Dr. Robert White

I thank God everyday for having godly parents. Being reared in the Deep South I was taught the southern graces such as responding with “Yes ma’am, no ma’am,” and “Yes sir, no sir.” I sometimes get funny looks when I use these deeply rooted, culturally gracious terms. Honestly, I can’t help it.

I was also taught to say, “Thank you,” and “No, thank you.” When using these words I have received the surprised response of some folks who say, “Well, thank you for saying “Thank you.”

I have learned through the years that saying “Thank you,” often produces the product of gratitude. People just naturally appreciate being thanked, and are generally encouraged to do more.

In the GCR Task Force report to the SBC executive committee, it was revealed that the task force is recommending the term “Great Commission Giving” in making reference to the mission gifts from our Southern Baptist Churches for the Cooperative Program and designations to the causes of the Southern Baptist Convention, state conventions and associations.

The term “Great Commission Giving” is intended to more clearly define the purpose and destination of our mission gifts. The report makes it abundantly clear that the Cooperative Program is Southern Baptist’s primary and preferred means of supporting missions for it supports the whole program of Southern Baptist missions and ministries.

Designated gifts to SBC, state and association causes are included as Great Commission gifts because they are. While some suggest that using the term “Great Commission Giving” to apply to both the Cooperative Program and designated gifts, elevates designations and devalues the Cooperative Program, the term was not conceived to do either, but rather to acknowledge, with gratitude, all that our churches are giving to Kingdom causes through our convention.

Designations include the familiar convention causes of the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, World Hunger, State Missions Offerings, Children’s Homes Offerings and others. These are convention-approved offerings. Included are gifts given to your local association.

While some have expressed fear that this will encourage SBC entities to solicit funds from our churches, the Business and Finance Plan of the SBC executive committee prohibits such activity from SBC entities that receive support through the Cooperative Program. It is absolutely essential that the boards of trustees of our entities exercise strict control over their entities to see that direct solicitation among our churches does not happen. Such solicitation is a direct threat to the very existence of the Cooperative Program.

The hour is urgent and the need critical as a clarion call is given to Southern Baptists to recognize the need for Great Commission Giving. The time for unity is here. Let’s unite under the theme of “Great Commission Giving.” Let’s do it for our missionaries. Let’s do it for our ministries. Let’s do it for our Jesus Who commanded that we take the Gospel to the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Dr. Jim Richards Executive Director of Southern Baptists of Texas Convention

The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force released a progress report last month in Nashville. It is my privilege to serve with these godly men and women. I watched the members struggle with the complexities of bettering our Convention’s Great Commission ministries while moving forward together. Unity of vision and heart was accomplished on the Task Force. I pray Southern Baptists will catch the vision and be of one heart as well.

If I were the author of the documents, I might have chosen different words at times. If I had my way on every issue, the report would look different (and no doubt not as good). Some may feel certain areas of Southern Baptist work did not get enough attention. Our major focus was reaching the nations and our nation. I am convinced the Task Force progress report is a significant step in the right direction. All of us are being challenged. It will be difficult, but anything worthwhile always calls for sacrifice.

The Cooperative Program definition remains unchanged and uncompromised. It is still the preferred channel of giving. Some state conventions introduced a “designated” Cooperative Program in the early 1990s. It is a failed concept. The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention was founded with a strong commitment to keep CP an undesignated giving channel for missions and ministry. The SBTC has recognized designated gifts from churches from the beginning. In the future Southern Baptists may call those types of gifts “Designated Great Commission Giving”. The Cooperative Program will remain the preferred way of Great Commission Giving.

I will not comment on all the components of GCR progress report in this article. There is one of the components very close to my heart, reaching North America with the gospel.

I am a traditional Southern Baptist. My comfort zone is with traditional ministries found in many our churches located in the Deep South or similar rural settings. But much of the world I grew up in is gone. Some of that culture was good, some of it was bad. We can’t pine for the good ole’ days or the way it used to be. Decisions can’t be based on my preferences; it has to be about Jesus’ passion. His passion was to seek and to save those who are lost.

