LEARNING NEW THINGS!
This last weekend was a learning experience for me. I went to a conference at FBC Sapulpa (my old home church) and spent the day with some very good disciple makers learning that pastors are not the best disciplers but ordinary men and woman that love God and want to invest there life’s into a new believer. I am not giving pastors a pass on discipleship I am just stating a fact. I also learned that I have a good friend on the SBC committee on committees I actually spent the night at his house Friday we talked about all that was going on not only with the IMB but also with the NAMB. He let me know that if you are going to speak to a issue know more than just one side, for all the young preachers who are going to Greensboro to be counted make sure you have planted yourself in a place you want to stand in other words do your home work. I am grateful to Art Rogers and Marty Duren who are educating many of us on not just the issues but on how things work. I also found that another friend is a trustee on the NAMB board so I talked to him about what happened there. I also heard how there is a push by some to name a new President on NAMB will I was there he received about 6 calls seeking his support on what they wanted to do he mentioned a pastor Joe and I laughed as I told him about the blog lands pastor Joe I described all I know about him and he said it could be the same guy so Pastor Joe if that is you let me know. It is good to hear from these guys to listen to their take on what is going on and how this coming convention is so very important. There is one thing I would like to address is the nominating of Wade for Pres. Mind you this is my opinion I do not think it is a good idea to put Wade in this difficult situation it is not fair to him or his family and I believe he should devote himself to the issues in the IMB I fell God put him there for a purpose and it is not yet complete if we look hard and long there are other good candidates to put our support behind I just fell that it would be a bad decision to place Wade in this election. Let him spend some time as a trustee. We should be making sure that he has all of his rights returned to him so he is able to do what he was put there to do. I also think we should be asking a lot of Questions of the old guard as to why they do what they do. I think it is a good thing and I truly believe that they will answer if we are serious about making the SBC better. I know there will be those who fell they don't have to answer to a bunch of "young punks" (my word not theirs) but if all we do is rage against the machine we will not get much done. So consider this before you place all your support behind any person. Soon there will be things we can read and make decision on and we can talk both on the blog world and between each other whether by e-mail or buy other means we can make good informed decisions which is what we all want their will be those who show that all they want is power and their desires will be out in the open for all to see. We must be above that kind of power grabbing and if we are in the minority then we must re-examine what to do next. In Him Kevin Lancaster
posted by Kevin at
3:30 PM
2 Comments:
There's always more to story. Read this and evaluate Bob Reccord's track record at NAMB for yourself:
Monday September 13, 2004
TO:
North American Mission Board
(names removed)
FROM:
Ardor Group
(names removed)
Dear Brothers in Christ at North American Mission Board-
It is with great sadness that today the Ardor Group must write to inform you that we are respectfully withdrawing our creative estimate proposal and no longer desire to work on the “Now is the Time” media outreach project.
In April 2003 we initially came to Alpharetta to discuss your plans to execute a strategic outreach media campaign. At that first meeting, we were moved by your courage, vision and passion to launch out in new territory and to share the gospel through media not as you had done in the past but in a new fresh way. You told us of your plans to connect with non-believers outside the church with the gospel and you asked us to join you as partners in this effort.
17 months later, we believe this project no longer has any real vision or clarity. Ardor Group was hired because, as Dr. Reccord said in a future meeting with all of us attending, “(names removed), we do not know how to talk to this culture outside the church, you do. Push us all the way to the cliff but not over. You do what you know how to do and let us handle the internal stuff with the churches at NAMB.”
Sadly, we were never allowed to do what we are called to do and what we were originally hired to do. For 17 months we believe that we have been very, very patient through all the changes at NAMB. Changes in vision, mission, purpose and financial worries. Changes in leadership and constant management shuffling. We have waited and waited trying to keep our passion and enthusiasm hoping that it would all be worth it in the end. We believed strongly in our hearts that once all the shuffling and reorganization stopped and the right men were in the right positions, we would be able to produce television, radio, print, billboard, web sites and a giveaway booklet that would really bring lost and hurting men and women into the kingdom of God as we together communicated the gospel message in a fresh new wonderful way.
Now here we are in September 2004. The project is no longer, in our judgment, being led by any fresh breath of the Spirit of God. It is dull, stale and dead. Television commercials have been slashed from four to two. Billboards have been slashed. And the giveaway booklet is dead as well. All at the very last hour. And to top it all off you now want us to go back for a third time and redo our estimate and reduce the creative costs again for the remaining two television commercials.
We respectfully have had enough of all the changes. The last straw for us was when we heard the decision last week to go with a version of the “Power for Living” booklet as a giveaway item instead of producing a “Now is the Time” giveaway booklet specific to this media campaign. To now make that change as a giveaway item instead producing a focused follow-up giveaway specific to the campaign in our judgment just does not make any sense whatsoever. Sending a giveaway item to unchurched men and women that is not specific to how they were moved to respond in the first place will come across as bland and weird. It will not look cohesive to the entire campaign. And the effectiveness of the campaign will suffer greatly in purpose.
That NAMB decision “to just go with any old giveaway item to save costs” basically took all the wind out of our sails. It brought us back to square one and showed us that you are not really willing to take any risk at all and are not really committed to doing anything different. And thus, as we have said many times, if you are not going to do anything unique and relevant, you don’t need us.
It seems that with every new month the scope of the project continued to decrease. At first it was an $11 million dollar media budget. Now it is around $360,000. With these limited resources, the media campaign will have little impact even if completed.
(names removed) and I have been very impressed with the many wonderful things NAMB does to spread the gospel around the world. Although we wonder how much more could be done to further the gospel with NAMB’s resources and talent if quick fearless decision making was at the core of your organizational leadership structure. If we might be so bold to suggest we see NAMB as an organizational nightmare as far as project decision making.
Again, we are saddened by our decision but we must move forward and work with other organizations that are spreading the gospel with a similar mindset and vision as ours. Our goal is to do that in a risky and cutting edge way that will cut through the secular clutter in the media. We have come to the conclusion that our goal is not shared by NAMB.
Even Paul and Peter did not see eye to eye for a time and had to travel their own separate ways to share the gospel the way they saw best. We just see things differently I guess and that is ok.
We wish you well.
God Bless You all,
(names removed)
ARDOR GROUP
By
Anonymous, at 3:59 PM
Anonymous
There is even more to it than you know. All of the things that you have in your comment only scratch the surface. That is why Dr. Reccord is no longer there. We the SBC need to find out how we can do things in such a way that joins the local, state, and national organizations with out making it look like the government. (Red tape) We don’t need another political animal to feed from what I understand all the changes that they made and made again just made it to expensive to continue no matter how good or bad the material is and that has to be laid at the leaders feet. It is sad but that is how it is. The trustees must now be cautious on who the put in the position because there is a push to change how we have been doing missions here and in Canada some of those ideas can be sent to our trustees they are listening so let your voice be heard.
In Him
Kevin Lancaster
By
Kevin, at 10:16 PM
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