The 2010 SBC Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) intentionally brought radical shifts in NAMB’s leadership, strategy, and priorities in funding and staff.  Are Southern Baptists better off and stronger, or worse off and weaker?  What are the measurable results and the impact on the self-regenerating missions funding and sending system?  What is happening at the local level in the midst of the national rebranding and PR efforts? (NAMB transitioned to a team of 30 staff members in Events and Marketing and 1.5 Evangelism staff members)

 1.  70 year Lows in SBC Baptisms, both Nationally, and per Church 

The decline in total baptisms is rapidly picking up speed, and baptism ratios are worsening.  SBC churches baptized 600,000 less people the last 8 years than the 8 years prior to the GCR.  NAMB not only terminated virtually all of their national evangelism staff, they eliminated SB funding for evangelism staff in partnership with State Conventions.  The NAMB President recently announced to the State Execs further cuts in evangelism through State Conventions to local churches to fund a speaking tour approach.  Southern Baptists agree that evangelism is a biblical command for all.  The Bible reveals that God has given evangelists to the churches.  However, during the NAMB President said in his address to the SBC in June 2016, “church planting is evangelism.”  Is that so?

2.  40 year Lows in number of SBC Churches Started

Southern Baptists are planting less than half the number of churches post GCR, but spending 3.5 times more money to plant fewer churches.  In 2018, the SBC saw only 624 new churches compared to the high of 1,781 new plants in 2004 and 1,578 in 2008.  NAMB wrestled control of planting outside of the south from local leaders and partners in State Conventions and Associations.  The controls for the national assignment of NAMB was then largely handed off to a few local mega churches.  The result… in 2018, historic low number of plants and NAMB only reported assessing 220 church planters.  Claims of better plants with much higher survivability is not proven out in the facts.  The total number of churches started and surviving is radically lower.

3.  Weakened Partnerships 

One retired State Executive Director stated, “partnership is dead in the SBC”.  Weakened and broken partnerships with State Conventions and Associations has been a mark or stain of the post GCR strategies.  Historically non-Southern Associations received funding to be the face of the SBC outside of the South, but they have been defunded by NAMB post GCR.  First NAMB sought to make the non-Southern DOM/AMS church planting catalysts and then defunded them completely.  In spite of brand new efforts by NAMB to woo AMSs, publicly and strategically Associations and States have been marginalized.  Has this contributed to the record lows in baptisms and church planting?

Furthermore, regional mission, ministry and evangelism efforts all across the US have been cut (Ocean City International Missions in Maryland, Brantley Center in New Orleans, Appalachian Mountain Ministry).  These places provided a place for Southern Baptists, young and older, to get their first taste of missions while seeing SBC cooperation and partnership at work.  However, NAMB has abandoned those efforts.   See NW State Exec Dr. Randy Adams’ outstanding article on the importance of Cooperations with local leaders in the SBC.    https://randyadams.org/2018/06/07/trust-and-partnership-a-recovery-program-for-the-sbc/

4.  Mega Church Focus 

Focus has shifted to working with and funding select mega churches.  However, existing churches have received less focus and fewer helps from the SBC nationally.   More SBC missions money entrusted to NAMB is going to start a few high profile, highly funded churches and to start new campuses of favored mega churches.  Concerns are being expressed that some of those “campuses” are not growing from effective evangelistic efforts, but rather are drawing people and resources from existing churches in that area.   

For one new church plant in Pennsylvania, NAMB purchased a church building for $500,000, built the planter a brand new $500,000 home, and also hired two church planters as they merged into the new plant.  NAMB gave them titles and jobs in Send Relief and as a Send City Coordinator. NAMB has committed to spending $62 million to purchase houses for temporary housing for planters, 40% of them over $400,000.  Of note, larger houses seem to be in the hands of people who are somehow connected to the NAMB President or an influential mega church or are controlled not for planters, but for a mega church pastor to host someone they place in the home.  In a 2010 published interview Ezell said, “I can see where someone might say, ‘Well, he will just give money to his friends to plant churches.” Let’s #OpenTheBooks in a new demonstrated commitment to TRANSPARENCY and see to whom the money has gone.

5.  Nationalization of the SBC

In a “Washington knows best” approach, the SBC national has transitioned intentionally to be less responsive to the local leaders and more directive and more centralized in setting strategies, priorities, and goals with mission funds.  This was one of the stated objectives of the GCR.  As well, NAMB transitioned money from a broad approach to evangelism, missions and church planting to a nationalized approach to church planting while gutting evangelism.

Instead of being a resource and responding to local leaders and strategies, NAMB began working around them, even in Disaster Relief.  NAMB recently spent $11 million to set up one Send Relief location/property, Clarkston, GA, Local leaders are the best resources to know and meet the varied needs of people in their area.  Furthermore, for new members of SBC cooperating churches outside of the South, they KNOW NOT Lottie, Annie, NAMB, IMB, the CP or EC or the SBC.  They know the local and state leaders in front of them.  When times get tough, local, not national, matters more!

For a Deeper Dive into “Is NAMB Working?”

In the spring of 2017 I did a series of articles on “Is the New NAMB Working?”  I explored several areas: (1) Introduction/Questions to Consider, (2) Baptisms, (3) Church Planting, (4) Partnership and the SBC Ecosystem, (5) Financial Stewardship, (6) Leadership and (7) Oversight and Accountability.   You can find these articles at https://willmcraney.com/category/namb/

Conclusion

Regardless of the varied intentions of the 2010 voters, the power play that was the GRC has been a complete failure (excluding a few mega churches and those receiving significant NAMB funding).  Make no mistake about it, the GCR was a successful play for power.  However, failure accompanied it with both obvious and unseen damages to the Southern Baptist mission and partners.  As was part of the celebrity driven plan, we have a weaker, maybe neutered Executive Committee.  Maybe we need new LEADERSHIP, a new DIRECTION, and a new real commitment to COOPERATION and PARTNERSHIP, IF it is not too late!

Ownership of the Decade

NAMB President Kevin Ezell said in an Oct. 8, 2010 published interview with Christian Index editor Gerald Harris , “I will take ownership of the next decade.”  Here it is…

At the 2016 Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, Kevin Ezell, the President of the North American Mission Board spoke to SBC Messengers.  He asked the question:  “Is the New NAMB Working?  Dr. Ezell answered the question with anecdotes, stories about good things happening in the lives of individuals and families who were connecting with Christ through the ministries of new churches.  His answer to the question he raised was “YES!”

Yet, while we rejoice that people have come to Christ through new church plants, deeper questions need to be asked.  Questions that are answered by analysis, not anecdotes.  When 47,000 Southern Baptist churches, by their mission giving, entrust $120 million per year to NAMB, and when actions by the NAMB leadership can have a deep and broad impact on the life of the SBC and its mission, we need to evaluate the New NAMB by taking a serious look at its actual performance compared to the years before “the New NAMB” was put in place.  And we need to seriously evaluate its impact on the cooperative spirit that has been the genius of SBC mission efforts.

In this series of articles I have tried to ask serious questions and take an intelligent look at the actual results of the New NAMB.

Evangelism

SBC baptisms have dropped by 45,000 per year after NAMB virtually eliminated our national Evangelism Team, slashed evangelism budget by two-thirds, and stopped the historic practice of jointly funding evangelism staff with state partners.  These ministry areas were focused on helping local churches to evangelize. NAMB justified the cuts by saying that by focusing on church planting, greater evangelism would be done because new church starts are 3 to 4 times more effective in evangelism than existing churches.  I demonstrated by data and analysis how that idea simply is not factual.

• Baptisms have dropped 18.7% per church during the last six years.
• Investing 2 times more in 2017 in purchasing homes for planters than we are nationally on evangelism ($12 million to $6.3 million).

Church Planting

In spite of successful public relations campaigns and public releases, the church planting results and the baptism results of the church plants are quite troubling and on a steep decline.

• The SBC under the New NAMB is planting 444 LESS churches per year over the last six years than the previous NAMB—while SPENDING THREE and HALF TIMES more ANNUALLY than what the previous NAMB spent.
• Church planting in non-southern states has been taken over by NAMB in ever increasing nationalization and centralization efforts moving the staffing, financial, and strategic decision making responsibilities to NAMB as opposed to state and local leaders who are closer to the mission field.  Joint funding and partnership for church planting at the local and state levels has been eliminated for the “NAMB Knows Best” approach.

Partnership and Cooperation

In the arena of Partnerships and Cooperation in SBC relationships, there is strong evidence that NAMB has…

• Used its financial assets to buy favors, threaten people who raise questions, and undermine the ministries and careers of leaders who will not “bow” to its demands—which eats away the cooperative spirit that has helped the SBC mission efforts flourish. My own case was merely one of those.
• Replaced the cooperative spirit characteristic of the previous NAMB with strong-arm moves to dominate State Conventions and Associations.
• Eaten away the cooperative culture built in the SBC over generations. One State Executive Director said to me, referring to the actions of NAMB leaders:  “Partnership is dead in the SBC.”

Financial Stewardship

In the arena of financial stewardship, questionable new realities have emerged.

• While sending some money on to the mission field the New NAMB has kept back large amounts, swelling its “unrestricted reserves” from $204 million in 2010 when the New NAMB was installed, to about $285 million in 2014. By its operating guidelines, it should only carry $60.5 (1/2 of annual budget) in reserves.  Why has this massive amount of money been accumulated when the current mission need is so high and SBC experiencing such declines?
• Around $62 million has been committed to buy “houses for church planters” in various states, effectually putting NAMB into the real estate business. Some have questioned if this is actually an attempt to hang onto large amounts of money without it being accounted for as part of the NAMB reserve holdings.

Character of the President

Because we serve a Holy God who is intimately engaged in our lives and ministry efforts, the character of our leaders is of utmost importance.  The reverse of a biblical passage is true: if God be against us, it does not matter who is for us or what strategies we employ.  It pleases Jesus to have righteous leaders who lead righteously.  In the arena of the Character of our NAMB President, he…

• Communicated with deception and falsely about himself, others and church planting
• Violated his word and Strategic Partnership Agreements
• Abused and Misused Power, Position and SBC Money
• Demonstrated Punitive, Vindictive and other related behaviors against fellow servants

Factual evidence has been presented that Dr. Ezell lied in writing multiple times, made false accusations against a sister SBC State Executive Director, and made public and then secret financial threats against a State Convention (staff, planters, and evangelistic ministries and mission efforts). Ezell secretly tied the withholding of $1 million annually to the BCMD on my removal as the Executive Director which was later revealed in personal and public settings by the BCMD President Bill Warren.  Warren was privy to Ezell’s threat.

Financial records and BCMD minutes reveal that Ezell virtually immediately paid off the BCMD after my termination.  These actions serve as part of the basis of legal complaints of libel and contractual interference filed against Dr. Ezell/NAMB.

As Pastor Wolverton exhorted, “Dr. McRaney is telling the truth….Please don’t continue to sweep this under the rug.”

Oversight and Accountability

Off the record, national leaders verbally acknowledge it.  The SBC Trustee system is broken.  The Trustee men and women who are serving are not broken and are people of goodwill, but the systems and the climates that surround their work is broken.

• It is apparent that the NAMB Trustees were too trusting of Dr. Ezell’s accounts and “asleep at the wheel” initially. However, when the Trustee officers wrote a full denial 20 hours after receiving my “Letter of Concern” they moved into neglect of their duties as Trustees functioning on behalf of all Southern Baptists.  When the entire Trustee Board released a public statement in June 2016 that they had completed a “thorough examination and review” and found nothing of concern without a single conversation with me or cross examination of Dr. Ezell’s testimony, they moved into realms of cover-up and public damages to me.  As BCMD Pastor Steve Wolverton wrote Dr. Ezell and the Chairman Herring, NAMB Trustees’ claims of a complete investigation a “charade”.
• Regarding the declines in baptisms and church planting, along with damages to local and state partnerships, cooperation, and financial stewardship, and their own oversight and accountability, concerns are glaring.  The negative impact will affect both the short-run and the long-term effectiveness and mission capacity as the New NAMB has contributed to the dismantling of the SBC mission supporting ecosystem.
• Informed SBC leaders recognize once the local, state, and national arms are separated or eliminated, they will never be put back together again.  As times surely get tougher in North America, local and regional will matter more than national on the frontlines.

Broader Awareness

Many SBC leaders are aware of the New NAMB’s problems.  They see the deteriorating trust and the possibility of serious damage to the SBC cause.

When will the leaders who see the damage compounding finally speak up?  I know that some do not want to “create a mess” and others simply fear the consequences of raising their voice.  They have seen others damaged who have spoken up.

