TOGETHER: Staff reduction better sooner than later

Posted: 10/19/07

TOGETHER:
Staff reduction better sooner than later

The question has been raised with me as to why I decided to reduce the size of our BGCT staff before messengers at the annual meeting have a chance to vote on the 2008 budget. They understand personnel decisions are the responsibility of the executive director, not the messengers, but the timing bothers them. Let me try to explain my reasons.

• If we had not dealt with the personnel positions until after the convention, then we would have had a month in which all of the staff would have been in limbo regarding their futures, and rumors would have been out of control, and morale would be worse, not better.

Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

• Messengers would have felt they were determining the fate of 25 to 30 employees without sufficient information to make a good decision. They would have felt emotionally undone to have to make a decision affecting the lives and families of so many.

• If we had waited, we simply would have been prolonging worry and frustration on the part of the staff and messengers.

• If we waited until the new executive director was in place to make the final decisions, we would not have money in the budget to pay salaries from January until the new leader could decide what to do. Plus, morale would tank because the staff would know that one of the first tasks facing the new director was to reduce staff. I did not believe that was the healthiest or most productive way for us to proceed.

• This process we are going through is the culmination of reorganization and restructuring decisions we have been working on for three years. If you look at the list of decisions regarding positions, you can see something of how and why the process unfolded as it has. In my judgment, it would not be right to have left this effort incomplete insofar as I could help to bring the process to an appropriate conclusion.

• I will not be filling key positions in the next few months. Those all will be available to our new executive director, and if he feels we have made some bad moves in these decisions, he will be able to redesign and shape it in the fashion he would like.

Living together in the life of a local church or in an association or convention of Baptists is not easy. Disagreements will arise. Relationships will be strained and tested. This situation has strained and tested Texas Baptists.

I have asked God to guide us through this entire journey, and I am grateful for the times I have felt his wisdom and strength. The mistakes I have made are mine alone. The strength he has given to help me make right what I could is deeply appreciated.

Please encourage those you know that the work of the convention in serving the churches, winning the lost and ministering to the needs of all people remains our focus. All of us—older and younger, pastors and laity, men and women—need to be involved in helping the BGCT continue to be a truly great people with Texas and the world on our hearts.

We are loved.

Charles Wade is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board.