Renovation

The Next Executive Director of the BGCT, Part Five

   Thanks to all who are coming back to aintsobad to read "An Admirable Life," my archived 40,000 word treatise to the Search Committee for the next ED of the BGCT. Sometime before too long the committee will find just the right fellow and put him before the convention. At that moment they will need to say why the convention should admire him. I wanted to say what I find admirable before they produce their candidate.

   Since only the Executive Board votes on the candidate and since the committee is one appointed by the Executive Board, it is a foregone conclusion the candidate will gain election. That is not the point. Why is he someone persons should admire and follow?

   The fellow before him had pastored some churches and started a small school. He left Texas when the fighting started and so was not besmirched by the controversy. This seemed thin gruel indeed but he got his chance. His chance lasted less than three years.

   The fellow before him pastored some churches and helped start TBC and CBF. He was not first choice, or even second. He was someone who really wanted the job. He took the post and stayed seven years. His history speaks for itself.

   The last two fellows are gone. Enough is enough. Why should the churches admire the next fellow? He will have to own the thing pretty quickly or there will be nothing left.

   I have written four other pieces in this series about the next fellow. I have been specific about who should hold the spot. I will look at him at some point after he ascends to the spot, whoever he may be, so it is only fair to say what and whom I would care about beforehand. Since I have written four other pieces, since they are yet posted, and because I do not feel like repeating them, I refer you to the previously posted pieces on the subject at this site.

The Next ED of the BGCT, Part Five

 

   He must know how to count but he must not be a score-keeper. The BGCT has lost over 1,000 churches to the SBTC. More are leaving as I write and you read. The BGCT has not found the bottom of its ocean yet but it must start counting real numbers in the real world. You can find  bloggers who say the BGCT only has to go back to the old SBC path to find its way but that is the stuff of fantasy. The convention must make its own way, without many old reliables.

   But the new leader must not be only a score-keeper. In my opinion, many of the old scandals of the BGCT came about because its leadership needed some numbers, real or imaginary. You cannot declare victory just because you are tired of being behind. The BGCT will not recover if its leadership continues to add 20% for hall walkers. If you do not understand that one, it is a baptist thing, and you have to be in the baptist crowd to get it. 

   If you are just a score-keeper, you will personalize wins and losses, as though each defection from your group is a personal affront and each defection to your group is a testimony to your abilities. You will be right both times but wrong each time. You matter, but not that much, and less if you insist on score-keeping as a major part of your work.

   He must be be principled but not a principled loser. A principled loser blames his principles (ethos) for his losses but it may actually be a lack of real competence. He may just be in where he cannot swim or wade.

 

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

 

 

 

 

 

Kierkegaard

   A poet is one who suffers inwardly, but whose words sound like music when they pass his lips. Others always tell him, give us more, it is so beautiful, by which they mean suffer even more, so that we may enjoy your words.

                                         ----Soren Kierkegaard

The Next Executive Director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Part Four

   This is the fourth installment at this site on the subject in the title. For background, read the previous three posts here.

   The next fellow must share a set of values/vision not based on what he might pay to have someone follow. He must attract persons for his staff who are  not sycophants or job-seekers only. The old, defunct BGCT rid itself of its more creative entrepreneurs because they were too strong for the "top fellow." 

   The new fellow must be a risk-taker but he must not be foolhardy. He must be able to see up around the bend that is ahead, not taking all his time to look back at what once existed. Circumstances are about to change, again, but his convention is not ready in any way. When I say that circumstances will change, I mean that people have been without meaningful connection(s) for some time. Can you really say that either Texas group has provided a soft pillow for the ecclesiastical head? People will want to connect again but they will not connect by default, as before, or with odium, as they have for so long. Circumstances are about to change, again, but your new fellow will find his group is not a group of choice for many. He must give churches good reason to connect through his convention. He has about a decade to make the connection.

   As a risk-taker, he must be sanely radical. Will the BGCT be sanely radical enough to offer churches a place that is both real and revolutionary, at once both powerful in the present and visionary? If so, a great victory of connectivity will be won.

   The next man must be a good thinker but no slave to calculation. If he plays it safe he will win through to a generous retirement, which can begin with the end of the BGCT. If he wishes for something beyond his own retirement (which goal-change would be refreshing) he must make a case for his convention. He will have to show the differences between his convention and its various competitors. In addition, he will have to show himself different and beneficial as set over against his two most immediate predecessors. If he shuffles offices in yet anther "reorganization" he will find no takers in the real world.