Our nation is becoming less evangelized every year. Southern Baptists work hard. We will not get the job done by working harder. We have to work smarter.  By approaching our nation as the world, we can have a better handle on the getting the gospel to the burgeoning people groups and diverse culture of the United States. We must find a way to move personnel and finances outside of our strongest areas and redirect them to the places of greatest lostness.

Is the GCR plan perfect? No. Is there time to improve it? Yes. I encourage you to offer positive suggestions. Help us find a way to move in the most aggressive way possible with the gospel toward lostness in America. It is my desire for God to use Southern Baptists as a tool of national spiritual awakening. It can be a spiritual morning in America. It will take a Joel chapter two experience. It also requires us to get outside the box to see what God would have us do differently.

We all want men, women, boys and girls to experience life in Christ. Business as usual will not get it done. An undeniable decline in the number of baptisms to population growth has taken place for decades. After much prayer and study the Task Force has cast a vision. I believe God is giving us one more opportunity to put our money and personnel where we say our hearts are. Let’s go for it, together!

Dr. Johnny Hunt
SBC President, Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church Woodstock

As President of the Southern Baptist Convention, I must confess I have never been more excited about our future as a family. The needs that we see arising is a constant reminder that none of us can do alone what we are called to do as a community. I believe as each individual state and local association begin to share their personal needs, it will help all of us to realize that we must once again embrace the true meaning of sacrifice. I am only one pastor, but I must not shrink from my personal responsibility to lead the people that I influence to engage in an Acts 1:8 strategy.

Some of our state conventions will seem at an overwhelming loss, especially as it pertains to the cooperative agreements. However, as we address these issues together, especially as it pertains to our pioneer states, I believe the cry will be heard, maybe more clearly and louder than ever, for Southern Baptists to rise and meet the greatest challenges ever. I believe we are positioning the Southern Baptist Convention, as it pertains to funding, in such a way that will create greater generosity.

We have known great days in our Southern Baptist Convention, but it is more than just mere words when I say, “our best is yet to be.” It has been said, “God rarely requires what is easily released.” I feel Southern Baptists have been in somewhat of a comfort zone. Now many are listening and watching to see just how serious we are about the unreached, unengaged, and the under-served of this nation and the nations of the world. I pledge with all of the loyalty of my heart to challenge every pastor that will listen to do their best in supporting our Cooperative Program, believing that it will cause the entire convention to rise, even in this economy, to give their greatest gifts ever. All of us must do more, and as we do, we will have greater resources to pierce the darkness for the express purpose that God may be glorified, His kingdom may be enlarged, and the church will be edified.

God help this to become a reality for it is more than just words. It is a voiced prayer in Jesus name. Please pray with us that God give us wisdom from heaven as we work together as a family to embrace the Great Commission in a way that God will be glorified.

God Bless,
Pastor Johnny

Dr. Daniel L. Akin President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

The interim report of the GCR Task Force has already generated much excitement and many conversations.  This is good and healthy.  The Task Force hoped its report would excite Southern Baptists, and it seems clear it has.  It is also the case that the Task Force wanted to hear from our people and receive their feedback.  That also is taking place and we rejoice in this.  Our prayer all along has been that the work of the Task Force would help cultivate a more healthy culture in SBC life where we talk with and listen to one another.  We are trying our best to model what we hope will become the norm among our people and convention of churches.

It is no surprise that I am enthusiastic about our report delivered by Ronnie Floyd on February 22 in Nashville.  I equally rejoice in the fact that the report was unanimously affirmed by all the members of the Task Force.  I believe that we are going to see the final report adopted overwhelmingly in Orlando when we come together for our annual meeting in June.  Why do I believe this will be the case?  Let me offer several specific reasons.

