Texas’ 79th Legislature needs to find several billion dollars to the make the budget balance. For this reason some believe that expanded gambling has some chance of passing during this session. One gambling lobbyist gleefully estimates they’ll be $3 billion to $5 billion short. And you can bet he has a solution for us.
Other sources of revenue have something to recommend them. They are either reasonably predictable or grow with the economy or tax the people who use a particular service or have some understandable connection with the proposed use for the money. Gambling has none of these virtues. It only sounds like something for nothing?both to the gamblers and to lawmakers who fear having their names attached to tax increases.
We should have some reason for the things we initiate. Once we expand gambling in Texas, we’ll add just enough jobs and infrastructure to intimidate any unringing of the bell. Regardless of the fallout, we are unlikely to ban gambling once we’ve started. Consider the emotional hooks already used by those who want to put video slots at existing horse and dog tracks in the state. Now we are supposed to put thousands of slots in these facilities to prop up the horse and dog breeding industry. These tracks, by the way, were the easy fix of another budget cycle. Once we commit we’ll have to live with the results. This issue has a lot of faces, most of them ugly.
* Morality — The focus on money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some will scoff at this idea but it is observable. Those who can’t handle a few thousand dollars responsibly are not usually better at handling millions. Greed, immaturity, and materialism are only magnified when the stakes are raised. Stories abound of those who started poor, though married and employed, before winning big jackpots. A few (very few) years later, they’re alone, jobless, and worse off financially than before the big score. It’s hard to imagine a positive character trait encouraged by getting a big pile of cash you didn’t earn.
* Compassion — As a winner, your wealth must be built on the backs of those who didn’t win. Gambling is not based on the production of something or tied to the growth of our economy, it is parasitical. Demographically, gamblers are the poorest and least-educated of your neighbors. If you win, you’re the beneficiary of a system that preys on the least competent among us. Odds are this includes you. As a state, we would be forced to root against our fellow citizens so we won’t have to pay as much for state services.
* Jobs — The experience of other states is that the jobs created by gambling establishments are low-paying jobs that run out the better jobs. This creates more problems than it solves. Families that might have otherwise had a decent manufacturing job now work in the service industry, and thus need various types of public assistance to get by.
* Regressive taxation — No funding problems are solved in Texas if people don’t lose a lot of money. The people who need to keep their money are the ones who are more likely to lose it. People make their own decisions but it is wicked for our state to encourage self-destructive behavior.
* Precedent — Currently there are three federally recognized Indian tribes in Texas. Many others wait in wings to establish a claim to lands their ancestors occupied.
Twenty states are facing this very challenge and many claims have establishing a casino as their real goal. If expanded forms of gambling are legalized in Texas, they will also be legal on the land owned by Indian tribes (including those who may make future claims). These casinos will have all the negatives of other forms of gambling but may also be exempt from state taxation. So we could be living next door to one of these cultural oases without even the imagined benefits to our community.
* Social costs — By one estimate the strain on public services will at least match any new revenue. Ten percent of gamblers do more than half the gambling. Those people have jobs, families, obligations, and so on. If Texas needs these unhappy few to cover half our budget shortfall, we’re going to have to provide for their families. We’re going to have to live with their shoddy performance at work. We’ll need to send the police to answer domestic disturbances at their homes. Our courts will need to help them with their personal bankruptcies. Their creditors will need to eat the losses from unpaid debt. As a bonus, we also get to deal with increased community infrastructure needs, the cost of litigation when the gambling industry tries to expand its holdings or avoid paying taxes, and the declining revenue available to already existing businesses. I don’t see any of these predictable costs included in blue sky projections of state revenue from gambling. How naïve to expect we’ll get something for nothing.
* Poor return — I’m no fan of the state lottery but the money our state would realize from slots will be more hard-won than that from the lottery. One projection is that our citizens need to lose seven times more money to slots than they do to lottery tickets for the state to realize the same revenue.
April 10 is Cooperative Program Sunday. Birthed 80 years ago by Southern Baptists, the giving plan replaced an inefficient and ineffective funding method known as “societal giving.” The Cooperative Program has produced the greatest missionary and educational system in the history of evangelical Christianity. State conventions were invited to partner with the Southern Baptist Convention in this awesome enterprise. State conventions were to be collection agents and promoters of the Cooperative Program. The states were to retain a portion and send a portion on to SBC causes. Although there is some disagreement about the original intent of the balance, generally it is understood that the partitioning of funds was to be 50-50. While state conventions have rarely lived up to this ideal, until the 1990s churches gave incredibly through the CP. The last decade has seen a precipitous drop in church contributions as a percentage of receipts. At this rate of decline the SBC giving channel will become inadequate to fund current ministries.