But, how many more hundreds of millions of SBC mission money must be used to prop up NAMB prestige amid its failing strategies?

How many more millions must be used to destroy the SBC cooperate spirit as the money is used to pay for the threats, “pay offs” and subterfuge that are advancing domination from a national level rather than cooperation across all levels?

Since the publication of this series began, more and more stories have come to me about the damage done to ministry leaders by the actions of the New NAMB and its leader, Dr. Kevin Ezell.

When will SBC leaders who “know the score” finally have the courage to call for a serious outside investigation of the actions of the NAMB President and his subordinates?  When will they finally call for an accounting by the New NAMB for its stewardship of money and people?

Proverbs 24:11-12 reminds us that when we see the damage being done to others, pretending not to see will not satisfy God.

Prov 24:11-12  Deliver those who are being taken away to death,
And those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back.
¹² If you say, “See, we did not know this,”
Does He not consider it who weighs the hearts?
And does He not know it who keeps your soul?
And will He not render to man according to his work?

May God grant us men of goodwill who will courageously exercise the stewardship that has been entrusted to them by Southern Baptists—and the Lord!

Series of Articles – “Is the New NAMB Really Working”

Part 1: Introduction

Part Two: Baptisms – ABRIDGED

Part 2: Baptisms – Full Article w/ Fact Links

Part Three: Church Planting – ABRIDGED

PART 3: Church Planting – Full Article w/ Fact Links

PART 4: Partnership – Full Article w/ Fact Links

PART 5: Financial Stewardship – Full Article w/ Fact Links

PART 6: Character – Full Article w/ Fact Links

PART 7: Oversight and Accountability

The Rest of the Story: The Why’s of Our Legal Complaint Against NAMB President Kevin Ezell – article and video by McRaneys

A sacred trust exists between the President of NAMB and Southern Baptists. One man is entrusted with enormous power, prestige, and resources to shape individual lives and direct the mission of the SBC in North America. Southern Baptists sacrificially invest themselves and their resources, for the sake of an eternal purpose, to the tune of $120 million every year. The President of NAMB makes decisions that impact staffers and thousands of planters and evangelists all across North America.   The President is responsible to live honorably before God and man, to steward the financial resources, to steward both the staff and the missionaries who represent SBC efforts in Alpharetta across the land, and to set the direction and priorities for Southern Baptists in reaching North America.

This essay is the sixth and final installment of a series entitled “The New NAMB: Is it Working?” It is offered as a rebuttal to the report by Dr. Kevin Ezell to the messengers of the SBC Annual meeting in June 2016, entitled, “It is working.” I have sought to ask and answer several “better” questions than the weaker ones NAMB has been asking. This article will address the question: Have NAMB leaders reflected Christ in their attitudes and actions with others as they steward the trust placed in them by SBC churches and members?

Sometimes situations demand that the facts be laid out beyond a cursory look. This is one such time, for I will be dealing with a person God created and loves who has been entrusted with much. Communicating as accurately as possible is an expectation from God and is only right in this situation. I will not cover every fact or document that supports my claims regarding Dr. Ezell, but this treatment will necessarily have some length. While I cannot cover it all, I have attached links below to a number of articles and fact sheets that examine these areas in greater detail.

The claims I make are serious, impacting the lives of many employees, the institution of NAMB, its President, and our trustees both at NAMB and in other parts of the SBC. I must not make these claims without also providing numerous examples and supporting evidence. While acknowledging there is much I do not know, I am deeply troubled over the matters I do know and can easily support with specific evidence.

Three Important Leadership Qualities

According to Dr. Jimmy Knott in It’s All About Leadership: Be a Leader Worth Following,three qualities of a Credible Leader worth following emerge: (A) Authentic Character, (B) Exceptional Competence, and (C) Relational Connection. This raises the question: “Are there significant lapses found in Dr. Ezell?” The following examples are illustrative, but not exhaustive. Consider these facts, along with the ones described in the list of online links following the article.

A. AUTHENTIC CHARACTER

Most human actions and thoughts are out of the sight of others. Take Orlando, for example. It has 66 million visitors per year.  This is over 20 million more than NYC. While Orlando is publicly known to be a safe city, it is abundantly clear that many crimes take place that are either unreported by the victims or unreported by the Orlando press. Therefore, the actions of the perpetrators go unnoticed in public and probably by most of those who know them. The same is true for Christian leaders.

My pastor revealed in a sermon that we all have three persons inside of us: public, private and secret.  Character and integrity requires the public, private and secret persons as revealed in their actions to be the same. The following are examples of wrongful character revealing things by Dr. Ezell occuring mostly out of sight of others.

1. Deception and False Communication

Dr. Ezell falsely stated that I refused to meet with him prior to canceling the historic Strategic Partnership Agreement. I have seven emails requesting meetings with Dr. Ezell. The General Mission Board President of the Baptist Convention of Maryland-Delaware, Mark Dooley, reported to the General Mission Board in February of 2015: “He (Dooley) has personally seen the email correspondence that supports the opposite. McRaney has repeatedly asked Kevin Ezell, ‘Can we get together?’ Which was met with very short, terse responses, and not an openness to meet.”

Dr. Ezell falsely stated that I violated the Strategic Partnership Agreement regarding two hiring procedures by not contacting NAMB staff, that I had repeatedly and willfully violated the agreement, and as such, I was the sole reason for the cancellation of the agreement with the convention, at a loss of one million dollars to the convention for planters, missions, evangelism, and eight jointly funded staff positions. Three convention officers examined these claims and concluded: (1) Neither I nor the convention violated the hiring agreement procedures, as evidenced by a NAMB Vice President’s own communication, along with the hiring dates involved, and (2) NAMB had, in fact, violated the agreement in seven specific ways, some knowingly for their benefit and to the detriment of the convention. NAMB Vice Presidents Christopherson and Davis disproved Dr. Ezell’s accusations with their own emails and calendar.

Dr. Ezell falsely stated that I did not return a phone call from NAMB Mobilizer Kevin Marsico. This is the first of three stated concerns by Dr. Ezell in his only communication (Nov. 2014) regarding any possible conflict with me. The second was that I violated the hiring procedure of the agreement, which was false. The third was that I added a new requirement that planters must reinvest in the regional ministry around them AFTER NAMB required the convention to remove the requirement for planters to give to the Association, which was true. The only recorded call by my Executive Assistant from Marsico occurred in October 2013 just after I was hired. Marsico called to express a welcome and offer his assistance, which does not require a return phone call.

2. Violations of Dr. Ezell’s Word and of the SPA by NAMB

NAMB violated the SPA, including the very manner in which Dr. Ezell cancelled the SPA, without communicating with me as the Executive Director in advance on his intentions.

Dr. Ezell violated the agreed upon terms of our March 11, 2015 meeting. He said he would bring two NAMB Trustees, in order to satisfy our terms, but he only brought one. He tried a power play to change the location at the last minute, requesting that we change the meeting place from the convention offices to his hotel a few minutes away. He changed the agenda from “not talking about the past” to his “talking mostly about the past” after I had the opening turn and talked about our joint ministry and the future. Convention leaders perceived this as Dr. Ezell’s attempt to control the meeting and get us out of balance with his tactics. Convention Chief Financial Officer Tom Stolle described Dr. Ezell’s behaviors as “petulant.” One convention leader noted in front of our team: “You showed remarkable restraint. If that had been me, I would have come across the table at Dr. Ezell.”

Dr. Ezell falsely stated that I resigned, not that I was terminated, and that he did not interfere in the process, and in fact, was not even involved. This was reported by Baptist Press in the article dated June 20, 2016 entitled MD/DE Investigation “Concluded.” The fact remains that I was terminated. It is decidedly untrue that I was told to “resign or be terminated” by a vote of the General Mission Board of the convention on June 8, 2015. The later term “resignation” was offered and even requested by the convention if I would accept a to-be-determined severance agreement that was not agreed upon until weeks after my termination.

The convention officers provided false information in their statement released on March 24, 2016. It is abundantly clear, the officers of the convention misled the public stating a resignation on June 9, 2015 and the vote of the board to terminate me on June 8, 2015. It is apparent to many that this decision to provide cover for Dr. Ezell was also an effort to cover themselves concerning the quick, unjust, and induced termination. Lots of ministers in this story are having a hard time telling the truth!

I requested a correction to Baptist Press leaders and to Dr. Page and the Communication team after their article on April 13, 2017. In doing so, I provided them with the first page of my separation agreement with the state convention which clearly indicates I was terminated on June 8, 2015, just days before the 2015 SBC Convention.

At the State Executive Directors meeting in California in February 2017, Dr. Ezell stated that he had talked with some State Executives that he trusted regarding the hiring of a new young leader at NAMB. Reportedly, Dr. Ezell represented that he received counsel and implied support of the proposed hire. However, two of the state executives interrupted Dr. Ezell to communicate the exact opposite. One Executive Director replied to Dr. Ezell, “I told you this was the response you would get.” Why did Dr. Ezell speak falsely in front of State Executives who he knew could confront him publicly? Is he in the habit of being loose with the truth?

A highly respected former State Executive has relayed stories of Dr. Ezell calling him for counsel only to learn later that Dr. Ezell misrepresented what that former State Executive had said. Why would Dr. Ezell do this? Was he borrowing credibility without regard for the truth?

Documented evidence on lies by Dr. Ezell

If Dr. Ezell acts with deception, makes false accusations, and speaks falsely about his own behavior and conversations with State leaders, can he be trusted to represent the truth without guile? If Dr. Ezell will make false accusations against a brother, then what else will he do to damage someone? If he misrepresents conversations, can he ever be believed? Dr. Ezell did not follow Biblical commands to clear up relationships, nor did he accept my offers to do so. Then, he lied about it. So, why is Dr. Ezell communicating with deception in the ways noted above? There appears to be a character problem.

3. Abuses and Misuses of Power, Position and Money

On Dec. 2, 2014, Dr. Ezell in violation of the terms of the agreement, threatened the BCMD with a Notice of Cancellation Letter, which would have resulted in the loss of $1 million from the convention. This money was already committed to funding church planters, missions, evangelism and eight jointly-funded staff members. Incidentally, state convention churches annually contributed about $950,000 per year to NAMB through the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and NAMB’s portion of Cooperative Program gifts. Similar amounts were exchanged in both directions, yet Dr. Ezell threated to withhold NAMB’s committed resources due to his false allegations, while still continuing to accept the almost $1 million funds from the state convention.

As noted above, Dr. Ezell based his cancellation on the false accusations against me. Later, Dr. Ezell stated that NAMB would withhold financial support to the state convention as long as I remained the Executive Director. There are several smoking guns on Ezell’s threat. Numerous public verbalizations of the Ezell threat were made by the state convention President Bill Warren, who orchestrated my termination. One can follow the money trail. Significantly, the day after I was terminated, Warren stated, and later verified, that he believed the Lord would have him to be the next Executive Director.

Dr. Ezell made good on his promises. The state convention budgets and the board meeting minutes reveal post-termination additional gifts and financial commitments to the state convention in the amount of $675,000 payable in 2016 and $825,000 payable in 2017.

On February 5, 2015, Dr. Ezell texted a threat to a board member during a board meeting that Dr. Ezell knew was taking place. He threatened the Executive Director and the leadership of the state convention. The meeting resulted in 100% vote to: (1) reject NAMB’s offer to take over 100% of church planting and any partnership agreement establishing such terms, and (2) affirm support for my leadership and my approach in dealing with NAMB.

Dr. Ezell’s threat did not serve the purposes of NAMB in evangelism and missions or assist a ministry partner in the state convention. So why did Dr. Ezell make the threats and the false statements within them? Is there not a character problem?

Several State Executive Directors, SBC pastors and members of the press have discussed the new 2014 version of the Strategic Partnership Agreement NAMB was pressuring state conventions to adopt. I highlighted changes from 2012-2014 agreement in an article Going Going Gone Sold: Essential Elements of SBC Mission Efforts. We see the existence of gag orders on the State Conventions and the threat of funding cuts if the gag orders were violated or if state convention staff talked negatively about NAMB, or even revealed the terms of their Strategic Partnership Agreements.

The Christian Examiner editor wrote, “Several Southern Baptist state convention leaders have accused the denomination’s North American Mission Board (NAMB) of linking financial support from the national entity – funding for church planting and other ministries – to secretive Cooperative Agreements which include a clause that threatens to withhold ministry funds to the states if disclosures about the agreement – or concerns – are shared publicly.”