First, the report contains a strong and visionary missional statement that is Great Commission focused. Matthew 28:18-20 and Acts. 1:8 are the foundation upon which we will move forward together in the 21st century. Furthermore, Southern Baptists have always been a Great Commission people, and this report speaks to the heart of our people.

Second, the core values that provide a preamble to the report will foster a more healthy culture for SBC life in the 21st century and beyond if our Lord tarries His coming.  The core values are biblical, theological, spiritual and practical in their makeup. These are values that Southern Baptists can embrace and rally around.

Third, the report rightly gives priority to the local church as the headquarters of SBC life. Our final report is certain to challenge every local church in the areas of Great Commission priority, faithful biblical preaching, intentional discipleship, stewardship and missional living.  Each of these is already embedded in our initial report to our national agencies.  If they come to fruition in our churches, it will be a new and better day in SBC life!

Fourth, the report unleashes NAMB and IMB for greater strategizing and action in carrying out the Great Commission. The new vision for NAMB will present both new opportunities and challenges for our state conventions and local associations. I believe they will rise to the task and do what is needed to usher in an unprecedented day of massive church planting and gospel penetration to the unreached and underserved areas of North America.  This alone has the potential to revolutionize our convention for the good of our nation and all nations.

Fifth, the report recognizes the strategic importance of our state conventions by returning to them the vital assignments of cooperative program promotion and stewardship instruction. I believe this has real possibilities to bless financially both our state and national entities. Working together and in concert with the Executive Committee this has potential to generate new and fresh momentum for the life blood of the SBC, the Cooperative Program.

Finally, I love the fact that the report acknowledges the Cooperative Program as the central and primary giving channel of Southern Baptists, while at the same time celebrating all giving to Southern Baptist causes through what we are calling “Great Commission Giving” (GCG). To my great delight this idea found its genesis among several of our state executives.  I believe they recognize that 1) giving follows vision and 2) people give to what we celebrate.  There is so much to celebrate in SBC life.  If we communicate that well, I believe our people will give well too.

Continue to pray for the GCR Task Force.  Our work is not yet done.  There still remains more for us to do.  God has been good to us so far.  By His grace, for His glory, and with the good of the nations constantly before us, let us believe that our best days as Southern Baptists are yet to come!

Dr. Daniel Akin
President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY

Reaching the people of North America with the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been a primary purpose of the Southern Baptist Convention since its beginning in 1845. Over the last 150 years and more, Southern Baptists have been working together to evangelize and plant churches throughout this continent.

Of course, reaching  North America is a far larger task in terms of both geography and population than it was in 1845 – and far more complex as well.  Looking to the future, Southern Baptists must make the adjustments that will focus our work in order to make maximum impact on this land.

The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force has this very much in mind as we hope to assist Southern Baptists to be even more faithful in this task. With that in mind, we are recommending changes in the assignment of the North American Mission Board and changes in the way the board works with the state conventions.

Beginning in the 1950s, Southern Baptists began working with the state conventions through what were known as “Cooperative Agreements.” These agreements were undoubtedly a good idea, and they served well for many decades. The idea of the Cooperative Agreements is simple – the North American Mission Board (and originally, the Home Mission Board) established agreements with each state convention in order to avoid overlap, confusion, and duplication of work.

So, why is a change needed now? The answer is really very simple – the Cooperative Agreements are now outdated and confusing to Southern Baptists. When the Great Commission Task Force recommends the phased elimination of these agreements, we are calling for the North American Mission Board to rethink how it should relate to the state conventions so that the mission board retains a more focused ministry of assisting Southern Baptist churches to reach North America.

In the year 2009, about $50-million dollars was routed through these Cooperative Agreements. Many of these dollars were spent on the salaries of workers in the state conventions and associations. The monies are allocated and channeled in ways that are difficult to trace, much less to prioritize.

We are calling on the North American Mission Board to focus its energies on reaching North America, with a strategic concentration on unreached and underserved people groups, the cities, and the planting of healthy, reproducing churches. There is simply no way that Southern Baptists can be more effective and faithful in this task if we retain the funding mechanisms of the Cooperative Agreements.

Much of the impetus for this came from leaders of the North American Mission Board and others who have been hard at work in this task. The purpose is not to weaken relationships with the state conventions, nor to cut funding to effective programs and partnerships. The purpose is simple, and well recognized by anyone who leads an enterprise – NAMB must have the ability to focus its energies and strategic mission funds on efforts that truly match the priorities of the board, as it serves Southern Baptists.

We are calling for the North American Mission Board to concentrate on its task assigned by the Southern Baptist Convention – and to do so through the direct appointment of missionaries and church planters who are accountable to NAMB and deployed according to its national priorities. This echoes the call made by the Convention when it adopted the Covenant for a New Century in 1995. This is the necessary next step.

This does not mean that Southern Baptists will abandon pioneer areas and underserved regions. To the contrary, we are calling for even greater efforts in these areas of our mission and work. But we do not believe that Southern Baptists expect NAMB to be primarily engaged in replicating state convention structures and personnel.

The North American Mission Board will continue to work with state conventions, and to do so in partnership. But now is the time for a new partnership structure – a structure that liberates NAMB to do its work, while respecting the important work of the state conventions.

Will this mean change? Of course it will. But this is the kind of change necessary for Southern Baptists to step boldly into the future, and to reach North America with the Gospel. This is not the 1950s, and the challenges of reaching North America in the 21st century will require far more of us than the current structures will allow.

The North American Mission Board and the state conventions both have essential roles to play in this, and we need a new spirit and structure for the partnerships that will take us into the future. With this step, the North American Mission Board will be ready to make the most of these partnerships, and to move into the future with greater flexibility, strategic focus, and stewardship of mission resources.

In other words, we need something better than the Cooperative Agreements if we are to cooperate to the fullest. We are not living in the 1950s, and North America is waiting to see if Southern Baptists are serious about reaching this continent. I believe we are, and I can’t wait to see how the North American Mission Board will lead us in this great task.

Dr. Ronnie Floyd

In our GCR Progress Report, we reaffirmed the Cooperative Program as our central and preferred means of supporting Great Commission ministries. We reaffirmed the definition of the Cooperative Program as adopted by the messengers of the 2007 Southern Baptist Convention. The Cooperative Program is our ultimate choice; our preferred, our selected, and our priority method of giving to support the Great Commission Ministries of the Southern Baptist Convention. We believe it is vital that we continue to affirm with conviction the Cooperative Program as our primary method of investing in Southern Baptist causes and see it as the glue that holds together so much of our shared work. Within our GCR Task Force or in any report to this convention, there has not been nor will there be any desire or movement to reduce the Cooperative Program and its significance in supporting Great Commission Ministries.

The GCR Progress Report also stated, after reaffirming the Cooperative Program, that there was a need to ask Southern Baptists to celebrate with our churches the Great Commission Giving that is given through the Cooperative Program which is our priority, but also to celebrate with our churches those gifts they felt led to designate to the causes of the Southern Baptist Convention, a state convention, or a local association. When our churches give to offerings like Lottie Moon, Annie Armstrong, and state-related mission offerings, the Gospel is being advanced. Therefore, our convention should celebrate with our churches what God is leading them to do. This does not reduce our shared commitments to the Cooperative Program at all, but gives us an opportunity to reaffirm through each one of these avenues of giving that the Cooperative Program is our preferred and primary plan of giving for the Great Commission.

Our GCR Task Force believes that when we celebrate with our churches what they are doing for the Great Commission, they will be much more likely to support with greater enthusiasm and commitment our priority in all of our giving, which is the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Great Commission Resurgence provides a new opportunity for our convention to communicate the stories of changed lives that happen throughout the world because of financial support through the Cooperative Program.

