IMB dips into contingency funds. International Mission Board Treasurer David Steverson told trustees of the agency the mission board faces a budget shortfall “crisis.” Steverson announced the IMB would be forced to pull $7.5 million from contingency funds in order to balance the budget. However, he also told trustees more missionaries will be sent this year than originally planned, thanks to special offerings collected by Southern Baptists. In May, trustees were forced to reduce missionary appointments because of a shortfall in funding from the Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. The appointment of 69 long-term candidates and some 350 short-term candidates waiting to serve on the mission field was delayed. Now, about 25 of those 69 long-term candidates will be added to a group of 37 already slated for appointment in November.

International seminary’s future in doubt. European Baptist leaders gathered in Prague, Czech Republic, Oct. 1-2 to discuss the future of the cash-strapped International Baptist Theological Seminary. The seminary—owned and operated by 51 Baptist unions and conventions that make up the European Baptist Federation—has been hit hard by a weak dollar diminishing the value of gifts from the United States, rising maintenance and energy costs, and a global banking crisis that has eroded endowment funds. Leaders said finances could force the seminary to sell all or part of its campus in Prague, where it relocated from Ruschlikon, Switzerland, in 1995. If leaders determine the school must move, options are to either seek a more affordable site in Prague or relocate to another European Baptist partner union, possibly changing the language of instruction and accreditation.

NAMB taps former SBC president. North American Mission Board trustees elected Frank Page, former Southern Baptist Convention president and South Carolina pastor, as vice president of the mission board’s evangelization group. Page served as Southern Baptist Convention president from 2006 to 2008. He has been pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., near Greenville, since 2001. The church ranks in the top 95th percentile of SBC churches for number of baptisms, with 144 reported in 2008, and the congregation plants a new church each year. Page is a graduate of Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina and holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in Christian ethics from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

MIAMI (ABP) — Cuban authorities say two Baptist leaders held in jail for 11 days in a city on the eastern end of the island are suspected of illegal economic activities.

Associated Baptist Press first reported Oct. 13 that Rubén Ortiz-Columbié, coordinator for special projects of the Eastern Cuba Baptist Convention, and Francisco "Pancho" Garcia, director of the convention's teen department, had been arrested Oct. 3 and held without formal charge since then. They were being held in the city of Santiago de Cuba.

The following day El Nuevo Herald, a Spanish-language sister paper to The Miami Herald, reported that Ortiz, 68, and Ruiz, 46, were arrested by agents of Cuba's National Revolutionary Police as they entered the province of Guantanamo to deliver financial aid to churches.

A prosecutor's report obtained by the newspaper said authorities seized the equivalent of about $4,000 from the men at the time of arrest. It said the men were trying to aid a group of small agricultural producers in the region — without authorization from the appropriate government body — through an effort the document called the "Fishermen's Project," or "Proyecto de Pescadores."

Ortiz's son, Ruben Ortiz, pastor of First Hispanic Baptist Church in Deltona, Fla., told El Nuevo Herald his church has been sending money to Cuba to help buy food and support repairs of church buildings, many of which were damaged by three hurricanes last year.

Cuban authorities said the men are being detained as a precautionary measure while they complete the case file.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Florida is licensed to send funds to the Eastern Cuba Baptist Convention and has transferred $7,000 since October 2008. The younger Ortiz told the newspaper that he sent paperwork documenting the transfer to Cuba Oct. 12.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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Cuban Baptist leaders in custody; charges unclear

DELTONA, Fla. (ABP) — Two Cuban Baptist leaders arrested Oct. 3 in the city of Santiago de Cuba remain in jail, reportedly without formal charge and with few details of why they are being held.

Rubén Ortiz-Columbié, coordinator for special projects of the Eastern Cuba Baptist Convention, and Francisco "Pancho" Garcia, director of the convention's teen department, were reportedly carrying out church work when nabbed by authorities.

Ortiz' son, also named Ruben, is a pastor in Florida. He said the two men were on their way to distribute money donated for Baptist work. He said his church, Primera Iglesia Bautista in Deltona, Fla., regularly sends funds to the convention for mission projects in Cuba.

Observers in the United States familiar with the situation said they don't know why police targeted Ortiz and Garcia. Ortiz is a well known Baptist leader in Cuba and worldwide. He is former general office manager of the Eastern Cuba Baptist Convention and taught stewardship at the Baptist Seminary of Eastern Cuba 20 years. Since retiring from the convention, he has continued to visit churches to determine project needs and help them to secure necessary funds and labor to get the jobs done in a volunteer capacity.