State leaders and pastors have expressed concern that Dr. Ezell is using gag orders, threats, and strong-arming tactics. This does not reflect the spirit of a cooperative partnership, but rather one of coercion. So why did Dr. Ezell use such tactics with several State Convention executive Directors? Is there not a character problem?

4. Punitive, Vindictive and Other Behaviors

Dr. Ezell interfered in my working relationship with the state convention by working around me and talking with Board President Bill Warren instead. In fact, Warren stated to the executive leadership team and the officers that Dr. Ezell told him that if McRaney would behave himself for six months, Dr. Ezell would talk with me. In essence, Dr. Ezell was putting me on probation for six months from talking with him. What a power move to dominate me and damage my leadership! What happened to wanting to meet as he falsely claimed? Where is the application of the basic teachings of Jesus? Was Dr. Ezell punishing me? It appears that Dr Ezell is having difficulties with telling the truth. His character is once again being exposed.

In a meeting of selected state convention officers to discuss how to address Ezell’s Notice of Cancellation, a former state convention President with national influence shared his experience and knowledge with the officers on December 16, 2014. This leader noted that Dr. Ezell is known to be vindictive to those who oppose him, regardless of the validity of the concerns.

I had speaking engagements scheduled for the fall of 2016 in Mississippi and Florida. Evidence indicates that Dr. Ezell and NAMB representatives engaged in efforts to interfere with my speaking opportunities to provide for my family financially. I have since received additional confirmation of Dr. Ezell’s involvement.

Dr. Ezell or other NAMB leaders posted my picture at the Welcome Desk of NAMB headquarters in Alpharetta, Georgia. Why?  What message was being sent to everyone who saw this 8 x 10 picture?  NAMB attorneys communicated to my attorney that it was over “security” concerns. Really? Is this the action of an innocent man or the act of a guilty man? The picture, in full view, was taken in the fall of 2016 by a current Executive Committee member of the SBC who is a highly respected leader.

In early April 2017, a former state leader testified that he was told Dr. Ezell made a call to a ministry leader where the former state leader was being considered for a new position. Dr. Ezell had no responsibility or involvement with that ministry, yet chose to damage a fellow minister with his negative perspectives. The former state leader was looking to reengage in ministry and provide for his family. The man is working through his hurt and trying to make a living. Is it any wonder he has not yet come forward to expose Dr. Ezell’s involvement? Ezell has shown by word and deed who he is and what lengths he will go to in order to get what he wants and to damage people as he pleases. Wherever is there a place for this kind of activity in Christian work?

Dozens of national and state leaders have used the following descriptors of Dr. Ezell. They know, but keep silent for their own reasons, such as concern for the SBC or possible personal retribution. These words are being used to describe Dr. Ezell: vindictive, unstable, reckless, petulant, and impulsive.

Leaders lead out of who they are! What does this sample of KNOWN actions say about Dr. Ezell? Who knows what else has happened that has remained unspoken? Do these representative actions reveal poor character? Are they behaviors of a Christian who is sensitive to obeying Biblical commands? Should this leader be entrusted with setting direction and leading our staff and missionaries? Should he be stewarding the enormous resources of Southern Baptist Churches and members? How many times can you intentionally bear false witness to your actions and the actions of others? How many times can you intentionally seek to damage brothers and fellow leaders? How many times can you threaten and bully individuals and state conventions while keeping a position of trust as the President of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention?

B. EXCEPTIONAL COMPETENCE

NAMB is charged with helping the SBC evangelize North America. In 2010, Dr. Ezell began an all-out single focus on church planting. This strategy has caused dramatic shifts in staff, state partnerships, financial priorities, and associational partnerships.  What have been the results of Dr. Ezell’s leadership as he turned NAMB and parts of the SBC upside down?

NAMB as noted in my two previous articles on Baptism and Church Planting, has reduced the evangelism budget to 5% of the annual $120 million budget. During the last six years this has been reduced from $20.6 million to $6.3 million. The New NAMB has defunded the vast majority of NAMB national evangelism staff to assist state conventions and churches. In 2017, the $6.3 million for evangelism is roughly half of the $12 million used to purchase homes for church planters.

The church planting budget has increased each year, so that it now represents in 2017 an increase of 3.5 times the amount of funds budgeted in 2010 for church planting. NAMB has budgeted $62 million to purchase homes for church planters over about a six year period, with 89 homes already purchased.

In non-Southern states, NAMB has defunded jointly funded state evangelism staff, including the State DOMS where they are most needed, almost all the collegiate student ministers, and the joint funding for Association ministries and DOMS.

Have those landscape changing strategies produced the results as promised in the key SBC metrics? Absolutely not. To the contrary, in every single significant measureable, Southern Baptists are in alarming decline. Here are key facts which I discuss in more detail in the previous articles on Baptist and Church Planting.

1. Baptisms

Baptisms are down 18.7% per church over the past six years under the New NAMB. Total baptisms are down over 45,000 per year during the past six years compared to the previous six years. Baptisms are at a 70-year low, and in a continual slide downward, even while the US population and the number of SBC churches is increasing. New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary President Dr. Chuck Kelley noted, “Southern Baptists are closer to losing the South than we are to reaching North America. If we lose the South, eventually, we lose everything.” What do these numbers say about the effectiveness of the strategy that has dismantled much of evangelism at local, state and national levels? Has NAMB helped Southern Baptists be more or less effective in NAMB’s primary mission assignment?

2. Church Planting

The foundational statistic used to justify the radical overhaul of “all things NAMB” to support the single focus of church planting is misleading and flawed, whether by statistical ignorance or intentional guile. Church plants and established churches have baptism ratios based on membership that are within a few percentages of each other. While there are many good reasons to start churches, the new churches are nowhere near the NAMB reported “three to four times more effective in evangelism” statistic.

The following are calculations based on reports by NAMB and reports found in SBC Annuals each year. Southern Baptists are planting 444 fewer churches per year during the past six years compared to the previous six years, in spite of current 2017 expenditures that are 3.5 times greater than in years past. The SBC has planted 2,665 fewer churches during the past six years than during the previous six years. The New NAMB National Strategy has produced (a) reduced funding for evangelism, (b) weakened SBC ties, (c) diminished trust levels, (d) weakened relationships, and (e) reduced evangelistic collaboration. The strategic and tactical problems being discussed are planter placement, satellite campus funding, funding outside networks, and nationalized control.

Dr. Ezell initiated these radical changes and presided over the radical declines. His strategic decisions, in addition to his character, have impacted NAMB and the SBC in remarkable ways. In the question of competence, is NAMB helping to produce healthier and stronger results? Or has NAMB and the SBC hastened downward?

C. RELATIONAL CONNECTION

The President of NAMB is a leader for all Southern Baptists, pastors, laypeople, Associational missionaries, and State Convention missionaries and strategists. He needs to relate to a wide variety of people as Southern Baptists are a diverse group geographically, ethnically, racially, in terms of age, church size, worship style and language. His relationships and the relationships he fosters by protecting and enhancing trust and goodwill will impact the SBC for decades to come. His failures in these areas also impact us. We are a people who operate as volunteers who choose to work together in cooperation. The President of NAMB needs to be adding to trust and goodwill among all parts of the SBC family.

By observation and experience, anyone who has a brief encounter with Dr. Ezell will recognize his affability. He presents a warm and inviting first impression that seems to make people feel comfortable. However, a non-Southern State Executive noted to others that Dr. Ezell is “affable, but not nice.” He noted that he had observed Dr. Ezell’s actions and relayed that he was not a man who could be trusted, would not keep his word, had intentionally hurt people he knew, and was not someone he would describe as nice.

Why is this being said about Dr. Ezell? What does this State Executive Director’s comments to others say about Dr. Ezell?  Is this also tied to faulty character, faulty strategy, and faulty perspectives on who Southern Baptists are, as by his own words when hired, he had disengaged from NAMB as a pastor?

NAMB Presidents cheer on and build up SBC partners. However, it appears that Dr. Ezell has started multiple new partnerships outside the SBC, while at the same time setting strategies and setting large budget allocations that have damaged SBC sister partners, both at the local and state levels.

Why? Maybe this reflects his perceived mandate from the GCR. Maybe this reflects his own bad experiences and lack of personal engagement with his Association and/or State Convention. Maybe he had bad experiences or just could not see from his megachurch view how either of these entities were really contributing to the whole of the SBC, and in fact, are the backbone in various ways. I have captured some of the issues of partnership in the SBC ecosystem by writing various articles linked below.

Dealing with Decline: The Future of Southern Baptist Cooperation

Going, Going, Gone, Sold: Essential Elements of the SBC Mission Efforts

Is the New NAMB Really Working? Partnerships

“A long-tenured national leader declared, “Partnership is dead in the SBC.”  He, I and I am sure you, all hope he is wrong.  However, groanings deep inside SBC life are indicating that walls may be beginning to crumble. The violations of trust and good will among and between SBC entities and Southern Baptists to their local, state and national agencies may not be able to be repaired. When the nationalization is fully set, and it is deep into the process, what has been dismantled and taken apart for short-term gains, will forever not be able to be put back together again. God has used the SBC, but God is not obligated to bless in the future. God help us!”

Is Dr. Ezell’s perspective accurate or are the perspectives of leaders who have invested the bulk of their ministry in serving the people and purposes of Southern Baptists? Are partnerships strong or are they closer to “dead?” Why, or better yet, how can the SBC maintain cooperation, advance together, and operate under the blessing of God if our NAMB President is building new partnerships, but damaging SBC ones?

The Damages and Hurts are Personal as Heads Turn Away

For me Dr. Ezell’s action are personal, but I recognize that Sandy and our girls are but a few of those who have had to deal with the consequences of being on the wrong side of Dr. Ezell. Southern Baptists deserve better from their NAMB President.

Not a single, not even one single national leader ever reached out to me after my questionable and untimely termination, even though many of them have seen his character firsthand. In fact, only a few state leaders did so. I was the one beaten on the side of the road and watched my former friends and national level religious leaders walk by, literally on the other side as they went on their SBC business way. The congratulatory calls and the letters came when I was appointed to the position by God and elected by the Board, but NOTHING after my unjust termination. Where is the Soul of the SBC and its leaders?

Sadly, most of the men I have talked with are in the know. They know the truths shared above to ring true with their own experiences with Dr. Ezell. In fact, one national leader has a file he keeps on things just related to Dr. Ezell. Yet, the sound of silence among these men is deafening. The Bible is so clear. When we know the right thing to do and do it not, it is sin. (James 4:19) The mostly loving thing the NAMB Trustee leaders and national leaders and even pastor friends can do is to encourage Kevin toward repentance and public and private confession. It is hard to live like this before a Holy God. There is freedom in Christ, but it begins with humility of heart that results in confession and prayer. (James 5:16)

Sandy and I have absorbed countless hurts. We love people and we are all in people in our work, ministry and in our personal lives. It is who we are. If you love deeply, you can experience deep joys and deep hurts. I will never forget the look on Sandy’s face as one of our top national leaders was coming down the hall in Columbus, Ohio, at the SBC in 2015, about eight days after my termination. She saw that leader quickly look away and skirt by us instead of reaching out to us. It spoke volumes and actually forecasted much of the reception or the lack of that we would receive from people like him who used to welcome us: ignore and deny and hope it goes away or the damage is limited. God is holy and just.

After thirty years of faithful and fruitful ministry among Southern Baptists, for 22 months now I have been unemployed, but now I have founded, “The Church Strengthening Network” and I am starting over to rebuild from no base. No calls have come offering help to get me back on my feet after this powerful bully knocked me down. I have been blown away and hurt all over again with such silence. Take a look at my resume and academic vitae on my website and see what you think. It has been pointed out to me that if I had a problem with alcohol, or an affair or outburst with an uncontrolled temper, someone would have to my rescue and offered help. But because I am the victim of libel and interference by the NAMB President and dare to speak truth, there are no calls or offers to help. As one State Executive said, “The SBC knows how to handle adultery and embezzlement, but not how to handle a bully.”

When a man repeatedly speaks falsely and seeks to damage others, he is unfit to lead and has forfeited the trust and privilege of stewarding people, money, and priorities that originate in the pockets of faithful and generous Southern Baptists. If hearts get right with Jesus, the NAMB Trustees will know what to do to make restitution and restore me. If not, my suggestions would only add words to this document. I tried absolutely everything to prevent taking this matter to court for justice, but to no avail. The sins are not just of a man, but of an agency and others. The sins were not just against a person or a people such as the state convention (and probably many others around North America) but against God Himself. The offenses were not just personal, but involved organizational neglect and a pattern of bullying by the NAMB President that has been ignored and denied. If you would like to hear the story behind the filing of the legal complaint, you can hear my wife Sandy and I discuss the matter on our website and read the related article.

