So long, Tom Eliff

[Joseph Patrick]

From Joseph Patrick...A news communique announced that Tom Eliff plans to retire as President of the IMB, only three years after assuming that position. I wondered at that time, the wisdom of appointing a new president who was older than the one retiring. I cannot see any changes or progress within the IMB over the last three years, but maybe I'm missing something obvious. Hopefully, whomever is appointed to the position is a missiologist and not a "good ol' boy.

[David Flick]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

I'm seeing the same path maintained over his tenure.

[Joseph Patrick]

From Joseph Patrick...

Sandy, Joseph Patrick wrote:
"I cannot see any changes or progress within the IMB over the last three years, but maybe I'm missing something obvious."

And you wrote:
"I guess that would depend on what you call "change" or "progress." Expansion into areas where there has been no previous mission work, 18,000 new churches started in three years, mostly in areas where there has been no previous mission work, the work in 12 countries becoming self-sufficient in the past three years. I'd measure that as progress."
Sandy

If you believe those inflated statistics allow me to sell you a bridge over the Oklahoma River

[Ed Pettibone]

[Sandy]

I rounded the figures off, taken from the IMB's website. The information about the advance of work in unreached areas, and of the countries where work is now self-sustaining comes from the IMB's annual reports to the SBC. All of that can be easily accessed on the internet, at either the IMB website, or the SBC's. William says he's seeing the same path maintained over his tenure. It's what the IMB does. The key word is support. The goal is to support and strengthen churches and their ministry in areas where it is needed, with the goal in mind to turn the work over to the indigenous leadership at a point when it can be self sustaining. The executive director is a manager, oversees the distribution of resources, makes decisions related to the various needs that occur, and manages personnel. The trajectory of the "statistical analysis" has been stable for decades.

As I said, it depends on how you define "progress." What would you expect the IMB to be doing that would meet your definition of "progress."

[Ed Pettibone]

[Sandy]

[Sandy]

[Ed Pettibone]

[David Flick]

[Stephen Fox]

ditto ed and flick.

David, off thread for a little; you remember the picture with members of my family and lamar in Atlanta. Had a grand bday party for my Dad's remaining sister last Saturday and they were all there including the former member of this board. Recently the family history page has investigated our Indian heritage and how it came to be. Thought you would want to know.

[Sandy]

Well then, if he has "experience" as a Southern Baptist missionary, then he needs to rely on that experience and provide substantiated evidence with specific examples that the statistics are inflated.

I've got a dozen close, personal friends, from college,seminary, and two families from our last church in Houston, who are currently serving on the mission field with the IMB, I receive their newsletters and e-correspondence, and speak with several of them on the phone fairly frequently. From what I hear from them, the stats that are reported, which only include mission work directly under the supervision of IMB personnel, are perhaps a bit understated.

The direction and movement of the IMB isn't the result of the work of the executive director. It's the result of the 4,500+ people who are on the field.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Sandy]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

Ed, I'd make a distinction between NAMB stats and IMB stats.

Since NAMB starts SBC churches, many of those have ACP filings and the stats are of the same reliability as my church. You cite an experience over two decades ago. I would update my thinking on this if I were you. The new NAMB leader has said that they will tighten reporting and have imposed some requirements on state conventions for this. I trust 2014 stats out of NAMB a lot more than anything prior to 2012.

IMB stats are problematic, seems to me, once you get beyond the head count of personnel. Since we don't start SBC churches anywhere in the world, there's no equivalent ACP for overseas work and our personnel works with national bodies and some other likeminded organizations. Exactly what is reported out of these is necessarily soft, as I see it. But the overall IMB work cannot be based on the usual metrics for success that we use here, since many personnel are in areas where there is just not much that could or should be reported.

Eliff pointedly said he was not going to be a seat warmer. Fair enough. I don't see him as that. I cannot point to any drastic shift in strategy or implementation of any major changes and his relatively short term points to a legacy of maintaining the work and the present focus. I have no complaints there. I'd expect something different for the next guy.

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Sandy I said nothing about the success of the SBC mining of western Pa. But
this comes from one of the 100 + SBC churches in Western PA "In April of 2006, we celebrated our 30th Anniversary" In other words they are closing in on the end of their 4th decade. So how can you deny that Southern Baptist have been mining PA for decades? If they had only been there 21 years my statement would be true. And they are not alone, and granted there are not a lot . I did not say they where effective.

And Since you say that there are "probably at least 20,000 SBC congregations who fall into the category of "deader than door nails," Don't you think such an admission from a person arguing the merits of the SBC, might have a negative effect on all SBC work every where?

Ed: And when you say "About a third of the churches are former ABC-USA congregations that have switched affiliation in the past decade over perceived liberalism in their own denomination." If I where a betting man, I would put money behind a claim that those SBC pastors did noting to dispel that perception, and in fact fostered it be cause they have the same errant belief. Now I am not claiming that there is no liberalism in some ABC churches and institutions, but there preponderance are rather conservative. I am going shortly to the final service led by an ABC pastor who is retiring.
We have known her for the full time we have been in NY, and for a while I had the notion that she was liberal, I am not sure why, But in the last 6 years we have been part of a group of pastors and their spouses who gather for lunch once a month, in which she participates and I have discovered that she is quite conservative.

Sandy my distrust of the SBC Stats comes from having been in the SBC through the takeover. and personal observation of how they manipulate and double count.

[Ed Pettibone]

[William Thornton]

NAMB requires that new churches be reported with their name, address, name of pastor. This wasn't done in the past and states gave a number.

I don't see much of anything different in Eliff's tenure, nor anything amiss. All field people I have had contact with (several,not scads) like him. He hasn't had a high profile for years and years.

[Sandy]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Sandy]