Don KirklandThe missions involvement of South Carolina Baptists – whether it is through praying, giving, going and any or all of those – is considerable and commendable.
If pride can at times be justified, we are proud of our adherence to the directive given first to the early followers of Christ and to us now in Acts 1:8, which Greek scholar A.T. Robertson has called God’s “world program” of evangelism.
And can anything better be said of us than that we are Great Commission people?
Two recent events in the Palmetto State underscore the primacy we attach to the cause of missions just beyond our doorstep, in our state and North America, and around the world. The first was the Spartanburg County Baptist Network’s “On Mission Celebration,” which on a Sunday morning and evening routed national and international missionaries into 70 of the network’s churches. The second was the annual meeting of South Carolina Woman’s Missionary Union at Concord Baptist Church in Anderson.
That missions is the task of every believer is the word heard at both events.
What, then, should we make of the controversies in which the two missionary-sending entities of Southern Baptists – the North American Mission Board in Atlanta and the International Mission Board in Richmond – are currently embroiled?
The answer to the question is, enough but not too much.
Trustees of both NAMB and IMB have taken wise and necessary steps to offer reassuring evidence of their grasp of the problems and of their responsibility to find solutions.
Though different, the controversies, if allowed to linger, would only do harm to the cause for which both NAMB and IMB were created and sustained by Southern Baptists.
Stories from Baptist Press in Nashville, starting on page one of this issue of the Courier, spell out in detail the issues surrounding these controversies and the actions taken by the trustees of both mission boards.
In the case of the North American Mission Board, the controversy stems from criticism of Bob Reccord’s administration spurred by an article appearing in Georgia’s Baptist newspaper, The Christian Index. Trustees have put the NAMB president under “controls” until the concerns raised have been resolved.
At the International Mission Board, trustees took back their motion to expel a trustee who took his opposition to the IMB’s policy on “private prayer language” and baptism from the boardroom to his blog site. The decision by trustees to relent on their ouster move headed off what could have prompted a nasty fight at the Southern Baptist Convention’s meeting in Greensboro in June.
The tongues and baptism policy, which affects only future missionary appointees, remains in place for now.
The timing of these controversies is especially unfortunate for the North American Mission Board, which is promoting in Southern Baptist churches its Annie Armstrong Easter Offering to support its work.
Together, these two entities – the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board – have placed more than 10,000 men and women on fields of service from New York to New Delhi.
And it is this very missionary force that stands to lose the most, and deserves it the least, if loss of confidence in, or anger toward, either NAMB or IMB cuts into contributions for the seasonal missions offerings of both, or in a slackening of gifts to missions through the Cooperative Program, a funding channel vital to all our work.
Through involvement in South Carolina Baptist partnership mission endeavors in Rio, Kenya, Romania, Taiwan and South Asia, I have learned an important thing about Southern Baptist missionaries: Though they are concerned about, and always affected by, decisions made and actions taken in Atlanta and Richmond, these devoted missionaries focus on their fields of service. And so should we. In this Easter season, we best celebrate the risen Lord by obeying his command to be witnesses and disciple-makers for him everywhere we go, and to send others where we cannot go – and consistently and generously support all those we send.