I believe there are two strategies that may bring a reversal. One is to launch a massive educational campaign on tithing. Whether this is called a “Stewardship Emphasis” or clothed in more contemporary nomenclature such as “God’s Financial Plan,” the effort must produce more tithers and givers. If worthy ministries need more money, they will have to create more givers.
Secondly, state conventions must adopt a new paradigm for ministry. Pastors and churches will have more confidence that the money is going where they want it to go if the bureaucracy is trimmed. The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention has the lowest church-to-staff ratio in the SBC. We give Mom and Pop Baptist a reason to have confidence in the SBTC mission and ministry delivery system.
Reaching North America and touching the world will only be accomplished as we allocate more resources for that purpose. The Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention and the six seminaries recently started an effort to more intentionally teach the emerging generation of leaders Baptist polity and the Cooperative Program. Pastor advocates and elected leaders who model Cooperative Program giving are essential for continued success. With all of the above, I am optimistic that the CP will continue as a viable tool to Reach Texas and Touch the World.
Ask any Southern Baptist pastor about church governance, and if he’s been in the ministry for very long he will invariably have horror stories to tell. And he will also have success stories, telling how he as “captain” of the church navigated the waters of congregationalism with a deacon board for a crew, and finally landed in what he believed
to be a God-blessed port. That is essentially how most SBC churches have operated since the convention’s inception in 1845.
Dissatisfied with the traditional model, some Southern Baptist pastors, many of these under age 40, have considered other models of ecclesiology akin to Saddleback Church (SBC) in Lake Forest, Calif., Chicago-area Willow Creek Community Church, and even toward the Presbyterian version of an elder-led church. They favor the apparent freedom in ministry, as well as freer and more creative approaches to the total worship experience. Some say the elder-led model puts the pastor and deacons on the same team and helps to minimize confrontation. Another attraction is the cultural relevancy non-traditional models seem to have. Regardless of methodology, however, there are success and failure stories with both models.
“I think I would have left the ministry long ago if I had to pastor a committee-led or deacon-led church,” said Ed Young, pastor of Fellowship Church in G
Churches from 26 reporting state Baptist conventions fired 913 full-time or bivocational pastors in 2003, said Brooks Faulkner, senior pastoral ministry specialist at LifeWay Christian Resources. Five of the top eight causes of termination listed in Faulkner’s reports relate to control and leadership, with the most frequently named problem being
control issues related to who would run the church.
How do these power struggles intensify to so frequently create an impasse between factions? Mostly, multiple dynamics combine for an explosive mix in which the conflict cannot?or will not?be resolved apart from severing ties between a pastor and some, or all, of the congregation.
One Texas church member cited several factors she believes contributed to forcing out her church’s new pastor: bad hiring practices of the former pastor, a small group of power-hungry deacons and lack of member initiative to stop them, and a congregation-led governance clashing with the pastor-led style of the new pastor.
Her story began in the time of the previous pastor, whom she appreciated fo
Two words that pique a Southern Baptist pastor’s interest these days are forced termination. Despite the rumor mill’s usual grist, surveys of Southern Baptist churches and local association directors of missions reveal that two
factors account for the majority of pastor firings?conflict over who runs the church and pastoral leadership perceived as too strong. A consultant for a state Baptist convention put it this way: “One of the things today that’s impacting forced terminations is pastors listening to some of the wrong voices about how to be a pastor.”
In his opinion the “wrong voices” are pastors of megachurches who present a model of leadership that tells pastors that because God has called them to be pastor of the church that they should lead without congregational oversight. Taking that approach with the typical, small congregation won’t work, he warned.
And yet even among small churches, pastoral search committees relate a desire to find a strong leader who will cast a vision that will result in growth and effectiveness. “We have definitely seen that faster-growing churches are more likely to have a pastor with a strong leadership
Among Southern Baptist churches in Texas, 85 pastors were reported fired by their congregations in 2003?a number lower than actual figures because of limited reporting yet
much higher than what should be, said Deron Biles, SBTC Minister-Church Relations director.
