IMB announces voluntary retirement incentive details

RICHMOND, Va. (BP)—In the first phase of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board’s plan to address revenue shortfalls, leaders announced details of a voluntary retirement incentive during meetings with personnel Sept. 10.

The board will offer the voluntary retirement incentive to all eligible staff and active career missionaries age 50 and older with five or more years of service, as of Dec. 31, 2015. For a missionary couple to be eligible for the incentive, only one spouse is required to meet the qualifications.

‘Pray and discern’

“Our desire in all of this is to be as generous as possible to as many people as possible,” IMB President David Platt said. “Since we are asking everyone in the organization to pray and discern if the Lord is leading them to a new place of involvement in mission, we know that 50-year-olds, for example, are going to be doing exactly that. And if the Lord leads them to make a transition, we want to provide for them as generously as possible.

“We want this voluntary retirement incentive to be a picture of honor for past service in mission, as well as future service in mission. I am trusting that just as God has mightily used brothers and sisters through the IMB in the past, he has plans to use them mightily beyond the IMB in the future, far beyond what any of us can ask or imagine.”

Details announced

Sebastian Traeger, IMB executive vice president, presented specific details of the plan, which includes a base retirement package, a bonus incentive complete with financial and medical considerations, specific provisions for smooth transition and additional benefits beyond the scope of a standard retirement package.

Personnel who voluntarily elect to accept the incentive will finalize their decisions in early December. Those with more than 15 years of service will be given “emeritus” status to honor their years of service.

Transition assistance

Not all missionaries will choose to transition to the United States. Some may choose to stay on the field as volunteers, through alternative pathways or through employment options. Traeger noted personnel transitioning to volunteer status would be allowed to use their housing and vehicles through the end of January 2016.

The board will provide a transition team to serve every person who chooses to take the incentive. Missionaries will be given a transition grant to accommodate their adjustment. Also, churches, seminaries and state conventions have contacted the IMB offering to help missionaries transitioning back to the United States and committing to pray for the IMB during this time of transition.

The retirement incentive information was presented in two segments during the meetings: first to missionary personnel, who mostly attended via electronic communication and then in person and online to staff, mostly based in Richmond, Va. The two meeting times allowed leadership to convey specific details that pertain to each group.

Follow-up to August announcement

The incentive originally was announced during an Aug. 27 meeting when IMB leaders laid out a plan to address IMB’s revenue shortfalls and complete a reset of the organization.

Since the Aug. 27 meeting, Platt said, he repeatedly has heard people ask why the IMB would ask seasoned missionaries to leave the field instead of freezing—or decreasing—the number of new missionaries to be sent in the next two years.

No freeze on new appointments

After much prayer and discussion, leaders concluded their current plan was the most viable option amidst a variety of non-ideal options, Platt said. Specifically, he noted four reasons why the board is not freezing or further decreasing the number of new missionaries now.

First, “every type of person in the IMB is important,” Platt said, including long-termers and short-termers, staff and missionaries, younger personnel and older personnel, new missionaries and seasoned missionaries. “For this reason, I don’t want any particular type of person in the IMB to step aside from service. That is why I have wanted to call every single person within the IMB to put a blank check on the table and to ask, ‘Is the Lord leading me to a new phase of involvement in mission?’”

Platt reiterated the retirement incentive is only Phase 1 of a plan to address revenue shortfalls. Part of Phase 2 of the plan is an opportunity for anyone working at the IMB to indicate voluntarily God is leading him or her to a new place of involvement in mission.

Pray whether to stay or go

Second, IMB leaders stressed they want the initial steps of the plan to be voluntary.

“I want to be crystal clear: We are not asking people to leave the field,” Platt said. “If someone is thriving on the field and senses the Lord leading them to stay on the field, then I trust they will stay on the field. … We are asking everyone to pray about whether or not the Lord is leading them to a new place of involvement in mission, and we are providing an avenue for people to voluntarily leave the IMB if they sense the Lord leading them to do so.”

The voluntary nature of the plan also applies to new missionaries the IMB already has committed to send in 2015 and 2016.

“In light of our commitment to them, we want to give them the same voluntary choice we’re giving everyone else,” Platt said.

Send those called out from churches

Third, sending people through the IMB “is born out of a conviction that new missionaries being sent from churches through the IMB is a foundational, non-negotiable part of who we are and what we do,” Platt said. If the IMB were to freeze sending new missionaries, within three years the IMB would have zero apprentices or journeyman on the field, he noted.

“Further, regarding the SBC, the IMB foundationally exists to serve SBC churches by facilitating the sending of missionaries from those churches,” Platt said. “The less people we send, the fewer churches we serve. The fewer churches we serve, the more we forsake one of our primary foundations.”

A decline in sending missionaries historically results in a decline in the IMB’s relationship with SBC churches, Platt said. Of the approximately 300 new missionaries the IMB has planned to send in 2015 and 2016, more than half of that number includes short-term missionaries, he noted. Among those 300 missionaries, only 135 of them will be long-term. That is about one-third of the long-term missionaries the IMB sent a decade ago.

Freeze would not fix the problem

Fourth, cutting or freezing new missionary sending wouldn’t address IMB’s immediate need to fix its long-term cost structure. The board must get to a place of short-term financial responsibility and long-term financial sustainability, and simply freezing the number of new missionaries for the next two years will not solve that problem, he said. However, he added, the IMB may need to make adjustments in the number of new missionaries sent in the future.

“I would prefer not to make such adjustments, but this is where I’m reminded that I would prefer not to make any of these adjustments we’re making,” Platt said. “My preference is not to stop sending new missionaries to the field, and my preference is not to see existing missionaries leave the field.

“As I’ve mentioned at different points, the path we are walking is not ideal in any way, but after much prayer and discussion, other leaders and I believe the path we are walking is the best option we can take in a sea of non-ideal options available to us.”