The Southern Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Task Force met earlier this week and has announced that it came to a unanimous consensus on the content of its final report to SBC messengers to be presented in Orlando in June. Dr. Ronnie Floyd, chairman of the task force, said the report will be released at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, Monday, May 3, on the task force’s website at www.pray4gcr.com.

We’ll have to wait until Monday to know what changes may have been made to the committee’s original progress report and whether any adjustments represent changes in substance or only in wording. Dr. Bill Mackey, executive director for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, recently wrote about his hopes and prayers for the revised report in his column in the Western Recorder and on his Partners in the Mission blog. Here’s that column:

Great Commission Hope

Dr. Bill Mackey

By Bill Mackey

I have been asked on numerous occasions about the progress report issued in February by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. I have certainly had some concerns but I am encouraged by the response of the task force to feedback and look forward to the release of the final version on May 3. I am prayerful that new language in the report will relieve concerns and permit a little more flexibility in its implementation.

Southern Baptists certainly support the call to renewed commitment to God’s mission through the Great Commission. I am grateful that the task force has placed such a strong emphasis on prayer and spiritual vitality.

I am also appreciative that the committee has invited feedback from Southern Baptists. The task force graciously invited various leaders, including state executive directors, to present in person and have conducted conference calls with large groups.

One of the report’s recommendations deals with phasing out cooperative agreements between the North American Mission Board and state conventions. These agreements guide the way state conventions and NAMB share expenses in the common work of spreading the Gospel. NAMB would use the savings to help fund an aggressive church planting process in the unreached and underserved areas of North America, especially the largest cities.

Some executives in the “old line” state conventions (the larger Southern state conventions that originally formed the SBC) have expressed to me their willingness to absorb the cost of ending the cooperative agreements for their states provided that NAMB continues to have a strong supportive role with new work state conventions. I am hopeful that the final report will lengthen the phase out time of the cooperative agreements to seven to eight years rather than four in the old line state conventions.

I believe the final report should also place a stronger emphasis on the Cooperative Program as the preferred and primary way of funding Southern Baptist missions and ministries. Hopefully, the updated report will remove concerns that a new reporting category called Great Commission Giving will hurt CP giving. The SBC’s Executive Committee also needs to have a strong coordinating role, along with state conventions, in promoting CP.

I would also like to see the final report reflect NAMB as the primary coordinator of strategy to reach North America. This strategy can be supported by International Mission Board personnel as requested to reach international people groups.

The final report would also be strengthened by including a strong spiritual emphasis on Biblical stewardship. A national emphasis on increased Cooperative Program support through local churches will result in more support for all mission causes — especially world missions.

If all mission partners, churches, associations, state conventions and the SBC will seek the Lord as never before, I believe Southern Baptists can experience a Great Commission Resurgence under the Lordship of Jesus Christ!

–Robert Reeves