Miami BCS Bound: #1 Oklahoma vs. #2 Florida

Rachelle and I are in Miami, Florida where we will be attending the 2009 BCS National Championship Game between the Oklahoma Sooners and the Florida Gators Thursday night. Some very kind church members gave me two tickets to the championship game and we are thrilled to be able to attend. Courtesy of Hotwire.com we found some cheap tickets out of Wichita, Kansas and an excellent rate at a hotel in Miami. We are looking forward to being in the game atmosphere, and we feel it should be a great game. Most people are picking Florida to win, but Oklahoma loves Miami in January. When you see Oklahoma score a touchdown, look for me celebrating in the stands. Go Sooners!

Trouble at Southwestern Theological Seminary

In a contracting economy Southern Baptist churches and agencies must tighten the fiscal belt. Though God has promised to provide every need for His people, during recessionary periods it is prudent for Christians to place wants and desires in the back seat in order to ensure that the money provided by God to meet needs is not diverted to fulfill personal whims of those in charge. If a Southern Baptist church or institution ever makes the mistake of whittling expenses by firing staff, forcing the early retirement of older employees, and cutting salaries of low end employees while continuing to provide extravagant perks and luxuries for the pastor or president, then trouble for the church or institution looms.

There is no better illustration of this principle at work among Southern Baptists than what is now happening at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

(1). The seminary must cut more than $4 million dollars this budget year and even more for the next fiscal year.

(2). Numerous staff were laid off the week before Thanksgiving. Most of those laid off were staff who had been at SWBTS for a number of years. They were let go and less experienced, less expensive staff were kept. For example, in the financial aid office, the director who had been at SWBTS a number of years was let go and the associate director who had been at SWBTS since May 2008 was promoted to director.

(3). Professors who did not have ten students enrolled for their classes for the spring 2009 semester had those classes cut, thereby costing the professors about $2,000 per class.

(4). In a meeting on Thursday, Dec. 4th, SWBTS administration announced that there would be "significant layoffs" of more staff and additional professors in January and February. The administration is pressuring older professors to retire early so that there will be less layoffs. The number of those who voluntarily retire will determine how many are laid off. Those terminated will be dismissed at the discretion of the President of SWBTS. One of the professors asked the administrators if Dr. Patterson had the authority to lay off the professors, or was he required to obtain trustee approval? SWBTS administrators skirted around the question, but implied that the trustees would need to approve the cuts. Many professors, however, left with the impression that President Patterson could lay off professors without trustee approval since employees had been told the cuts would be made in January and February, and the next scheduled trustee meeting will not be held until March 2009. Administrators also made it known that there will also be a number of staff let go. In one school alone, five secretaries will be laid off, though those secretaries have not yet been informed.

(5). Dr. Patterson sent out an email prior to the New Year notifying faculty and career staff that starting in January 2009 the seminary would not be paying retirement, and this reduction in benefits would last at least for all of 2009 and more than likely through 2011. This will cost each professor on average $700 each month - a total of $8,400 per year.

(6). SWBTS also announced on Dec. 12th that the Naylor Children's Center will close. Naylor is a full-time daycare for students and working parents who are members of the seminary family. 41 people currently work at the center and will lose their jobs and approximately 100 parents will be forced to find other daycare facilities that will be much more expensive than what families paid at the Naylor center.

(7). While SWBTS staff and faculty are being laid off and salaries reduced, the Pattersons continue to maintain a large personal staff. Mrs. Patterson has an assistant and a research assistant. Dr. Patterson has an executive assistant, secretary, personal assistant, and four interns. The Pattersons also have a large staff at their house. They have employeed at least one chef, though it is widely believed there are at least two chefs, possibly more, on the payroll. There are a minimum of four hostesses/servers, a director for the Presidential house, two people who are paid to walk their dogs, and other staff paid to clean their cars and do other household chores and errands for the Pattersons.

(8). Dr. Patterson has also taken numerous trips the past 3 or 4 months, no doubt spending budget dollars on airfare, lodging, etc. Dr. Patterson, Mrs. Patterson and Dr. Blasing all recently flew to Germany to visit the SWBTS campus there. While Dr. Blasing only went for the weekend, the Patterson's stayed for an additional week.

(9). The seminary spent thousands of dollars on the 100th anniversary celebration last year. This included buying Dr. Patterson an "unbelievably expensive" pair of custom made boots. The SWBTS budget also bought all professors black Stetson cowboy hats, as pictured by Dr. Patterson above.

(10). Enrollment continues to decline, but the numbers being presented to the public make it appear better than it really is because the numbers no longer include only full-time students, but anyone who simply takes a course from SWBTS.

