CODE RED - Dr. Jeff Iorg

[00:00:10] Speaker A: Next year, Southern Baptist churches will receive $10 billion in tithes and offerings. $10 billion. $3 million to satisfy these obligations that we have is not that great of an amount in the scope of who we are and the resources we have. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Welcome back to Code Red. My name is Zack Terry, and I. In this episode, I sat down with Dr. Jeff Orge. He is the president and CEO of the world's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. In recent years, the Southern Baptist Convention has undergone a decrease in baptisms, in giving. It's faced legal challenges and doctrinal disagreements. But Dr. Orange is optimistic about the road ahead. And you will find out why in today's episode of Code Red. Well, I typically start out by saying, welcome to the Code Red studio. But you've been kind enough to loan us the Southern Baptist Studio for the day. We're here at the executive headquarters. And Dr. Orange, it's an honor to have you on Code Red today. Look forward to getting to know you and picking your brain a little bit about what's going on in the convention. We were just talking about your move from the west coast here to the Deep South. But you were born in Georgia, is that accurate? [00:01:39] Speaker A: I was born in Georgia, but I left on my third birthday. Okay. Moved to Texas, lived there until I was 21 or 22. Well, actually left Texas when I was 24. And then I moved to the west coast eventually and was there for 35 years. [00:01:54] Speaker B: Okay, well, tell me a little bit about just personal context of how you came to know the Lord and what connected you with Southern Baptist originally. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Well, I was born in Georgia to a violent, alcoholic father. And on my third birthday, my mother left him. Really fled for her life. Took me and we went to Texas to hide. [00:02:15] Speaker B: Wow. [00:02:15] Speaker A: We lived there for a couple of years. My mom got divorced. We never saw or heard from that man ever again. My mother remarried, what I would describe as a happy drunk. Another man that was very irresponsible but not violent. And I lived all of my growing up years in alcoholic chaos. And so that was my upbringing. My family never went to church, never once in my lifetime together. No reference to God or the gospel in our home or anything like that. But when I was about 12 years old, over a summer, my mother decided I needed some religious instruction, so she started driving me down and dropping me off at a Baptist Sunday school. I didn't stay for worship services. I just went to Sunday school and then came home. That went over a summer? Well, that fall, I went to the West Texas Regional Fair, walked Off the midway into the exhibit building, and there's a big banner that says, elmcrest Baptist Church public opinion poll. And that's the church where I had been to Sunday school. So I walked up to the booth and said, what? What are you guys doing here? Well, the youth pastor recognized me from having been to Sunday school. So he said, we're taking a public opinion poll and we're talking with people who have spiritual interest about some particular spiritual interest questions. Well, you know, as I like to jokingly say, I was 13 and proud of my opinion. So I stepped up and said, sure, I'll take your survey. Well, I took the survey and the last questions were, do you know for certain that you have eternal life? And I said, no. And the last question, would you like to take a few minutes to talk about that? And I said, yes, I would. And so the youth pastor shared the gospel with me for about 20 minutes through a gospel pamphlet. And then I prayed and received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior with him at the fair. And it was a pivotal, transformational moment. I was converted to Christ in that moment. My life has never been the same since that day at the fair. And that church that had the fair booth where I'd have been to Sunday school, I did not know this, but was a very strong church. The pastor was ultimately there for 27 years. I was there for years, about 10 through 20 of his tenure. I not only became a Christian, but was soon baptized, entered into their discipleship and programs through their youth ministry. And from age 13 to 23, the church took me from convert to associate pastor. Wow. And it was a shaping and formative experience in my life to have this healthy pastor with a team of really good, strong co pastors and associate pastors and then a tremendous group of lay leaders, especially men, that just formed this really strong church. And so I had these 10 years of shaping in that church and then eventually left there, went on to seminary and became a pastor myself when I was 24. But I'll just tell you one more part of the story. That's a really cool part. 25 years after that man led me to faith in Jesus at the fair, the same man led my mother to faith in Jesus when she was 16. And he has been my lifelong friend and mentor, the man who led me to Christ and who led my mother to Christ and who remains my friend even today. And in fact, when the executive committee here had an installation service for me, we actually flew this brother, in his mid-80s now out from Texas, and he led an Installation, dedicatory, prayer for me at the executive committee. Same man who led me to Christ led the prayer of dedication for me in my new position here. [00:05:54] Speaker B: That's so awesome. And that's really what Southern Baptists are all about. [00:05:56] Speaker A: That is what we're about. That whole story from the, from going to the fair with the gospel, that's Southern Baptist. To discipling a young man who came from a non Christian family, that's us. And then to building a relationship and maintaining that relationship for two and a half decades until the man finally led my mother to Christ and we saw her baptized and her life transformed. All of that is who we are as Southern Baptists. And that's what makes my job delightful, is I get to work with the best people in the world, which are Southern Baptist rank and file people in the best people in the world. [00:06:26] Speaker B: Well, and it's encouraging to me to know that you didn't come from a perfect background. [00:06:30] Speaker A: No, sir, not at all. [00:06:31] Speaker B: So how long were you in that church before it occurred to you that your childhood may have been a little different or may not have been what God intended perfectly? [00:06:41] Speaker A: Well, when I got into that church, I was also. At that point in life, we start looking around and realize other people's families are not like your family. And I started seeing families in this church that I really wanted to be like. And so I. I soaked up everything I could about what it meant to be a father and a husband and to build a different kind of family growing up in those teenage years in that church. But I will say that while I look back on my lifetime in my early years and I lament some of what I didn't have, I also look back on it and see that God allowed me to go