In 2008 the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Florida entered into a partnership with the Eastern Cuba Baptist Convention to support the work of Ortiz and Garcia. As of mid-September, the Florida CBF had received and transferred a total of $7,000 to help restore and repair structures used for religious services, camps and education.

With 320 churches, the Eastern Cuba Baptist Convention is the largest of four Baptist groups in Cuba. It has a long-standing fraternal relationship with American Baptist Churches USA.

Jose Norat-Rodriguez, area director of Iberoamerica and the Caribbean for ABCUSA International Ministries, said Ortiz and Garcia were allowed to see their wives Oct. 9, but the women were not told why their husbands were being detained. He compared the two Baptists to Paul and Silas, two missionaries delivered from prison though the power of prayer in the Book of Acts, and asked fellow Baptists to pray both for their release and for their families.

The Spanish conquistadors brought Catholicism to Cuba, imposing their culture and beliefs, and it was the only official religion in Cuba and other Spanish colonies for 400 years. The first permanent Protestants in Cuba were repatriated refugees converted to Protestant faiths during exile in the United States.

After the Spanish-American War, however, missionaries poured into Cuba. With so many entering at the same time, denominations sat down together to give order to their missionary ventures. Some, like Baptists, zeroed in on geographical areas.

In 1898 the home mission boards of the American and Southern Baptist denominations met in Washington and agreed to divide Cuba between east and west for the purposes of missionary work.

In addition to the smaller Western Cuba Baptist Convention, historically tied to the Southern Baptist Convention, there is also a Free Will Baptist convention. And the Fraternity of Baptist Churches in Cuba, which broke off from the western convention in 1989 over theological and administrative differences, has a partnership with the Alliance of Baptists.

In recent years the four groups have worked more closely together than in the past. All are members of the Baptist World Alliance, the global umbrella group for Baptists. In 2000 the BWA General Council met in Havana — the first-ever international Baptist gathering held in the communist nation. During that meeting a Baptist delegation met with Cuban President Fidel Castro. The meeting opened doors for projects including Bible distribution and open-air services in 1999, allowed for the first time in four decades.

Though difficult, Baptist work in Cuba has exploded in recent years. In 2004, Denton Lotz, who has since retired as BWA general secretary, reported that more than 2,500 house churches had been started in the previous eight years. That more than doubled the number of churches, and the number of worshipers had grown from 80,000 to 200,000.

The eastern convention is involved in an evangelistic push with a goal of reaching 500,000 people by 2010. The western convention aims to plant 1,000 new house churches during the same period.

Christians in Cuba endured hardships after Castro took power in 1959, but he relaxed restrictions in the 1990s, saying it was a mistake to make atheism the official religion of the Cuban Revolution. In 1994, he opened membership in the Communist Party to Christians. Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

GEORGETOWN, Ky. (ABP) — Former "Baptist Hour" radio preacher Charles Wellborn died Oct. 1 at his home in Georgetown, Ky.

Contemporaries described Wellborn, 86, as one of the best preachers they ever heard and the clearest voice of conscience among his generation of Baptists.

Wellborn accepted Christ at age 23 amid the Southern Baptist youth revival movement of the 1940s and 1950s. He began preaching on the "Baptist Hour," a weekly program produced by what was then called the Radio Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, in 1948 while still a student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Contemporaries described Charles Wellborn, who died Oct. 1 at age 86 as one of the best and most prophetic preachers of his generation.

After graduating from seminary Wellborn served 10 years as pastor of Seventh & James Baptist Church, adjacent to the Baylor University Campus in Waco, Texas. After the congregation voted to open its membership to people of all "races and colors" in 1958, the young pastor received threatening phone calls and a cross was burned on the lawn of the parsonage.

Wellborn left Seventh & James in 1961 to begin doctoral studies at Duke University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1964. He taught at the Baptist-affiliated Baylor — his alma mater — and Campbell College in Buies Creek, N.C., until his marriage ended in divorce, effectively ending his preaching and teaching career in Southern Baptist ranks. He found a niche at Florida State University, first as chaplain to the university, then as professor of religion and finally as dean of FSU's British campus in London before his retirement in 1990.

Influenced by seminary professors including T.B. Maston, Southwestern's legendary professor of Christian ethics, Wellborn continued to speak to Southern Baptists through his writing. Over the years he wrote seven books, two plays and more than 100 articles in scholarly and popular journals.

