Texas Baptist Men attempts to walk between two Texas Baptist bodies_112403

Posted: 11/24/03

Texas Baptist Men attempts to walk
between two Texas Baptist bodies

By Ken Camp

Texas Baptist Communications

Treading the ground between competing Baptist conventions is no walk in the park, but it's the path Texas Baptist Men has chosen, according to Interim Executive Director Leo Smith.

Texas Baptist Men is a self-governing affiliate of the Baptist General Convention of Texas that depends on the BGCT for most of its operating budget. But last February, the board of directors voted also to have a fraternal relationship with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, a group that broke away from the BGCT in 1998.

“The primary reason for the relationship with SBTC is to maintain a working relationship with people who have been integrally involved in the ministries of Texas Baptist Men since its beginning,” Smith explained.

East Texas and the Dallas-Fort Worth area are regions where Texas Baptist Men has been strongest, and they are also areas where SBTC has made inroads in recruiting churches. More to the point, many of Texas Baptist Men's key lay leaders–particularly in disaster relief ministries–are members of churches now affiliated with SBTC, Smith noted.

Texas Baptist Men crafted the working agreement with SBTC out of a desire to be a place where members of BGCT and SBTC churches could work together, and to avoid the threat of having two competing Baptist men's organizations in the state, Smith said. “My hope is that Texas Baptist Men will be able to walk between the two conventions with integrity and a vision of bridging the gap for the laymen.”

But moving from vision to reality isn't easy, he acknowledged. “It's a work in progress.”

The SBTC view

SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards agreed. In the last nine months, there has been “significant progress” made in developing a working relationship between his group and Texas Baptist Men, he said.

At the same time, he noted questions that remain unanswered and issues that have not yet been finally resolved. “We may be a little over five years old, but we're still a work in progress ourselves.”

Richards said Texas Baptist Men and the SBTC mutually benefit from having the chance to share information about each other with new audiences.

“It's an opportunity for more men to be involved in missions through Texas Baptist Men. There are churches affiliated with us who have never heard of Texas Baptist Men. We have over 200 churches that were not in existence in 1998 affiliated with our convention. As these churches grow up, it gives their men the opportunity to plug into the Texas Baptist Men organization,” he said.

However, at this point, the SBTC website has no link to Texas Baptist Men and does not include any Texas Baptist Men-related events on its calendar.

By the same token, the Texas Baptist Men website does not provide any links to the SBTC. But the Texas Baptist Men annual planbook for leaders includes a page promoting the SBTC state missions offering–from which TBM derives no benefit–and lists some SBTC-related events on the calendar.

Texas Baptist Men receives the bulk of its funding from the BGCT.

The BGCT view

Texas Baptist Men's long-time status as an affiliate of the BGCT has been beneficial both to the convention and the missions organization, according to BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade.

“For more than 35 years, the Baptist General Convention of Texas and Texas Baptist Men have shared a common goal of advancing all the interests of the Redeemer's Kingdom,” Wade said. “People of our state know Texas Baptists as caring Christian people in large part because of the sacrificial service of Texas Baptist Men disaster relief volunteers and retiree builders.

“The BGCT has benefited from the good will produced by these ministries, and Texas Baptist Men could not have performed these ministries without the significant financial support of BGCT-related churches,” Wade added. “My prayer is that this important missions partnership will continue for years to come.”

As the men's group seeks to develop a working relationship with SBTC while trying not to alienate the BGCT, at least five key issues emerge.

Money

The BGCT provides budget money and mission offering funds to Texas Baptist Men. The SBTC doesn't provide any.

And while Texas Baptist Men has its own missions equipping center in east Dallas, the organization's offices are located in the BGCT building, and the organization benefits from BGCT personnel and support services.

If Texas Baptist Men were an “affiliated” organization of the SBTC, like Criswell College, it might be included in that convention's budget. But as a “fraternal” partner, it can expect “no guarantee” of financial support through the SBTC budget or its state missions offering, Richards said.

Achieving status as an “affiliated” organization of the SBTC requires a more stringent doctrinal commitment, including adherence to the controversial 2000 Baptist Faith & Message statement.

In the future, the SBTC might grant funds to specific disaster relief efforts or to a jointly sponsored men's rally, Richards added. But it won't become a line item in the SBTC budget as long as its relationship is strictly “fraternal.”

The SBTC channels some designated money to Texas Baptist Men from its churches. In 2002, the SBTC forwarded $7,093 in designated gifts. Year to date in 2003, designated gifts to Texas Baptist Men funneled through the SBTC total $19,681.

In contrast, Texas Baptist Men received more than $1.27 million through the BGCT last year. In 2002, the BGCT provided $776,888 in budget funds, $60,962 through the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas missions and $100,711 in designated gifts from churches.

