In 1924 the Southern Baptist Convention was faced with a crisis of conscience?how best to reach the rapidly changing population of the United States, a circumstance prompted by migration within its borders.

Baron DeKalb Gray rose to the occasion as corresponding secretary of the Home Mission Board, appealing for “a successful missionary endeavor among a field unmatched in opportunity anywhere.”

“They are in our midst, in our homes, in our fields, and by every consideration of Christian motives must be given the best services we can command. To neglect them is to neglect a large and most vital part of our citizenship. To help them is at once to help ourselves and our country,” he reminded. “We must help them or the curse of God will rest upon us.”

The written version of his report began with the heading, “Brighter Skies,” which led into updates on “A Wonderful Year’s Work.” Gray then closed by facing the facts of “New Adjustments.”

Gray marshaled Southern Baptist troops to assess the new reality of the world in which they lived, addressing “The Great Migration” of 1.3 million African Americans who had relocated to the North.

Eighty-five years later the condition of North America still captivates the hearts of Southern Baptists. Nearly a fourth of the Cooperative Program (CP) allocation budget goes through the North American Mission Board (NAMB).

NAMB “assists Southern Baptists in their task of fulfilling the Great Commission in the United States, Canada and their territories through a national strategy for sharing Christ, starting churches and sending missionaries, in cooperation with Acts 1:8 Partners.” That priority was demonstrated by the founding of the Domestic Mission Board the same year the SBC was organized in 1845, remained urgent during a new wave of immigration and westward frontier expansion, and still today dominates the conversation at mission-focused gatherings.

With three of four people in North America having no personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the task of reaching such a vast continent for Christ is daunting, NAMB reiterates on its website.

Hundreds of Southern Baptist leaders representing state conventions and local associations, along with church planting and evangelism specialists, gathered in late August to review their strategy.

The NAMB president sought to rally troops with the news that Southern Baptists are planting a church every six hours?half of them ethnic and African-American congregations. Still, the pace must increase to keep up with an additional 400 million people in the U.S. over the next 35 years and another quarter million people added to Canada’s population annually.

North American missions must be cross-cultural, reproducible, indigenous, and must use multiplication, not simple addition, in order to reach the continent’s estimated 255 million non-believers, the NAMB leader said. The recently piloted nationwide evangelistic strategy known as GPS?God’s Plan for Sharing?is flexible enough to contextualize to each particular mission field, whether rural, suburban, or urban.

The four components involve praying, engaging, sowing and harvesting. (Details are available at nei2020.org.)

With a complex network of partners at the local church, association, state convention and national entity levels, there’s no doubt the work of reaching North America for Christ will continue at NAMB despite the recent departure of its president. (Related article on Geoff Hammond: page 12.)

But the yearlong study by the 23-member Great Commission Resurgence Task Force could prompt changes in how NAMB operates in the future.

NAMB’s 2009 annual ministry report grouped significant advances in three assigned categories, including:

Sharing Christ

?2,875 SBC-endorsed chaplains serving in the military, hospitals and various professional and corporate capacities, including volunteer ministries;

?24,205 volunteers assisting with 1,505 homes and 26 churches in three years of the New Orleans Area Home Rebuild (NOAH) project;

?$1.2 million in domestic hunger funds distributed to state convention partners, providing more than 4 million meals, with over 2,000 hunger ministries reporting over 32,000 professions of faith; and

?4,726 babies saved through NAMB-affiliated pregnancy resource centers.

Starting Churches

?Aided more than 1,500 new congregations begun by Southern Baptists in 2008;

?778 seminary students trained and placed as long-term church planters in 2008.

Sending Missionaries

?5,611 missionaries in North America; 3,739 are missionaries and their spouses serving in partnership with state conventions and associations; 1,872 are long-term Mission Service Corps volunteers;

?1,641 short-term high school and college missionaries sent;

?5,800 new Disaster Relief volunteers, bringing total to more than 88,800;

?20,096 World Changers in 95 projects and 1,889 student participants in 20 PowerPlant projects;

?Strategic Focus Cities focused on Baltimore, where 1,267 professions of faith were reported, and San Diego, where 25 new churches were planted.

Amid swirling rumors–and no evidence–that the SBC’s Great Commission Resurgence Task Force would recommend merging the International and North American Mission Boards, convention leaders familiar with both boards argue that a merger would harm the cause of missions.

“I have not heard anyone who really understands both organizations to any degree talk about [a merger] in the positive,” said Calvin Wittman, pastor of Applewood Baptist Church in Wheat Ridge, Colo., and a recent member of the SBC Executive Committee who completed his tenure in June.

Scott Moody, a NAMB trustee and pastor of First Baptist Church in Silsbee, said the board has not discussed the possibility of a merger.

“A lot of what is fueling this merger talk and those kinds of things is because NAMB has hit some hard times here of late,” Moody told the TEXAN. “But I just say we need to fix what is broken and complete the task.