He was a frequent contributor to Christian Ethics Today, an independent journal started in 1995. In 2003 Smyth & Helwys published a book of Wellborn's essays and sermons collected over 50 years under the title of one of his writings, Grits, Grace, and Goodness.

Wellborn was a member of Faith Baptist Church in Georgetown, Ky. His memorial service is scheduled there at 1 p.m. on Oct. 10. Visitation before the service begins at noon. Burial will be in Texas at Waco Memorial Park. Memorial gifts are suggested to the Charles T. Wellborn Endowed Lecture Series account at Florida State's religion department. 

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (ABP) — The Southern Baptist Convention has identified a missionary-sending goal big enough to accomplish the nearly 2,000-year-old task of the Great Commission — but lacks a clear fund-raising plan for meeting it, according to an upcoming annual report on Christian stewardship.

The State of Church Giving Through 2007 report, set for release Oct. 15 by empty tomb, inc., a Christian service and research organization based in Champaign, Ill., uses the nation's second-largest religious body as a case study to discuss money and the church.

Authors John and Sylvia Ronsvalle applaud the SBC for articulating a clear goal for engaging all unreached people groups on Earth. To do that, leaders say the SBC's International Mission Board would need to increase its present missionary force of 5,300 to about 8,000.

The Ronsvalles say Southern Baptists are not effectively meeting the goal, however, because there is no clear plan in place for raising additional money to support the new missionaries.

When the Southern Baptist Convention announced 2,800 as "the number of additional IMB missionaries needed to engage the unreached people groups around the world with the gospel" in the September 2007 issue of the denominational magazine SBC Life, no cost estimate was included for those who might be interested in meeting the need.

Using a figure on the SBC website that it costs $40,931.64 a year to support each missionary, it would require another $114,608,592 annually to pay for 2,800 additional missionaries.

SBC Life did not use that cost estimate, however, because the bottom half of the full-page ad in which the goal appeared promoted the funding channel for meeting it as the Cooperative Program. CP is the SBC's unified funding plan that simultaneously funds state and national Baptist conventions. Half of CP funds collected at the national level go to the IMB; the rest fund other denominational causes such as theological seminaries and public-policy advocacy.

All denominations use international missions as a marketing tool to encourage general giving that supports the entire denominational structure, the Ronsvalles admit, but they contend that current funding practices of the SBC are failing to keep up with stated goals.

If the SBC is serious about its goal for global evangelism, the authors suggest it would be more effective to raise new money for missions through the annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, which is designated 100 percent for the IMB.

The Lottie Moon goal increased from $165 million in 2007 to $170 million in 2008, with no mention of the goal of expanding the mission force. The 2008 offering failed to reach even that goal, totaling $141 million, $9 million less than the final 2007 amount.

The shortfall prompted IMB trustees in June to suspend new appointments to both the International Service Corps and Masters programs — two-to-three-year missionary appointments geared for younger and older adults, respectively. They also approved reducing the number of new appointments to the career, apprentice, associate and journeyman missions-personnel programs.

One proposal to remedy underfunding of the IMB is to strengthen the Cooperative Program by changing its percentage allocation. Traditionally the standards have been for congregations to forward 10 percent of their undesignated receipts to the state convention and for 50 percent of the money that comes into state conventions to be sent on to the SBC.

Even if that model were followed — the current average state conventions forward to the SBC is closer to 38 percent, and only a fraction of SBC-affilated churches give a full 10 percent to CP — congregations would need to direct $330 million more to the CP to generate an additional $114 million for international missions. State conventions and non-IMB entities at the national level would receive equal amounts.

The Ronsvalles say that seems unlikely with long-term trends showing smaller, not larger, percentages of congregational undesignated gifts being directed to the unified budget. A proposed benchmark of 10 percent for CP giving from the churches with which SBC leaders are affiliated — discussed at the SBC annual meeting in 2007 — prompted considerable debate within the denomination.

"The case study of the Southern Baptist Convention describes a denomination with a clearly stated goal that is not meeting that goal," the couple writes.

They say it would take "a relatively small amount of dollars" — about $7 for every member of a Southern Baptist church — to raise the $114 million needed annually to support 2,800 additional missionaries.

That could be done by mobilizing "retail billionaire philanthropists" — small donors who combine in large enough numbers to support multi-billion-dollar institutions — who have traditionally funded SBC mission work. The question, they say, is how to attract increased giving.

