Voices: What are we trying to preserve?

I am a local church pastor who loves Texas Baptists, and I want cooperation to thrive among Texas Baptist churches.

I read with interest the report from Texas Baptists Communications on the recent Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board meeting. Their reporting, and the reporting and commentary from the Baptist Standard, reveals the meeting was consequential.

Several things are converging for Texas Baptists: a smaller proposed budget, GC2 Strong, constitutional and bylaw amendments, and an unresolved revision to the Baylor University relationship agreement.

These issues likely will play out on the floor of the 2026 BGCT annual meeting. Pastors and messengers must ask what these decisions will do together. In other words, are we changing the convention to serve our shared mission, or are we defining our shared mission in ways that will preserve the convention we already know?

What purpose do changes serve?

My academic research is largely in complex adaptive human systems and leadership. Every systems thinker comes across Donella Meadows and her book Thinking in Systems.

Meadows states every system has three parts: elements that make up the system, the interconnections between those elements, and the overarching purpose governing the system. She asks which part of the system can be changed to bring about the most change systemwide.

Put differently, how many of our changes may result in short-term changes but fail to cause lasting transformation throughout the system?

If the system we want to change was a football team, Meadows suggests changing players may alter the team’s performance; changing the rules will alter relationships; but changing the purpose, perhaps from winning games to losing games, will direct everything else.

Changes to personnel and rules will be directed by the purpose the system actually serves, whether or not that purpose is stated.

For Texas Baptists, staff realignment changes people and assignments. Amendments to messenger participation and Executive Board authority changes rules and power. Those are consequential changes and not merely cosmetic. I wonder what purpose those changes serve?

A strong case for needed change

There is a strong case for needed change, and I think our Texas Baptist leaders are trying to steward difficult and complex decisions faithfully.

The decline in Cooperative Program giving is real, and responsible leaders must adjust commitments. GC2 Strong may help strengthen and revitalize many Texas Baptist churches. A convention needs some shared convictions and workable membership rules. These changes are reasonable and understandable.

Eric Black’s recent editorial makes a fair case that messengers cannot attend equally to every institutional detail. But who decides which details matter most when those details determine who may participate in Texas Baptist life?

Who decides which details?

Let me give an example of what I mean. In July 2025, Baylor researchers returned a grant supporting research on inclusion and belonging in churches, including the experiences of LGBTQ people. Baylor said its concern was not the research itself, but with advocacy conflicting with university policy rising as part of the grant.

In November 2025, BGCT messengers rejected proposals to defund Baylor and to direct a review of its relationship agreement. Discussions about that relationship were already underway by February 2026; a student-organized event in April intensified public concern.

In May, the BGCT’s Institutional Relations Committee authorized a nonbinding review. In September, the Executive Board referred a proposed revision back to the committee. The terms of that agreement have not been made public.

I think the issue is larger than whether one agrees with Baylor. Messengers declined to direct a review of the Baylor agreement. Yet the relationship remained under discussion, and a proposed revision reached the Executive Board less than a year later.

The committee had authority to pursue that work. Precisely because it had that authority, Texas Baptist churches deserve to know what questions prompted the review, what changes were proposed, and how leaders understood the messengers’ earlier vote.

Texas Baptists resisted the SBC’s requirement that mission cooperation conform to the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message. It should also be pointed out, the BGCT continues to cooperate with churches using different confessions and stances on women pastors. Yet, in 2017 it removed three churches over sexuality and declined to accept even designated gifts from them.

I contend the BGCT is neither a convention without boundaries nor one committed to uniformity on every matter. My question is how it decides which disagreements make cooperation impossible. Further, who makes those decisions and why?

Three questions to answer

Alongside its stated mission, an institution can develop a powerful interest in preserving its survival by addressing funding, authority, relationships, and familiar identity. Obviously, institutions need continuity to do their good work. But continuity can quietly become an end in itself.

When Cooperative Program giving declines and disagreements unsettle constituents, people begin to look for answers. Clearer boundaries, tighter authority, and a unifying strategy can promise relief. But please consider that relief from uncertainty is not equal to greater faithfulness to a mission. That presents a test to all Texas Baptists.

I suggest our Texas Baptist leaders and messengers evaluate the proposed changes with questions that can be answered publicly. Here are three possible tests.

First, regarding our mission: What can local churches do through GC2 Strong they could not do before, and how will churches judge its fruit?

Second, regarding authority: What specific problems require the proposed changes to messenger rules and Executive Board authority, and what safeguards accompany them?

Third, regarding cooperation: What differences can Texas Baptist churches and partners retain while still working together, and who decides when a difference crosses the line?

Texas Baptists say we cooperate to help churches carry out the Great Commandment and Great Commission. Our history shows both a commitment to that broad cooperation and a recurring impulse to secure that cooperation by narrowing who belongs and what subjects institutions may explore.

Before we vote, we should be able to say how these changes will strengthen the cooperation of churches—and what limits we are placing on that cooperation.

Scott Jones is pastor of First Baptist Church in Rockport and a member of the Baptist Standard board of directors. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.