through circumstances to give me an incredible passion for and compassion toward hurting people and also to just lower my judgmentalism, if you will. People are broken, they're hurting. And it gives me the upbringing that I had, gives me a sense of identification with them and of really love for them. And the other thing I would say is it also shaped me in ministry because I became an evangelistic pastor. I went to the Northwest in Portland, Oregon and planted a church. And I really wanted my life to count on the west coast, where lostness abounds and the gospel is greatly needed. And so all of that really came out of the fact that a church went to the fair and found me with the gospel. And so that really infected me with the same kind of passion to go with the gospel to places where maybe you might not think about it like a fair, but find people like me and share the gospel. [00:08:01] Speaker B: Well, I'm so glad that you told that story, because a lot of people in our congregation come from a similar background. I came from a similar background. My father came to Christ when I was very young, but it was a drastic change. You know, he came home and said. Woke me up in the middle of the night and said he had given his life to Jesus. And I had no idea what that meant. I'm not sure he knew completely what that meant. But we started to a little Baptist church across the street. And today, to this day, when I meet someone who comes from that kind of lifestyle, in many ways I light up on the inside because those are my people. [00:08:37] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:08:38] Speaker B: I'm comfortable with those people. In some ways, I'm more comfortable with them than I am people who've never been in that world. [00:08:45] Speaker A: It's funny you would use that phrase, because I've used the same phrase. I'll say, these are my people. And I will get out in public context where there's a lot of lost people, a lot of people need the gospel and sometimes behaving in ways that are really not appropriate and really not healthy. And I'll say to my wife, man, something must be wrong with me, because these are my people. I feel like I belong here with them, with the gospel. And I really identify with you in that phrase, these are my people. [00:09:11] Speaker B: Well, I think sometimes when I meet someone from a difficult past, a broken past, it's almost like I know something they don't know and there's hope for them. [00:09:24] Speaker A: You know, that's a good word. [00:09:25] Speaker B: So it's exciting to me to just shepherd someone like that. And a lot of our congregation, we've had quite a few that we've reached that are far from Christ. We're in north Florida, South Georgia. It's one of the most conservative counties in the state of Florida. But when it comes to Southern Baptist work there, the church. The church was struggling when we came in eight years ago, and it was a highly churched area, but it was not a highly converted area. [00:09:54] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:55] Speaker B: So we would reach people who may have had a difficult background many times, but they still had some sort of religious experience. And people would come in from either totally irreligious backgrounds or quite a few. I think the largest majority of our people grew up in a Catholic context and then probably a mainline after that. So because of that, they assume that the way Southern Baptists operate is just like that Catholic model, which is Similar in a Lutheran or Episcopal. And so help them to understand a little bit about your role, how that differs from what they're accustomed to. [00:10:40] Speaker A: Well, the first thing I would say is that Baptists flip the model upside down. So in lots of denominations, there's a hierarchy with the church at the bottom and a hierarchy of leaders above it, which control what happens below them. Southern Baptists have flipped the model for us. The church is at the top and our churches are autonomous, meaning that they're self governing and self determining. Now, that doesn't mean that they're selfish or self centered. It means that they are self governing and self determining. They have to chart their own path. And the denomination exists not to tell them what to do, but to support them in what they believe God is leading them to do and also to give them networks and vehicles to do that which they feel like they should do or that they want to do. Like, for example, we don't tell a church how to get involved in global missions. But if a church comes to us and says we really want to be involved in global missions, we say we have the vehicle built, the avenues in place for you to do that through our International Mission Board. And so that's a complete flip of how many people view denominational life. In our case, the churches are on the top and they're in charge and they're autonomous. And the rest of us are responding to try to serve them in meaningful ways. And then that relates directly to my job. I have the most unusual job in that I have tremendous responsibility, very little authority. Now, I have a little authority over some direct things. The executive committee is responsible for and overseeing the staff here and those kinds of things. But in terms of authority over the churches, I have zero. In fact, less than zero. [00:12:14] Speaker B: If you walk into our business meeting, you don't have a vote. [00:12:18] Speaker A: I do not. [00:12:18] Speaker B: You would be a guest. [00:12:20] Speaker A: I would be a guest. [00:12:20] Speaker B: Now, we would let you preach. [00:12:21] Speaker A: And thank you for that. And if I came to your church and said to you this is what I want you to do, you'd laugh me out of the room because I don't have any authority to do that. And this is something that's widely misunderstood among Southern Baptists, even. For example, I get letters here at the executive committee from time to time asking me to do certain things like come to our church and fix this problem or come to our town and correct this issue with this church. And while I understand the struggle they may be feeling, I'm really not the solution to those issues. And people might Think, well, how does this ever work then if no one's in authority? Well, it works because of something called cooperation. And that is, rather than being told what to do, we've decided to voluntarily cooperate. And because of that, we actually have a much stronger network than places where there's a top down authority, because everyone who's participating with us wants to be here. [00:13:14] Speaker B: This will get a little bit out of order in the conversation, but speaking of that, so our cooperation, when it began, when the Southern Baptist began, and you're the academic, so help me out, historically to understand it was really we came together for the sake of mission. [00:13:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:13:36] Speaker B: Is that accurate? [00:13:37] Speaker A: That's correct. [00:13:37] Speaker B: 1845 and then what? 1920, 25 Baptist faith and Message around that statement of faith. Do you