When I begin to hear from faculty, staff and students at SWBTS then it should be obvious that trouble is on the horizon at SWBTS. What really bothers staff and faculty is the fact that people are losing their jobs, losing their retirement, losing their benefits, etc . . . but the Pattersons still have high end luxuries and expensive perks. The anger, in my opinion, is justified. During tough times, the person who should take the biggest financial hit is the one in charge.

If trustees at SWBTS do not do something quickly, the future could be very dark for SWBTS.

In His Grace,


Wade Burleson

Escape from Hamas: A Christ Honoring Story

On Saturday night, January 3, 2009, Rachelle and I watched the FOX News Special Report entitled Escape from Hamas. You may see the FOX broadcast in six YouTube videos already posted on the web. This documentary focused on the extraordinary conversion to Christianity of Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son Sheikh Hassan Yousef, the founder of Hamas. It seems that Yousef (he prefers to be called "Joseph") was led to examine Christianity by a Christian tourist in Jerusalem who took the time to witness to him. Joseph's account on FOX of how he came to faith in Christ, his bold and direct denunciation of Islam and the violence associated with the Koran, and his desire to see his Muslim brothers come to faith in Christ made for extraordinary must see T.V.

A short video about Joseph can be seen here. FOX reported that Joseph's Christian friends are from Barabbas Road Church in LaJolla, California. Barrabas Road is a Southern Baptist Church, and the pastor of Barrabas, Matt Smith, baptized Yousef in the Pacific Ocean. Baptist Press has already issued a feature story on Joseph's life and conversion. Barabbas Road is now assisting Joseph as he seeks to obtain political asylum in the United States. Our church, Emmanuel Baptist Church, has invited Joseph to come to Oklahoma, and we are now working out the details for his visit.

On this Lord's Day, I am grateful for Southern Baptists and the strong evangelistic emphasis in churches like Barabbas Road. Though we as a Convention have made many mistakes, there are some things that we Southern Baptists do very well, particularly missions and evangelism. We understand that what will ultimately change the world for the better is the tranforming power of Jesus Christ - experienced one life at a time. There is a death sentence on Joseph, issued by Al Qaeda, but we believe that God has purposed to use Joseph to lead millions of Muslims to faith in Jesus Christ through his testimony.

Joseph, we are praying for you.

In His Grace,


Wade Burleson

A Proposed New Year's Resolution for the Southern Baptist Convention: Integrity in Numbers

There is often a feeling among trustees of the International Mission Board that they have been given the "plum" assignment in the Southern Baptist Convention. To many trustees, the IMB appointment is more valuable than personal ministry, as evidenced by the request of one Oklahoma IMB trustee in 2005 that I recommend him to pastor search committees in Oklahoma only, lest he lose his coveted position on the IMB. With at least six all expense paid trips a year, and with one international trip per trustee last year (2008), the eight years trustees serve at the IMB amount to nearly 50 weeks of all expense travel. By the time IMB adds rental cars, airfare, hotel costs, food reimbursement and other costs associated with convening eighty-nine trustees from around the nation for bi-monthly trustee meetings, the costs are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

The waste associated with such an archaic system of oversight caused me and a handful of other trustees to advocate the reduction of trustees meetings to two a year; the first would be in January and held in Richmond and the second would be in June in conjuction with the Southern Baptist Convention. I further argued that the "commissioning" service for each missionary should be held at missionary's "home" church, and that the "selection" of qualified Southern Baptist applicants should be up to the professional missiologists at the IMB who are paid to interview, train, and support missionaries across the Convention. It would cost a great deal less to fly a Candidate Consultant to the missionaries home church for an appointment service than to fly every missionary and his or her respective family to locations around the United States for joint commissioning services that are held in conjuction with "trustee" meetings.

As one might imagine, such proposals did not get far when I served as a trustee. I could compare the reaction of trustee leaders to such proposals to Gracie's reaction, our great dane, when we gave her a bone from the steak restaurant where we ate on my birthday, only to try to get it back from her when we feared she would soil our living room carpet as she gnawed on the bone. As one could imagine, once the bone has been given and tasted, the attempt to get it back becomes very trying and territorial. Trustees opposed to such a radical reduction in trustee meetings and numbers argued against it by spiritualizing, as is the Southern Baptist habit, by saying: "We have such a HUGE ministry at the IMB that we have to constantly meet to provide proper oversight." I propose in this post that "numbers" game at the IMB, like it is at most Southern Baptist institutions, is a very hollow system that lacks integrity.

