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JONI B. HANNIGAN
Managing Editor
ROCKVILLE, Va. (FBW)–With a forum characterized by prayer and testimony, International Mission Board trustees said the July meeting was a welcome change from gatherings sometimes marked by controversy and contentious debate in the past few years.
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| Gary Crawford, pastor of Westside Baptist Church in Gainesville, leads IMB trustees in prayer. Photo by Joni B. Hannigan |
Gary Crawford, pastor of Westside Baptist Church in Gainesville, and immediate past chairman of an ad hoc committee on prayer, said he and other members of the board have been “praying and working for unity and clarity” for the past three years and this meeting was an answer to that prayer.
“Our forums, over the last several years have been notably challenging,” Crawford told Florida Baptist Witness after a July 19 chapel service with trustees. “On Monday, we spent the entire forum on prayer and praise and anticipating mission work that we were doing individually and collectively. So that is a very specific answer to prayer.”
The board went into virtually no executive sessions during the July 17-19 meeting at the Missionary Learning Center in Rockville, Va., and there was no debate over the few motions brought during plenary sessions, unlike at previous meetings. Crawford attributed the new calm to prayer and a sense of unity.
“Our plenary sessions were very focused on decisions that needed to be made,” Crawford said. “That’s another specific answer to prayer. And that’s been our heart all along—the heart of the prayer committee was to see our trustee body just focused and unified and prayer saturating everything that we do.”
John Floyd, the newly-elected chairman of the board of trustees, who is the administrative vice president at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Memphis, Tenn., told the Witness he believes the meeting was “one of the most positive” he has experienced.
“One fellow said it was almost like a revival meeting,” Floyd said. “We had reports, our committees were able to do their work well, ... the [plenary] sessions went well and we had great reports from the field. God is just doing so many good things all around the world.”
Tom Hatley, a trustee from Rogers, Ark., and the former chairman of the board, called the meeting “wonderfully positive.” He said the board, by it’s nature, will always have “challenges” but “they all turn out positive when you just keep your eye on the finish line.”
Commenting on some of the reporting which took place after the last few meetings, Hatley lamented that the “five minutes of negative” seemingly received the most attention.
It’s true, Hatley told the Witness, that trustee Wade Burleson from Oklahoma presented some motions of concern at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Greensboro, N.C., in June. “But that’s just one person,” Hatley said, “that’s just the orchestration of two or three people in this convention.”
Hatley was referring to a motion by trustee Burleson, pastor of Emmanual Baptist Church in Enid, Okla., calling for an investigation of alleged impropriety among IMB trustees. Messengers referred the motion to the IMB and Burleson supported the referral after some discussion.
Hatley last year censured Burleson for posting information to his weblog that Hatley had said breached the confidential nature of trustee forums—and for making statements characterizing trustees as having a “crusading mentality of blood thirst.” In May, Hatley recommended Burleson be barred from trustee forums and executive sessions until he apologized for his actions during his first year as a trustee.
At that same meeting in New Mexico, Hatley also recommended to new board chairman, John Floyd, that Burleson continue to be restricted from serving on any IMB trustee committee.
Burleson, after the meeting in Richmond, told the Witness his name did not appear on the official committee list sent a few weeks ago to trustees. “I was not on a committee and no one has said that has changed,” Burleson confirmed.
Although Burleson has said he was not given a time frame for when the restriction would be lifted, Floyd has obviously followed Hatley’s suggestion and not assigned him for the time being.
“I think that there’s the possibility that in some people’s minds that there are some things that must occur before I am on a committee and I cannot do those things requested,” Burleson said. “It would be a violation of my integrity.”
Burleson said he believes he is being asked to deliver an apology for “the content” of his blog.
“I cannot do that,” Burleson said. “That which I can apologize for, I already have, which is the one post last December that was too strong in the wording. I used too militant of language. For instance, the word ‘crusade,’ and so on and I have apologized for that. And I’ve done that on repeated occasions and I’ve done that on my blog, but the content of my blog, I stand by, and so there will be no apology regarding the content of what I have written.”
Both Hatley and Burleson confirmed Burleson did attend the forum in Rockville, though he had been asked by Floyd not to. Hatley said he believes Burleson’s involvement in board committees and meetings depends on his own actions.
“If he abides by the guidelines that all trustees have to abide by, he gets his privileges,” Hatley said of Burleson. “If he decides he has a set of rules different than ours, then he loses those privileges. It’s all a matter of behavior.”