believe. I know we've had to update it. Was it 2000 was the most recent update. Do you believe that that's standing the test of time? Do you believe that it's been a good statement of faith? [00:14:01] Speaker A: Absolutely. The Baptist faith message was originally written in 1925, but it was written based on other confessions that had been a part of Baptist movements. But this was the first time the Southern Baptist Convention voiced a unified, doctrinal, unified confessional statement. The Baptist Faith and Message 1925. And as you said, it was revised in 1963 and again in 2000. These revisions are primarily because of the way language changes and trying to address maybe particular issues that were maybe minor in 1963 which were much more prevalent in 2000. Issues like the family or issues like sexuality, gender choice, those kinds of issues. And so the Baptist faith message gets updated, but it doesn't get substantially altered. It gets added to or clarified as we go along. I really like the Baptist Faith a message. I think it's an outstanding statement that really gives a unifying statement of what Baptists believe. And the remarkable thing about it is it walks that really fine line between being definitive enough that we know what we mean, but flexible enough to allow a lot of interpretation and a lot of diversity among Baptist churches in terms of how our doctrinal beliefs express themselves. So I really like the statement. I like it a lot. When I was a seminary president for 25 years, I signed a statement that said that I would lead in accordance with and not contrary to the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. And all of our faculty signed one that said they would teach in the same way that I was leading. And we really had very little difficulty or controversy about that in my 20 years because it's really such a good statement. [00:15:42] Speaker B: How do you think things evolved so that in recent days we've had to disfellowship some churches? We've had some churches that have just left the left the convention over the subject of women in ministry, women in pastoral leadership, I would agree with you that the statement is very clear. The Baptist faith and message is very clear. But for some reason, we've had many in our ranks. Not many, not many, but some substantial players in the convention who've differed on that, on that issue. I think that the debates in recent years have been helpful to say, where are we on this issue and are we going to come together on it, or are we going to alter, you know, our position? What's your take on all that? How do you analyze and do you think that we're in need of an additional amendment, or do you think that it's sufficient as it is? [00:16:37] Speaker A: Well, let me say two or three things in answer to that. First of all, I like the statement in the Baptist faith, the message as it is, I think it's a good statement. I think it's a statement we can work with and that we can use appropriately to make good decisions about what we believe and how we act. Second, one of the problems has been the proliferation of the use of the word pastor for a lot of different responsibilities in a church. And one of the things I would hope for is that Southern Baptists would learn from this debate that perhaps we need to use that word more narrowly in who we assign it to in local church leadership. And that would go a long way toward alleviating the problem, because some of the women who are being called pastor will tell you they don't want to be a pastor or don't see themselves as a pastor. They just saw themselves as having leadership, oversight, and the church gave them that title or that use of that word. The third thing I would say is that the problem of women actually being the lead pastor or the senior pastor or even a teaching pastor in Southern Baptist churches is very small, very small. And so I think that it's a problem we can address in terms of the proportionality of the difficulty, rather than saying it's a global problem, it's affecting so many churches, which it really. It really just isn't. So those are some of the things I'd like to see happen. And if there's new language proposed, I would not be necessarily against that. If the language really clarified what we needed to have clarified, not just made another general statement which isn't going to be more helpful than the one we Currently have, but the one we currently have has been remarkably effective for about 46 plus thousand churches to understand. It's a handful that have struggled with the issue. And I think we can address it with some of these things I've described rather than maybe making it a bigger problem by making it a constitutional issue. [00:18:23] Speaker B: Some of this I'm asking out of sincere ignorance, just trying to understand how it's functioning currently. But currently, if there's an issue with that or some other divergence, doctrinally, it's handled through the credentials committee. Is that accurate? [00:18:36] Speaker A: Well, this goes back to our polity. The denomination does not have the authority to tell a church what to do or what to believe. The only thing that the Southern Baptist Convention can do is to say, well, you as a church can do or say whatever you choose, but we have the also prerogative of deciding whether we will have friendly cooperation or affiliation with you. And so we cannot interfere with the internal working of a church. And that's why we do it through the credentials committee, because they're simply credentialing whether the church can send messengers to the annual meeting and participate as a Southern Baptist church in that function and, and also send trustee, have trustees elected and missionaries appointed and other things from the church. So that's why it's handled through the credentials committee, because again, speaking to the people in your church who have come from different denominational backgrounds, the Southern Baptist Convention cannot tell a church who its pastor can be. But we can say to a church, if you make that choice, we choose to not have friendly cooperation with you or affiliation with you any longer. And that's why it's handled through the credentials committee. [00:19:40] Speaker B: And even that language, it doesn't mean that we don't believe that they're a legitimate church or that they're brothers and sisters in Christ. It's more of the official business relationship. [00:19:51] Speaker A: Exactly. And I often write those letters of response to churches who tell us they're either leaving or have decided to no longer relate to us. And it's a very small number, really. But when I write them back, I always say something like, you just said, we thank God for you. You've made a different choice than we have made. But we pray God's blessing on you as you continue to do his ministry. Because we recognize that you're also trying to sincerely follow Christ in this regard and follow the Lord and interpret his word. And while we disagree about that matter, we still value you as a Christian brother and sister and want the best for you. [00:20:22] Speaker B: I know the