In order to justify such large expenditures for both IMB mission work and large trustee oversight (well over $300 million dollars a year), there has been some increasing pressure on Southern Baptist missionaries to post extraordinary numbers. Flowing straight from Richmond, and then filtering down through IMB supervisors, SBC missionary personnel on the field are pressured to report ever increasing numbers of "new" church starts, and "baptisms" on the SBC Annual Statistical Report. I don't fault our missionary personnel. They are doing excellent work. I fault the system that we Southern Baptists have created that puts more emphasis on "numbering" than faithfulness, and more emphasis on "statistics" than actual "people." For example, in the Fast Facts posted on the International Mission Board web site, one reads that 5,551 missionaries were responsible, either directly or indirectly, for 25,497new church starts in 2007, and 609,968 baptisms. These statistics are gathered by the supervisors of our missionary field staff, turned into Richmond, Virginia headquarters, and are first revealed to IMB trustees at the trustee meeting prior to the Southern Baptist Convention - to a chorus of "amens" and "hallelujahs" and much self-congragulatory backslapping.

The Problem With the Numbers

Think about those numbers. Any of us who have actually planted a church, like we did Emanuela Baptista here in Enid, understand the extraordinary amount of time, money and energy needed to plant a single church. Every single missionary unit for the IMB would have had to have planted an average of FIVE new churches in 2007 to reach the 25,497 new church starts. Further, Gordon Fort, IMB Vice-President of Overseas Operations for the IMB, has reported on his blog that Southern Baptists have planted over 130,000 churches overseas in the last 10 years. I want everyone to pause and consider this statement. We have been in existence in the United States as a Convention for 163 years and we have approximately 45,000 churches in the United States. 130,000 churches is a mind-boggling number, and frankly, I would like to see the print out that verifies the number. In other words, in our day of computer technology, it ought to be easy for a trustee ask questions like "Where do these churches exist?", "How many people attend?", "Who pastors them?", "How many are still in existence?" etc . . .

The problem is, those answers are not available. You see, all that IMB field missionary personnel have to do is simply say they started a church, and it is recorded as a "new" church start. Or, sometimes, as reported to me by several field missionaries, they report on some excellent Bible study groups they have started, and "presto" - several new churches are born and wind up being reported by their supervisors on the Annual Statistical Report. Or, as has happened in various regions, statistics are given about "new" church starts that have nothing to do with SBC personnel; they have been started by indigenous people groups that have absolutely no connection with SBC personnel in the area. I have had missionary personnel from different regions in the world write me with concerns about the reporting process and ask "When is somebody going to challenge the numbers?"

Again, I am not faulting our missionary personnel. They are doing an excellent job in their respective ministries. In the past year I have been to China, Singapore, India, and communicated with people in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and South America. Our missionaries are called, committed Southern Baptists who deserve our support. The fault lies with the system we have constructed that puts such an ungodly emphasis on numbers. We Southern Baptists do such great job of puffing ourselves up, that I sometimes wonder when somebody is going to stand up and shout, "Hey, the king is naked!"



Take the baptism number for 2007 as an example - 609,968. For our missionaries to be involved in that number of baptisms - either directly or indirectly - would require each and every missionary to know the names of 120 people baptized in 2007 under their care. Our church, which averages 1500 in attendance, baptized a little less than 100 people in 2007. I was not directly involved in the conversion of all those baptized in 2007, but I can sure provide for you a list of names, tell you where they are in terms of their walk with Christ, and how they are involved in Christian ministry. I have asked some of our SBC missionary personnel to give me the names of those baptized under their care as reported on the Annual Statistical Report - only to be given a blank stare by many. It seems there is no record of either the names of those baptized or churches they attend. The baptism number is simply that - a number.

The SBC and Inflated Numbers

The baptism number reminds me of the number 16 million. This is the exaggerated number most often given by SBC denominational leaders regarding the number of Southern Baptists in the United States. When I came to Emmanuel nearly seventeen years ago we had 3,800 people on roll and about 700 in attendance. I told the church my goal was to lower the membership and raise the attendance. Seventeen years later we have reduced membership to 2400 and doubled average attendance. We didn't half-hazardly purge the rolls. We made personal visits, wrote personal letters, and sought to identify every single person affiliated with our church. Every number tells a story, and we are not pastors worth our salt if we can't tell you the story of the person represented by the number. Our church is a stronger church because the shepherds know the sheep by name and are uninterested in boasting about membership. Unfortunately, the temptation for us as a Convention is to continue to exaggerate our numbers so we can have "political" influence in Washington. When Richard Land walks into a Senator's office, it helps to be able to say, "I represent the largest protestant denomination in the country." When we are more focused on curryig man's favor than we are simply resting in God's favor, we might find ourselves uniquely powerless in terms of Kingdom advancement.

