NAMB: PART 8

 I again embark on some strategies principles that I pray we will implement better as we move forward. To the five I have already listed, let me add the following five:
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• A singular focus only works when you have just one purpose or one problem. The 2010 Great Commission Resurgence Task Force (GCRTF) report put the lion’s share of their recommendations into changes they said needed to take place at NAMB. It was as if once NAMB was fixed, then all of SBC life would okay. The reality was that when the report was approved in June of 2010 our International Mission Board (IMB) was encountering just as many challenges as NAMB. But the GCRTF “assumed” that all was well at the IMB, so no one even looked in that direction. 

     
     In the early years of Kevin Ezell’s leadership, NAMB ignored all but one of its ministry assignments as listed in the SBC Organization Manual, and that was planting churches. With that singular focus, entire departments at NAMB were eliminated. Over the years the other five assignments have slowly garnered some attention. If approved at this year’s convention a seventh one will be added related to supporting collegiate ministries. NAMB’s challenge will be to find the right balance as they move forward.  

      When you place a laser focus on only one of the several assignments you have, you open yourself up to selective blindness. At the same time, you create a huge rift between your organization and those who value the other ministry assignments that are being ignored or eliminated. A singular focus can be helpful during certain times, but not during a season of critical evaluation or with the ongoing responsibility to fulfill multiple ministry assignments.

• God was working before you showed up. Even if you planted the church you now lead, God was at work in your community before you showed up. He was also working in the lives of the early adopters of your vision. A leader who acts like God arrived when he arrived builds a wall of separation between himself and those around him. A new leader who assumes that absolutely everything he is inheriting is unhealthy and needs to be changed will drive a wedge between himself and existing leaders. The first strategy I mentioned in the May 25th article has application here: don’t measure effectiveness by the least effective among us. 

     Good leaders take time to understand what is truly happening AND why it is happening before they design and implement needed changes. A Proverb that has application here is “Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set” Prov. 22:28. 

• Generational changes will require organizational changes. One area where generational changes have created significant strife is in Southern Baptist’s Disaster Relief. Historically trained and certified retirees have staffed our disaster relief ministry. Younger people have more energy but limited availability and life skills. A new generation has arisen with a great passion for meeting the physical needs of others and which has more work flexibility. So the question becomes: How do you make a system that is designed for seven to ten-day deployments of certified and trained volunteers work for spontaneous untrained volunteers who are available in one or two day periods of time? 

     That was a question we faced in our historic 2019 floods. After a bit of head-scratching and a little head-butting, we were able to find some workable options. We discovered that well-oiled and time-proven systems resist change. We were just a microcosm of the challenges that have been encountered at the national level when NAMB announced Send Relief, and, from the perspective of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, diminished their role. Our goal should never be to sustain a proven structure, rather it should be to design a structure that effectively does the job in our current context with a constant eye on fulfilling our gospel mission.  

• Little people with little power will always cause big problems. If this is true—and it is—just imagine what damage little people with a lot of power can cause. I have seen too many spiritually immature or arrogant people in significant leadership positions who have caused damage or even the demise of the church or ministry they were called to lead. 

     History is full of such people. Two examples can be found in I Kings 11: “So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the Lord had commanded” (verses 9-10). Pride and unchecked passions had replaced Solomon’s wisdom, and God removed His hand of blessing.

      A few verses later, I Kings 11:37-38, we read that God sent the prophet Ahijah to Jeroboam with a message: “If you heed all that I command you, walk in My ways, and do what is right in My sight, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as My servant David did, then I will be with you and build for you an enduring house, as I built for David, and will give Israel to you.” But Jeroboam feared that people who went to Jerusalem to worship would eventually return to Rehoboam, so he built places of worship at Dan and Bethel. In each, he placed a golden calf, and he led his people to repeat the sin of false worship that their ancestors had done in the wilderness. Politics and power won Jeroboam’s heart.  

• Constant change in a constantly changing culture sounds right, but it’s not. Constant change has been the only constant at NAMB in the past ten years. One can grant and appreciate that changes needed to take place, and I have said that repeatedly. However, the culture of constant, and at times even retroactive change, has not endeared NAMB to our forty-one autonomous and diverse state conventions. A leadership principle that magnifies the problem of constant change is that the larger your organization is the longer it takes to effectively communicate the need for change and then to fully implement that change. William Bridges’ book Managing Transitions should be required reading for every leader. Change can be dictated in a matter of a few minutes, but lasting organizational transformation takes time. The biblical example Bridges uses in his book is the transition that Moses led as he guided the people of Israel from Egypt to the edge of the Promised Land. Leaders who enjoy the adrenalin rush of constant change need to appreciate that lasting change takes time. 

      Do you struggle with any of these five strategic principles? What are you doing to address the issue? If you’re not, then let me hit you with a few more strategic principles next week!