   In short, he should make meaningful promises and plan to keep them. His word must bond him to his course of action. He cannot announce a plan in the morning staff meeting, working out the details while on his feet, shifting here and there according to whoever might be smiling and nodding in his audience, only to change his direction entirely after lunch. I have seen this happen. It is not inspiring.

   He must expose the hypocrisy of his various foes, both foreign and domestic, without giving in to either group. He can do this without many words, by decent living.

 

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

 

 

 

The Next Executive Director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Part Three

For background, see previous two posts on this site.

   There is some hope.

   The BGCT budget has now plateaued, as we used to say. The plateau, as anyone with eyes can tell, is much lower than before the 2000 Split of Conventions. There is a steady erosion of churches giving to the BGCT but the spectacular losses seem to be behind them. If the BGCT gets honest about the Split and the reasons for it, they could possibly move on to something sustainable in the near future.

   There is no real reason to decry the current budget. The convention has at least accepted its lesser status and reckoned with its lesser state. I think its churches will be able to supply the lower figure for the time being. 

    Since the time being is the only time the convention has left to it, the fact-facing represented in the new, lower budget goals should continue. The next decade will largely decide if there is a BGCT or not. This obviously does not concern the present, very mediocre staff figureheads but it might concern those on the outside.

   The old SBC/BGCT default position, where all the churches just gave and trusted, is gone. Do not look for a return to the old ways. Given the adversarial nature of the competition between the various denominational bodies, the old days are gone forever.

   The next Director must urge the institutions to do what Baylor did twenty years ago. The institutions should change their charters to protect themselves and put major money into their own development agents. Self-sustaining institutions cannot be threatened with their support. Nor can they be used to threaten others. 

   The next Director will have to articulate meaningful, shared values and vision to the in institutions and attendant ministries, or they will have ceased to be baptist, regardless of their attendance at convention meetings. Voting is not leadership. It is not even agreement most times.

   The next Director will need to understand the annual meetings are mostly show and not much show, anymore, because there is not much of an audience. I love all of Texas, even Monihans, but if you have to take your convention on the road wherever you can find a small, free auditorium, it might be time to consider the electronic, regional meetings  some of us suggested years ago.

   He should, indeed, must be aware decisions are not made in meetings. At least, decisions are not made in large, general gatherings. Try to get something changed from the floor at one of these meetings. Your microphone will go cold before you can say "Banzai." If you cannot gain admittance to the smaller, administrative meetings where decisions are really made, you are not in the system. If you go to the convention meetings, either of you who still attend, you are not in the system, you are just in the show.

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

The Next Executive Director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Part Three

For background, see previous two posts on this site.

   There is some hope.

   The BGCT budget has now plateaued, as we used to say. The plateau, as anyone with eyes can tell, is much lower than before the 2000 Split of Conventions. There is a steady erosion of churches giving to the BGCT but the spectacular losses seem to be behind them. If the BGCT gets honest about the Split and the reasons for it, they could possibly move on to something sustainable in the near future.

   There is no real reason to decry the current budget. The convention has at least accepted its lesser status and reckoned with its lesser state. I think its churches will be able to supply the lower figure for the time being. 

    Since the time being is the only time the convention has left to it, the fact-facing represented in the new, lower budget goals should continue. The next decade will largely decide if there is a BGCT or not. This obviously does not concern the present, very mediocre staff figureheads but it might concern those on the outside.

   The old SBC/BGCT default position, where all the churches just gave and trusted, is gone. Do not look for a return to the old ways. Given the adversarial nature of the competition between the various denominational bodies, the old days are gone forever.

   The next Director must urge the institutions to do what Baylor did twenty years ago. The institutions should change their charters to protect themselves and put major money into their own development agents. Self-sustaining institutions cannot be threatened with their support. Nor can they be used to threaten others. 

   The next Director will have to articulate meaningful, shared values and vision to the in institutions and attendant ministries, or they will have ceased to be baptist, regardless of their attendance at convention meetings. Voting is not leadership. It is not even agreement most times.

   T

The Next Executive Director of the BGCT-Big Picture, Part Two

   This post continues a series of reformist pieces  begun last week. They will continue this week, perhaps into next. I suggest those interested in the BGCT's future read and heed. Regardless, I have worked out my responsibility with their delivery.

   The next fellow to hold the Executive Director's spot must accomplish something of value by communicating values and vision to the churches. In so doing he might give the institutions a plausible reason to remain with the BGCT. He will not be able to discuss little known Baptist distinctives, smugly smile and pat the little churches on the head to send them on their way.

