and state conventions. That new template is still being formulated, NAMB said.
Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, told board members in February that NAMB’s emphasis on church planting inhibits its partnership with Alabama Baptists.
NAMB has not articulated how its church planting model compares with the model utilized by Alabama Baptists, Lance said, and has not satisfactorily honored the historic cooperative agreement process between the mission board and state conventions.
“Does the North American Mission Board want to have missionaries in Alabama who are not church planters?” Lance said, also expressing concern over reduced funding from NAMB. “Alabama needs NAMB, and NAMB needs Alabama. But NAMB needs Alabama more than we need NAMB.”
Emil Turner, executive director of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, also expressed concern about the way NAMB is relating to its partners.
“Of greater concern to me than the impact on Arkansas is the impact on our partners that have to reach the pioneer areas,” Turner said. “I am very much concerned that the North American Mission Board strategy for planting churches does not guarantee that churches that are planted will be marked by Baptist distinctives,” Turner said. “Their strategy undermines the strength of the churches they plant as they defund associational work and church support.”
Support stated
Leaders in at least three state conventions have been on record in recent months supporting Ezell’s efforts at NAMB. Garvon Golden, a longtime leader in the Dakota Baptist Convention who was elected executive director in March, said the two-state convention will focus on strengthening churches and planting evangelistic churches.
“Even with some of the changes that have been made, and some of the directions that NAMB is going, they remain a very valuable partner in helping us reach the Dakotas,” Golden said. “We want to see the cities of the United States reached for Christ as well as the rural and isolated areas of the West, and we want to be cooperative partners with NAMB in accomplishing this.”
Kirk Baker, president of the Utah-Idaho Southern Baptist Convention, wrote in a column submitted to Baptist Press that changes at NAMB are spurring his convention to a necessary restructuring that has been put off for years.
“I wanted to encourage Kevin Ezell by letting him know that many pastors like myself see the changes coming from NAMB as positive,” Baker, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Idaho Falls, Idaho, wrote. “We see it as our opportunity to line up our work for kingdom growth.”
At their annual meeting last fall, leaders of the West Virginia Convention of Southern Baptists also were on board with NAMB despite difficulties brought on by changes.
West Virginia approved a reorganization plan that opens the door to a greater potential for starting churches and reaching more people for Christ, Terry Harper, the state convention’s executive director, said.
“We had a great team. They worked really hard and made some tough decisions,” Harper told Baptist Press at the time. “They were not easy decisions to make because it affected a lot of people – our 10 missionaries, our collegiate workers and our worker in resort missions. As painful as that has been, I still think it offers great opportunity for us in the days ahead. I think we’re going to see church planting like we’ve never seen before in West Virginia. That’s what it’s all about, and I believe we will see that.” – BP