One scenario is to enlist one or more "wholesale billionaire philanthropists," large-capacity donors, to announce they would match every dollar of the 2009 Lottie Moon offering that exceeds the previous year's offering up to a specified amount.

The stated goal would be to increase the offering to a level adequate to fully fund current IMB operations, recover ground lost with the 2008 decline and, especially, to field the additional 2,800 missionaries needed to engage all unreached people groups.

The Ronsvalles calculate the new total at $265 million — an increase of $124 million over the most recent amount. Based on 2008 membership figures, the increased offering from congregations would cost each member an extra $3.82 to raise the $62 million to be matched by wealthy philanthropists.

They say resistance would most likely come from agency heads fearing that churches would increase designated giving by reducing undesignated gifts — the notion of "robbing Peter to pay Paul."

The Ronsvalles contend, however that it is "not improbable" that the "money follows vision" formula would come into play, providing sufficient funds for other convention ministries as well.

They point out that church members are willing to support the general structure of the denomination, evidenced by the amounts of support they give to the Cooperative Program, but the percentage of donations leaving the local church has been declining since the 1980s.

"Denominational officials may take courage in the biblical affirmation that 'perfect love casts out fear' (I John 4:18), and choose to love those in desperate spiritual and physical need at the risk of the preservation of their own structures," they conclude.

"Current giving trends suggest that continuing in the same pattern will not protect those structures," they continue. "The perceived risks associated with expanding missions may be well worth taking."

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

SHREVEPORT, La. (ABP) — The parents of a girl who died this summer from injuries received in a church-bus wreck are asking 13,000 people to keep her memory alive by doing something good on Oct. 29 — which would have been her 13th birthday.

Maggie Lee Henson, one of 23 youth and adult sponsors injured when their bus from First Baptist Church in Shreveport, La., blew a tire and overturned while en route to a Passport youth camp in Georgia July 12, died Aug. 2.

Church-bus crash victim Maggie Lee Henson, pictured her with her Chihuahua Ellie, won\'t be around to celebrate her birthday Oct. 29, but thousands of people are planning to keep her spirit alive by performing a good deed for someone in her honor.

Her parents, John and Jinny Henson, documented her three-week struggle for life at Blair Batson Memorial Children's Hospital in Jackson, Miss., in a journal on a website called CaringBridge.com. 

Kelli Alamond, a member of First Baptist Church in Texarkana, Texas, didn't know Maggie Lee personally but was touched enough by her story to start and administer a Facebook prayer group for her and others from the stricken Shreveport church.

After her death, Alamond thought about her own twin boys, who had recently turned 13, and realized that if not for the tragedy the Hensons would have been gearing up for Maggie Lee's birthday bash. Rather than letting the occasion go unnoticed, she issued a challenge on Caring Bridge for 1,300 people to commit to performing "demonstrations of Christ's love" in her honor on Oct. 29.

Jinny Henson loved the idea. She set up a Facebook group and sent an invitation to everyone in her address book, about 800 people. Within 24 hours, 1,500 members had joined. That number quickly doubled, and she upped the challenge to 13,000. As of Sept. 24 when this story was written, membership in the group had grown to 8,948. Other Internet users have joined through a website,

The theme "Maggie Lee for Good" is adapted from the song "I Have Been Changed for Good," which was sung at her funeral service at First Baptist Church on Aug. 6. It is from Maggie Lee's favorite Broadway musical, Wicked.

"Maggie Lee was the kind of young lady who creatively loved people," says the Maggie Lee for Good website. "Whether it was asking her mom to pull over and buy a hamburger for a homeless person or sticking up for a friend, she made the world a better place with her presence."

Ideas for honoring her memory include having a Maggie Lee For Good Party, which involves inviting friends over who each bring a new toy to donate to charity. Another suggestion is simply picking up the phone to call an estranged friend, acknowledging that life is too short to bear a grudge.

Alamond, who is originally from Shreveport and has friends and family who attend First Baptist Church, was one of thousands of complete strangers who took Maggie Lee's story to heart and wanted to do something to help.

Alamond said starting the Facebook prayer group helped ease her own restlessness, and it wound up being more of a blessing than she ever imagined. She said she was amazed at the number of people who joined the group — but what surprised her most was not the number of people who were praying for Maggie Lee to recover, but that so many were deeply affected and changed by reading about the accident.

One mother wrote to say she had been strung out on drugs for years. Reading about the Hensons' love and concern for their daughter, she thought of her relationship with her own children and decided to turn her life around and enter drug treatment. A father decided he was working too much and didn't spend enough time with his kids. A mother who struggled with depression realized she had much to be grateful for and for the first time began to think about the afterlife. In all, hundreds wrote to say the journal was a wake-up call for them in one way or another.

