Study says churches with WMU stronger supporters of SBC

Southern Baptist churches that have Woman's Missionary Union organizations support the denomination's missions programs at significantly higher levels than congregations without WMU, according to an analysis of reported church giving. Tensions over several issues surfaced in recent years between some Southern Baptist Convention leaders and leaders of the independently governed auxiliary group, founded in 1888 to promote SBC missions. They included WMU's refusal to submit to direct oversight by the denomination and the group's decision to remain part of the Baptist World Alliance women's department after the SBC severed ties with the global Baptist group in 2004.



Despite those differences, a new breakdown of giving patterns suggests missions education by WMU continues to play an important role in inspiring local churches to give more money to SBC home and foreign missions.
A review of annual statistics collected by LifeWay Christian Resources found that churches that have age-level WMU organizations like Girls in Action and Women on Mission support the SBC's unified budget and two annual special missions offerings at higher per-capita levels than those without ongoing missions education.



The study, conducted jointly by WMU and the SBC North American Mission Board, found that churches with missions-education programs supported by one or both of the organizations gave $43.28 per member to the Cooperative Program. That compared to $23.65 per capita by churches without such programs.



The rest of the story is at http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3678&Itemid=53

 

Very few who were in the same Sunday School class I was in while in seminary, are still in the SBC today. Almost all of them have left the SBC to fo somewhere else. They were those who later became pastors, professors, youth leaders, denominational workers. A few became professors at SWBTS and other Baptist colleges and universities and left because of the lack of shcolarship and liberalism creeping in under the guise of conservative.

 

Deacons are servants. The are not to be the same people who are responsible for the oversight of the body. When deacons try to act as pastors/elders and God has not equipped them to do so is a huge weakness among those who act as pastors/elders and yet have the title of deacons. Too often people who do not act and think as spiritual leaders are often placed in a role for which they are not qualified by giftedness, training, and desire.

 

I had a few in one church who asked me not to call on them to pray in the congregation. In that same bunch of deacons one of them had an altercation with a youth and one of the other deacons lied for him about the incident. The one who had the altercation with a youth later committed suicide with a gun two years later. Another one of them regularly told me that God had called him to preach revivals. He wanted to preach quite often and liked the attention it gave. He was eager to get about preaching "revivals" but never could seem to get going. He was a dreamer about large crowds. He often mentioned to me about how he had worked up some numbers about how big thew church could get for the area. When I asked him about how many he had discipled the number weas zero. In fact I do not know one person he ever even led to Christ. I neber met anyone who could atetst if he had shared his faith with any of them. A few weeks after being the pastor I wondered about attendance inflation. So I told one of the deacons who counted the people that it seemed like there was not quite that many there. He told me that they added 20 so that it seemed like attendance did not drop. It was amazing how much people in the town knew about them. It would have been good if they were limited to washing windows. It would have helped them to learn to serve and be humble. That church today is on a steady decline. They are much the same way. They have big dreams with little ministry.

I have never been about giving people ministry until they prove themselves in their own ministry. It is amazing how people are encouraged and learn to do ministry when you train them and watch them do it. Once they make disciples they become a very different person as a leader and they understand what real ministry is.

In one church I replanted we had a church council. Those people learned to start ministries and lead them. We had ministries that I never dreamed of to reach people. Those people became very good at reaching people by sharing their faith and making disciples right within their sphere of influence.