Dr. Ronnie Floyd

I am most thankful for the ever growing number of you who are joining us as GCR Prayer Partners. I do not know of any time in our process where we need prayer any more than for our presentation on Monday night in Nashville, Tennessee. Please encourage others to join us as Prayer Partners at www.pray4gcr.com. Again, we need prayer support. On Monday night, I will be giving a Progress Report to the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, as well as to the representative leadership gathered from around the Southern Baptist Convention.

As I deliver this Progress Report, I need your prayers. Many hours of preparation have been spent on writing this report. Preceding this point, our entire GCR Task Force has spent countless hours in meetings, on phone calls, doing research, responding to correspondence, and having personal dialogue with many individuals and groups. The price has been paid to get us to this point of sharing some of our initial vision with you. As we unfold a substantial part of our vision, we ask you to join us with excitement over what God is doing.

We realize that many of you have an interest in hearing the Progress Report. Therefore, if you will visit our website at www.pray4gcr.com on Monday night at approximately 9:30 p.m. CST, we will have the report on video for you. I am going into the studio sometime before Monday so I can share with all Southern Baptists what God has put on our hearts. Once I sit down from making this presentation on Monday night, the video will be online at www.pray4gcr.com. Please share with others that they can view it online.

Finally, more important than anything, let’s pray for God to move mightily on Monday night in Nashville. Gather people to pray for this important night. I humbly appeal to you, please pray for me.

1,000 Thank Yous …

Dr. Ronnie Floyd

Your Great Commission Task Force has listened to Southern Baptists, gathered as much information as possible, asked the tough questions, gone through volumes of information, and has really sought to hear what Southern Baptists desire to do to advance the Great Commission in our generation. Equally, we have been before God to seek His will. Now we enter the season and the crucible of decision-making. The pressure is on and the test is real. For the past three months, these decisions have been in process, and in our next meeting we will finalize and make many difficult decisions. This is why we need you.

On Tuesday through Thursday, January 26-28, our Great Commission Resurgence Task Force will be meeting for our our most significant moment in this journey. As our process goes forward, we will be presenting our report to the upcoming meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee on February 22-23. While additions or revisions to this report are probable before the final report is made in June at the Orlando Southern Baptist Convention, the release of it in February will give Southern Baptists four months to gain clarity and have their questions addressed.

Therefore, I am asking you to give some concentrated prayer time for this upcoming meeting. Please ask your prayer ministries to pray for us. Our need for prayer has never been greater. Please consider even praying for us during the various segments of our meeting. Our meeting begins on Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. and concludes on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. We will meet in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings of each day. We would appreciate various groups within your church having continual prayer for our GCR Team during these hours.

How can you pray? We need God’s leadership and will to be manifested. We need the wisdom of God regarding every situation. We need complete clarity on presenting our convention of churches a compelling vision for the future. We need to abound in spiritual unity as we move through this significant meeting. We need courage to make the decisions that will truly advance the Great Commission through the ministries of Southern Baptists. We need God’s protection upon our own lives, our families, and the ministries we are a part of, because dealing with major Great Commission issues brings strong spiritual warfare.

Please continue to enlist people to be a part of our www.pray4gcr.com prayer team. We have just under 6,000 people who are prayer partners with us daily. We would love to see hundreds more join us in this daily commitment to pray for a Great Commission Resurgence to occur in and through the Southern Baptist Convention.

Additionally, please share with your congregation that Dr. Johnny Hunt, the President of our Convention, has issued a “Call to Prayer” for Sunday, January 31. He is appealing to every Southern Baptist Christ-follower and church to pray for the future of our convention of churches on this day.

May God bless you wonderfully for being our parters in prayer.

Seven months into our process, I have discovered this…what I thought I knew I realize I didn’t, and what changes I naively was hoping for probably would not make me a better Pastor or this denomination a more viable force as a change agent for the world.  While there has come to me a realization of what I did not know, I can say in full assurance and confidence there are a few things as a result of this Task Force that I do know.  Let me mention just two.

