May 12, 2003
NAMB trustees postpone action on agreement with BGCT
___The North American Mission Board has postponed action on a cooperative missions agreement with the Baptist General Convention of Texas until at least October.
___A motion passed during the NAMB trustees' meeting May 7 declared the Southern Baptist Convention agency and Texas convention had reached an impasse. The motion called for a "response task force" to study the situation. The NAMB trustees will not meet again until Oct. 8.
___Cooperative agreements provide structure for joint ministry between the SBC mission board and state and regional conventions across the nation.
___The BGCT and NAMB do not have a current agreement. The most recent cooperative agreement was drafted between the BGCT and the SBC Home Mission Board, which coordinated Southern Baptist domestic missions until it was disbanded and NAMB was created in 1997.
___Negotiations on an updated document have been under way for more than a year, and both sides at various points have rejected changes made by the other. The sticking point in the document is NAMB's requirement that jointly funded missionaries sign an affirmation of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.
___The Southern Baptist Convention's new faith statement has not been embraced by the BGCT, although BGCT officials have said they are willing to work jointly with NAMB in supporting missionaries who are comfortable signing it. The BGCT also has said it will provide other means of funding for Texas missionaries who choose not to meet NAMB's mandate.
___In early March, the BGCT Executive Board approved a change proposed by NAMB and then added one sentence above the space where BGCT officials were to sign the document. That sentence reads: "Approved with the understanding that this indicates neither affirmation nor endorsement of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000."
___The BGCT addition falls under an all-capitals heading "BAPTIST GENERAL CONVENTION OF TEXAS" and is distinct from a section below where NAMB officials are to sign, also labeled in all-capitals, "NORTH AMERICAN MISSION BOARD."
___The BGCT accepted a parenthetical rewording required by NAMB officials elsewhere in the document that notes "NAMB's requirement" for jointly funded personnel "to conform to the Baptist Faith & Message 2000."
___After the BGCT Executive Board signed off on the document with the clarifying statement above the signatures, NAMB's president and trustee chairman both criticized the Texans' action.
___NAMB President Bob Reccord labeled the Executive Board's approval with the clarifying statement "regretful and frustrating." It "places at risk the possibility that we could once again work cooperatively to reach Texas and North American for Christ," he claimed.
___Fox called the Texas action "yet another step away from the Southern Baptist Convention."
___Ironically, Fox and Reccord previously faxed the BGCT a letter opposing the BGCT amendment precisely because it "states the obvious" and "does not alter how the agreement operates."
___At their meeting last week, the NAMB trustees approved a one-sentence motion: "Given the fact that the North American Mission Board and the Baptist General Convention of Texas have come to an impasse regarding a new cooperative agreement, and rather than enter into an argument about semantics, we move that NAMB's president and chairman of the board of trustees jointly appoint a response task force to review the substantive issues underlying the impasse."
___The NAMB trustees took no further action regarding the agreement, said the mission board's spokesman, Marty King.
___"The members of the task force were not named, and no other direction was given given the task force other than what is in the motion," King said.
___E.B. Brooks, director of the BGCT's Church Missions and Evangelism Section, who has guided the BGCT's participation in the process, expressed disappointment with the NAMB trustees' delay.
___Reccord and Fox already had written that the BGCT's clarifying statement does not "change the document in any way" and does not "alter how the agreement operates," Brooks noted.
___"With this in mind, we felt the agreement was affirmed," he said. "It was a simple matter of their board being informed as to what our Executive Board had done."
___The possibility that the NAMB trustees would create a task force to consider "substantive issues" is cause for concern, Brooks added.
___"We felt that any issues the NAMB had with us were dealt with when they adopted the cooperative agreement last October," he explained. "This action raises the potential of placing new issues into consideration of the cooperative agreement that they have already approved.
___"I am afraid that our churches will wait several months, only to discover that the rules have changed and that we must consider a new cooperative agreement.
___"I am praying that whatever 'substantive issues' are considered will be discussed with BGCT leadership and our churches will not be denied the opportunity to work with the NAMB in reaching North America for Christ."
The Baptist Standard
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