In some e-mails and phone calls, I've been chastised for pursuing a per capita analysis of SBC missions investments domestically and internationally. No one has yet offered a different way to evaluate our investments or clearly articulated their concern with a per capita approach. They do not like it; that much is clear.
Bob Terry perhaps comes the closest to an explanation that makes sense when he writes, "Baptists pay bills with dollars, not percentages," though he writes this in a different context than that discussed here. Nevertheless, norming expenditures on a per capita basis for the purposes of comparison is a routine and widely-accepted statistical approach whether per capita expenditures pay the bills or not.
Furthermore, our theology suggests the approach. If we believe every soul is equal before God and that He wills that none should perish, assessing our missions investments on the basis of how many people we hope to reach in a region is entirely logical.
I was pleased to discover a statement in a article in the Baptist Press (http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=31410) which essentially affirms the theological suppositions that are the foundation of my assessment of our CP expenditures.
Georgia Baptist Convention Executive Director J. Robert White says this, "In Acts 1:8, Jesus specified four mission fields ... Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost. As far as we can tell, He gave equal weight to each of those areas" http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=31410 (emphasis mine).
Dr. White is correct. His reasoning undergirds my assessment of our current investment of CP dollars. If we have many churches on the ground in the Southeast who are striving to make disciples, where must we invest most of our missions dollars if we are striving for an approximately equal investment in all mission fields? In the places where there are few thriving churches equipped to make disciples both domestically and internationally.
When comparing apples-to-apples (missions investments per capita at home verses abroad), we do not come anywhere near placing equal weight on each mission field. We have invested in our "Jerusalem" and "Judea" far more heavily than in "the ends of the earth" for decades - closing in on a century.
One cannot just look at raw totals and determine whether our investment is approximately equal. While bills are not paid in percentages or per capita expenditures, the money spent must be accounted for in such a way that an appropraite comparison of our investments at home and around the world is possible.
A per capita analysis is an appropriate approach to arrive at a meaninful comparison, unless, of course, our Lord could care less whether we are investing as earnestly abroad as we are at home.
If our Lord does care, and there is clear Scriptural warrant for making such a case, a per capita analysis is a commonly-accepted, logical, and appropriate statistical approach to arriving at something near an apples-to-apples comparison.
For example, the US government tracks the investment of states in public education by looking at what is spent per student within each state. To illustrate, California surely spends more in raw dollars on teaching students than does Rhode Island, but Rhode Island's investment per student may be higher. If this is true, California cannot be said to be the bigger spender on education even though, in raw dollars, they spend more. Both states are paying bills with gross dollars, but Rhode Island is investing more in their students because they spend more for each student in their state.
Likewise, the SBC cannot say it invests more for international missions when the target audience is 6.4 billion internationally but only 341 million domestically. Even if you reduced the 6.4 billion to only the 3.6 billion who have very little to no access to a gospel witness, the SBC would have to invest much more heavily in international missions to have a nearly equal investment in both territories.
It will take more than asking local churches to give more to Lottie Moon to make this happen. This is especially true if state convention leaders count Lottie Moon receipts toward their goal of a 50/50 split (this is more common than I realized). Under this approach, if churches give more to Lottie Moon, the state can then spend more of the regular CP offerings and still come out at a 50/50 split between the state and national conventions. Of course, this approach really nullifies Lottie Moon as a special offering and makes it more of an "offset offering." We'll save that thought for another day.
The point is one offering is not going to reverse what is a systemic challenge. It helps, but it is not enough. It will take a paradigm shift among Baptists in the Southeastern U.S. if we are going to achieve something closer to equality in our missions investments. We will need to give more to the CP, and more of our regular CP giving will need to go to the ends of the earth than stays at home currently - a significant increase in our regular, systematic investments in global missions is what it will take if we desire to at least approximate our Lord's heart in the investment of our missions dollars.
Lord you are able. We beg You to work in our lives, our churches, and our conventions that You will be known as the super-exalted Lord among people out of every tribe, tongue, language, and nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment