Prestonwood on Moore

[Rvaughn]

Disgruntled SBC pastors/churches trying to bring pressure to bear on Russell Moore:


Texas congregation escrows CP over concerns about direction of SBC


Prestonwood escrows CP funds, cites ERLC actions

[Sandy]

The SBC's first action should be to suspend any member of Prestonwood that serves on a board or committee. And if they are escrowing their CP giving, then they should not be entitled to send any messengers to the annual meeting. I doubt that will happen, though. That a denomination is spoiling for a fight over the most secular, immoral, insane nutjob ever to serve in the White House is unfathomable.

[Rvaughn]

[Haruo]

I posted the Dallas News version .

[William Thornton]

Messengers are based on 2016 giving anyway, not the current year. Direct giving counts, so there's no issue with seating their people. A majority vote could, however, replace nominees for trustee boards. I think there is less to all this than the noises we're hearing on the blogs.

[Rvaughn]

Yes, that is really hard to discern. Blogs may stir it all out of proportion.

Sometimes a little dog makes the most noise. Where there is smoke there is fire -- but I have seen a number of "fires" that were mostly smoke and very little flame.

[Sandy]

I know the SBC made some changes regarding how it counts CP giving, in order to allow designated gifts to "count", at least with the SBC, if it is contributed directly. The most recent annual of the SBTC that I have shows the 2015 statistical table, and reports Prestonwood's undesignated CP giving at $75,000. The article says the amount could be up to $1 million, but if they're giving most of their SBC contribution through designated channels, it doesn't seem they'd need to escrow the whole amount just to punish the ERLC. If I'm not mistaken, William, can't a church designate everything it gives and still count the dollar amounts now? So why not just pluck out the amount that the ERLC gets, and take them off the list?

Prestonwood has done this before, with the BGCT. They were going to escrow their CP contributions to force a particular issue, don't remember exactly what it was, but as it turned out, their entire annual contribution to the BGCT wasn't even enough to get them the full compliment of messengers.

I would say, given the way the bylaws are now worded, that a church which decides to escrow its CP gifts because it is protesting the actions of one of the agencies, has established itself as no longer being in friendly cooperation with the denomination. There's a way to do this, following the rules, and this isn't it.

[Rvaughn]

[Sandy]

Sorry, but I can't resist making this tongue in cheek remark. Megachurches escrowing undesignated CP giving isn't much of a threat.

[Dave Roberts]

Don't I remember a quote, "If they say pickles have souls, they will teach that pickles have souls." Is this the fruit? That which is prophetic dies on the financial altar.

[Sandy]

[Rvaughn]

[Sandy]