Ones that kind of make the press will be the ones that went perceived badly, whether it's a saddleback or whether it's some of the churches that have, have unaffiliated themselves. Are there any in the middle that look at it and say, look, we need some help in this. We may have let it get a little lax. Or do you hear any success stories that. [00:20:48] Speaker A: Yes, because those churches typically make very incremental adjustments or they make decisions without fanfare and the issue just simply goes away. For example, I worked with a church recently that made the decision to simply start using the word minister or director to describe their support staff persons and not pastor because they wanted to eliminate the confusion, frankly. And it really didn't change the functionality of their church, but they really decided to reserve the word pastor for those one or two people who really had the true spiritual oversight of the whole congregation. [00:21:21] Speaker B: And that's something I'm happy to hear that. I think it's a challenge in our conversation that's happening that you can't talk about that a lot because it could be embarrassing for some churches. It could be that they just don't want that in the press. But there are wins that this is not just bad news. [00:21:42] Speaker A: No, it's not. [00:21:42] Speaker B: Good things are happening. And you know, when they brought you into this role, you had a track record of turning organizations around. Tell us a little bit about your success in the academic world of helping an organization get back on track. [00:21:57] Speaker A: Well, I went to Golden Gate Seminary, which was located in the San Francisco Bay area. It was a good seminary. We were doing good things. I really had no crises there, no scandal to repair. But I had one very big issue, and that is the entitlements on our property in California are granted in 25 year increments. And we were coming to the end of the 50th year of being on that location and we needed to redevelop our campus significantly for the 21st century. We went forward with a plan to do that and we knew we were going to face significant community opposition, but we were really overwhelmed by how entrenched that opposition was. [00:22:42] Speaker B: What was the nature of the opposition? [00:22:43] Speaker A: Picketing in front of the campuses, political maneuvering, raising funds to hire planners and attorneys to find ways to keep us from developing the property. [00:22:56] Speaker B: They just didn't want that in the community or. [00:22:58] Speaker A: Well, no, they don't want any development. It wasn't because we were a seminary. It was that the county has basically a very narrow view of development and doesn't want any more population Explosion, growth or anything like that. And we had a very large piece of property with wonderful views of the bay and pristine land. And they did not want it developed. They wanted to remain green space and all of this. So we fought a two or three year battle on that and lost. And we lost conclusively that we were not going to be able to redevelop our property. And the really most devastating part of that was no one else could do it either. So the property lost its value, couldn't be sold for development, we couldn't develop it now. We could still be there today if we decided to preserve the footprint we'd always had. They weren't trying to get us to leave. They were trying to say, you can be what you are, but you're not going to be larger or different than what you are. And then the miracle started happening. A person approached us about buying the campus. He wanted to buy the land and hold it for a decade and then see if he could do something significant on it. He's a person of significant resource who has the capacity to do that. And so make a long story very short, we decided to sell the campus. But not just to sell the campus, to move the seminary 400 miles south to Los Angeles, buy a new facility in a very different model of what education will look like for the 21st century, and to relaunch under a new name of Gateway instead of Golden Gate Seminary. [00:24:34] Speaker B: So the gentleman that made this possible, had you developed a relationship with him or did he just come out of the blue? [00:24:41] Speaker A: First time I ever met him was when he offered to buy the property. [00:24:43] Speaker B: Wow. But he did it for the sake of the kingdom. [00:24:45] Speaker A: No, he did not do it for that reason at all. [00:24:48] Speaker B: Okay. [00:24:48] Speaker A: No, he's a person that. It's a long backstory, but you don't have to share the details. Well, it's a long backstory, but a person who owns hundreds of thousands of acres of land in North America, buys property, often holds it for years. He's in his 80s and he said, this is for my grandkids projects. They'll do something spectacular here in 10 years. [00:25:10] Speaker B: I see. Okay. [00:25:11] Speaker A: And so he saw it as an investment opportunity for the long term, and we saw it as an opportunity to step out of a really difficult situation. [00:25:19] Speaker B: So you. Did you rebuild from scratch? [00:25:22] Speaker A: No, we went to Southern California and bought an existing building that had been built and never occupied because of the economic downturn in the middle of the. In 2008, 2009, we moved there. It doesn't look anything at all like a traditional campus. It's a six story high rise building and an office park across the street from an airport. And we moved dozens of families 400 miles and dozens of students. And at the time we had an enrollment of about 1900. And today the enrollment is about 2,100. So we have. I wrote a book called Leading Major Change in youn Ministry which tells the whole story. But. But yeah, I have a little bit of a track record of doing some pretty dramatic things in terms of changing organizations. [00:26:04] Speaker B: Well, most of. Most of the rotting you've done has been in the area of leadership. [00:26:08] Speaker A: Right. [00:26:09] Speaker B: And as you know, Southern Baptists, we're not in our best days numerically, in many ways. Baptisms, you know, I came to Christ in the mid. Or yeah, in the mid-90s. Calling the ministry, looking at like cooperative program, giving, looking at baptisms in those years, it's changed substantially. And part of that, you know, is churches. We've lost that we're adding a lot to the bottom line numerically, adding a lot to the bottom line financially. And the building that we're in is currently on the market, is that correct? [00:26:46] Speaker A: This building that we're here? It is, but it's. We're selling it for multiple reasons. One is because the way work styles have changed and the building is much too large for our needs these days and lots of other issues as well. [00:26:58] Speaker B: Sure. And let me preface every question by saying you've inherited all of this. So you've walked into it in not the best of circumstances sometimes. What is your emotional outlook? Do you see it as a glass half full? Do you see it a cup running over like, how do you look at it in what you've been called to