Southern Baptists have been Enriched with a Spiritual Heritage.  When I think of our history, the hundreds of years in existence, and the men and women who have led our denomination, I am grateful to be one of them.  Men like Adoniram Judson and women like Lottie Moon are people whom Sovereign God used as models for evangelism and missions.  If we see a world today more broken and hopeless, it is only because we are standing on their shoulders and our gaze across the landscape is because of their elevation.

Secondly, we have been Entrusted with a Sacred Honor.  To take the gospel across the street and around the world is both a divine privilege and a biblical command.    You need to know that, as a Task Force, we are firm in our convictions that spirituality overrides structure and God’s agenda and program supersedes our preferences.  It is, has been, and always will be about His Glory and not ours.  We are also solidified in this belief:  God does not need us as a denomination; but conversely it is us that is in need of Him, His touch, wisdom, and direction.

With a fresh knowledge of our spiritual heritage and sacred honor and a recognition that He is worthy of our best, we have for seven months interviewed, talked, prayed, fasted, sought counsel, phone-conferenced, met until the wee hours of the morning, for only one reason.  We want the Glory of God to be revealed and the good of our denomination to be restored as a spiritual force for reaching all the peoples of the world, beginning in our own Jerusalem and extending to the farthest point of lostness.

One last thing I have observed.  To a person on this Task Force, you have appointed men and women who love God and this denomination.  Not one time have I witnessed agendas, preferences, or even myopic thinking.  We have been led with skill and excellence from our Chairman Ronnie Floyd.  We have experienced full cooperation from all denominational entities, and we look forward to a report in June that firmly resolves we see missional churches engaged to make a difference in the lostness of our world.

Thank you for your prayers, and remember, you too are part of this heritage and honor.  It is both spiritual and sacred.

These questions should not be coming from someone who spoke for the motion to appoint a task force, but I would be less than honest if I did not say this was the case.  Allow me to set some background.  I owe all that I am to Southern Baptist churches. My great grandfather helped build Society Hill Baptist Church in the small town of Oakvale, Mississippi.  He helped raise my father, who led our home spiritually and was a deacon in our home church.  My earliest memories of church consist of Vacation Bible Schools, saying the pledge as a Royal Ambassador and spending time at summer camps in Glorieta and Ridgecrest.  I trusted Christ at an associational camp and was called to preach at my home church, Bellaire Baptist, in Bossier City, Louisiana. I trained for ministry at Ouachita Baptist University and received my Masters of Divinity at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary while at the same time working in the intern program at Prestonwood, where I currently serve.  I owe all that I am to Southern Baptist churches.

That’s why the question, “Does it really matter?” has haunted me this fall.  There is little doubt that there are some who feel discouragement and cynicism toward our future as a Convention and they are asking themselves this very question. I know the negativity of past meetings and mounting conflicts from within have taken its toll on many “young pastors”.  My fear is that the prevailing thought for some would be to consider themselves better off without the Convention than fighting for it.

This sentiment has caused me to think much about this Great Commission Resurgence, the role I play in this resurgence and the impending meeting this summer.  I am very expectant of all the task force will ask us as a Convention to consider and here is what I have concluded from searching my heart to the question, “Does it really matter”?

• It matters, if we want to be faithful to God and his scripture.  The essence of the GCR is a call for a renewed emphasis and focus on the Great Commission itself.  This matters!

• It matters, if we want to exhibit to the world our greatest asset as Southern Baptists- cooperation for the gospel’s sake. We can still do more together than we can apart and the GCR can show this to the world.  This matters!

• It matters, if we want to make a lasting difference that continues into the next generation. Because of its leadership, prayerful research, listening sessions and charge by our Convention, the GCR task force must offer some recommendations that will help us be relevant and thrive as a denomination in the future. This matters!

I have great hopes for our Southern Baptist Convention.  I am sure what we will hear from the task force will be both surprising and enlightening and must prepare ourselves to embrace and receive all that they recommend. It matters…it really does matter!