Baptists worry if enough spent on evangelism

A Southern Baptist budget showing no money for a national evangelistic campaign upset some leaders of the organization, which has a strong tradition of evangelism and growing churches.

The news came in late 2008, a year when declining membership and fewer baptisms than previous years perplexed the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Critics blame the denomination for losing its focus, but others believe it is a symptom of the changing face of America.

Geoff Hammond, head of the denomination’s North American Mission Board, based in Alpharetta, told Southern Baptists at its national convention last summer of the launch of a long-range evangelism program with $1 million in initial funding, according to a Baptist Press report. But the budget presented in late 2008 showed zero dollars for that program.

A national missions committee leader resigned his chairmanship in protest over the new budget, and the mission board scrambled to say it was all a misunderstanding.

The Baptists will spend $750,000 on the program in 2009 on training and advertising in five states, including Georgia, mission board spokesman Brandon Pickett said. The money was not on the budget because it is left over from a 2006 program.

Still, that is less than the $1 million announced by Hammond, and some Southern Baptists think they see less emphasis on the evangelism that helped them add members and grow churches for decades.

About every five years, the Southern Baptists have run national campaigns, with the mission board buying advertising and providing training and support for local pastors and church members.

“Now I’m not seeing any of that,” said the Rev. Keith Fordham of Fayetteville, former president of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists.

After the resignation, a report in the Georgia Southern Baptist newspaper said the denomination spent declining amounts in each of the last four national evangelism pushes —- from $5 million for the 2000 campaign to $300,000 for one in 2005.

Fordham and others fear that is one reason the denomination has stopped growing.

“The things we have done for 50 years have totally disappeared in the last eight years,” Fordham said.

Others believe the lack of growth and unsuccessful campaigns are partially because the United States has changed.

David W. Key Sr., director of Baptist Studies at Emory University, said the U.S. population is more diverse than ever. A national campaign by the largely white and Southern denomination relates to fewer of the U.S. population, many of whom were not raised in churches.

“I think the North American Mission Board has to step back and do some heavy reflection and the critics have to step back and realize there are some bigger issues going on,” Key said.

The denomination has grown more conservative theologically in the last 15 years, losing or expelling moderate Christians, he said. Thus, they have lost some of their cutting-edge thinkers and pastors who were trying new ways of reaching out.

“They have a smaller and smaller theological framework that appeals to fewer and fewer people,” he said.

Pickett, of the mission board, said Southern Baptist leaders realize that change is occurring. The new strategy is to help pastors who know the individual needs of their community organize and lead rather than implement a top-down campaign. The budget reflects that, he said.

Tim Paterson, chairman of the board of the mission board trustees, said this is a different way of doing things.

“Everything’s going to work toward that. Instead of just having one group do it and run it and take care of the spending and so forth, we’re going to all do it. Which is, I know different and I know it’s a novel approach, but I like it.”