One woman wrote John Henson, who serves on the staff of the Shreveport church as associate pastor for emerging ministries, to tell him that, because of Maggie Lee, she stopped to give lunch to a homeless man she had passed up many times before.

"I am truly shocked that Maggie Lee's story has touched people so profoundly," Jinny Henson said. "Every day, we get e-mails about how people woke up in the middle of the night interceding for her and how God used that experience to completely change their lives. Now that she is gone, people are doing all kinds of wonderful things because of her story and that is amazing, as well."

"It is almost as though God has raised peoples' spiritual antennae because of this," she said. "As wonderful as that is, I will always wish I could've seen my child grow up — but I guess that's why God is so much higher than we are, because he gave his Son."

The Hensons recently met country pop singer and songwriter Taylor Swift, who said she would be happy to be part of Maggie Lee for Good.  Erin Anderson, a wedding photographer in Houston, added her support by designing a logo for Maggie Lee for Good.

Henson said there are no words to describe "the awful process of adjusting to the loss of a child." Little things like going to the grocery store and starting to pick up a cereal product before remembering that the only person in the house who liked it is no longer there can reduce her to tears.

"It is unnatural to bury a child, and with them you bury the parent you were to them," she said. "So a piece of you dies, as well."

Several people commenting on the Maggie Lee for Good website mentioned birthdays of lost loved ones of their own.

Jinny Henson said she and her husband found it natural to express themselves throughout their ordeal.

"People have responded to John's writing because he is honest about what people call the greatest loss a human being can suffer, losing a child," she said. "I am a Christian speaker, as well, so I, too, have seen the value of communicating honestly where we are."

"I think so many people have shared their burdens with us because there are so many people out there who walk around with broken hearts, even in the church," she said.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — Morris Chapman, president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, announced plans Sept. 21 to retire at the end of September 2010.

Chapman, a former pastor who this year celebrates his 50th anniversary in the ministry, called his election to the post both "one of the greatest honors of my life" and "one of the most humbling challenges I have ever faced."

Chapman's announcement comes just a week after a similar one by another SBC agency head, International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin, who announced he is retiring after 17 years at the end of next July. The CEO spot at a third SBC entity, the North American Mission Board, is also vacant, since President Geoff Hammond and three top associates resigned under pressure Aug. 11.

Chapman, who was pastor of First Baptist Church in Wichita Falls, Texas, before coming to the Executive Committee in 1992, said he has been discussing his retirement plans with committee officers for several years and announced his decision to that group Sept. 20.

The Executive Committee authorized chairman Randall James, president of First Orlando Foundation in Orlando, Fla., to appoint a search committee to nominate Chapman's successor.

Saying he does "not want to spend the entire year preparing to vacate my office," Chapman said he would launch an initiative to support a "Great Commission resurgence," urging agency heads to publicly challenge denominational workers to commit themselves with sharing the gospel with individuals.

–-Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

BEDFORD, Texas — Nilson Fanini, Brazilian pastor and evangelist who served as president of the Baptist World Alliance from 1995 to 2000, died Sept. 19. He was 77.

During his term as BWA president, Fanini viewed the BWA’s primary role as defending human rights, attacking social injustice, promoting peace, and helping those who were hungry and those with desperate needs. In addition, he placed evangelism at the heart of the fellowship of more than 200 Baptist conventions and unions. He also met with world leaders ranging from Pope John Paul II to Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Nilson Fanini

“Fanini had an incredible preaching ability and he had an earnest desire to see the BWA lift higher the banner of global evangelism,” said John Upton, executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia. Upton will be nominated as BWA president this July.

“He will always be remembered for his concern for the lost of the world. His preaching was electric with powerful images and a direct challenge to let the love of Christ take hold of you,” said Upton. “He will be greatly missed as a Baptist world leader.”

“He was a godly man and the most genteel human being I ever met,” reported retired Baptist missionary Perry Ellis, who worked with Fanini on many evangelism projects in Brazil.

Before graduating from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, in the late 1950s, Fanini had earned a law degree in his native Brazil.

Fanini founded the 7,000-member First Baptist Church of Niteroi, Brazil, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, and had preached in 109 countries, baptizing more than 11,000 converts. A seminary he founded trained more than 600 young ministers as pastors and ministers of education.