   The mediocre leadership that fought to keep Texas free from the kind of Fundamentalist domination extant in other states failed miserably in recruiting new leadership and keeping old friends. Then, most horrifying, that leadership collapsed morally, leaving all its retainers to shrink back, mortified. An Ethicist must exhibit excellent morality, or have history hallow him a hollow reed. 

   The Old Unethical Ethicist has left the new Executive Director a moral vacuum to fill. His memory must be set aside and his discredited organization must recede into dim memory with him.

   The new Executive Director will not have financial power, not right away, nor ever have the right of divine succession. He is not Peter I or Leo II. The least pastor, the fellow who meets in a double wide trailer at the end of the Caliche Road still thinks himself worthy to question the great man speaking ex cathedra.

    This is a part of the genius of the democratic process. Incredible local efficiency, which baptist Christians still perceive to be the greater purpose of the whole, is possible because each local body can adapt its ministry to its surroundings.

   Local efficiency actually hampers the collective and its movements unless and until the collective joins the local to participate in its efficiency. The collective cannot just move in to claim credit. Worse, the collective cannot move something else in on  top of the local efficient to compete with it because the destruction wrought on the old, loyal unit does not in any way guarantee the loyalty or success of the new.

   

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

   

What the Next Executive Director of the BGCT Must Do-The Big Picture, Part One

   The next fellow to h0ld the coveted corner office on the fourth floor should first hire an exorcist. I don't know any but there are bound to be some still out there. He should get a good one. Perhaps you have a different explanation but it seems to this writer the corner office nearest the board room is where decent fellows go to get weird. It is a denominational Bermuda Triangle.

   After the ritual cleansing, the new fellow will need to find new friends among old BGCT supporters. People pushed out by Texas Baptist Committed and its retainers might return if someone gave them minimal encouragement. It is hard to win old friends once one spurns them but it is worth the effort. Wade's demons were his nihilism (he knew how to tear down) and his inability to build back. He made enemies when people would have remained no worse than neutral given a choice. Everet was a picture that never developed; a few jokes, some slogans and off to a bigger pay-day. This is not a battle cry. The two together combined to lose one whole crowd, without ever helping another materialize.

   He will need to behave as if the convention is a parliament with various constituencies and their attendant agendas. To do so, he will have to see his function as executive/administrative, not pastoral. He is not First Pastor. If he wants to be a Pastor, there are a lot of churches where he can perform that function.

   He will need to use broader media to inform and assist the churches. He will have to connect broadly and then hope for good word of mouth. He cannot be self-congratulatory or even spend his time fishing for compliments. Flattery will get him nowhere. He must build up the churches.

   He must actually accomplish something and that something must be seen as worthy by the churches. Top down administration and sloganeering are empty.

   He must face this fact, like it or not. Texas is still largely an SBC state, so much as it is a convention state at all. He can make an argument for a free standing state convention but he will find it hard to make a case for any group that will not make a case for itself. This may not yet be an SBTC state but they work hard to make a case for themselves. BGCT does not work much. When it works at all it is does not work well. There is a case to be made for BGCT but it needs to get that case out early and often. The current staff mostly lacks that ability. 

   The SBC has used a century of good marketing and what is left of denominational loyalty to its advantage. The BGCT has offered change, change, change, while not actually changing anything. The SBC has marketed it stability while changing almost everything. The BGCT seems alternately chaotic and then staid, moving in fits and starts, lurching to left, then back near the center and then stalling in the road. The next change will have to be about faces, not just moving the same old faces into new offices.

   Back on Monday. Have a happy autumn weekend. May you see rain.

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Next Executive Director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas

   Some time before too many months pass the committee empowered to select a new executive director forf the BGCT will announce its selection for convention approval. I do not believe the committee will have a name ready for the convention's annual meeting in Amarillo. Nor do I believe they should feel pressured to do so.

   Why should I care? This is not a real question for a real person but let me answer it anyway.

   I have some concern just out of intellectual curiosity. When something so big and so historically successful falls this far and this fast, one must wonder what sounded the (potential) death knell. The BGCT is less than half the effective size it boasted in its hey-day, last year posted the smallest convention of registered messengers in its history and has a budget that is more than $14 million dollars per year less than it was a decade ago.

   Obviously, this took some doing. You do not fail on that kind of a grand scale without assiduous commitment to failure. The BGCT has run through its share of slogans over the last decade but its real banner headline should read, "It was a big job and we lived down to it."

