All kidding aside, this isn't rocket science! A thing is broken when it is no longer doing what it was designed to do. Like the parody health care flow chart displayed stage right. I mean, the health care system is designed to deliver--- drum roll, hold your breath, choir humming in the background---you got it, health care. When that is no longer accomplished, the delivery system is broken. Plain and simple. It may look good on paper, work as a concept, and have a rich performance history. But, when it stops delivering the promised outcome, it is broken. That's not too profound either. The solution, I mean. When it's broken, you fix it.
Shift gears a minute. A good bit of the rhetoric surrounding the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force is about the ineffectiveness of the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Commission. Much of the talk sounds more like character assassination than genuine assessment to me. Some of the trash talk demonizes the CP, like it was the evil empire or something. There are a few congregations and leaders who think they can deploy missionaries more efficiently than our mission organizations, and educate people better than our six seminaries, among other important outcomes. Get real, kids. This cooperative giving thing has a pretty impressive record since 1925.
Truth is, stats are down, and the trend line isn't looking too healthy. If membership, attendance, and baptisms are any indication, the expected outcomes are on slide. This isn't Marxian economics or anything. Something is broken. That doesn't mean it is necessarily bad, part of an axis of evil, or a sign of the anti-christ. It simply means that one of the components that make it work is out of sync or needs tweaking, some fine-tuning, maybe a new part or two.
There's a cause and effect thing here too. Are numbers down because of declines in CP giving? No. CP giving is down because the intended outcomes are not being achieved. One of the urban(e) myths of SBC life today is that CP giving is down only because of the economy. Wrong. CP giving is down partly because people don't have confidence in what we're doing, which is the result of not accomplishing the expected outcomes of our vast enterprise. Say what? Start making disciples per plan, witness a rise in the stats, and confidence will be restored and CP gifts will rise.
There's nothing wrong with CP giving that some self-study, evaluation, and aisle activity can't fix. Sure, the CP, like every other human system known to man, requires regular, constant evaluation, revision, perhaps serious adjustments as times change. The CP is not sacred, nor the formulas that allocate it among the agencies and institutions. Still, the CP isn't really the problem. Nor is the assignment to make disciples of all nations, or Christ's promised power to accomplish it. So, what is broken? Why all the fuss?
What is broken is the hierarchical system that manages and drives the apparatus of mission. It is cumbersome, wasteful, mired in turf wars and property disputes, provisions of constitutions and by-laws etched in ancient stone, and organized around out-moded structures and business models. It ought to be sleek and stream-lined, a modern reflection of our understanding the times and knowing what we ought to do. Instead, we're talking about de-funding agencies and institutions, changing funding formulas, reducing the missionary force, lowering support to our educational institutions, et al. When, in reality, what may be needed is re-organization, review of the governing documents, how our denomination does business, the speed with which we make decisions. The structure is broken.
How do we know? It doesn't do what it is supposed to do. So, let's fix it. Now.
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