Conclusion

Every child of God is a work in progress, not yet perfected. However the qualifications of those who seek spiritual leadership, such as pastors, are demanding and exacting. As to the President of NAMB, we must have high demands in terms of authentic character, exceptional competence, and relational connection. Dr. Ezell has significant failures in all three areas.

From my personal experience and documented facts, it is apparent to me there are serious and obviously disqualifying behaviors that have been identified by numerous SBC national, state and associational leaders. The patterns are the same. The damages widespread, not isolated. The conclusion should be obvious to those with eyes to see, minds to perceive, hearts to feel, and a willingness to obey God.

With Dr. Ezell’s patterns of misleading communication and his affability and a $120 million budget that he is controlling, it is no surprise how Dr. Ezell has fooled many trustees, developed a loyal band of followers, and convinced many people to disregard the documented and court filed complaints of libel and tortious interference.

Dr. Ezell’s actions do not reflect the spirit of Christ or the spirit of brotherly love and cooperation expected by all Southern Baptists. However, as I have said and written repeatedly, the facts are documented, verified by witnesses, and are unimpeachable. At some point Dr. Ezell moved away from doing the will of Father and got focused on other wills. Perhaps it was his own will. The intentions of his heart are of little importance, frankly. As Proverbs 20:11 reminds us, “Even small children are known by their actions, so is their conduct really pure and upright?”

LINKS TO RELATED ARTICLES:

 Is the New NAMB Really Working Six Part Series

 Open Letters

 Initial Letter of Concern to NAMB Trustees

 June 2016 Letter to NAMB Trustees

 Troubling Times Under Dr. Ezell

 Ezell’s Lies and False Statements

 Summary of Claims/Accusations Against Ezell

 McRaneys Tell Story of Ezell’s Overreach

 The Whys of the Legal Complaint Against Ezell/NAMB

 Going Going Gone, Sold: Essential Elements of SBC Mission Efforts

 Dealing with Decline: The Future of Southern Baptist Cooperation

 Supporting Documents

 Statements of Fact: Detailed Version

 Timelines – NAMB with MD/DE Convention – Three Versions

When it comes to Southern Baptist church planting, strategic matters cannot be addressed in soundbites or 140-character Tweets. One must first gain a wider and deeper understanding of the issues. I began my exploration in a PhD seminar on the History of SBC Evangelism in 1989 at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I had the privilege of reviewing the dusty SBC Annuals and tracing SBC church planting from its earliest roots to determine its impact upon evangelism.

In 2010, Southern Baptists went “all-in” with church planting as our sole evangelism focus. This approach radically impacted NAMB, State Conventions, Associations, and practically everything and everyone engaged in SBC evangelism.

This essay is the third part of a series entitled The New NAMB—Is It Working? Throughout this series, we are exposing the questions being asked by NAMB as weaker questions than the better questions we are asking. Today’s “better question” is this one: What are the numbers and types of church plants and what are the evangelistic results of these plants?

Affirmations

Virtually all Southern Baptists strongly affirm the ministry of church planting, the missionary role of church planters, and the provision of reasonable measures to assess, train, and deploy planters into their mission fields. The New NAMB has brought greater awareness of these benefits, sought to engage partnering churches, and increased the overall value for church planting among SBC pastors and leaders. We are grateful and celebrate that there are plants which are impacting their local ministry contexts. Lives are being changed and the gospel is reaching new people.

Flawed Fundamental Assumption

However, this New NAMB focus on church planting was built on the statistically faulty belief that church plants are 3-4 times more effective in evangelism than established churches. The communication of this fact with baptism ratios based on membership was and continues to be either statistical ignorance or intentional deception in order to sell this approach to Southern Baptists.

The origins of this flaw are found in the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report adopted by SBC messengers. The statistic cited above was used to convince Southern Baptists to go “all-in” with church planting. This has proven to have unintended consequences in evangelism, partnership, associations, and state conventions.

Consider the following example. An older established church averages 100 in worship, has 300 members, and baptizes ten people. A new church plant averages 100 in worship, has 50 members, and baptizes ten people. Notice the only difference is a membership of 300 for the existing church and 50 for the new plant. Using the flawed approach of the baptism-to-membership ratio, we would reason that new churches, with a ratio of 1 to 5, are performing six times better than existing churches, with a ratio of 1 to 30. However, using the legitimate comparison of the baptism-to-attendance ratio, we would reason that new church plants and existing churches are performing precisely the same, each with with a ratio of 1 to 10.

Do you see the problems caused by national leaders sharing misleading statistics with Southern Baptists? Do you see the problems caused by building an entire national strategy off of only one misleading statistic? This glaring mistake has deeply damaged large portions of the SBC and hindered our evangelistic effectiveness.

The Cost of our Flawed Strategy

The cost to adopt this approach has been enormous relationally, financially, evangelistically, and in terms of staffing and partnering with local, state and national SBC entities. As one State Executive said, “Partnership is dead in the SBC.” Terminating 37% of NAMB staff in the first eight months of Ezell’s tenure not only removed those staff members, but also removed all the relationships and goodwill they had built up through years of service to various NAMB partners at the local, state, and national levels.

The evangelistic effectiveness of Southern Baptists has been on a sharp and steady decline during the years of this emphasis. Consider just three statistics regarding our baptisms as we compare the Former NAMB Era (FNE) of 2004-2009 with the New NAMB Era (NNE) of 2010-2015.

1. SBC Total Baptisms declined by 13% from the FNE to the NNE.

2. SBC Baptisms declined by an average of 45,289 per year from the FNE to the NNE.

3. SBC Baptisms per church declined by an average of 18.7% during the NNE.

Under the New NAMB, each year we are investing in church planting 3.5 times more Southern Baptist dollars than we were investing under the Former NAMB—76.1 million in 2017 compared with $20.9 million in 2010. In spite of spending 3.5 times more money, the New NAMB is actually starting fewer churches per year than we were starting previously, as discussed in the next section. In 2017, the NAMB Church Planting Budget of $76.1 million is more than twelve times greater than the NAMB Evangelism Budget of 6.3 million.

Under a new project, the New NAMB is budgeting $62 million to purchase homes for church planters over a period of six years. NAMB has already purchased 89 such homes. This move into owning and managing property for planters has not been noted by this writer in the history of the SBC. In 2017 alone, the $12 million budget for purchasing church planter homes is nearly twice as much as the $6.3 million NAMB budget for evangelism.

Other costs have impacted evangelism dollars and staff. NAMB virtually eliminated all national evangelism staff specialists, defunding State Directors of Evangelism and other state evangelism staff in non-Southern states, reducing the NAMB evangelism budget from $20.6 million in 2009 to $6.3 million in 2017, and cutting off funding for various regionally effective evangelistic ministries. Previously, these jointly funded evangelism staff positions in non-southern states served both the planters and the existing churches who fund NAMB and develop missionaries serving North America.

Charting Our Decline in the Number of SBC Church Plants

The New NAMB had a church planting goal of 1,500 per year before revising it down to 1,200. However, the New NAMB has averaged 924 plants per year. During the six years prior, NAMB averaged starting 1,368 churches per year—even after adjusting downward the inflated number reported, which included not only SBC Church Plants, but also already existing Non-SBC churches who chose to affiliate with the SBC during that year. Based upon these calculations, the SBC has been planting 444 fewer churches per year in the New NAMB Era, despite our investment of 3.5 times more money.

1. Former NAMB Era (2004-2009) Church Plant Total—8,211

This church plant total takes into consideration an estimated 1,150 churches previously included in this total that were not really SBC Church Plants at all, but merely existing non-SBC churches that chose to affiliate with the SBC during these Former NAMB Era years.

2. New NAMB Era (2010-2015) Church Plant Total—5,546
   This church plant total takes into consideration an estimated 1,150 churches previously included in this total that were not really SBC Church Plants at all, but merely existing non-SBC churches that chose to affiliate with the SBC during these New NAMB Era years.

Subtracting 5,546 from 8,211, we see that the SBC has planted 2,665 fewer churches in the past six years than we did in the prior six years. With much less fanfare, it appears that the Former NAMB was planting more churches with less money while still funding evangelism efforts nationally, regionally, and locally.

The New NAMB Nationalized Church Planting Strategy Results

1. Reduced Evangelism Funding
   Reduced funding for evangelism through the local missions and ministries of our associations

2. Weakened SBC Ties
   Weakened local SBC ties by the removal of the requirement for church plants to reinvest in local ministry through their Associations

3. Diminished Trust Levels
   Diminished levels of trust in NAMB by pastors, DOMs and state leaders

4. Weakened Relationships
   Weakened vital relationships and partnerships impacting local and regional ministry

5. Reduced Evangelistic Collaboration
   Reduced collaboration and partnership with Southern state conventions including their evangelism staff and their church planting staff, resulting from the 2012 revised Partnership Agreement

New NAMB Church Planting Strategic and Tactical Problems

The New NAMB strategy employs a number of short-sighted approaches offering quicker initial results, while also leading to possible long-term negative consequences. These approaches make NAMB appear “cool” and “successful” while the underlying reality exposes this view as an illusion.

1. Planter Placement
   The placement or approval of church planters with little regard for their contextual fit, little consideration of the cross-cultural gifts possessed by each church planter, and little effort to offer additional preparation

2. Satellite Campus Funding
   The possible funding of the satellite campuses started by megachurches as a form of “church planting” when the megachurch views this merely as an extension of their own local church

3. Funding Outside Networks
   The concern that NAMB is using SBC funds, in partnership with non-SBC organizations, to start churches identifying with networks and organizations not historically Southern Baptist in their values and commitments

4. Nationalized Control
   The concern that the New NAMB, by employing anationalizedstrategy of church planting, is controlling matters at the federal level of our cooperation, to the detriment of both the church plants themselves, and the local and regional Southern Baptist partners historically lending their support and expertise from a vantage point closer to the field

Conclusion

Southern Baptists took a leap of faith with the present church planting or bust approach. We bought into the sales pitch that starting more churches would be worth it. Few Southern Baptists had any idea this approach would require the dismantling of the very fabric of the SBC—our historic relationship with state conventions and local associations. Few Southern Baptists had any idea this approach would require the cuts that have obliterated our evangelism budgets and staff at the local and state levels.

When evaluating this “all-in” approach, Southern Baptists must determine if the gain has been greater than the loss. Granted, gains have been made in publicity and enthusiasm, but these are matters of style and not substance. The fact is that in our church planting, our baptisms, and our cooperative work, we have suffered major, possibly irrevocable damages. The overall costs are too high. The benefits are too low. Southern Baptist are now much weaker in our strategies, our results and our level of trust. When we evaluate the data concerning church planting at NAMB, we can only come to one conclusion: “It is not working.”

Some things cannot be addressed in a soundbite or 140 character Twitter post.  The matters facing Southern Baptists churches and the increasing challenges we face demand a more thorough analysis as we evaluate our current course as Southern Baptists.  One must understand wider and more deeply before seeking to evaluate or adjust strategy for an organization the size of the SBC.

My exploration of the impact of church planting began in a PhD seminar on the History of SBC Evangelism in 1989 at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.  I had the privilege and task of reviewing the all the dusty SBC Annuals to determine, “The Impact of Church Planting on Southern Baptist Evangelism“.  In the major paper I traced church planting in the SBC from its earliest roots and examined the various flavors and its impact on evangelism in the SBC.

Since 2010, Southern Baptists have gone all in with church planting as the single focus of its evangelism and mission efforts in North America.  Is this single focus working in meaningful and lasting ways for Southern Baptists?  That questions is one of several questions that deserve to be explored?  While there are some positive results there are also major concerns as well, particularly on the impact on evangelism results now and in the future.

A flawed foundational statistic was used to justify the “all in” and single focus strategy.  The same flawed statistic continues to be misused to convince Southern Baptists to support and fund the New NAMB approach to the neglect of all other approaches to helping churches evangelize North America.    There are a number of great reasons to start new churches, but basing the focus on the statistical lie that church planting is 3 to 4 more effective in evangelism is not it.

NAMB President Ezell once again misused the statistic of membership to baptism ratios in his proclamation to Southern Baptists “It Is Working” in June 2016 in St. Louis.  He communicated to Southern Baptist the baptisms to membership ratios as 1:14 for plants and 1:52 for established churches, and stated publically that the plants are making up for the lack in evangelism of established churches.  He must know better.