“I remember a few years ago when the IMB was going through some turmoil over the tongues issue and all of that. IMB wasn’t thrown under the bus. They righted the course, and I believe they responded properly to that. And I believe that we can do the same thing here.”

Other NAMB trustees from Texas either failed to respond to the TEXAN’s request for an interview or declined to comment.

The rumor of a merger stemmed in part from statements by NAMB trustee chairman Tim Patterson, who in May said he believes Southern Baptists should have a “singular world mission agency.”

Because “North America is now just as much a foreign mission field as any other country or continent” with diverse people groups and cultures, Patterson said, “we need a singular world mission agency that does not lessen its emphasis on missions in North America or any other part of the world, but enhances it.”

Patterson added, “The way we structure, fund and administer our work is overly bureaucratic and bloated. If we combine our efforts and funding, we could be much more effective and become better stewards of God’s resources.”

But Patterson appears to have softened his position. While declining to answer questions from the
TEXAN about whether his opinions have changed and whether others helped him arrive at them, he stated support for both mission boards.

“I believe with all my heart that the North American Mission Board and its ministries are needed more now than ever before in the history of this agency,” he said in a statement. “The tasks that NAMB has been given by Southern Baptists call for a unique and particular type of agency to fulfill them. That is why Southern Baptists designed the North American Mission Board to be different in organization and structure from the International Mission Board.

“That does not mean that we should not investigate the possibility that there are ministries and services each provides that could be done more efficiently and effectively together or at least in a more synergistic manner.”

SBC President Johnny Hunt may have added fuel to the rumors of a merger by telling four Baptist state paper editors in June that despite having restructured its entities a dozen years ago, it is not too soon to consider another restructuring. Also in June, however, he told NAMB staff members, “I was as surprised as you were when the story hit proposing to join NAMB and the IMB.”

IMB President Jerry Rankin declined comment on the prospect of a merger but noted that he believes “the SBC ought to always be open to exploring any and all options for its effectiveness in fulfilling the Great Commission and our task to serve the churches as a denomination.”

Opponents of a merger offer several reasons for their resistance:
>A singular world mission organization would result in the neglect of international missions, remarked Avery Willis, former vice president of overseas operations at the IMB. “I don’t think it wise to merge the two mission organizations. There are several reasons. One is the disproportionate emphasis that we naturally give to that which we’re closest to,” he said, adding, “You have to have a concerted effort of people who are focused on the rest of the world.”
>The organizational structures of the IMB and NAMB are too different to combine them effectively, many opponents say. While the IMB funds its missionaries directly, all but a small number of NAMB missionaries are funded jointly through state conventions and accountable to those conventions. Unlike IMB missionaries, the spouses of NAMB missionaries are not on the payroll, and many are employed apart from the time they serve.

“If the organizations were similar, then there might be a possibility (of merging),” said Bob Pearle, pastor of Birchman Baptist Church in Fort Worth and a recent IMB trustee who serves as SBTC president. “But they are so dissimilar that I do not see the feasibility of that happening. They are just two separate animals.”
>Some observers, including Wittman and Willis, charge that NAMB’s structure is so ineffective that it would drag down international missions if the two were forced to merge. Wittman argued in a recent TEXAN column that NAMB must structure itself more like the IMB in order to be maximally effective.

Jim Sibley, who has served as both an international and North American missionary, said the logistics of merging would be difficult if both organizations were healthy, but they prove nearly impossible give NAMB’ inefficiencies.

“The IMB is basically a very healthy organization,” Sibley, director of the Pasche Institute of Jewish Studies and associate professor of Jewish ministry at Criswell College, said. “The North American Mission Board has been beset with difficulties and problems over the last number of years. So it would be a healthy organization taking on an organization that’s not very healthy. I just don’t see very many advantages at all to a merger.”

Willis, however, left open the possibility of a merger should NAMB become healthier.
>The SBC’s merger of entities during the late 1990’s demonstrated that such efforts generally prove unsuccessful, Larry Lewis, head of the Home Mission Board at the time, told the TEXAN.

Though the restructuring of several agencies into NAMB promised to bring increased effectiveness, Lewis said it actually eliminated or marginalized important ministries. For example, the Brotherhood Commission formerly handled disaster relief, allowing the HMB so focus on church planting. When NAMB was given charge of both church planting and disaster relief, however, staff members were forced to neglect church planting and evangelism when major disasters struck. During Hurricane Katrina, the NAMB staff was distracted from a major evangelistic campaign because its full attention was required on the Gulf Coast, he said.

Merging entities also weakened Southern Baptist participation in the Celebrate Jesus 2000 evangelistic effort, Lewis said.

“At the time, I felt possibly (a merger) was a good idea but I had a gut feeling that it probably was not,” he said. “But nevertheless I endorsed it and didn’t oppose it. I’ve come to believe as time has gone on—in fact, quite quickly came to believe—that it was not a good idea and that it was really a step backwards for our denomination and especially for home missions.”

He fears a merger of NAMB and the IMB could similarly harm important ministries.

“The restructuring was not a good idea,” he said. “It would have been better to finetune what we had and make changes as necessary.”