Disaster-relief ministries also benefited from $337,528 in BGCT designated gifts during 2002. That amount was unusually high, due primarily to gifts following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

This year, BGCT Chief Financial Officer David Nabors projects Texas Baptist Men will receive $815,661 in BGCT budget funds. In addition, through mid-November, it has received $15,189 through Mary Hill Davis Offering allocations, $51,028 in designated gifts from churches and $49,262 in disaster-relief support.

Disaster relief

The American Red Cross relates to the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board as the coordinating agency for disasters outside of Texas, but it deals directly with Texas Baptist Men for disaster relief within the state. Consequently, it was imperative that questions about this area be resolved quickly.

Richards pointed to this ministry as a “leading area where coordinated efforts have worked to the advancement of both Texas Baptist Men and SBTC in accomplishing kingdom work.”

The SBTC has worked with its affiliated churches and sympathetic associations to identify specific disaster-relief ministry vehicles that could become a part of the Texas Baptist Men fleet, he noted. “We partner with associations and churches. We do not own the units.”

Two or three such SBTC units are up and running.

Those units, and the volunteers who staff them, will operate with the understanding that “if called out, they work under the leadership of Texas Baptist Men and become a part of their team,” Richards added.

Volunteer builders

Texas Baptist Men has a 24-year-old ministry of volunteer construction, including church, camp and special projects builders. The SBTC has developed its own volunteer builders program, Texas Baptist Builders, under the direction of Bill Ibos.

“We do projects as requested by churches. If they want an SBTC team, we service those requests. If they are interested in Texas Baptist Men, we definitely refer them on,” Richards said. “It's an amicable relationship. I don't see it as competition. It's complementary. There's plenty of work to go around.”

Presence

Texas Baptist Men maintained a booth in the exhibit hall at the BGCT annual session in Lubbock this month and at the SBTC meeting in Corpus Christi in October. It sponsored a men's rally in Corpus Christi featuring Gibbie McMillian, missions service associate with the SBTC, as a key speaker. It also submitted an annual summary in the SBTC Book of Reports, and Smith gave a one-minute report to the convention.

The annual Texas Baptist Men Convention and one of its twice-yearly board meetings were held in conjunction with the BGCT in Lubbock. The men's ministry also had an annual summary printed in the BGCT Rook of Reports, its leaders led two breakout conferences at the BGCT, and the ministry occupied a prominent place in the BGCT's Monday night missions rally.

At the recent Texas Baptist Men board meeting, President Andy Andreason of McGregor appointed a committee to study when the group should hold its annual meeting.

Smith said the committee may consider recommending holding the annual meeting at a “neutral site” where men from all Baptist churches in Texas would feel comfortable attending. But if that happens, he said, “We want to maintain a presence at both conventions.”

Missions education

This remains an unresolved issue, Richards admitted. Currently, SBTC refers questions regarding the Royal Ambassadors program for boys and the Challengers program for young men to Texas Baptist Men or the North American Mission Board.

However, it's a “one-sided,” male-only missions education emphasis, because missions programs for preschoolers, girls and young women are led by Woman's Missionary Union of Texas, and Texas WMU does not have a fraternal relationship with SBTC, he noted.

“It leaves us with only a partial working partner in missions education in the state of Texas,” Richards said.

The SBTC might eventually develop its own missions education program, he added. “It may become a necessity to develop a holistic, church-wide approach to missions education, but that's not on the front burner at this point.”

National Woman's Missionary Union recognizes only one WMU organization in each state, and the national group has chosen to maintain its longstanding relationship with Texas WMU.

But as far as Texas WMU's relationship with the SBTC is concerned, “they have never asked us in any formal way to have a relationship with them,” said Executive Director Carolyn Porterfield.

However, women from SBTC-affiliated churches continue to attend the WMU-sponsored Texas Leadership Conference and statewide Acteens events, as well as serve in associational WMU leadership positions, she noted.

“Texas WMU will continue to service all the churches that want to work with us,” Porterfield said.

The organization created a “WMU of Texas Network” as an avenue to keep open lines of communication with women in churches not affiliated with the BGCT but supportive of Texas WMU.

Individuals, WMU groups or churches can enroll in the network either by contributing to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas missions or by providing annual support to Texas WMU through one of its endowment programs or scholarship funds. Unlike Texas Baptist Men, Texas WMU receives no Cooperative Program dollars from the BGCT. Its operating budget depends on gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering.

Smith is reluctant to guess what the future holds for Texas Baptist Men and its relationship with the BGCT and SBTC. But he knows what he hopes will happen.

“My dream is that there will come a day when we know each other well enough that relationships just happen, and we don't have to go through the process of working out cooperative agreements,” Smith said.

He also knows what he hopes never will happen. He doesn't want to see Texas Baptist Men sever its longstanding ties to the BGCT or lose the opportunity to work with valuable lay leaders in SBTC-related churches.

“I don't think that a para-church Baptist men's organization in Texas is the answer,” he said. “The answer is to walk between the two conventions.”