How can I say this?  In 2002, I was asked and hired by Dr. Ed Stetzer on behalf of NAMB to complete a research project on “Church Planting as an Evangelistic Strategy“ and report the findings back to the Former NAMB leadership.  One of the requests was to compare the evangelistic effectiveness of church plants to established churches.  One finding from the research was that church plants at that time had marginally better average attendance-to-baptism rates and marginally better average Sunday School attendance-to-baptism rates.  I did not explore and compare the membership baptism rates because that would be a useless and unrevealing number.  Baptism ratios can reasonably be based on average worship attendance or the average small group attendance, BUT NOT membership.  Why? The typical SBC church has 3 times more members than average attenders and church plants typically have more attenders than members.

To see this clearly, consider the following:

An illegitimate comparison that is misleading…

• Older established church – averages 100 in worship, has 300 members, baptizes 10 people. The membership baptism ratio would be 1:30 or 10 baptisms out of 300 people.
• New church plant – averages 100 in worship, has 50 members, baptizes 10 people. The membership baptism ratio would be 1:5 or 10 baptisms out of 50 people.
• Using this flawed approach New Churches 1:5 and Existing Churches 1:30; which is a difference of six times, but both churches are averaging 100 in worship and baptizing the same numbers of people.

 A legitimate comparison

• Older established church – baptism based on attendance would be 1:10
• New church plant – baptism based on attendance would be 1:10

Do you see the problems of national leaders sharing misleading information with the SBC people?  Building a national strategy off one primary completely misleading statistic has proven to deeply damage large portions of the SBC and our evangelism effectiveness.  Additionally, its impact will be felt by Southern Baptists for decades.

For a current real life example of strategy based on flawed information, read about Elizabeth Holmes and her company Theranos.  Her business was initially built on good intentions to help people around the world.  Hope grew as the technology was tested, and the business exploded in growth.  But later it was discovered that she had sold some of the best minds and wealthiest people in America was built on a false medical information and unattainable dream.  The 33 year old’s new worth of $4.5 billion went to zero overnight and many, many people were hurt as the truth was revealed.

We are people of truth, serve a God of truth, and share the truth.  It is imperative that Southern Baptists leaders tell the truth to Southern Baptists, lest our efforts come crumbling down and damage His Kingdom.

Affirmations

Virtually all Southern Baptists can agree on several affirmations.  We affirm the ministry of church planting.  We affirm the missionary role of church planters and their family and we should take loving and reasonable measures to assess, train, and deploy planters into fields with human and financial support, and work to connect them to local churches and others islands of health in their region for greater support.

The New NAMB has brought greater awareness of the ministry of this missionary, sought to engage partnering churches to undergird them, and increased the overall value for church planting among SBC pastors and leaders.  We are grateful and celebrate that there are plants which are impacting their local ministry contexts.  Lives are being changed and the gospel is spreading to new people.  However, the reality is, that some of this would happen with or without local, state or national support.  From a few reports being shared among guys connected to the mission field, the New NAMB approach is working in some church planting, but there are others where it is reportedly not going well at all for the plants themselves or the local associations as redundant tracks are being built which is creating more confusion.

Planting Statistics and Facts

Dr. Ezell stated that the New NAMB had a church planting goal of 1,500 plants per year that was restated to the SBC in 2013.  During the last six years under his tenure, the New NAMB has averaged 924 plants per year.  On Feb. 8, 2016 Dr. Ezell publicly revised the goal to 1,200 plants per year in his presentation to NAMB Trustees.  The average number of plants for the six years prior to the New NAMB was 1,368 after adjusting the number down for the average number of churches who became a part of the SBC by affiliation, not new starts.  Using the numbers we have and adjustments down, the SBC is still seeing 444 less churches per year started during the last 6 years compared to the 6 prior years.

Dr. Ezell has claimed that it is impossible to compare the number of plants in the New NAMB to the number of plants in the Former NAMB.  One of his concerns about past reporting is the possible duplication in counting and that new plants were not required to receive their unique SBC ID number.  Another concern related to the number of affiliating churches that could have been reported in the pre-2010 reporting of new SBC congregations.  However, in my calculations, I took into account one of the major factors, that of churches which have affiliated with the SBC as a church, but was not started by the SBC.  In comparing the last six years to the six years prior to the New NAMB, I reduced the number of churches reported in the SBC Annual (Baptism and Plants 2004-2015) by the average on a per year basis.

2004-2009       8,211    (9,361 reported minus an estimated affiliated 1,150)

2010-2016       5,546    (reported church starts, also reported affiliated 1,150)

2,665     less churches reported started during last 6 years than prior 6 yrs.

I do not know the church plants Dr. Ezell is contesting prior to his becoming President.  Not knowing how to calculate an allowance for them, I share the best figures I can calculate with an allowance for churches that are affiliated, but not started in 2004-2009.  On average, it appears the SBC is starting some 444 less churches each of the last years, while spending initially two times more money and now 3.5 times more money than the Former NAMB used to start more churches.  It is possible that Dr. Ezell can make a case for some differences in the calculations of church plants in prior years without SBC ID numbers, but I suspect he cannot account for the some 2,665 less churches even after an allowance of 191 per year for possible affiliation instead of being newly started.  With less fanfare, it appears that the Former NAMB was planting more churches with less money and still funding evangelism efforts nationally, regionally and locally.

Ideally church plants are started with focus on evangelizing lost segments of society.  Southern Baptists should be reluctant to fund church starts to provide Christians with a new church that is more to their liking.

In 2007 Dr. Ed Stetzer while working at NAMB conducted a study on 2000 church plants started between 2000 and 2005 in 12 different denominations and networks.  In surveys with 500 of those churches, he discovered a membership baptism ratio of 1:5 for churches during their first four years (p. 16 above study).  Dr. Ezell reported in recent SBC church plants to be 1:14.  The membership baptism ratios are 65% worse in the SBC than the ratios discovered by Dr. Stetzer on plants in his study.

A better way to compare the currently known data and accurately reflect reality would be to say that new church baptism ratios to members is 1:14, while all 47,000 churches in the SBC have baptism ratios to average attendance of 1:19.  As new research is completed on baptisms to average worship attendance in new churches, appearances are that the differences in new and established churches will only show small differences in ratios.

It thus appears that already existing local churches are a significant factor in evangelism, with new church plants only slightly more effective.  Therefore, helping them with evangelism may be a significant way to bring people to Christ.

Yet Southern Baptists dismantled their entire multi-faceted approach to evangelizing and disciplining North America based primarily on the belief in a statistical lie that church plants were 3 to 4 times more effective in evangelism.

Financial Matters

The New NAMB is investing 3.5 times more SBC dollars per year into church planting the last year of the Former NAMB: 76.1 million in church planting in 2017, compared to $20.9 million in 2010 (p. 294).  By any thoughtful look at the numbers, we are spending 3.5 times more and actually getting less church starts each year.  At the same time we have virtually eliminated NAMB evangelism staff specialists, defunding State Directors of Evangelism and other state evangelism staff who were there to assist both new and existing churches, reduced the evangelism budget to 5% of the New NAMB’s annual budget, and removed focus and funding for various regional effective evangelistic ministries.  The church planting budget ($76.1 million) is over 12 times more than the budget for Evangelism ($6.3 million) in 2017. (see Financial Management p. 1)  This means 43,000 existing churches of the total 47,000 churches that have had a 1:19 attendance to baptism ration are receiving little to no help with evangelism.  Instead, the vast majority of funds are being spent to start new congregations whose actual evangelism effectiveness is only slightly better than the existing churches.

Under a new project, the New NAMB is budgeting $62 million to purchase homes for church planters over about a 6 year period (see p. 2 under Financial Management).  In the last published report, NAMB had purchased 89 homes (see #III).  This move into owning and managing property for planters has not been seen by this writer in the history of the SBC.   The 2017 budget for purchasing homes for church planters ($12 million) is twice as much as the entire NAMB budget for evangelism ($6.3 million)

Church Planting Targets

Southern Baptist historically have planted churches with the DNA embedded from the mother or sponsoring church.  This would have included a commitment to similar doctrine, governance, and a cooperative form of mission advance through the Cooperative Program.  Since we are planting churches in radically different places and seeking to reach into new subsets of people groups, we need to be clear on the essentials we are trying to instill into the DNA of the new church.

The SBC should steward the resources of Southern Baptists by investing in church plants which have or develop

• Evangelistic heart and effectiveness
• Planter/pastor that is equipped and supported by local relationships
• Capacity to be self-supporting, self-governing, self-determining
• Commitment to the Baptist Faith and Message
• Long-term commitment to a cooperative spirit and funding of missions as a stewardship of the investments made into the plant
• Connected to and invested in the various expressions of the SBC ecosystem: local, state, and national
• Intentionality and effectiveness in developing disciples who are then engaged with community impact for Christ

Unknowns but Vital

To better evaluate the effectiveness of the New NAMB strategy it would be very helpful to discover two pieces of information that are currently unknown from a reliable source.

The first is survivability rates of the new church plants.  Church planting is both an art and science with some unique challenges to its growth and sustainability.  In the absence of access to current and reliable survivability rates, I can only relay that I have been told that the survivability rate of plants during the New NAMB is similar to the reported national averages in all denominations which is around 68% at the four year mark.

Another unknown is the long-term commitment of the new plants to essential values and practices of past generations of SBC churches and plants.  The challenges in this area are increased because of our approaches to church plants and the North American culture in which we are planting.

Strategy and Tactical Concerns

The following are possible concerns related to the strategies and tactics being used by the New NAMB

• Short-sighted Approaches — It appears that we are using tactics that produce quicker results, result in NAMB looking “cool” and successful but have long-term negative consequences.
  • Placing and/or approving planters to ministry fields that are far removed from their past contexts of living and ministering without examining these issues, preparing the planter and his family, and without connecting them to adequate local churches and leaders of healthy churches in surrounding areas. This will result in more planting failures, which damage not only the planter and his family, but also reflects negatively on all parts of the SBC family to all the individuals and churches which partnered with and supported the planter.
  • Funding satellite campuses of some mega churches. Danger lies in the growing belief that the faithful CP giving of smaller and mid-size churches is being taken and then redistributed back to mega churches who plant campuses around them that in turn not reach lost people, but reach the church members of those small and mid-size congregations.
  • Partner with (not sure all that it entails) with historically non-SBC churches to plant churches. I assume this means that SBC funds are being used to start churches who primarily relate to and are committed to non-SBC entities and mission efforts.  Such known partnerships include: Harvest Bible Chapel, Acts 29, McLean Bible Church and most probably several others.  I don’t know if we are counting them as SBC church plants for our records, but it would be worth inquiring of a NAMB Trustee.

• A Nationalistic Approach and Devaluing of Local and State Partners
  • Setting policies, practices, assessment requirements, training programs, and the like from Alpharetta far from the mission fields. The Former NAMB typically worked to supplement local and regional strategies around common objectives with NAMB.In the past we operated from the assumption that pastors and leaders on the local field would best know their needs.  The new approach means that officials at a far distance are assuming that they best know the local needs.  This is a significant shift for us.
  • Employing church planting staff that works in various states beside the non-Southern state conventions, but come under the selection, supervision, and support of the New NAMB – not the State Convention.
  • Directing all things church planting from Alpharetta, instead of being responsive to state and regional priorities and processes that fit their context and are connected to and held accountable by local pastors and churches.
  • The 2014 removal of the historic requirement of church plants who are receiving SBC funds to reinvest into the local association of churches and missions around them. When questioned, NAMB leadership said, “they need to earn theirs” with “they” referring associations and the DOMS who serve the local churches.
  • Defunding of partial funding of DOMs in non-Southern states in 2012 with the new partnership and budget agreements with state conventions.
  • Reported some if not all state Executive Directors have been informed that NAMB plans to fly all planters to Alpharetta for “orientation”. For the first time in the history of NAMB, the money and time is being spent to connect the planters directly to NAMB rather than the ministry at the local and state levels.
  • NAMB is beginning to inform some non-Southern State Executive Directors that when the State DOM positions open up, NAMB intends to not replace them because that is an “antiquated” role. NAMB will select the next leader and will be eliminating the SDOM position, and requiring the new hire to be involved directly with two church plants.  Reportedly there was no reply from NAMB to one Exec. Director who expressed concerns about the other and wider duties of the SDOM outside of church planting.

• Financial Matters
  • Lack of local and regional financial controls and accountabilities with money entrusted at the national level for local ministry. Stewardship of SBC resources is best closer to the field and closer to local accountability
  • NAMB leadership stewards a $120 million annual budget in addition to $320 million in net assets to strong-arm, reward, punish and use to purchase goodwill and favors. This money used to be entrusted primarily to state leaders and staff who then were under the authority of local pastors and churches.
  • Funding directly to more church plants and/or their sponsoring churches, when historically the funding for planters/plants almost exclusively went through the state conventions.  The direct funding fosters loyalty to the New NAMB, but not to the Southern Baptist Associations and State Conventions.

• Trust of NAMB
  • Selective following of Strategic Partnership Agreements (SPA) with State Conventions
    • Violating, ignoring and changing the terms of SPA has and will continue to erode trust if it continues.
    • See my article on “Going Going Gone, Sold: Essential Elements of SBC Mission Efforts — Major Changes in the Latest NAMB/State Convention Cooperative Agreements Shift SBC Ecology” 
  • Nationalistic approaches are eroding local trust and eroding local engagement and responsibility in non-Southern states

Conclusion

Southern Baptists took a leap of faith with Dr. Ezell and in the New NAMB in 2010.  They bought into the sales pitch that starting more churches was worth it.  Do you think they knew it would come at the expense of dismantling vital aspects the fabric of the SBC and virtually dismantling the entire budget and staffing priorities in evangelism nationally and at the local and state levels?

Statistically, the New NAMB in keeping with the Great Commission Resurgence were sold a lie, that church plants were so valuable and would be so effective in evangelism, that selling all other things NAMB and SBC partnership was worth it.  I believe this blind leap of faith based on a statistical lie has damaged the SBC in remarkable seen and unseen ways in the future.

Southern Baptists must determine if the gain has been greater than the loss with this “all-in” and single focused strategy to reach North America with the gospel.  While some gains in publicity and enthusiasm has been achieved, the planting, baptism, and impact on the cooperative work and partnership has suffered major, irrecoverable losses.  The overall costs are too high, the benefits too low, and Southern Baptist are weaker in strategic ways and in essential trust.

It might seem that turning back the clock would be best.  But, that is not an option for SBC leaders who must guide the SBC out of this blind jump into the unproven and damaging approach to growing our human and financial mission base.  Southern Baptist church members and churches desire better stewardship of their national missions agency.

Series of Articles – “Is the New NAMB Really Working”

Part 1: Introduction

Part Two: Baptisms – ABRIDGED

Part 2: Baptisms – Full Article w/ Fact Links

Part Three: Church Planting – ABRIDGED

PART 3: Church Planting – Full Article w/ Fact Links

PART 4: Partnership – Full Article w/ Fact Links

PART 5: Financial Stewardship – Full Article w/ Fact Links

PART 6: Character – Full Article w/ Fact Links

PART 7: Oversight and Accountability

Can church planting turnaround the Southern Baptist Convention’s steady decline in baptisms? In 2002, the North American Mission Board of the SBC commissioned me to determine whether church plants are more effective by ratio in baptisms than established churches. Short answer to a longer complex matter, church plants have slightly better baptism ratios. Church plants can be part of a solution, but by no measure can church plants by themselves turnaround the significant decline in baptisms in the SBC. You will discover more of my findings in this paper.

Continue reading below or download the document Church Planting and Evangelism.

C. Peter Wagner stated, “The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches.”1 But, is this statement actually true? We will seek to determine the validity of this claim by conducting empirical research and literature review in light of the biblical mandates and current context of ministry. The decisive purpose of this paper is to determine the validity of church planting as an effective evangelism strategy, particularly in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Biblical Mandate: Nature of Church is Mission

The church exists for the pleasure of God and for His glory. The church does not exist for the pleasure and comfort of its members and attenders. The gospel is not to be given just to followers of Christ, but through them to each God-created person in the world in the various sub- cultures and tribes in which they live.

The nature of the church is missional. Instead of thinking in terms of a theology of missions, Christians are better served by thinking in terms of a missional theology. The church is to engage a world without Christ in such a way as to expand the kingdom of God by drawing people into a life-giving and life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Condition of America

North Americans can be characterized as spiritual, yet there is a growing anti-church sentiment and preference toward no religion. USA Today writer Cathy Lynn Grossman noted “people are looking upward, inward, online and out-of-doors for the comfort, connection and inspiration they once sought in formal sanctuaries. Their “spirituality” is unhemmed by ritual, Scripture or theology.” 2

The church is not on the radar of many lost Americans. People are searching outside of established churches. Grossman’s research found, “People want help connecting, creating community and seeing God in other people. But religious institutions have been discredited, so they are trying to do it outside the churches.” 3 Pastors of seeker-type churches begun in the 80s & 90s would promote themselves as “church” with the same message, but without some of the negatives that were bothersome to seekers. However, some pastors of newer churches now are either not using the word “church” in their name or promoting themselves as “disorganized” or “unorganized” religion.

Still other Americans are choosing the no religion category as their indicated preferences. Grossman said, “Americans almost all say religion matters, yet more people than ever are opting out. Not just out of the pews. Out from under a theological roof altogether.” 4

Research confirms the shifts. In 2001, more than 29.4 million Americans said they had no religion, more than double the number in 1990. This is more than Methodists, Lutherans and Episcopalians all added up, according to the American Religious Identification Survey 2000.

People with no religion now account for 14% of the nation, up from 8% in a 1990 survey. 50% of Americans call themselves religious, down from 54% in December 1999. But an additional 33% call themselves “spiritual but not religious,” up from 30%, and about one in 10 say they are neither. 5

The church is not without hope in ministering in this context. People still have an inner longing to know God and are looking for ways to remove the guilt they feel, but do not understand. Mark Galli, managing editor of Christianity Today said, “Lone-ranger spirituality is not conducive to taking us to the depths God designed us to go. It leaves out the communal dimension of faith. If you leave out the irritations, frustrations and joy that community entails, you miss something about God.” 6

State of Evangelism in American Churches

Any honest diagnosis on the condition of the church of North America would include the word “unhealthy”. In the US, the Christian church is losing the battle on most fronts. Some are noticed, while others go unnoticed. Either way, the consequences are still the same. Bill Bright, founder of the worldwide evangelistic organization Campus Crusade for Christ, said “One of the great scandals of the centuries is the condition of the church of Christ in America today.”7

Little Evangelism

Little effective evangelism is taking place. George Hunter reported that nation-wide, only 1% of the churches in America are growing by conversion. I have read that half of all churches did not add one new member through conversion growth. According to the Uniform Church Letter, about 50% of SBC churches report no evangelistic activity. In 2000, around 6,700 SBC churches did not baptize even one person. The vast major of SBC baptisms are either children of present members or are adults who are not being baptized for their initial commitments to Christ, but because of membership requirements. By most any measure, pagans are not responding to Christ.

We are not without hope. Christ is on His throne and churches can impact their area for Christ. Aubrey Malphurs said, “While numerous signs indicate that there’s danger ahead if the established church in America doesn’t change its attitude toward evangelism, there’s a solution. That solution is church planting…. New churches have the potential to pursue lost people with a passion.”8

Few New Church Plants

In the 1950s, most every denomination in the US would have felt the need to expand the influence of the church through missions. However, most denominations have decreased their involvement with mission efforts and church planting. “In 1918, mainline churches provided 82 percent of the Western missionary force. By 1966, when theological liberalism and sociopolitical definitions of mission had begun to crowd out traditional missions emphases onevangelism and church planting, mainline churches supplied only 6 percent.”9

In fiscal 2001, the United Methodist Church’s Board of Global Ministries decided to slash spending by $11 million. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) meanwhile considered mission cuts of $2.5 million.10 The good news is that there is some shift in the thinking of some denominational leaders. Only recently have some denominations begun to see the vital role church planting plays to the health of any denomination.

Church Planting as Evangelistic Strategy

Necessity of Planting

McGavran’s Use of ‘Church Growth’

Donald McGavran coined the term ‘church growth’ and used it instead of ‘evangelism’ because of the negative associations assigned to the word evangelism. McGavran used church growth to describe the evangelization of all people with the view toward the development of indigenous congregations with the new converts in a manner consistent with their cultural norms.

In describing the three major components of the Church Growth movement under McGavran, Elmer Towns said the following about church planting. “At the beginning of the movement many equated Church Growth with church planting. McGavran said the best way to evangelize a caste is not for a foreigner to preach to them. He concluded the best way to reach ‘untouchables’ was to plant a church in their culture and have members of that church who were ‘untouchable’ to evangelize their friends, neighbors, relatives, and associates. Church planting resulted in ‘untouchables’ evangelizing ‘untouchables.’”11

If Evangelical Churches Don’t Plant, Who Will?

If evangelistic churches do not start churches, either evangelistic churches will not be started or non-evangelistic churches will be started. Sylvia Ronsvalle of empty tomb, inc., decries a lack of leadership. “Denominations have not been calling people to do anything beyond institutional maintenance,”12 It is absolutely essential that kingdom expanding churches start churches, as the vast majority of denominations have become sidetracked in the struggle of maintaining their institutions.

Additionally, various non-Christian groups continue to grow and expand throughout the US. This trend will continue as people search for spiritual guidance and for purpose in their lives.

Sample Growth of non-Christian Churches

Rationale for Planting

Theological Rationale

God desires a relationship with the people He creates and desires for them to function in communal relationships with each other. Each new generation must be evangelized and congregationalized within its given context. God does not have grandchildren. Darryl Brown stated that 1.5 billion people have never heard the gospel.14 I believe this figure is dramatically low when one considers whether or not a person has heard and understood the essential elements of the gospel.

Studies reveal that 30-32% of the American population will attend a public worship service in any given week. I also believe that it would be very difficult to locate 15% of the American population in anyone’s church on any given Sunday. 350 thousands churches would have to average 120 in attendance to reach 15% of the population. George Gallup estimates the unchurched population in the US at 195 million. I believe that based on the number of churches (around 300-350 thousands), the population (281 million) and the stated average worship attendance of the churches (75), a better unchurched estimate is probably closer to 225 million.

Harvey Conn recommended the following church planting focus:

1. God has commanded us to make disciples among every ethnic group or “people movement” world-wide, (Mt. 28:19; Acts 1:8)
2. God intends to fulfill His purpose of discipling nations by local congregations, i.e., churches, not just with individuals. (1 Cor. 12:14; Eph. 4:11-16)
3. Acquiring many individual converts to Christ does not naturally result in forming a church to carry on the process.
4. God desires that all people would have the opportunity to worship and serve Him within a church that reflects their unique cultural and social environment.
5. A major barrier to reaching unchurched people for Christ is that they perceive Christianity and the “church” as “foreign” to their culture or social environment.

Therefore, we must establish indigenous churches as the Biblical function and goal of New Testament evangelism.15

For Christians to evangelize the world, it will take millions of additional churches. To congregationalize 6 billion people at 100 participants per church, it will take a total of 60 million churches worldwide. For Christians to evangelize America, it will take hundreds of thousands of new churches. To congregationalize 281 million Americans at 100 participants per church, it will take a total of 2.81 million churches, which is dramatically higher than the estimated 300- 350 thousand churches which currently exists. God loves people; it will take more churches to reach them.

Practical Rationale

Effective Evangelism Support

Church planting should be combined with present evangelism strategies, particularly harvest approaches to evangelism. Effective evangelistic activities create the need for additional local churches. Under the leadership of president Jack McAlister, The Every Home Crusade discovered that their efforts to distribute Christian literature into every home in the world became more fruitful when they began to start “Christ groups” in India. These groups functioned somewhat like churches. Youth With A Mission began to start churches at one a day worldwide in conjunctions with their other ministries efforts.16

Campus Crusade for Christ under the leadership of Bill Bright developed into a highly influential evangelistic force around the world. A component of their campus ministries carried out functions of church. The successful worldwide distribution and impact of the Jesus film created the need for the establishment of groups, so they planted “home fellowships” which often

developed into churches. As a result CCC set as one of their eight international goals for the year 2000 to partner with various denominations to start 1 million new churches.17

Churches are Declining and Dying

The saying, “the dinosaur never sees it coming” may be an appropriate warning to the American church of the 21st century. According to Bill Easum, the median age of 60% of the congregations in the US is 60 years of age or older.18 With the extreme difficultly churches are having at winning adults and holding on to churched youth, the number of local churches that are dying will dramatically rise in the next 20-25 years.

Churches are dying and declining all over America. George Barna reported that no county in the US is more churched today than it was ten years ago. Win Arn noted that 80-85% of the churches in America are either plateaued or declining.19 Edward Dayton reports in the publication Unreached Peoples that churches in America and the United States are losing 2,765,000 members per year. Bob Logan estimated that 3,500-4,000 close each year. As churches decline and die, it is practical to start churches that can effectively evangelize the unreached peoples of America.