Likewise, better to fine-tune NAMB, Lewis argued. “I am totally, absolutely and completely opposed to merging the two boards,” he said. “I think that would be a giant step backwards.”

Other reasons some Southern Baptists oppose a merger include the need for an organization that specialized in cross-cultural missions in America and fear that a unified mission agency wouldn’t save the SBC much money.

In reality, Southern Baptists likely will not know until sometime next year whether the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force will propose a merger in the report, But Moody, the NAMB trustee, offered a suggestion as to what Southern Baptists can do as they wait to hear the report.

“Get the right leadership, the right president, and I believe we can fulfill God’s Plan for Sharing, starting churches, sharing Christ,” he said of NAMB.

The domestic missionary agency of the SBC has a history that has included a significant amount of change in leadership and direction. A history of the agency compiled by the Home Mission Board at its 150th anniversary in 1995 is accessible in PDF format here.

1845 – The Southern Baptist Convention established the Board of Domestic Missions with headquarters in Marion, Ala.

1855 – The Board of Domestic Missions was renamed the Domestic and Indian Mission Board, incorporating responsibility for Indian Missions.

1861-1865 – During the Civil War, the Board dropped most of its missionary work to supply chaplains for the Confederate Army.

1873 – The Board absorbed the Sunday School Board’s responsibilities and debt. The name then became the Domestic and Indian Mission Board and Sunday School Board.

1874 – The Board was renamed the Home Mission Board (HMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

1882 – The HMB relocated from Marion, Ala., to Atlanta, Ga., the center of travel between the North and the South.

1887 – Every Southern state cooperated with the HMB by commissioning home missionaries and fostering denominational consciousness.

1891 – The Sunday School Board was reestablished and the HMB relinquished its publication of Sunday School literature.

1895 – The first home missions offering was taken by WMU during a “Week of Self Denial for Home Mission,” and it raised more than the $5,000 requested of it. This became an annual event, now known as the North American Missions Emphasis, which includes the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering®.

1925 – The Cooperative Program was established as the primary channel for supporting the work of the SBC.

1929 – The HMB incurred a $2.5 million debt, reflecting the nation’s wavering economy. The Great Depression struck, and missionary forces plunged from 1,600 to 106.

1942 – Western churches were accepted into the denomination, reawakening the SBC’s national expansion.

1944 – Student summer missions, one of the HMB’s first volunteer endeavors, began with 11 summer missionaries

1959 – Cooperative Agreements with state Baptist conventions began, creating a major building block of national mission strategy.

1960 – Work with ethnic/language-culture groups became the HMB’s largest program in budget and number of missionaries.

1963 – Following the constitution of South Burlington Baptist Church in Vermont, Southern Baptists had one or more churches in every state of the union.

1977 – Mission Service Corps was created.

1995 – The HMB celebrated its 150th anniversary. HMB staff move to a new five-story office complex 22 miles north of Atlanta at 4200 North Point Parkway, Alpharetta, Ga.

1995 – The Covenant for a New Century was approved by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1995 and implemented in June 1997. In the covenant, the work of the Brotherhood Commission, Home Mission Board, and Radio and Television Commission was combined in order to reach North America for Christ. The name of the new agency would be North American Mission Board.

1997 – The North American Mission Board (NAMB) becomes a reality, and Dr. Robert E. “Bob” Reccord becomes the first president.

1998 – The Nehemiah Project, which provides a professor of church planting on each Southern Baptist seminary campus who can engage and recruit church planters, is initiated.

2000 – The NET, an evangelism tool to help people share their faith, is introduced. Strategic Focus Cities initiatives begin, with a focus on Chicago and Phoenix.

2001 – NAMB leads unprecedented disaster relief response following September 11, 2001, attack in New York City.

2002 – NAMB leads in concentrated ministry and evangelism efforts at 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

2003 – Mission Service corps celebrates 25 years of placing people in volunteer mission positions throughout the United States and Canada; World Changers participants grow to more than 25,000.

2004 – Annie Armstrong Easter Offering exceeds $50 million.

2006 – Roy Fish named interim president following resignation of Robert E. Reccord. Annie Armstrong Easter Offering surpasses its $56 million goal by almost $2 million for the first time in decades.

2007 – Geoff Hammond unanimously elected president by NAMB Board of Trustees.

2008 – God’s Plan for Sharing (GPS) nationwide evangelistic strategy unveiled with vision of every believer sharing so that every person in North America should have an opportunity to hear and respond to the gospel by 2020.

2009 – Richard Harris named acting interim president following resignation of Geoff Hammond.

LUBBOCK?The SBTC will offer age-restricted childcare during the 2009 Bible Conference and Annual Meeting in Lubbock. Please note the requirements below:

Registration: Must pre-register by Oct. 1st, 2009
Ages: Birth through 4-years-old only
Location: Holiday Inn (adjacent to Civic Center)

Cost: No charge.

Contact: Carma Hackett at easy01@eastex.netor Ashlee Garner at agarner@sbtexas.com.