BradHoffmann.com

Looks as if my pending nomination fostered a few conversations recently. Why now? Who is this guy? Where did he come from? Definitely a lot of good dialogue including some incorrect assumptions.  So, thought this might be a good time to set the record straight.

This nomination isn’t political. Some attempt to make it political by stepping back in time and making assumptions. This isn’t a liberal vs. conservative moment. Listen, if you choose to go down that road, you’re wrong. In fact, if you are choosing to divisively hype CBF or SBC alignment in a #BGAV15 conversation, you are intentionally misleading. A conversation such as that only serves to divide; this is not my conversation. This is about BGAV only.

I don’t dislike the other person being nominated. We’ve talked. She’s a very gracious and competent individual having served Virginia Baptists in a number of roles over the years.  Regardless of the outcome next week, everyone must work together – all parties. Organizational change isn’t a solo act, it’s a team effort.

I’m not pitting suburban churches against rural or small congregations. I’ve pastored in a rural context and I’ve planted a church. I’ve been a solo pastor and pastored a multi-staffed church. I have a great respect for pastors in all contexts. Most people have no clue of the challenges we face. For 18 years, I’ve walked with hundreds of ministers through ministry crisis and failure in a variety of contexts across a broad spectrum of faith and practice.

I’m not campaigning. I’ve not hired a campaign manager or personally gone out soliciting support. I don’t have any t-shirts, buttons, flyers or mailings. I do blog, but have blogged for years as a published author, speaker and pastor. It is an outlet and way to communicate.

We are all held accountable by a metric. Whether we agree or not, leaders are held accountable by a system’s metric. There are many ways to measure. Some of those measurements include but are not limited to baptisms, receipts and mission spending. Remember, I’m a peer and fellow practitioner. If leadership is influence, my effectiveness as a leader is gauged by organizational performance. A leader is either transactional or transformational. If you are simply transacting business and maintaining the status quo, transactional leadership is ideal. If you’re looking to do change, you need to seek out leaders who exhibit transformational practices in organizations. Significant change requires transformational leadership. We need many transformational leaders fully engaged over the next several years.

Probably the comment creating the most heartburn is related to stakeholder. What is a stakeholder? What is the threshold for measurement? Stakeholder denotes engaged commitment. Commitment is expressed in a number of ways including financial support. What you do financially reveals your heart and commitment. All generosity is appreciated. Maybe I should have stipulated percentages rather than actual amounts. So here goes, if the average church gives 4.4% of their undesignated receipts for BGAV, perhaps that’s a threshold for us. I think stakeholders do more than average. Stakeholders example, inspire, encourage and set the pace. If we’re going to encourage financial support (which we desperately need) through the BGAV, we need financial stakeholders leading the charge. Show me someone who is doing it and I’ll follow.

My nomination is missional. The BGAV must embrace change and reinvent herself. Governance change was just the first baby step. I hope people hear loud and clear. It’s not about saving the old, but creating the new. We must move from being mission-minded to being missional people. We are no longer viable as a resourcing body. We must become an intentionally planting, sending and developing movement.  Needless to say, I’m passionate about this!

And finally, my name is spelled Brad Hoffmann, not Brad Hoffman 🙂