By radio and a television ministry he began, reportedly with assistance from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, he preached for 34 years to tens of millions in South America. A network of 13 social ministries emerged from his TV presence including medical clinics, food and clothing distribution sites, and a vocational training center.

Four years ago, Fanini left First Baptist to form a new church, Memorial Baptist Church in Niteroi, which he served until his death.

Fanini was visiting his family to celebrate a new granddaughter when he became ill and was admitted to a Bedford, Texas, hospital with pneumonia on Sept. 13. While being treated, he suffered a stroke from which he did not recover.

Funeral services will be held Sept. 26 at Fort Worth’s Iglesia Bautista Getsemani. Other memorial services will be held in Brazil.

Survivors include his wife, Helga; a daughter, Margaret Aviles of Bedford; sons, Otto Fanini of Houston and Roberto Fanini of McKinney, Texas; and four grandchildren.

–Jim White is editor of the Religious Herald.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (RNS)—An Alabama pastor was elected president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, overwhelmingly defeating Henry J. Lyons, the denomination’s former leader who was sent to prison for fraud.

Julius R. Scruggs, pastor of First Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville, Ala., won the presidency during the denomination’s annual meeting in Memphis, Tenn.

Lyons, who now leads a church in Florida, received just 924 of the more than 5,000 votes cast.

Scruggs has led the Huntsville church for more than 32 years and has served as the vice president-at-large of the predominantly black denomination. He succeeds William J. Shaw, who served two five-year terms.

Lyons resigned from the presidency of the denomination in 1999 after being convicted of swindling millions from corporations wanting to market products to church members. He was released from prison in 2003.

Riggins Earl, an ethics professor at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, said the overwhelming vote demonstrated that members wanted to put the Lyons’ controversy behind them.

“It means that the leadership of the churches of this convention as well as the members, lay members of the convention, are … unequivocally clear that they want leadership of integrity,” said Earl, who attended the meeting in Memphis and voted for Scruggs. “They have spoken loudly that they want that.”

Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, professor of African-American studies at Colby College in Maine and an assistant pastor of a Massachusetts church, said the vote indicates a desire for leaders who don’t prompt questions.

“It looks like people are ready for new leadership and an opportunity to move forward and to really, I hope, build on what Dr. Shaw has done,” said Gilkes, who did not attend the meeting. “At this time, I think it’s really important that our leadership in our religious life be forward-looking and be ready to basically be in a position that’s unassailable.”

Joseph Wright, a Florida pastor who supported Lyons, said he considered the outcome to be a “divine right” and was not disappointed with the outcome.

“I’m hoping that now that this is over, that we’ll start mending some bridges and start establishing a new direction for the convention and begin a healing process,” said Wright, pastor of Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Fla.

In the days before the election, Lyons sought a temporary restraining order to halt the process because he thought it was unfair, but a federal court denied that request and the election was held as scheduled.

Lyons, the pastor of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Tampa, Fla., made an unsuccessful run for president of the Florida General Baptist Convention in 2007.

Scruggs said during his campaign that he hoped to expand the mission work of the denomination beyond Africa to countries like Haiti, where individual National Baptist churches have had a presence. He also said he wanted to see the denomination develop a public policy commission to better address issues such as public education and health care.

MINNEAPOLIS (RNS)—Former Southern Baptist Convention President Frank Page said he doesn’t expect much to result from the work of advisers to the White House’s office dealing with faith-based and community groups.

“I believe that the policy recommendations that will come forth will be relatively innocuous, good, helpful,” Page, a member of the panel, told the annual meeting of the Religion Newswriters Association. He expects results to be not much more than “low-hanging fruit.”

“There will be good things, but nothing of great substance.”

While Page has publicly disagreed with Obama on some issues, notably abortion, he nonetheless praised the president for his “responsible fatherhood” and poverty initiatives, as well as his commitment not to fund abortion under his proposed health care reforms.

Resident fundamentalist 

The South Carolina pastor called himself the “resident fundamentalist” on the 25-member advisory panel that includes Christians, Jews, Muslims and a Hindu as well as representatives of secular organizations. Despite “some serious disagreements” with Obama, Page said he prays for the president daily and is honored to be a member of the advisory council.

The White House did not immediately comment on Page’s remarks; the director of the faith-based office, Joshua DuBois, had earlier canceled his scheduled appearance at the Minneapolis conference.

Peg Chemberlin, president-elect of the National Council of Churches and also a member of the advisory panel, said she thinks the work of the council is more than political expediency for the White House.