It's not easy to have integrity in numbers. But for our Convention to redefine herself, we would be wise to begin within. I realize a large problem with integrity in numbers resides within the local church, but as long as our denominational agencies continue to put such an inordinate emphasis on "statistics," there is little incentive for the local Southern Baptist pastor to report his membership as declining in 2009.

It's time that people like Jerry Rankin and Morris Chapman display the character of leadership I know them both to have and correct a growing problem within our Southern Baptist Convention. Nobody likes the numbers going down during their watch, but it is far worse to have one's legacy tempered by future historians who can do math.

In His Grace,


Wade Burleson

Up For Another Challenge: My 2009 Predictions

(1). The first real challenge for Barack Obama will come not from the Arab world, but from Russia.

For the past decade, with little fanfare from the west, Russia's government has gone underground in terms of her security forces' activies, her desire to arm Iran in that country's attempt to wipe out Israel, and her efforts to expand modern Russia's land mass (including the land under the melting ice of the Northwest Passage). Russian government leaders are already rattling their sabers at Obama over missiles in Europe, reminding those old enough to remember of Russia's battle with the John Kennedy administration during the Cuban missile crises of 1962.

(2). The attendance for the Southern Baptist Convention in Louisville, Kentucky will be the lowest for Southern Baptists since the late 1800's.

If ever there was a time to redefine who we Southern Baptists are, refocus on what we Southern Baptists should be doing, and re-energize tens of thousands of American young people who have spiritually awakened to the things of Christ - it is now. No better time to reorganize than when we have as few people attending the SBC as we did in the century in which the SBC was formed.

(3). The price of oil will settle in the summer of 2009 around the $75 to $80 dollar a barrel figure.

That means gas will average $2.50 to $2.75 a gallon by fall 2009.

(4). By the fall of 2009, the recession will show signs of ending, with an even worse economic problem looming - inflation, then hyper-inflation.

My Keynsian economics professors who provided for me my liberal finance education, actually turned me into a conservative economist by their off the wall statements in class, including this one: Government should never worry about deficits. All they have to do is print money.

Seems like Congress attended the same classes I did. The government bail outs of private industry, intended to provide economic stimili, in reality forces government to turn on the printing presses to cover government deficits. When that happens, the value of the dollar plummets, not just a little, but drastically.

Hyper-inflation has a track record. Every country that turned on the printing presses, including 1920's Germany, various 20th Century African republics, and several South American banana republics, found their people carting wheel barrows of cash into the grocery store to buy a loaf of bread. Hyper-inflation wipes out savings, crashes all stock investments and the stock market itself, and moves a country back to either bartering for goods or toward a precious metals standard of exchange in order to stabilize the economy. When our government confiscated all the gold and issued currency without precious metal backing decades ago, we were warned that the system would work as long as people had trust in the paper (might I add "worthless) issued by the government.

That day of trust is quickly coming to an end.

(5). The Texas Longhorns will face an NCAA probe into the recruitment of defensive tackle JaMarkus McFarland

The New York Times wrote a devasting article about the activities of some Texas boosters who attempted to coerce McFarland to sign with Texas. McFarland and his mother stood by their allegations of money being offered by Texas alumni (no coaches were involved).

(6). The OU vs. Texas football game in October of 2009 will be the most highly charged, electric atmospheres of any regular season college football game in 2009.

Bradford and McCoy will both be back. OU will be defending national champions. Both teams will be undefeated. The McFarland recruitment scandle will only worsen. There will be several scores to settle.

(7). The new movement within evangelicalism will be away from mega-buildings, mega-budgets, and mega-satellite churches that focus on electronics and media, to local congregations renting facilities, more emphasis on the preaching of the word, and missions (both local and international). We evangelical Christians will again remember that it is the preaching of the word of God that transforms souls.

Maybe this is a hope, not a prediction.

(8). The most anticipated comedy in decades will be This Side of the Truth, though this is one movie that I will refuse to see in 2009 because of the blasphemous, anti-Christ statements of its creator, the athiest Ricky Gervais (co-creator of "The Office").

I don't mind atheists. I don't even mind seeing movies made by atheists. I just don't wish to put money in the pockets of anyone who intentionally seeks to mock Jesus Christ in his public statements.

(9). I will get more email about William Paul Young, author of "The Shack," and his speaking at Emmanuel April 3-4, 2009 than any other event in 2009.

Before you write me, read number eight again. (smile).

(10). I will do better in my 2009 predictions than I did my 2008 predictions

In His Grace,

Wade Burleson