Biles laments what he views as a near epidemic of pastor firings?a trend fueled by many factors, most notably poor communication between church members and staff and an unwillingness among contentious parties to resolve differences, he said.
Biles is aiming to help churches and their leaders resolve differences humbly and biblically in a book he is writing?due out later this year?titled “Before You Terminate.”
“It’s rare that we don’t hear about some kind of church conflict every week in our office,” Biles reported. “Here’s my basic assumption in the book. My conviction is every forced termination is sin. It may be sin on the part of the pastor, it may be sin on the part of the church, or both. But it may also be sin on the part of the pastor search committee that didn’t do a good job as they were bringing that pastor on the field. It may be the sin of the interim pastor who didn’t prepare the church to call its next pastor. But I believe any time that relationship is broken by forced termination, it is sin.”
Biles argues that church conflicts usually mirror conflicts found in the New Testament and there are scriptural principles that must be followed before termination should be considered. In his book Biles lists five questions that must be addressed by all involved parties.
>1. Do we fully understand the root issues of the problem?
“I’m convinced a lot of the struggles and battles that we have in the church or conflict we have in the church is unresolved because we never get to the root cause of the problem,” Biles told the TEXAN. “We’re fighting over superficial issues but we’re not at the heart of it. And you can’t solve a problem when you’re only putting out fires that are indirect causes of the problem. In some churches that may go back years, but until you get to the heart of the problem you’re not going to be able to resolve it.”
>2. Have we addressed our problem with ALL the people involved?
>3. Have we sought the Holy Spirit’s leadership in our problem?
>4. Have we sought outside wise counsel in our problem?
>5. Have we tried every other alternative?
In addition, Biles lists eight steps churches should take before even considering termination, among them biblical confrontation, repentance, forgiveness, listening, mediation and, if necessary, possible re-training, separation or church discipline.
Biles said conflicts may be related to members who are habitually contentious and in such cases church discipline could be warranted.
Too often, churches adopt a football coach mentality towards the pastor; if a “winning season” is not attained, they fire him. “I’m not saying termination should never be considered, but I am saying a measure of grace should be exercised,” Biles contended.
He said one aim of the book is to help churches understand the value of supporting their pastor and his family.
“A pastor who feels loved in his church is a pastor who can deal with conflict.”
Pastor terminations are comparable to divorces, Biles said, “and in many cases just as painful. The difficulty is perpetuated by the fact that the church is going to keep calling pastors.” Thus, some churches become known as “pastor killers.”
The average Southern Baptist pastor’s tenure is three years, though a pastor’s most effective years occur after five years, Biles noted.
“To the same degree that the enemy attacks marriages, I’m sure that the enemy loves and would love to see break-up in churches,” Biles said.
“The moderate emphasis on the priesthood of all believers was little more than a veiled attempt to undercut the leadership role of pastors, especially conservative pastors, in the Southern Baptist Convention’s Conservative Resurgence,” asserted Baptist historian Jerry Sutton in his book, “The Baptist Reformation.” Pastors of Southern Baptist churches continue to deal with the misapplication of the biblical concept of believer-priests as local
congregations cling to the idea that every member’s perspective is of equal value.
“The problem with the distorted priesthood of all believers and the argument for a purely egalitarian congregationalism which insisted that all believers have equal rights and responsibilities in the church, is that it makes no latitude for immaturity or carnality in the church,” Sutton wrote. In seminary classrooms, the doctrine was used as an alleged biblical defense of academic freedom. “Cecil Sherman argued that if a seminary professor came to the conclusion, based on his study, that the virgin birth was a myth, then that professor should have the right to teach that doctrine in his or her seminary class,” Sutton noted.
“It is dangerous to make a doctrine say more than is biblically warranted,” he stated, having authored a 1988 resolution on priesthood of believers that was approved by a two-to-one margin by Southern Baptist Convention messengers meeting in San Antonio. The statement noted that “the high-profile emphasis” on the doctrine was a recent historical development, adding that none of the five major systematic theologies used by Southern Baptists gave more than a passing reference to it.
Sutton wrote, “The primary emphasis on the priesthood of all believers, both the biblical, historical, and even Baptist material, is that a Christian does have direct access to God. It is a privilege that one does not have to go through a priest other than our Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we have the right to read the Word of God for ourselves.”