Something to offer 

“I don’t think that this is primarily about political cover, but I think this is about affirming that the faith community’s got something to offer,” she said. “The nonprofit community is a huge and important sector in building the common good.”

Asked if they saw any potential common ground being reached on abortion, both Page and Chemberlin expressed hopes that the White House might succeed in its work to reduce the need for abortion.

“That’s probably the only common ground that I can see coming forth on that issue,” Page said.

ROGERS, Ark. — Impending vacancies in the top leadership positions of the Southern Baptist Convention’s two mission boards offer unique opportunities for the denomination as it considers new ways to engage its mission enterprise, says the chair of a task force examining how the SBC should most effectively structure its missionary and funding mechanisms.

The Sept. 16 announcement that Jerry Rankin will retire in July 2010 as president of the International Mission Board — preceded weeks earlier by the resignation of Geoff Hammond as president of the North American Mission Board — could represent a “God moment,” said Ronnie Floyd of Rogers, Ark., chair of the SBC’s Great Commission Resurgence task force.

“We have a unique moment in our history, with both of the boards not having a leader,” said Floyd in an interview the day after Rankin’s announcement. “No one anywhere would have thought that — especially those of us on the GCR task force. All Southern Baptists have to ask ourselves one question — is God saying anything to us in all this? I don’t know that he is. I’m sure he’s speaking to us, but what he’s saying, I don’t know.

“All I can say is that I believe it is a God moment, whatever that might mean,” said Floyd, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Springdale and the Church at Pinnacle Hills, both in Northwest Arkansas.

Last June, the SBC authorized its president, Johnny Hunt, to appoint a task force to study how the denomination can work “more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.” The 23-member panel, which held its first meeting Aug. 11-12, is to bring a report and any recommendations to the 2010 SBC annual meeting, June 15-16 in Orlando, Fla.

Although task force members have declined to discuss topics raised at their meetings, which are closed to the public, some outside the committee have proposed merging the convention’s mission boards; revamping the SBC’s 85-year-old unified giving plan, the Cooperative Program, to channel more funds to national and international mission; and offering SBC churches greater flexibility in supporting denominational causes.

Floyd said that as IMB president, Rankin has played a pivotal role in creating a “culture” in which greater emphasis can be given to the Great Commission — Jesus’ instructions to spread his teachings to the world, recorded at the end of the Gospel of Matthew.

“Dr. Rankin is a walking Great Commission Resurgence for the Southern Baptist Convention,” said Floyd. “He represents everything that we’re involved in right now, trying to create ways for this convention to develop a new commitment to the Great Commission. So the loss of his leadership is great to this denomination.”

In comments following his retirement announcement, Rankin said encouraging local churches to take greater ownership of their mission task was the most significant accomplishment of his tenure at the IMB. Through a board reorganization in the late-1990s and a more far-reaching one earlier this year, he said he sought to “multiply [SBC] resources and people by mobilizing our churches [and] by personalizing their involvement.”

Floyd’s churches – actually one congregation on two campuses – are themselves characteristic of the more flexible approach to engaging mission that gave impetus to the GCR task force’s appointment. A world mission conference hosted by the congregation Sept. 20-23 will feature almost 60 missionaries representing 29 ministries in Arkansas and the United States and around the globe.

“I have nothing but the highest respect for [Rankin],” said Floyd, “and I believe our group shares that respect. … When he launched the reorganization in the 1990s, that changed things in remarkable ways, especially in his commitment to personalization of missions for churches. And now the newest restructuring is creative and it is right, because we do live in a flat world. That is cutting edge.”

Floyd declined to speculate on a merger of the mission boards or the creation of a new entity to replace them. In a Sept. 16 press conference, Rankin said he likely wouldn’t support a merger, though consideration of a “common mission effort through a new entity that is neither the IMB nor the NAMB” might have merit.

The timing of Rankin’s retirement won’t appreciably affect the GCR task force’s work or accelerate its decision-making, Floyd said.

“The fact is, right now everything [occurring in the SBC] affects our work,” he said, adding, “We’re under a June deadline regardless because that is what the SBC has instructed us to do.”

But he repeated that the next nine months offer the denomination a window of opportunity.

“God has given us a moment from now to June,” he said. “When I stand before Jesus and when the convention stands before Christ, what we did with this moment [will be important]. I don’t want to hold my head in shame or the convention to hold its head in shame.”

