Part Seven

      I shared two strategic principles last week that if applied well “might” have kept us from experiencing some of our current tension. I will share three more today knowing that when implemented well they too can help us avoid future problems. As I mentioned in the previous article, I have experienced the negative side of each of these strategic principles.
 

• Great strategy poorly executed isn’t any better than bad strategy executed well. Effectiveness requires both a good strategy and the ability to execute it well. Jesus stated that the scribes and Pharisees had a great plan, but they did not do it well: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do” (Matt. 23:2-3).

 
     An example of a good strategy done poorly is what NAMB faced ten years ago. I am referring to the DoM/Church Starter Strategist positions that all new work conventions had used for several decades and one that I served in for almost twenty years. NAMB believed funding the dual role position was not a good strategic investment. However, today NAMB is encouraging the use of church-based Church Planter Catalysts. These are individuals who are currently serving on a church staff and are asked to pick up the responsibility to catalyze at least one new church plant per year. I would argue that this “new strategy” is identical to the traditional dual role that was previously declared ineffective.
 
     However, I will quickly admit that this strategy, whenever it is used, requires individuals who can function EFFECTIVELY in dual roles. They cannot be living examples of “a jack of all trades and a master of none.” I will also quickly acknowledge that ten years ago too many DoM/CSSs could not do both roles effectively—it looked good on paper, but was not being executed well. The old cliché “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” has application as you consider NAMB’s early approach to this deeply engrained strategy. Effective leaders deal with ineffective staff, they don’t make rules that punish their effective staff, nor do they change their entire strategy simply because the current strategy isn’t being implemented well.
 

• Top down, single focus strategies rarely work well. I have discovered that God has created all kinds of people, and it takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people. The Apostle Paul understood that one model doesn’t fit all occasions when he wrote “I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews, I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you” (I Cor 9:19-23).

 
     These realities mean we will need all kinds of church starting strategies. Unfortunately, some of the strategies that are available in old-line states are not always available in new work states. I have been directly involved in church planting for almost 35 years and only in recent years have I seen SBC church strength in our immediate area sufficient enough for a “hiving” or “campus” strategy to work. I would quickly add that it is a model that is still not available in much of Nebraska or in huge areas of other new work states. NAMB’s top down, single focus approach has relied heavily on the “hiving” model. They have shown “some” flexibility, but a limited feedback loop still exists which magnifies the problem of focusing on a singular strategic model.
 

• He who has the gold should be asked to help make the rules. We have used our polity as an excuse for allowing poor strategic decisions to go unaddressed. There was a time when we made a distinction between a mission and a church. We believed that a true church is self-determining, self-supporting, and self-replicating. To that trilogy, I personally add a fourth quality—self-sacrificing. A church plant remained a mission under the watch care of a mother church until it was able to support itself. As we lost that distinction, we also lost the ability to distinguish between a state fellowship and a state convention. Some state fellowships probably shouldn’t have become state conventions, because they were a long way from becoming self-supporting.

 
     I was serving in Iowa when the Iowa Southern Baptist Fellowship became the Baptist Convention of Iowa. At that time it fell far short of meeting the criteria needed to gain representation on SBC entity boards that have historically been granted to state conventions. The only “advantage” was the prestige of being called a state convention. The move came with a small financial “penalty” (HMB provided some financial support for the state executive position for a fellowship but none for a convention), and it still did not provide board representation. However, I learned growing up in Wyoming that it doesn’t do any good to close the barn door after the horses have already gotten out. So the question remains, how do we move forward in a truly cooperative environment?
 
     NAMB has unilaterally suggested that some new work conventions should be combined. Yes, COVID has proven that technology can be used to maintain connectivity, but I would suggest that cooperative partnerships and ministry to churches will always require healthy relationships. Those relationships are created with face-to-face connections over time—not by FaceTime type technologies alone. Before new work convention restructuring can be addressed, I believe the fractured relationships between NAMB and new work conventions must be healed. Only with healthy relationships and trust, can difficult conversations take place where we can put in place rules that provide mutually beneficial accountability to those who provide a significant amount of the gold.
 
     So far I have listed five strategies that we have not always implemented well in the past. The last two really demand more clarification, but space limitations do exist. My question for you is, which of these strategies has given you the greatest problems in your ministry setting? What would be the right next step that would help you resolve the issue?
 
     Next week I will be listing additional strategies that could have been better implemented
Yours in Christ,
Mark R. Elliott, AMS