In his article, “The Priesthood of All Believers,” for the book “The Believer’s Church,” Beeson Divinity School President Timothy George explained that the doctrine focuses on community rather than the individual. “The issue is not the right of any individual to worship and interpret Scripture acc
The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention has mailed a letter to pastors of SBTC churches with a double challenge.
SBTC Director of Evangelism, Don Cass, mailed the letters Feb. 7 and has received more than 90 commitments from churches wishing to “do all that is humanly possible to lead the church to double its baptisms in 2005.” The letter also asks pastors to lead their churches to increase Sunday School or Bible study units for evangelization.
The SBTC has dubbed 2005 “Year of the Double Harvest,” a challenge relayed from LifeWay Christian Resources President James T. Draper in 2004 to all Southern Baptists. Draper’s challenge resulted from baptism numbers that have remained flat for decades as the population has increased.
“I believe that Paul’s admonition that we be all things to all men that we might save some should apply to Year of the Double Harvest,” Cass said. “Every effective means we have needs to be used.”
“There are no promises,” Cass noted in his letter. “God alone gives the harvest. However, He uses us as human instruments to plant the seed of the gospel and water that which is planted.”
Cass suggests 10 action plans to help SBTC churches double baptisms to at least 47,036 in 2005. Most notable is the challenge to develop new Sunday school/Bible study units that are evangelistic.
SBTC conferences, seminars and workshops will include “How to Start New Bible Study Units” classes and incorporate other helpful tools. A card is included in the letter to pastors for ordering a CD and newsletter on starting new units.
The other action plans encourage churches to implement:
4 two 30-day witnessing efforts;
4 church planting;
4 VBS and backyard Bible clubs;
4 simultaneous revivals;
4 baptism emphasis Sundays;
4 regional evangelistic events;
4 quarterly witness training;
4 discipleship strategy (“Making Disciples: A Visionary Plan for Smaller Membership Churches”);
4 30-day evangelistic prayer emphases.
Jim Wolfe, SBTC Church Ministry Support director, commented: “In the past, Sunday school was always outreach-oriented. It was the evangelical arm of the church. It provided not only an experience of Bible Study, but of fellowship and discipleship. This mindset needs to be relearned. Whether we call it Sunday School, Bible study, connection groups, fellowship groups or whatever, our small group ministries must capture a mindset of duplication.”
Wolfe said the SBTC Church Ministry Support team and the SBC’s LifeWay offer resources and training to assist churches in developing evangelistic Sunday Schools.
Through VBS, Wolfe noted, “the opportunity to share with moms, dads, sisters, and brothers, friends, neighbors, and extended family readily presents itself. In addition to this, a tremendous list of prospects becomes available because VBS will reach children and families throughout the local church community.”
The church planting initiative of “Year of the Double Harvest” calls for 50 funded church-start covenants with plans to assist planters and partners with the church planting process using a culturally contextualized approach.
“All churches have a natural affinity with certain people groups in their community,” said Robby Partain, SBTC missions director. “They ought to do everything they can to reach them for Christ, enfold them into the church bo
NASHVILLE?In his report to the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee during meetings Feb. 21-22 in Nashville, SBC President Bobby Welch called his cross-country evangelistic tour “overwhelming, unadulterated joy” and challenged multiple generations of Baptists to unify for the gospel’s sake.
Welch said he was nearly finished appointing the SBC Committee on Committees, noting that 21 out of the 24 people recommended by state Baptist convention executives were selected and that the home churches of the appointees gave an average of 11 percent of their budgets for Cooperative Program missions funding.
On his bus tour to promote evangelism and 1 million baptisms among Southern Baptists this year, Welch said his crew made 80 stops in 25 days and met his goal of meeting with 400 Southern Baptist leaders in the first 100 days he was president.
“I saw things in wholesale fashion out there” that are the “trappings of revival,” but few of those things are happening inside the church, he said. That makes for two possibilities, Welch insisted: “God may do the revival without any of us,” or “What if God decides he won’t do the revival unless we get out there?”
Welch told of recently sharing the gospel on the steps of a brothel in New Orleans during an outreach with seminary students and of leading veteran rock star Eddie Money?of whom he knew nothing before they met in first class?in a salvation prayer on an airplane.