The combined communicant membership of protestant churches over the last ten years reveal a staggering trend. While the US population increased 11.4%, church membership declined 9.5%. The population increased 24,153,000 people, while church membership decreased 4,498,242 people. (Meacham)

North America is the ONLY continent where Christianity is not growing. The church attendance has declined approximately 10% over the last 7 years. (Meacham)

 America loses 72 churches per week, gain 24 churches per week, for a net loss of an estimated 48 churches per week. That lose yields a net loss of 2,450 churches per year.

The US is the largest post-Christian nation on the earth and the third largest unchurched nation.

The church to population ratio is also declining for every 10,000 Americans

• In 1900 there were 27 churches for every 10,000 Americans
• In 1950 there were 17 churches for every 10,000 Americans
• In 1996 there were 11 churches for every 10,000 Americans20

Not only are churches declining and dying, denominations are in trouble as well. David Dorsey Ray made the following statement about the United Methodist denomination from his DMin project research.

The Great Commission calls the Church to “make disciples” by the method of baptizing and teaching. These ministries can best be accomplished in the setting of a local congregation, and thus the Great Commission is also mandating church planting. There are other means to evangelism, but the most effective method of reaching the lost is church planting, and thus it is biblical and reasonable for the Church to continue planting new congregations.

The lack of new congregations is not the only reason for the continuing decline of the United Methodist Church, but it certainly is a contributing factor and must be corrected if the United Methodist Church is to reverse its direction.22

Church Revitalization is Difficult

Another reason to plant churches is the enormous difficulty in revitalizing a struggling church. It is possible for a church to get back on a missional/evangelistic path, but it is not an easy option to expand God’s Kingdom. Wagner said, “Remember this simple fact: It’s easier to have babies than to raise the dead! Not that all existing churches are dead, or even that most of

them are. Most can and should be brought to life by the power of the Holy Spirit. Still the most exciting part of the hospital is the maternity ward.”23   In the Purpose-Driven Church, Rick

Warren made a similar observation concerning revitalization and church planting.

Lyle Schaller is the most prolific writer on church issues in the last 50 years and for many he is the most respected spokesperson. In a speech to the Southern Baptist New Work Fellowship, Lyle Schaller said, “Some think we need to make all our existing congregations vital before starting new churches. What’s wrong with that is nobody knows how to do that…and nobody’s young enough to live long enough to do it.”24

Diverse Population

The US has a diverse population; racially, ethnically, economically, religiously, and in other ways. This diversity has not created a melting pot in most cities, but a stew pot. The expression of the local church needs to be different to effectively evangelize and congregationalize in the midst of such diversity.

The challenges are many. There are 45 unchurched people groups (ethnic groups having no churches to evangelize them).25 The following demographics present challenges facing the Church.

Urban Need

• 35 million handicapped
• 10 million alcoholics
• 2.4 million Hindus
• 6 million Jews
• 3 million Muslims
• 4 million Americans are prison inmates
• 1.4 million Native Americans or Indians
• 6 million temporary residents in America who are neither immigrants or tourists, many are students or workers with green cards26

Biblical Impact of Cities

A study of the New Testament reveals the important role major cities played in spreading the gospel to the world. The Holy Spirit directed the affairs and paths of the leaders of the church to start new churches in the influential places. The following passages are just a few that indicate the significant role of the cities (Mt. 11:1, Acts 1:8, Acts 8:4-5, Acts 11:19-20, Acts 19:10, Phil. 1:13). In short, Gospel spread from the cities out to other areas. It was trickle down or out evangelism. Today, cities continue to influence suburbia and rural areas.

SBC Roots 

80% of the US population lives in cities with over 50,000 residents. However, the SBC has primarily been a rural group of predominately white churches with a much smaller but growing number of suburban churches. The SBC must now develop strategies and local congregational expressions that fit the needs of the urban setting. Referring to the Christian church in America Towns said, “we must develop a modern day strategy: (1) to not be afraid of the cities. (2) to see the cities multitude-God loves people. (3) to develop a Biblical workable strategy to reach the cities. (4) to realize by reaching the cities we can fulfill the Great Commission to reach the world.”27

Ethnic Make-up of Urban Areas

More ethnic people live in American cities than the white city dwellers. Additionally, the vast majority of various ethnic groups reside in the cities: 88% of Hispanics, 81% of African Americans, 90% of Orientals, 48% of Native Americans. In examining the greater Los Angeles area, we discover that LA contains…

• the 2nd largest Hispanic city with 4.5 million Hispanics the 2nd largest Chinese city outside of Asia
• the 2nd largest Japanese city outside of Japan
• the largest Korean city outside of Korea
• the largest Vietnamese city outside of Vietnam
• the largest Philippine city outside of the Philippines

If the SBC is to do its part in seeing America reached for Christ, we will have to accept some of the many cross-cultural church opportunities.

Characteristics of Urban Cities

The cities are the greatest mission field in America. Towns noted the following reasons: “there are so many people there, representing so many needs, while at the same time, it is difficult to reach them because they come from so many backgrounds and there are so few churches doing far too little.”28

Urban cities are influential, have large numbers of people who are unevangelized, multi- cultural, multi-ethnic, dynamic, changing, and elusive. The Christian church is not effective in evangelizing the cities under the current conditions using methods and approaches that were designed to reach rural or suburban areas.

75% of Americans who live in the city are unevangelized. They can be characterized by the following:

Undesirable – because they are street people, poor, illiterate, or foreign
Unwanted – because they are different than people in the traditional white church
Unseen – because they are not what we see in our Christian literature, i.e., they are not white Americans29

Local Expression

The churches of the city cannot always be like the ones in our rural and suburban settings. Urban churches will be of all shapes and sizes such as: storefront churches, metropolitan churches, outer-urban church, city suburban church, and countless others. Urban churches will be known more by their internal ministry than their outer characteristics. They will not always own property, parking lots and parsonages. They may not have steeples, Sunday School rooms, or family life centers.

There will be other differences. Urban churches may not be organized around boards, committees, or flow charts. They may not be incorporated by the state. They may not have an extensive budget, bank account, or bills. They will be simple and functional, yet effective in helping its members live out the Christian life in their communities. The churches of the cities possess more characteristics of New Testament churches.30

SBC History of Church Planting

In the last two-thirds of the 20th century, the SBC was successful in starting churches primarily through two methods. Based on a review of the annuals of the SBC, Southern Baptists did a good job in congregationalizing and splitting. The HMB did begin to start missions and churches among and for various ethnic groups. These ethnic plants were the forerunning efforts to use church planting as an evangelistic strategy.31

Congregationalizing

As the Home Mission Board expanded its territories outside the South and as the country’s population moved in increasing numbers to the West, the SBC was presented with the opportunities to gather existing Southern Baptists into local congregations. Because many of these new churches did not reach indigenous people in large numbers, these churches are approaching a critical problem due to the median age of their congregations.

Church Splitting

It is hard to say it, but even church splits can be used by God to expand His Kingdom.

New churches were birthed out of the conflict of existing churches. The limitation of this approach to church planting is that most of these groups were not birthed out a passion to see lost people come to Christ, but out of selfish motives or church conflict.

Recategorization

With the Bold Mission Thrust, the SBC set a goal of having 50,000 churches by the year 2000. In an effort to lift up the value of local congregations, the Convention recategorized around thousands of missions (check this figure) into the category of church-type mission. This boosted the number of churches, but the SBC did not reach this goal. However, church planting did become a higher value in the last decade of the 20th century.

Pioneers – Sending and Seeker Oriented Churches

The SBC had a few local church pioneers set the pace and helped to set a new direction for church planting. Those two men were Harold Bullock and Rick Warren. They were committed to church planting beyond congregationalizing and church splitting.

Bullock started Hope Baptist Mission, now Hope Community Church, in 1977 in Ft. Worth, TX with a handful of people who were committed to walking with Jesus and following Harold’s vision for church. This church was the first modern highly purpose driven church that I am aware of in the SBC, as Hope was started after very careful investigation into its purpose, ministry context, and specific ministry values and goals.32 Hope set the pace in its methodologies, structure, priorities and values, evangelism, worship style, facilities, and in two other very important ways. Hope was started to evangelize those who were not presently being reached by existing churches and designed to impact America by becoming a church planting sending church.

Hope was started after Bullock, with his training in chemistry, began to ask some key questions: (1) in light of the American pluralistic and metropolitan context, how can the Christian church win America to Christ, (2) how many churches would it take to adequately church America, (3) what type of church needs to be started and leaders developed, (4) how can a church evangelize lost adults, and (5) how can a church produce people who walk with Jesus and others with great character, skill and integrity, among other significant questions.

One other question Bullock was and is seeking to answer is fundamentally different than many other high profile leaders. Bullock is asking, how can my church develop God-called men to be change agents, such they not only do they plant churches, they plant a different kind of church producing a high quality follower of Christ. Bullock has focused on training church planters and his members not just in knowledge or even skill, but has invested himself in the character development of the leaders who have sought out his mentoring.

Bullock and Hope were pioneers in having a vision beyond themselves by intentionally becoming a church planting training and sending church, not just a mega church. To date, Harold and Hope have sent out almost 80 church planters from coast to coast with a success rate of 85% in their plants. Twenty-five years later, Hope and Bullock is a great-untold story in America church life in the last quarter of the 20th century, but their impact will be felt in the 21st century.

Warren, along with a few of his contemporaries and many who have followed his teaching and leadership, started seeker sensitive churches in an effort to reach out to lost people who were not responding to the existing churches around them. These seeker churches such as Warren’s Saddleback Community Church, were some of the first plants in the SBC started to evangelize people who were not being and probably would not be evangelized by existing churches.

Saddleback is a premiere church and is one of the most influential churches in the US in the last 20 years. They have grown by conversion growth, started new churches, developed people through their spiritual development processes, conducted massive conferences for leaders, invested in missions instead of elaborate buildings, and led out in overseas missions among many other contributions they have made. They have remained focused on unchurched people and called leaders to focus on their purpose in every aspect of their ministry.

Today’s Call

From Franchise to Specialty Shop

The SBC was franchising before franchising became popular with Ray Kroc’s McDonald restaurants. The SBC become the largest Protestant denomination in the US in large part because it franchised many of its key components among its new churches without a hierarchal mandate. SBC churches have similar buildings, order of service, language, organizations, ministries, decision making structure, theology, small group ministry, and missional efforts.

However, many church plants today are targeted toward specific groups of people who are not presently being reached by existing churches.

The SBC now needs to figure out how it will develop congregational life in a highly diverse and pluralistic environment. Who and how will we reach the motorcycle club, street people, high rise apartment dwellers, multi-family housing residents, second generation immigrants and countless others? It will be through new churches that are indigenous to their subculture.

Experts Support CP as Evangelistic Strategy

Some wise churchmen around the country have been touting church planting as an evangelistic strategy. Here are a few of their statements. Logan and Ogne said, “New churches are the most effective at reaching unchurched pre-Christians.”33 Schaller said, “If you are interested in reaching new people, by far the most effective way to do this is through church planting.” 34 Elmer Towns has made similar statements from his perspective on the value of church planting to evangelism.

As we stated in the beginning we noted Wagner’s often quoted statement, “The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches.”35 He also said, “Not to make an explicit connection between evangelism and the local church is a strategic blunder. As the number of individuals who are evangelized increases, so also must the number of churches and the variety of churches. The more harvest God gives us, the more barns and silos and grain elevators are needed. In any given geographical area, the Christian community will grow or decline according to the degree of effort given to planting new churches.”36

Statistical Support for CP as Evangelistic Strategy

Research Background

The next several sections are based on the Uniform Church Letters submitted by SB churches for the reporting year 2000. Churches submitted their reports and checked the box as either a ‘mission’ or ‘church’. The reports below are divided into studies on churches and then mission groups. In both missions and churches, there was a direct correlation between the age of the church and the evangelistic effectiveness as measured by baptisms, recognizing that many other factors demonstrate evangelistic faithfulness and fruitfulness. However, for the purposes of this study, evangelism can best be seen through the baptism statistics.

Most studies are based on membership, however this is not the best factor from which to determine baptism ratios based on age of the church or mission. Older churches have a higher percentage of non-residents members and a higher percentage of inactive resident members because of their age. So, determining evangelistic effectiveness based on membership would give the truest picture.

The following research will be used to determine the baptism to average worship attendance ratios and the baptism to the average Sunday School attendance ratios. Both of these ratios were compared with the age of the church or mission to determine if there is a correlation. Worship and Sunday School were chosen as the best alternatives to membership, recognizing that there are limitations with both of these numbers. Younger churches typically have a higher percentage of guests in their average attendance figures than older churches. While older churches typically have a higher percentage of their worshipers attending Sunday School.

However, using either of these measurements will be more helpful than membership numbers.

The tables below were designed to allow you the opportunity to review more data than a typical summary so that you can make additional calculations as helpful to your particular need. I have included a short summary of the statistics from my perspective.

Research Question & Summary Answer

The ultimate question for this research paper: “Is church planting an effective evangelistic strategy?” In this section of the paper, we will discover the undeniable answer to that question is ‘yes’. Church plants that are missions and then become young churches do baptize much higher percentages of worship attenders and small group (Sunday School) attenders. Win Arn noted the lifecycle of church in terms of their growth and decline. He said, “In the normal life cycle of churches, there is birth, and in time, death. Many churches begin a plateau and/or show decline around their 15th-18th year.”37 Based on the uniform church letters, the median starting year for a SBC churches reporting in 2000 was 1934.

Younger Churches

SBC Church Statistics

Southern Baptist churches reporting on the 2000 Uniform Church Letter. The following statistics do not include churches that did not report. Also those ministries that reported themselves as missions are not included below. 35,928 churches reported.38

SS is 73.9% of worship attendance.

51 plus        14.43        3,006,664        208,296        21,531        2,315,456        11.12

Church Findings

It takes fewer worship attenders and Sunday School attenders to baptize one person in younger churches than in older churches. This can be seen clearly in both of the last two charts when years are grouped together. In terms of half decades and decades, the older the church, the more people it takes to baptize a single person.

There is a dramatic reduction in effectiveness in baptisms in churches after they reach 15 years of age as a congregation. This supports Arn’s church lifecycle statements above.

I believe that it is safe to assume that people who attend Sunday School are more likely to be church members and more likely to be active in the overall life of the church. If this is true, the older churches are much more likely to be have members who are more focused on the internal affairs of the church than the outward evangelism of the church.

Younger Missions

SBC Mission Statistics

The following tables are reflective of the 2,906 missions that reported through the 2000 UCL.

(SS is 62.9% of worship attendance)

The following are summaries of Christian groups filing as missions.

Mission Findings

It takes fewer worship attenders and Sunday School attenders to baptize one person in younger missions than in older missions. This can be seen clearly in the charts when years are grouped together. An oddity is in year 0. I believe there are at least three factors, which contribute to this oddity. (1) the church planter and possible few core members are seeking to locate additional core members not focused on evangelism, (2) the planter has few contacts and is in the process of getting settled into community and develop relationships, and (3) the planter is heavily involved in corporate matters and denominational requirements.

There is a gradual but steady reduction in effectiveness in baptisms in the mission as it ages. Some missions reported being as old as 183 years. I am confident that the vast majority of the 767 missions over 9 years old were churches at some point, but have reverted to ‘missions status’.

Again, I believe that it is safe to assume that people who attend Sunday School are more likely to be members of the mission and more likely to have a higher level of commitment to the mission than those who only attend worship services. If this is true, the older missions are much more likely to be have participants who are more focused on the internal affairs of the new missions status and are less likely to be connected with lost people.

Smaller Churches

A friendly debate often occurs related to the overall effectiveness of megachurches in comparison to smaller or minichurches. The following chart highlights the findings related to size and baptisms over a five year period of time in a study by Christian Swartz.

By far the megachurches won many more to faith. However, the implication is that minichurches were statistically 1600% more effective in evangelism. This statistic does not take into account the many other contributions make to expansion of God’s kingdom, but it does communicate the extreme value of small churches. These statistics compiled by Christian Swartz were based on a survey mailed out to 1000 churches worldwide of which between three and four hundred churches responded to the survey.39

Cost

Starting new churches will reach more people for Christ at a lower cost than older existing churches. Logan and Ogne said, “Planting new churches is by far the most cost- effective means of evangelism. You will win more converts at a lower cost through new churches than established congregations.”40 People are more valuable than any amount of money, but churches do have to set priorities. In newer churches it does cost fewer dollars to baptize a person than in older churches.

This does not mean that churches should not maintain their buildings or build larger buildings, but it should give leaders pause as to the decision making question a church should be asking when it is setting financial and human priorities. In a winter 2002 electronic newsletter, Warren stated his belief that the last large church monuments had been built in the US. Too often the build or not to build question is asked in light of the impact on the individual local church when deciding to attempt to build a larger single church or become involved in church planting. However, church leaders should also ask a larger question related to how the decision will impact the Kingdom of God in that particular area and ultimately the world.

Perspectives and Principles for Planting in America

Struggles are not always bad, as they almost demand that we reexamine what we have held to be important. It is through persevering that our faith is tested and purified. As the church in America struggles, we, the church, are presented with a gift of reexamining what really matters to God and determine what we are doing that may be hindering the purposes of God.

America is a difficult mission field in that it has characteristics of being both pre- Christian and post-Christian. Most denominations have struggled to be successful in turning around churches that have been in decline to the point that they effectively minister in their surrounding communities. Some denominations are turning to church planting to help save their denominations and hopefully more importantly as a strategy to reach lost people who God deeply loves. However, church planting cannot simply be starting more churches like the existing ones. Church planting will require that we plant different kinds of churches as we think outside the box.

Much of what we have called church in America is simply cultural Christianity, void of the real life and vitality of Christ. Because God is on His throne, He is in control and His church will have victory in time. However, much of which is of man that we have claimed is of God will simply die. The question for those ministries will be, how can we live again in a different form after we are gone. Church planting is the final hope for many churches that will cease to exist in their present form inside the next 20 years.

Based on his research from attempting to contact 84 denominations about their efforts in church planting, Elmer Towns summarized what he sees as the new principles for church planting in America.

• Recognize that traditional American church methods that are geared to American suburbia and rural areas will not generally work in Urban America.
• View the United States as a secular mission field and develop an urban strategy that is local to national, not the reverse.
• Apply successful foreign Church Growth concepts to urban United States.
• Develop a church planting strategy that encourages creativity in methodology, yet Biblical in principle.
• Give general permission to deliver the gospel (unchanging principles) in innovative fashion (new methods) that is effective in each localized urban 41

Conclusions

New churches must reach new people to survive, preferably unsaved. New members are required for the mission to become financially, numerically, and organizationally viable. This is not true for existing churches that can continue to meet as usual without doing evangelism. This is not true of financially comfortable established churches. Church planting keeps the church on its missional or apostolic edge.

Over time there is a natural, but unwanted, values slippage for any organization, including a church. Most churches start with a high priority and value placed on impacting the lives of lost people and the lost world. However, the longer churches exist, the harder it is for the church to think beyond itself and into the lost world outside its walls.

Church planting is an effective evangelistic strategy. Statistics prove that younger missions and churches consistently baptize a higher percentage of their average worship and Sunday School attendance. Church planting is a cost effective and wise strategy to reaching America for Christ.

We live in a mission field. We are not doing church with a home field advantage. This absolutely demands that we plant new churches, different expressions of churches for our diverse population. Church planting is not easy and will not cure all the ills of the 21st century church of America. However, church planting is a vitally important component of our evangelism strategy.

1 C. Peter Wagner, Church Planting for a Greater Harvest (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1990), 11.

2 From “Charting the Unchurched” 3/7/02, USA Today, Cathy Lynn Grossman

3 From “Charting the Unchurched” 3/7/02, USA Today, Cathy Lynn Grossman

4 From “Charting the Unchurched” 3/7/02, USA Today, Cathy Lynn Grossman

5 From “Charting the Unchurched” 3/7/02, USA Today, Cathy Lynn Grossman

6 Statement made by Mark Galli, managing editor of Christianity Today in article “Charting the Unchurched” 3/7/02, USA Today, Cathy Lynn Grossman.

7 Bill Bright quoted in Baptist Press article By Mark Kelly. Bright spoke at the Southern Baptist Convention on Jun 13, 2002.

8 Aubrey Malphurs, Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century (Grand Rapids: Michigan: Baker Book House, 1992), p. 193.Lyle Schaller, 44 Questions for Church Planters,(Nashville: Abingdon, 1991), pp. 22-23.

9 Darryl Brown “Bad Priorities Can Kill”, Christianity Today, February 4, 2002; p. 27.

10 Darryl Brown “Bad Priorities Can Kill”, Christianity Today, February 4, 2002; p. 27.

11 Elmer Towns, Putting an End to Worship Wars, p. 42.

12 Darryl Brown “Bad Priorities Can Kill”, Christianity Today, February 4, 2002; p. 27.

13 The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches. These membership numbers represent Inclusive Members, not the often lower Confirmed Members.

14 Darryl Brown “Bad Priorities Can Kill”, Christianity Today, February 4, 2002; p. 27.

15 Harvie M. Conn, editor, Planting and Growing Urban Churches. These fundamentals adopted from Caleb Project Research Expeditions, by John Holzman, Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997, pp 53-54.

16 Bryan Bishop, “YWAM Steps Out” (World Christian, January-February, 1986), p. 19.

17 C. Peter Wagner, Church Planting for a Greater Harvest (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1991), p. 23.

18 Easum communicated this to Will McRaney after Easum spoke at an American Society for Church Growth annual meeting in 2000. In the message, Easum said that he believed that 75% of the churches in existence would no longer be in existence in 23 years.

19 Win Arn, The Pastor’s Manual for Effective Ministry (Monrovia, CA: Church Growth, 1988), p. 43.

20 Thomas Clegg paper “The Need For Church Planting in America”, 1996

21 The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches.

22 David Dorsey Ray, Abstract of DMin Dissertation: “Rediscovering the Lost Art of Church Planting in the United Methodist Church of Northwest Texas,” 1992.

23 C. Peter Wagner, Church Planting for a Greater Harvest (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1991), p. 25.

24 “Schaller Says SBC Must Decide about New Church Starts,” Biblical Recorder, June 15, 1991, p. 8.

25 Elmer Towns, “Church Planting in the Urban Setting: The Key to Reaching America” The Journal for the American Society of Church Growth, Volume 9 Spring 1998, p. 45.

26 Elmer Towns, “Church Planting in the Urban Setting: The Key to Reaching America” The Journal for the American Society of Church Growth, Volume 9 Spring 1998, p. 45.

27 Elmer Towns, “Church Planting in the Urban Setting: The Key to Reaching America” The Journal for the American Society of Church Growth, Volume 9 Spring 1998, p. 43.

28 Elmer Towns, “Church Planting in the Urban Setting: The Key to Reaching America” The Journal for the American Society of Church Growth, Volume 9 Spring 1998, p. 45.

28 Elmer Towns, “Church Planting in the Urban Setting: The Key to Reaching America” The Journal for the American Society of Church Growth, Volume 9 Spring 1998, p. 46.

30 Adapted from Elmer Towns, “Church Planting in the Urban Setting: The Key to Reaching America” The Journal for the American Society of Church Growth, Volume 9 Spring 1998, p. 49.

31 Part of summary findings of Will McRaney in unpublished PhD seminar paper, “The Impact of Church Planting on Southern Baptist Evangelism”, November 9, 1989.

32 See study on Hope Church in “The Purpose-Driven Church: An Investigation into the Process of Developing and Implementing a Purpose Statement and Its Benefits to Church Growth” by Will McRaney, PhD Dissertation, 1992.

33 Robert E. Logan and Steven L. Ogne, Page 1-3 in “Church Planter’s Toolkit”, Church Smart Resources, 1991.

34 “Schaller Says SBC Must Decide about New Church Starts,” Biblical Recorder, June 15, 1991, p. 8.

35C. Peter Wagner, Church Planting for a Greater Harvest (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1990), 11.

36 C. Peter Wagner, Church Planting for a Greater Harvest (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1991), p. 12.

37 Win Arn, The Pastor’s Manual for Effective Ministry (Monrovia, CA: Church Growth, 1988), p. 43.

38 Key: Yrs. Existence = the number of years the church has been in existence; wor/bap = total average worship attendance divided by total baptisms; Tot Wor = total average worship; Tot Ch = total number of churches reporting for that particular years existence; Tot SS = total average Sunday School (most small group churches report their small group attendance here); SS/bap = total average Sunday School attendance divided by total baptisms.

39 Christian Swartz, Natural Church Development, pp. 76-77.

40 Robert E. Logan and Steven L. Ogne, Page 1-3 in “Church Planter’s Toolkit”, Church Smart Resources, 1991.

41 Elmer Towns, “Church Planting in the Urban Setting: The Key to Reaching America” The Journal for the American Society of Church Growth, Volume 9 Spring 1998, p. 47.