Hatley said his primary concern about Burleson’s attendance at the trustee forums has been driven by concerns for the security of IMB workers worldwide.
“The whole purpose of the forum is so we can talk about places where we have to keep our missionary stuff secret and if you put that on blog sites, you can’t be a trustee in those meetings,” Hatley said. He believes other SBC boards do not have forums because they are not dealing with sensitive information that has mostly to do with the work of missionary personnel and the high security threats the IMB deals with.
“It’s not about secret meetings so we can decide how to manipulate something,” Hatley said. “Ninety-nine percent of what we do in forum — and the rare … executive sessions — those things are so that we can hear from our regional leaders and others about what’s going on in sensitive areas around the world.”
Hatley said Burleson showed up at forum in Rockville, despite being asked not to, but was not asked to leave. “He came seeing if we would throw him out,” Hatley said. “We didn’t. As it turned out there was nothing of that high security nature and I’m sure our chairman didn’t feel like it was worth the controversy.”
Burleson said he will continue to be present whenever the full board meets.
“I did attend the forum. I will attend the forum and I will attend all executive sessions,” Burleson said. “I am a trustee elected by the SBC and unless the SBC determines I am not to do that, I will be at every meeting where the entire board gathers. And I’ve not missed a meeting since I was elected a trustee and I will in the providence of God and the Lord willing, not miss a trustee meeting during my tenure.”
Burleson said he believes not serving on a committee has not hampered his ability to be an informed trustee, and that he is “very well aware” of what is happening throughout the organization.
“I think every trustee should have a relationship with staff and administration,” Burleson said. “So, I’ve taken the opportunity to get to know staff, to get to know administration, and to find out what’s going on.”
It would be ineffective for trustees to be dependent upon other trustees for information, Burleson claimed. “We should depend upon our own investigation, we should depend upon our own initiative—we should depend upon that which we find out for ourselves. I believe I am one of the most informed trustees that there is,” he said.
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| Newly elected IMB trustee chairman John Floyd presides at his first meeting July 17-19. Floyd is administrative vice president at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Memphis, Tenn. The board also welcomed 13 new trustees and voted to elect Ken Winter as vice president of the IMB’s Office of Mobilization. IMB photo by Bill Bangham |
Floyd told the Witness Burleson had sent him a letter saying he would not be at the forum.
“I didn’t even know he was there,” Floyd said. “It’s not a problem to me. Brother Burleson has already been instructed on what needs to be done for him to have a productive input in relationship with the board of trustees and the ball’s in his court as to what he wants to do.”
Floyd said he met with Burleson in Richmond during the meeting and has “a lot of confidence” in him. “My prayer is that we can come to quick closure on these things.”
Speaking generally of the forum and of the entire trustee meeting, Floyd said he was pleased at the outcome.
“I was surprised at the number of our trustees who have been on mission trips and they were sharing about those trips and then several had commented on people that they had led to the Lord and it was just a great time.”
At the end of the plenary session July 18, Floyd told trustees the IMB trustee executive commitee had met and was in the process of dealing with motions referred to the board by the SBC messengers in June.
“We made some excellent progress last night and we will meet tonight,” Floyd said, telling trustees the results of the meeting would be sent to them via mail.
Floyd told the Witness the executive committee and the IMB senior staff were working on the motions internally and “in due time” would publicize the results.
Burleson said he is satisfied by the handling of the motions and will expect to be notified by mail of the process.
“I think the intentions of the executive committee are to appoint an independent panel that will look into these matters outside the normal business meetings of the trustees and I commend them for that decision,” Burleson said. “I do not think that we ought to take time during our trustee meetings to deal with these matters.
“Obviously, I have a great deal of interest in who is appointed to this committee,” Burleson continued. “Personally I would like to know [who is on the committee] but there may have been factors that I’m not aware of that precluded [Floyd] from announcing who the committee is at this time.”
On the meeting as a whole, Burleson said “it’s been totally different” from other meetings because he was not, in Richmond, “the subject of discussion.
“It’s refreshing not to be talked about in either private or public meetings,” Burleson said. “Compared to meetings in the past, the spirit, the camaraderie, was infinitely better than it has been.”
Crawford, who remains on the prayer committee, said he believes there is good news in Richmond and beyond.
“God is very much at work in our board and through our board and that we have a clear strategy and we are working with missionaries on the field who are passionate in their calling,” said Crawford. “God is up to great things and as Florida Baptists, we need to stay focused on the mandate that Christ gave to the church.”