Like the disciples’ unbelief about the five loaves and two fish offered for feeding the multitude recorded in John 6, believers often have the same attitude about themselves and their efforts in reaching the lost, Welch said.
A potential awakening is not about a church’s style or methods, he said. “This is about the power of God unto salvation.”
Welch said he asked three questions of Southern Baptists on his tour:
4Why don’t more of you attend SBC and state meetings?
4Why do you look outside the SBC for resources and ideas?
4What do you think the SBC needs most and what would it take to get you re-engaged in SBC life?
Respondents told him, “There is no compelling reason” to attend denominational meetings and “There are many more challenging and exciting things beyond the SBC,” he reported.
He said the consensus is that Southern Baptists will rally “to go on an elephant hunt” with bigger guns, bigger bullets, bigger stories and bigger dangers but need a challenge and a focus. Not only young people but also some older people want a keener missionary challenge, he said.
Welch complimented LifeWay Christian Resources President Jimmy Draper’s efforts to engage young ministry leaders in convention life and pleaded with the mostly veteran Executive Committee to be patient with younger pastors who shun traditional ministry avenues. He said they will come back after realizing the value of cooperation, and “some of you may want to follow them to where they’re going.”
Welch said inter-generational tension among pastors could create “deadly disconnects” as the convention redefines itself in the coming years. He also insisted that SBC entities keep touch with grassroots Southern Baptists.
Welch said generations of Baptists must move toward each other. “You cannot do your own thing. We must do a thing together to impact this world in which we live to the uttermost for the gospel. That’s the unity of purpose. This convention will never do its best until we do it together.”
At the SBC annual meeting this June in Nashville, Welch said he hopes for a Crossover evangelism effort the Saturday before the convention that is “to the X power.” Already, 3,000 Baptists have committed to event evangelism and 5,000 for door-to-door witnessing, Welch said.
“From the millionaire in first class to the prostitute on the doorstep of a whorehouse and everywhere in between lies everybody we know out there. And we’ve got the gospel?the power unto salvation?to change those lives. God bless you, and may God help us all to get it out there immediately. And we need to do it together.”
NASHVILLE?Morris Chapman told the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee Feb. 21 he is “more optimistic about the state of the convention and cooperation therein” than he’s been since coming to the job as Executive Committee president and chief executive officer in 1992. But he also warned the committee that SBC cooperation stands at a crucial juncture.
In his quarterly address, Chapman said the Southern Baptist Convention and its mission structure works not because of a system but because of the integrity of those who serve. Baptists must be forever vigilant in protecting the biblical and doctrinal integrity that leads to a heart for missions, he said.
In praising the varied efforts of Southern Baptist entities, Chapman called for a renewal of biblical stewardship teaching, “including the giving of the tithe to the storehouse, the local church.”
“God help our people to learn biblical stewardship. God help our people to come to a new conviction of tithing to the local church so that not only can Christ be preached in that place, in their Jerusalem, but around the world and to the ends of the earth.”
“The task will not be easy,” Chapman insisted, “because a large contingent of members in our local churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention have little or no knowledge about the huge significance of the Cooperative Program in supporting our mission efforts around the world.”
Chapman said a portion of local church tithes support the missionary vision of Southern Baptists to world evangelization and subsidize seminary costs for students in SBC seminaries.
“No day in our history has it become more important to stress the significance of working together in a cooperative spirit. We’re today’s leaders, and few of the names will change in the next decade. It’s now or never for us. Yes, should Jesus tarry, they’ll be other generations, but the question is, ‘What shall we do for the glory of God in this hour?'”
Citing the Psalm 119:105 description of God’s word as a lamp and light, Chapman reminded that the Bible teaches the way man should live.
“Shall we lead this convention from the foot of the cross? Shall we finish well? Or shall we fade into the sunset having abdicated the leadership necessary to pave the way for an outpouring of God’s Spirit upon this nation?”
Southern Baptists, Chapman noted, have established a profound conviction about the authority of God’s word. “But as we stand vigilant at the gate, we also have the responsibility to use that lamp, God’s word, as that light for our path that would lead us in our attitudes and our lifestyle and what we say and how we say it.”
“God help us as Southern Baptists to be a catalyst for God’s Spirit to fall mightily not only upon our convention but upon these United States of America and to the ends of the earth.”
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