do? [00:27:22] Speaker A: I see unlimited possibility for Southern Baptists in the future. There's not one thing about us that isn't poised to go forward in healthy and really dramatic ways. Baptisms reports have just come in recently. Baptisms are up again this year and for the last two or three years they've been going up. Church attendance went up about 300,000 last year over the previous year from 4 million, about 4.3 million. Membership numbers declined. That number always concerns me because I'm not quite sure how many. If that means how many people actually left or how many people were taken off of rolls. [00:28:01] Speaker B: It's hard to count Southern Baptist. [00:28:03] Speaker A: So when I look at baptisms and attendance, Sunday attendance, those numbers are up and have been trending up for the past few years. [00:28:11] Speaker B: So are they up? Are they pre Covid levels yet or not quite. [00:28:15] Speaker A: I don't know how to answer that because I haven't done that comparison in my mind. I'm just saying that when I look at the trend in the recent years, it's been more positive, and that's really encouraging to me. Cooperative program giving has not been. And I think there are many reasons for that that relate to just the changing nature of church dynamics in terms of what people are spending money on locally and how people are funding ministry and what people are looking to do with individual opportunities to fund different programs and projects as opposed to a more cooperative viewpoint. But I think that can be reclaimed as well. So when I look at Southern Baptists, I'm sobered and realistic about what we're facing, but I'm not pessimistic or negative. And when I look at what has been accomplished by Southern Baptists, I'm overwhelmed at the amount of good that's being done and the impact that is being made. So also when I look at some indicators, like for example, collegiate ministries right now on multiple campuses are booming. There are 1,500 missionary candidates in the pipeline with the International Mission Board. That's up from 300 five years ago. There are these signs and indicators that are really telling about life and vitality. And so I'm encouraged and enthusiastic about those things. [00:29:27] Speaker B: You know, if you walk into a restaurant, you walk into a business that's successful, usually there are 90 things that are just like any other business of its type. But then there are a couple of things that are the secret sauce. If you're looking at the landscape of the Southern Baptist Convention, what would you say encourages you and excites you the most as the potential secret sauce for the next iteration of who we are? [00:29:55] Speaker A: Well, I was at a seminary for 20 years, and so I would say it's leaders under 35. I am astounded at their level of commitment, at their passion, at their singular focus. And if you're in my generation and you think, oh, you know, our best days are behind us, all you need to do is go out and talk to some 25 to 35 year olds and you'll find out that is not true. They are ready to go and ready to go forward into the future. And so my number one thing in terms of a secret sauce about the future that excites me is this group of leaders from 25 to, say, 35 or 40 that I think are incredibly committed and capable and ready to go. The second thing that really enthuses me is broader speaking than just that age group is Southern Baptist pastors. Southern Baptist pastors are some of the finest people in the world, the finest Christians in the world, and the most passionate and most committed people in the world. And the reason baptisms are up has very little to do with what the denomination has said done. It's because Southern Baptist pastors about three or four years ago were confronted with these declining baptism numbers and said, we're going to go after people again. We're going to start going to the lost communities with the gospel, sharing it intentionally and watching God bring people to faith in Christ. And we're going to come out of talking about COVID and about politics and about conflicts in our denomination and we're going to get our focus on reaching people, making disciples and training people to serve with us and repeating over and over in that process. So I like younger leaders, I like pastoral leaders. And then another thing that excites me is the heritage we have of cooperation. And I've been speaking across the country in the last six months, literally hundred to thousands of people in dozens and dozens of places. And they all come up to me afterwards and say, keep saying that we believe that we want to be a part of that. And what am I saying? I'm saying we believe in cooperation, not coercion. We believe in working together, not working independently. We believe we can do more together than we can do on our own. And when I say that and I illustrate it and I talk about it, people resonate with it. So those are some reasons I'm positive I can understand. I don't wake up every day and come to work thinking, oh, I have to be a Southern Baptist. I wake up every day and come to work and say, well, you know, we got our faults, we've got our problems, but all in all, it's a great people to be a part of and a great movement to be part of. [00:32:07] Speaker B: Is it accurate to say, you know, the under 35, they're not typically drawn to institutionalized denominations. They like the independence of non denominational churches and the growth that we've seen there. But at the same time those movements tend, if they're baptistic in their theology, they're sending their kids to us to educate. [00:32:33] Speaker A: Right. I don't necessarily agree with the assessment that everyone, not every, you didn't say everyone. But that people under say 35 don't like institutionalized or don't like organized things like denominations. They like to shop Amazon, that's pretty organized. They want a federal government and a state government that functions. They want that. They want that to be organized. When students at the seminary would say to me, you know, well, the ministry today is more organic. It's got to be able to move more quickly. Can't have all this bureaucracy. I say, well, hold on a second. Then why did you come to a seminary? Man, we are a bureaucracy. We have degrees and degree programs and requirements and standards. And you came here because you wanted that. Why don't you think your church people want something similar? Not a school replicated program, but order and direction and focus that's organized. And their eyes would kind of roll back like, wow, yeah, I do want that. And so I think what they really want is a denominational expression that adds value to their ministry, that they have confidence in its integrity and that they believe in its mission. And when they find those three things, boom, they're in. [00:33:41] Speaker B: Well, and you know, my context is north Florida, South Georgia. And so based upon the people that I've interacted with, they're drawn to whether it's in the free market or whatever it is they want to be able to no longer. Let's say I grew up driving Chevys. My