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Robert Dilday is managing editor of the Religious Herald.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla—Jerry Rankin, who has served 17 years as president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, has announced plans to retire next summer. Rankin, who will be 68 when he retires July 31, 2010, told the mission board’s trustees at their Sept. 15-16 meeting in Jacksonville, Fla.

Jimmy Pritchard, pastor of First Baptist Church in Forney, will chair the search committee to seek Rankin’s successor. The Forney church is dually aligned with the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

Nathan Lino, pastor of Northeast Houston Baptist Church in Humble, which is uniquely aligned with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, also will serve on the search committee. Norman Coe, associate pastor of Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky, will be vice chair.

Others on the search committee are Stuart Bell, pastor of First Baptist Church in Centerton, Ark.; Joe Hewgley of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Rogers, Ark.; Jana Brown from Peavine Baptist Church in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga.; Charles Allen Fowler from West Jackson Baptist Church in Jackson, Tenn.; Robert Jackson, pastor of Peninsula Baptist Church in Troutman, N.C.; Mike Penry from First Baptist Church in Garner, N.C., Tim Locher from First Baptist Church in Hendersonville, N.C.; Dick Landry from Trinity Baptist Church in Lake Charles, La.; Kathy Towns from First Baptist Church in Arcadia, La.; Ray Jones, pastor of Ridgecrest Baptist Church in Dothan, Ala.; Richard Powell, pastor of McGregor Baptist Church in Fort Myers, Fla; and Paul Chitwood, pastor of First Baptist Church in Mount Washington, Ky.

Increased reliance on local churches to carry out the mission task is one of the most significant accomplishments of his tenure, Rankin told reporters in a conference call the day after he announced his retirement plans.

He has encouraged the IMB to make “an intentional effort not to do mission on behalf of Southern Baptists but seeking to multiply the resources and the people by mobilizing our churches, by personalizing their involvement, and getting churches, associations and state conventions to truly partner with us in the task of global missions,” he said.

Currently, as many as 8,000 Southern Baptist churches are engaged in direct, long-term mission partnerships overseas, Rankin said —a dramatic strategic shift in a denomination that traditionally relied exclusively on a large force of full-time missionaries to carry out that task.

The strategic shift has had the practical effect of enabling Southern Baptists to maintain mission involvement in the midst of an economic crisis, Rankin said.

Earlier this year, revenue shortfalls led IMB trustees to place a cap on the number of missionaries they could appoint and forced them to consider a long-term restriction if contributions remained low. Currently the IMB employs about 5,600 missionaries.

“Already the role of the missionary has significantly changed,” he said.

“Their role now is engagement in discipleship and leadership training. They’re not the primary church planter doing the work. It’s what they do in partnership with national believers and churches and conventions. That’s going to be even more part of the strategy in the future.”

That approach could be enhanced as a result of an intensive self-examination undertaken by the SBC, said Rankin. Last June the SBC appointed a Great Commis-sion task force to study its organizational and funding mechanisms.

Rankin expressed little enthusiasm for one proposal being given wide currency—that the mission priority could be accomplished more effectively through a merger of the IMB and the North American Mission Board, whose top executive recently resigned.

“Certainly in terms of our denominational structure and the way things are done, I personally would not see this as advisable or desirable,” he said.

“Most people do not comprehend how radically different the two boards are. The only thing we have in common are the words ‘mission’ and ‘board’ in our names. Our focus, our structure, our nature—there’s no similarity whatever. To try to merge two entities with such a different focus would create an even greater bureaucracy that would dilute any effectiveness we have with the IMB and NAMB in their unique assignments.”

Any merger that simply combined all responsibilities currently assigned to both the IMB and NAMB would be cumbersome, said Rankin.

In the meantime, Rankin said he hopes a new president of the IMB will have vision, focus and passion.

“We’ve got to have a leader who is a visionary, who can see the future, what can be, what is beyond the current reality, where we need to go to complete the Great Commis-sion and reach all people with the gospel,” he said.

“But we also need a leader who has the discipline to stay focused and keep the organization focused. There is a natural tendency to become too broad and lose focus on the goal. And the leader has to have a heart and a passion for the task. There can’t be a pretense in this. Passion communicates to and influences others that you are seeking to lead.”

Rankin said the president will benefit from a board of trustees that “has never been more unified.”

His disagreements with trustees—which culminated in policy and personnel changes that some observers saw as direct slaps at Rankin—have tempered, he said.

“I have never felt more unity and support,” he said. “That’s a good time to relinquish the role, when you’re riding the wave.”