Organizations rise and fall on leadership. With that said, I’m grateful John Upton serves as Executive Director for Virginia Baptists. He’s a wise and proven leader. Unrelated, I’m concerned about some of the officers we routinely elect in the Baptist General Association of Virginia. If our accepted process holds true again this year, the First Vice President will be nominated unopposed and elected President.
Here’s my concern. Nancy McDaniel (First Vice President) is the Pastor of Rhoadsville Baptist Church, Rhoadsville, Virginia. According to the 2014 BGAV Annual Report, Rhoadsville baptized only one person and gave a total of $1,872.00 through Virginia Baptist Missions under Nancy’s leadership. According to the scorecard, this doesn’t qualify Nancy or Rhoadsville as stakeholders. Personally, I expect more from a nominee for BGAV president.
If your organization isn’t transformational, how can you encourage others around the state to be transformational? If your organization is a marginal financial partner with the Baptist General Association of Virginia, how can you encourage with integrity other churches to financially support the work of Virginia Baptists? You can’t and you won’t!
Virginia Baptists need leaders who are transformational with a proven track record who’ll stand with and for our Executive Director. We need officers who lead/serve organizations that financially support well the missional cause of Virginia Baptists. Transformative leaders attract transformative leaders.
Is there not another nomination among Virginia Baptists and the 1,400+ churches? This is the year to break tradition with just weeks before the annual meeting. We need to nominate a proven transformative leader and strong BGAV supporter for president. I’m praying for God to raise up transformative stakeholders to become our next BGAV officers.
Who will step up and respond? Who will you talk to about a nomination? Who will you nominate?
Brad:
This is interesting. I agree with your overall assessment, but I think I would like to see a few clarifications on one or two points. I have a little bit of knowledge about this particular church, in that, I know where it is and what the surrounding area is like. I grew up in a similar sized church in a similar sized and similarly populated area – read – extremely rural. In our church when I was growing up, 1 new member baptized increased the church membership by 2%. $1,800 might similarly have reflected a 2-3% piece of the church budget. It just makes me think a little of the widow’s mite.
Again, I can come alongside your overall reasoning of transformational on a larger scale, I just think I might want to know a few more demographics.
(btw I am extremely grateful to have you as my pastor)
Bryan,
I appreciate the comment and perspective. I agree with the rural context. The same report indicated the church had an average morning attendance of 132 in worship and 89 in Sunday School with General Fund receipts of $192,000.00. Personally, I’d really like to see more than 1% financial support and a better baptism ratio than 1:132.
I definitely should have included more information in the original post. And, you’re right, I don’t want to discount the gift – it is a gift 🙂
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
Thanks Brad – I hesitated to post and even ran my comment past CINC-house before hitting submit. Again, we are extremely blessed to have you and your family here. The context just adds so much to your point.
I have a nominee. But I happen to know he’s really busy.
I have another major problem with this nominee that you can probably guess based on my view of Scripture, but I’m not going to put in writing.
Bob,
Thanks for commenting. Your other concern about the nominee is certainly held by a fair number of people too.
I really don’t want to assume what you are talking about but I’ll just guess that it’s because the other nominee is an ordained women who is a pastor. Would you please let me know if that is correct or not?
Hi Patty,
Thanks for commenting. I think in our Virginia Baptist tribe there are friends on both sides of the issue. For me personally, an ordained woman pastor is a non-issue. Unfortunately, the uneducated perception of some in Virginia will misread my nomination intentions. So let’s set the story straight, I’m not being nominated because Nancy is an ordained pastor. I’m being nominated because things cannot continue as they are in Virginia Baptist life. I’m deeply concerned about the decline and lost focus in Virginia. It’s time for a change and I’m willing to be a part of that change. We have a five-year window. At the rate of present decline we won’t be looking for leaders in five years, we’ll be looking for curators. Virginia Baptists need to wake up. It’s time for us to become a missional people on once again.
Why do you believe that VA Baptists are not a missional people?
I just read your post about the “Huge Difference.” I agree with how we are to be missional. But how do you know what individual people do in their everyday lives? Seems like you are making a very big assumtion. What facts do you have that so many people are not missional in their daily lives? If a church doesn’t have 1,000’s of folks on Sunday morning… that doesn’t mean that lives aren’t being touched with God’s love and and with the teachings of Jesus via the lives of the people who are in our churches. I just want to understand where you are coming from. Thank you.
Pingback: Four Reasons why I’m Glad Brad Hoffmann is Running for BGAV President (Adam Blosser)
Patty, thank you for the question and the opportunity to explain. Since the late 90s, I’ve worked with hundreds of pastors, leaders and churches in crisis. This experience led me to co-author Preventing Ministry Failure published by InterVarsity Press (a text utilized in numerous graduate schools and seminaries for training our men and women for ministry). Not only as a practitioner do I understand the challenges in leading a church, but I’ve seen first hand the challenges through the eyes of others. I’ve spoken to pastor groups across the county and listened to their stories. Since my tenure here, I’ve spoken to numerous minister groups, discussed mergers, intervened in crisis, mentored, coached and encouraged ministers in our state. I’ve listened to their stories and I’ve heard first hand their frustrations in pastoring, including the lack of missional movement in their congregations. It’s not just my perception, it’s what I’m hearing from others. This is a real issue in the church today and not just in Virginia.
From another perspective, you are very correct in your statement about not having to be a big church to be missional. But, I do know, missional churches tend to be growing churches – passion, influence, stories, numbers and enthusiasm. You can tell by their fruit. At 52 years of age and having done what I do for a very long time, I’ve yet to see a declining or stagnant church that is truly missional. They may be very mission-minded or mission-friendly, but not missional.
Patty, I have a passion for the local church. I love the local church and I’m called to pastor the local church. I also love our connection with Virginia Baptists. I want to see vibrancy in all of the 1,400 partnering churches. I want people to know there’s a better day. If we’re really willing to live missionally as Virginia Baptists in and through our local congregations, we’ll see more growing churches than dying churches. Not only do I believe this, but I’ve seen it and experienced it first hand.
Again, I really appreciate the question and the opportunity to explain myself further. Sometimes it’s hard to explain or provide a better picture in less than 400 words.
Hey Pastor Brad, can you tell me exactly why a woman pastor is a non issue with you. Doug
Hey Doug, thanks. The issue here for me is leadership competency and lid issues. The question regarding a female pastor (in this equation) isn’t reflected in the leadership competency question. It is a non issue here. Leading large organizational change is complex and requires a unique set of experiences and gifts. That was my point.