dad bought it. If we're buying a new vehicle, we're getting a Chevy. That's not the case for my children's generation who are in their 20s. They will look with every opportunity, every new purchase, at what all do they have on the table. So when it comes to Christianity, when it comes to religion, I see some of that crossing over. I never intend to not be a Southern Baptist. I was like you. I was reached through the Southern Baptist. I was trained, met my wife in the Southern Baptist Church in Sunday school of all places. So I'm at my age. I don't intend to change that. With that said, I don't know that I could say the same for my children's generation. However, I do believe that as Southern Baptists, there is a sense in which most of the people that I know that are in non denominational churches, when it comes time for education, they're drawn toward Southern Baptist seminaries. When it comes time for sending someone into the mission field, we have that pretty well established. [00:35:10] Speaker A: Right. [00:35:11] Speaker B: Is there a place for younger believers who are passionate about truth and gospel? Is there a place for them to take, for lack of a better term, a buffet approach to say we want to be Southern Baptists for our education, maybe for our foreign missions? We have some different approaches to other things. How would you answer that? [00:35:36] Speaker A: I'd say that's what almost every Southern Baptist church does already. [00:35:39] Speaker B: Good answer. [00:35:41] Speaker A: That's why we believe in cooperation, not coercion. That's why we have no authority to tell people what to do. But we appeal to them to be a part of what we're doing. And I find it to be very normal for churches and church leaders to be making those choices like you just described. It is interesting, though, your observation about education. And it might also be interesting to you that we had more churches last year that were some other denomination that joined Southern Baptist than we had that left being Southern Baptist. [00:36:14] Speaker B: Say that one more time. [00:36:15] Speaker A: We had more churches that affiliated with us. Not new church plants, but churches, existing churches that were either non denominational or other denominations that became Southern Baptist. We had more of those than we had Southern Baptist churches who left us. [00:36:29] Speaker B: Wow. [00:36:30] Speaker A: And so I don't think I've heard that. Yeah, well, we just got. These numbers are just coming in for us. And this is reporting season. So I'm just seeing some of this now. [00:36:39] Speaker B: That to me is big news. [00:36:42] Speaker A: People think, well, no one, you know, well, our critics would say, well, everyone's leaving and no one wants to be a Southern Baptist. There's all these things that are wrong. Well, I think it was around. I'll have to get the exact number, but I think it was something like 133, 138 churches affiliated with Southern Baptist last year that were either non denominational or some other denomination that decided we want to be Southern Baptist. [00:37:03] Speaker B: Define affiliated. [00:37:04] Speaker A: They start giving to the cooperative program. They send messengers to state convention or to Southern Baptist Convention meetings. Those are the two main things that define cooperation or define affiliation. [00:37:14] Speaker B: So if you open that up, I'm thinking about churches in our community that are sending their kids to our schools that are on some level participating in Southern Baptist life. But by that definition they're not affiliated. [00:37:28] Speaker A: No, they are affiliated if they're participating with us financially, if they're giving through the cooperative program. [00:37:33] Speaker B: But that's what I'm observing is there are a lot of churches that aren't going that far. [00:37:37] Speaker A: Right. Well, then they're not affiliated with us necessarily. They just are taking advantage of the things we offer, which is fine. [00:37:42] Speaker B: And if you added that number to the equation, that's really good news. [00:37:46] Speaker A: And it's also interesting when you're involved in, like I was again a seminary president, where I was interfacing with school leaders from other schools that were not Southern Baptist and interfacing with other communities that were not Southern Baptist Baptist. One of the common things I hear them say to us is, well, I'm not Southern Baptist. But I really appreciate where you guys stand on the Bible, really appreciate your theological convictions, really appreciate your moral stands that you take based on your theological convictions. And so. And they would say, you know, we're counting on Southern Baptists to stay strong. We're a smaller group. We don't have the influence you have, but we certainly support you because you're where you stand, where we stand. And we want to. We want to identify with you in that way. So Southern Baptists have a lot of people that identify with us in those ways that aren't really a part of our movement. [00:38:31] Speaker B: I know when I came to Christ 94, listening to the radio, Charles Stanley, which is part of why I'm drawn to media ministry, and was invited to a friend day at a Southern Baptist church called the Ministry, met my wife, as I said earlier, back in that day, the thing that made me excited about being a part of a Southern Baptist church were some of our pastors, Adrian Rogers, in that day, Jerry Vines, you know, some of those guys that you could hear either on the radio or television, and they would say difficult things, they would say hard things, but they did so unapologetically, and they stood on Scripture when they did it. And as a young man, as. And now as a not so young man, I've always been attracted to that. I've always been drawn to that. Do you think that there is a sense in which we lost some of that along the way, that perhaps we're regaining in this generation? Are you sensing doctrinal clarity and convictional clarity among Southern Baptists, more so than in the past? [00:39:43] Speaker A: Well, I would say that I definitely sense a clarity that is healthy for us. I don't know how I could compare it to what part of the past, because I know that in the, say, 1960s and 1970s, I would say it's much clearer than it was in that area. Absolutely. Now, since the 1990s, I think it's been fairly consistent since then. And the thing that you mentioned, though, about these pastors who would stand and preach and say hard things, the reason they were able to do that is because they had a corresponding track record of building a healthy church that reached hurting people. And people knew of their compassion and their commitment to ministry in that context, and that gave them the platform by which they say these other kinds of things. What happens in our world now is a pastor says some hard thing and immediately gets isolated and attacked in secular media or in some even religious media, and they become this disembodied person who has A voice that sounds harsh and hurtful when they're really not. But if you put them in the context of