March 15, 2000
Directors of missions request meeting
with BGCT Executive Board, officers
___By Dan Martin
___Texas Baptist Communications
___CEDAR HILL--Texas directors of associational missions have requested a meeting with the executive director and the elected officers of the Baptist General Convention of Texas to discuss their hopes for and concerns about the state convention.
___The request was made at the concluding session of the three-day Mission Team annual retreat at Mount Lebanon Baptist Encampment, which was attended by 68 of the 70 directors of missions.
___Charles Wade, who took office as BGCT executive director Feb. 1, met with the group for about an hour during the retreat.
___"The directors of missions requested a meeting with the executive director and officers, to take place within 60 days and to allow time enough for extensive discussion and dialogue about the convention," said Lynn Eckeberger, associate state missions director of the BGCT.
___Eckeberger said the directors of missions expressed appreciation for Wade's candor and openness but wanted more time to talk about their concerns and visions for the future.
___Dick Maples, associate executive director, who also took office earlier this year, said efforts are being made to schedule a meeting within the next 45 days or so, which will allow the directors of missions to clear their calendars and arrange to attend.
___In addition to Wade, the directors of missions said they want to meet with BGCT officers Clyde Glazener, pastor of Gambrell Street Baptist Church of Fort Worth, president; Lorenzo Pena, director of missions for El Paso Baptist Association, first vice president; and Bill Ballou, minister of education at First Baptist Church of Abilene, second vice president.
___They also requested that Rudy Sanchez, chairman of the BGCT Executive Board, meet with them. Sanchez is pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista Mexicana in Dallas.
___At the retreat, Wade spent about 20 minutes talking with the directors of missions about his first days as executive director, of his travels around the state, his observations and hopes for the BGCT.
___Wade told the group he wants their help to do the job to which he has been called.
___Before he took the position of executive director, he said, he spread a map of Texas on his kitchen table and prayed, "'Dear God, if you want me to take this job, give me a heart for Texas.' He has done that.
___"I want to put my arms around Texas, but I cannot do it alone. You cannot do the task by yourselves. Pastors, deacons, laypersons, all members are needed.
___"I think we have got a chance. If we can work together, I think we can do something good for Texas," Wade said.
___The former pastor of First Baptist Church of Arlington said the division in the BGCT presents a "real, painful dilemma" for him and he grieves when any church leaves.
___In the pastorate, he acknowledged that he did not make everybody happy, but when someone left the church, "I hated it. It was like pulling a finger off my hand. I am in pain, and I know you are in pain."
___Wade said he is concerned about critical material being circulated among some churches. It is somewhat understandable if a church walks away based on the facts and the best material they can get, he said, but that's not what's being given. "Much of this material, like a piece entitled 'The Facts,' contains stuff that simply is not true.
___"I do not want to lose churches. I do not want people to misrepresent the BGCT either," he said.
___In a question-and-answer session, directors of missions said they and the churches in their associations are concerned about what they perceive as confusion concerning the direction of the BGCT.
___One director of missions said: "We want to be able to put things on the table that are of interest and concern to all of us. We consider ourselves part of the team; we consider you the quarterback. What signal are you calling; where do you want to go?"
___Directors of missions said they are concerned about the appearance that the BGCT is "pulling away" from the Southern Baptist Convention and is either moving toward creating a new national convention or forging closer ties with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
___"Pastors and members of the churches in my association have a major concern with your alignment with the CBF," one director of missions said. "If the BGCT joins the CBF, then we will pull out. We want the SBC, not the CBF," he said.
___Wade responded that "nobody is trying to take the BGCT into the CBF. The CBF is a fellowship; it is not a national convention."
___He acknowledged that First Baptist Church of Arlington, where he was pastor before assuming the BGCT leadership role, participated in the Fellowship. But the church gave more of its offerings to the SBC than to the global missions effort of CBF, he added.
___When another director of missions said he wanted Wade to say that if the BGCT leaves the SBC, it will be over "his dead body," Wade joked that he wants to live and would not make that kind of statement because he does not know where the SBC is going.
___"If the SBC will let us work with them, we will work with them," Wade said. "There will never be a time when a church in the BGCT cannot fully participate with the SBC."
___Despite claims that the BGCT has left the SBC, the state convention has provided options, allowing churches to direct where their mission offerings will go, he said. "The BGCT is church-driven, not convention-driven."
___He admitted he has concern with the theological direction of the SBC because of the committee named in 1999 to revise the Baptist Faith & Message doctrinal statement.
___And he said he believes at least one of the SBC seminaries is teaching strict Calvinism, which he said "could undercut the mission spirit of a whole generation of preachers." He referred to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, led by Al Mohler, a five-point Calvinist. In recent years, Mohler has assembled a faculty heavily weighted with other five-point Calvinists.
___Another director of missions questioned Wade about whether the BGCT is headed toward becoming a national convention and cited Herbert Reynolds' 1998 speech that called for creation of a Convention of the Americas.
___Wade noted Reynolds, chancellor of Baylor University in Waco, was on the search committee that selected him to be executive director, but said he did not encourage the "notion of a new convention" when Reynolds made it at a Texas Baptists Committed breakfast. "It doesn't seem to be a really good idea to me now," he added.
___The same director of missions also noted that the creation of Texas seminaries, Sunday School literature and "opening the doors" to churches outside the state indicate the BGCT is moving toward creating a new convention.
___"I am not looking to create a national convention," Wade said. "We will partner with anyone we can."
___Wade said he is not a bishop but considers himself to be an encourager.
___"My job is to solicit and combine the resources--human and financial--of our churches so we do together what we cannot do alone."
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