   One cannot help but be curious. And a bit skeptical.

   Then, I am interested because I routinely pull for the Under-Dog. Somehow (see ahove) the BGCT has gone from uncontested to the number two convention in momentum in its historical region of influence. The Reserve Fund will not last forever. Just paying compensation packages will not long substitute for relevance. I think there is about a ten year shelf life for the convention. The clock is ticking.

   I also find myself wondering not why I care but why more people close to the convention do not seem to care. Have even the elistists and the ins and all their retainers abandoned all hope? Frankly, if you fellows can find anyone willing to mention you without the word Valleygate or Scandal or Staff Reduction in the headline, greet that brother with a holy kiss.

   You have spent too much time telling doubters to go away. Too late you found out there were a lot of doubters and others who would not put up with your skullduggery. That is not working for you now. You lost the crowd you had and never gained a crowd to replace them.

   This is not good strategy.

   Over the next few days, I am going to outline what the next Executive Director faces and suggest some strategies. Over at http://aintsobad.typepad.com, I wrote about 40,000 words titled An Admirable Life in  a series of posts put up earlier this year. In it I identified the kind of fellow who should take the job and even suggested a name.

   I hold to my philosophical/ethical thoughts posited in that series. In this next little series, which will not run any 40,000 words, I intend to offer some strategic insights from the real world as to how the next fellow may need to do his business.

   I suggest you read along with me.

 

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

 

 

Once I Ran for President

   Well, I did not so much run as I sat still for it. My "candidacy" was a protest type, intended to challenge an entrenched power structure grown fat with the ease of its victories and certain to doom its host if allowed to continue its string of "victories" unchallenged.

   In addition, I had taken the measure of the man who would be the historical candidate of the ruling party. He was, I thought, a  bad candidate who would be a worse president. Likewise, the Machine Master who was his mentor had moved his organization and the BGCT to the fractal point. No matter how you cut it, it all looked the same, though the situation in real-life, real-time, had altered completely. 

   So, one more time in my life, I offered up a bit of personal skin for what I thought to be the greater good. No victory was possible, at least not if winning meant actually holding the office. In fact, this office itself had been demeaned.

   The fact it was and is something was seen that day in Austin when wave after wave came at me, bidden come by the Machine Master, pounding, pleading, cajoling, cursing, threatening. I would set back relations between two groups twenty-five years. I would weaken the Machine Master. I was too early in my bid. I should accept another empty promise of a useless meeting with the people who got us in the mess. I did not choose to meet again with the people who squandered blood and treasure, promoted themselves and made their convention group second in what had been a one convention state.

   The following years have been unkind to the Machine Master, unchanged for the Bad Candidate/Worse President and dismal for the convention they conspired to control.

    Some are still engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that convention, or any other like it, so conceived, and so dedicated, can much longer endure. At dawn on my 58th birthday, today, I have reason to look back at the events around that one day in Austin with no personal regret. In these last years I have been villified behind my back by minions like Fickling and Smith and some of their retainers. I have confronted them to their faces, which they could hardly bear. I don't blame them. It must be difficult to have to eat your words and lie about how they got on the plate.

   In politics, people cozy up to those who they believe can do something for them. They stay even closer to those they fear can do something to them. A Christian, if one could be found in denominational service, would look to form relationships on the basis of meaningful affection and forsake fear. Sadly, real affection seems greatly lacking among them. I cannot see,  personally, how such a group can maintain its place, reduced though that may be.

   So, in a couple of weeks, a new president will be elected. God bless him. He will run unopposed. No one much wants the job any more. The position should now come with an asterisk, to denote he may be the last, unless a new director can be sought and found, a man who can offer real vision and values. There is such a fellow. I hope they find him soon.

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

Full House

   Two of my kids and their families live in Midlothian. They evacuated yesterday in advance of the chemical cloud moving toward them from the explosion just over the line in Waxahachie. Naturally, that meant they came to safe old Brock, Texas and my house here.

   Suddenly, I had our middle son, our daughter, their spouses, two children and an infant and Biggie, the Dachshund. My son immediately mowed the yard, which thing needed mowing. The baby sat in my lap for an hour, where she most likes to be. The older kids, 10 and 7, did their school work all around me. 

   They stayed last night and may stay most of the day today. It is a bit of heaven for me, of course.

   Yes, the baby got up twice last night, wanting her mother. I slept peacefully through it all.

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.