what they're doing broadly in ministry, you would see that same kind of compassion, that same kind of love for people that balances out what these things, these hard things that they have to say. And so I think that the bigger problem today is the way media disassociates people from. From who they really are and makes their. And isolates their words to say things that really without a context, may seem harsh or difficult, but they're not. And I think that I don't find a lot of Southern Baptist pastors. Let me just say it this way. I don't find a lot of Southern Baptist pastors who are compromising on anything of consequence. Okay? They are standing up for what the Bible says about theology and about morality. And when they are put out publicly in a more for saying those things, it's portrayed now negatively, but they're not negative where they're doing it. And the people that know them well would not say it's a negative portrayal at all. [00:41:41] Speaker B: I think that's also something that's helpful about this form of communication and conversation, is we can talk through some of the issues and get to a place of heart, agreement on the issues. And if I'm not completely understanding, I can push back. You know, it means a lot to me. I'll say now that you would sit down and have this conversation with me just as a pastor of a normal Southern Baptist church, to walk in and talk to a person in your position. [00:42:12] Speaker A: Now, you're the most important people. You're one of the most important people. You're a pastor. [00:42:16] Speaker B: Well, everybody's pastor. [00:42:17] Speaker A: No, but you're on the front line. You really are doing it. [00:42:20] Speaker B: People in your office would say that. I'm not talking about people in the past. I'm just saying it's easy to say that, but it means a lot to me that you would actually have this conversation. [00:42:32] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:42:34] Speaker B: With the numbers that I'm reading, with the data that I'm observing, the executive committee has used up its resources that I'm thinking is around 13 million as it relates to. To some of the abuse scandal that now we know was not quite as much of a scandal as it was once believed. And now this February, you've asked for us to dip into CP giving, cooperative program giving. And first of all, deeply respect how you've shot straight about it. Everybody that I've spoken to, every pastor that I've spoken to, has echoed that, that you admit the situation that we're in and you've wanted to maintain our integrity and pay the bills that we owe, that we may owe. I'm thinking when it comes down to the average church member, that's been a challenge to communicate for us pastors. So help us understand, how would you convey that to our congregations? [00:43:39] Speaker A: Well, the first thing is I would say that when I made the announcement of the recommendation, I said, I don't want to do this. You don't want to do this. None of us want to do this. [00:43:49] Speaker B: It was the best of bad options. [00:43:52] Speaker A: That's exactly right. We considered multiple options, and this one is the least complicated and the easiest to manage. So that's the first thing. Second, this is a one year commitment, a one year budgeting commitment. It's not a perpetual, it's not a. It's not going to continue on indefinitely. We're saying for the next year, we need to set aside these resources to have them available to pay these potential legal bills we may have in this next year. Now, one of the reasons we set it up this way is if we don't have those bills, then we take this money and we send it on to missions ministry like we would have normally done anyway, and we'll segregate the money, hold it in an account, et cetera, so that we can make sure we do that. But the other thing I would say is it seems like a lot of money and $3 million is a lot of money. But let me give you two perspectives on that. Next year, Southern Baptist churches will receive $10 billion in tithes and offerings. $10 billion. $3 million to satisfy these obligations that we have is not that great of an amount in the scope of who we are and the resources of we have. And the second thing, if you have 47,000 churches, $3 million is about $65 a church. So this is a significant decision. It's a significant amount of money. But when you back up and have some perspective, you recognize that in the grand scheme of all that we're doing, it's a manageable amount of money that we can take care of and we can resolve this issue. Now, another important part of this, though, that I get often asked is, is there an end in sight to these legal obligations? And the answer to that is absolutely yes. When Southern Baptist made the decisions in 2021 to approve an outside investigator, to indemnify that investigation and the investigator, and to surrender attorney client privilege in relation to that, the sum total of that resulted in now what are four legal actions against us? One of those has been completely resolved. One of them has been largely resolved. The other two are in process. So every time we resolve one of these, we get closer to the end of this financial drain for these obligations. You say, well, what about any other legal issues that arise with Southern Baptist? Well, those are not new. We are a large organization with a global reach. We always have legal obligations, but we budget for them, we manage them, and they're usually handled very routinely. And those will always continue. It's these four that have been financially difficult for us. And as I've said, one of my goals in coming to the executive committee is to get those four resolved and get us back on an even keel financially and to eliminate these budgetary drains that we've had. And we're making headway. We've resolved some, we have others on the way. So this is not a permanent decision. It's not, I hope, even a long term decision. I think it's more one that's going to get us through a period, period of time when we have to satisfy these obligations and then we move on. [00:46:52] Speaker B: I can see that if these four key cases, if those are resolved, we get past that. It's the world we live in. We're always going to have legal challenges and that sort of thing. How far does our decision to not maintain attorney client privilege, was there parameters on that? [00:47:16] Speaker A: Yes, that was only for that investigation and that's now over. And the other part of it is the, if I understand this correctly from our attorneys, is that the investigation and any cases that could come out of that, the statute of limitations on those has now passed. So there'll be no more new cases coming out of that. And so we're moving forward with the commitment to solving those that erupted from that original investigation and then moving on. And let me make two other comments for your church family that may not keep up with all the details of this. We're not litigating any sexual abuse claims. All of the charges against us are defamation, meaning that we're being sued for revealing information about alleged sexual abuse instances. So we're not litigating sexual abuse claims. We're litigating defamation that came out of the report from people who don't like the way, way the report presented them or portrayed them. And the second thing is, this is also an important point. We are the defendant in every legal action. We have never initiated legal action against anyone. And we're not using money that's given from churches to initiate those legal actions. And so we're in a defensive posture trying to resolve issues, not an offensive posture trying to create them. [00:48:34] Speaker B: Okay, that's helpful. It's very helpful. When it comes to our membership, our church is. We average about 12, 12, 50 on a Sunday morning. Most of those people, I mean, a minority of those people really grew up in a Southern Baptist context outside of the programs they see in the church. The inner workings of the convention they're not familiar with. And I've spoken about it, you know, especially in our midweek. We've talked a great deal about it. But that's one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation, is to help educate our people. With that said, I have been disappointed at the level of interest in engaging in the process. These are people who are very engaged, oftentimes in the political arena. These are people that will step into government situations, but when it comes to denominational politics, they're very turned off by it. Is there any advice you have for a pastor to turn that around to get people motivated? [00:49:44] Speaker A: Well, first of all, most people are not going to be that motivated to attend one of our meetings because they're national meetings. They're somewhat expensive and difficult to go to. Four or five days in a different city, different things. So I see the difference between local involvement and national involvement in that regard. What I would challenge you to do and challenge people to do is not so much think in terms of participants participating or being a part of. In terms of attending and that kind of thing, but just making sure that they're getting the right information and getting good information about what we're doing before they form the opinion about how we should go forward. There is massive amounts of information being pumped out about Southern Baptists all the time by all sorts of media outlets. I think you need to be discerning about how you take that in and make your decisions about how to participate or what to support or what not to support. So that'd be one thing. And then the other thing I would say is help church members pay attention to local opportunities to really engage with Southern Baptists at our best. Like, for example, conferences on church planting, conferences on missions, conferences on ministry opportunities. And lots of these are sponsored by Georgia, our Florida Baptist state conventions that are our partners that are doing more localized efforts that would be representative of what Southern Baptists are doing in those contexts. So, yes, getting people to go to a national meeting is good, but realistically, getting them to be engaged more locally is more likely, and getting them to engage with the right information and understand what's really happening is maybe more of a realistic goal. [00:51:09] Speaker B: Where would you tell them to find the information? [00:51:11] Speaker A: First place is Baptist Press. That would be one good spot. And then to pay attention to what their pastor tells them more than what they read about what someone somewhere said about something or on social media. Because pastors do have the capacity, I think, to filter and to understand where people are coming from and what their agendas might be and how they might be shading the information toward their perspective and helping people to see that, I think is a pastoral responsibility, especially in the communication world we live in today. So Baptist Press and a good pastor, which they have. [00:51:41] Speaker B: Well, thank you. It's very encouraging to me, you know, as we wrap this up, to hear especially about the numbers of non Southern Baptists who are being drawn to what we're doing. [00:51:52] Speaker A: Right. [00:51:54] Speaker B: Those type of news clips, I don't know if they sell or not, but I certainly want to help get the. [00:52:00] Speaker A: Word out about that. You know, it's interesting. We put out through Baptist Press and other means, lots of positive information about Southern Baptist and a lot of media look at that as sort of the routine and give it a yawn and, well, that's what they're doing. But any one, any scandalous thing or any negative news that seems to go like wildfire. Oh, certainly. And so that's why, you know, some of these things, we talk about them, but people don't get as excited about them as they do. Maybe some scandalous difficulty that they. [00:52:28] Speaker B: That's the nature of news a lot of times. [00:52:29] Speaker A: Sure. [00:52:30] Speaker B: So as we, as we draw near to the convention and as you have kind of been baptized into this role now, what kind of prayer concerns do you have? How can we, as we think about the challenges ahead of you and the leadership that you're lending to our convention, how can we pray for you? [00:52:49] Speaker A: Well, the first thing is to pray for my physical stamina. You know, I'm in relatively good health, but I've had cancer, I have heart issues. I take multiple medications and have for years pray for my stamina, that I take care of myself physically and that God sustains me because the travel demands and the ministry demands of the this job are substantial. And then second, pray for me to have keen insight into problems that come to me. Most of the problems that get to me, there's no precedent for them. There's nothing that has ever happened like this before. And they're one off decisions that I have to make about really complicated situations sometimes. And so pray for insight that I'll know what to do and how to do it, and then in terms of the larger of work. Southern Baptist My overarching prayer for us always is that we will stay focused on God's mission, not distracted by so many lesser things that deserve a little bit of our attention because they do have some importance. But they are not nearly as important as getting the gospel to lost people, training new converts to live out the Christian life, and equipping those people to get on mission with us to do more of the same for others. That's my overall prayer for some Southern Baptist that we stay focused on the mission. [00:54:03] Speaker B: Well, let me say thank you for your frankness today. Thank you for, you know, every, every issue that we've talked about. I tried to share that with you up front. And you, you had no restrictions. I appreciate that. I think that's healthy for our convention. And personally, if you're ever in North Florida, come see us at First Baptist. Fernandina. [00:54:23] Speaker A: I'd love to do it. That'd be awesome. [00:54:24] Speaker B: I'd love to introduce you in person. [00:54:25] Speaker A: It'd be an honor. Thank you. [00:54:26] Speaker B: Thank you for being on Coast Red.