By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
Scott Harris, missions minister at Brentwood Baptist Church, Brentwood, will serve as chairman of the trustees of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board for the coming year.
BRENTWOOD — As Scott Harris enters his eighth and final year as a trustee of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, he has witnessed a lot of change.
He became a trustee in 2009 just after the economy had bottomed out. He has served with three different presidents (Jerry Rankin, Tom Elliff, and David Platt) in addition to Clyde Meador who served in an interim role.
What’s more, the IMB has had to deal with drastic changes in denominational life and throughout the world. Any one of those would be hard enough to deal with, but “all of them at the same time is significant,” said Harris, who will lead the IMB trustees as chair in his final year of service.
He considers it an honor to serve as chair. He is an “MK” (missionary kid) and he also served as an IMB missionary in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. He has been the missions minister at Brentwood Baptist Church, Brentwood, since 2002.
“It’s been quite a ride,” Harris said of his tenure as a trustee. Though there has been a lot of change the one thing that does not change is the gospel, Harris stressed.
With the downsizing of 947 missionaries and 149 stateside staff members this year through a Voluntary Retirement Incentive (VRI) and Hand Raising Opportunity (HRO), change is still in the immediate future for the IMB. When the final numbers were tallied the board saw a reduction of 20 percent of its missionary staff and 33 percent of the stateside staff, according to numbers reported by IMB President David Platt in late February.
The past year has been both a sobering and an exciting year, Harris observed.
Harris hopes to lead a culture at the board where everyone will have a “joy-filled, brokenhearted approach to missions and ministry,” he said.
It’s not a new concept or approach, Harris stressed. “Jesus had a joy-filled, brokenhearted perspective. He loved people joyfully and yet was literally broken for us.”
The message for today is that Christians must not retreat from the world but go forth with confidence, bold joy, and power. “The sin and lostness of the world should break our hearts but should not negate our joy,” he said.
In an interview with the Baptist and Reflector Harris candidly addressed issues still facing the IMB.
Finances
“It’s a nuanced rhythm. In some ways churches and ministry organizations must be run like a business and in other ways they must not be run like a business,” Harris observed. “That is an inherent tension in the church world — a healthy tension, but still a tension,” he continued.
As a result, the past year has been “tough” with all the cutbacks, Harris acknowledged. He stressed, however, that trustees were not caught off guard. “It didn’t just happen,” he said, noting finances have been an issue since the economic downturn starting back in 2003.
Harris said he is aware the IMB has been criticized for not making its financial situation clear. He believes strongly that the IMB did let people know there were financial concerns and cited news articles from the last 10 years. Yet, he acknowledged that the IMB was in a tough position. Referring to several years where Lottie Moon totals fell significantly short of the goal, Harris said, “How do you say ‘thank you’ for $153 million from the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and still say to Southern Baptists, ‘it’s not enough?’ ”
Harris is confident that IMB administration has finances under control especially after the missionary/staff reduction earlier in the year. The $23.6 million deficit the IMB had projected for 2016 was covered by the staff reduction. “Steps are in place to keep our finances in order,” Harris said.
He cited the 2015 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Southern Baptists gave $165.8 million this past year, the highest total in the 127-year history of the offering. “The record offering is an affirmation and acknowledgement of good stewardship and hard choices,” he said.
Missionary workforce
Harris said career missionaries will continue to be the focal point of IMB efforts. “That will not change,” he affirmed. “There will always be a need and place for career missionaries that are fully supported,” he stressed.
While not saying that the IMB will not change, Harris predicted that “any changes that will happen in the next five years will be rooted in our historic legacy of responsiveness and innovation.”
Platt has called for Southern Baptist churches to send out missionaries from their congregations to supplement the career missionaries. He has cast a vision for a “limitless” missionary force that calls for more than just IMB career missionaries.
Harris agreed that churches “need to up their engagement with the IMB” to reach the nations for Christ. “We have always said we were a missionary people,” he observed. While emphasizing again that “career missionaries will always be the core of what we do,” additional pathways will increase, Harris predicted.
“We need pathways that can send tens of thousands more, not just hundreds more,” he added.
The Cooperative Program
The reality of the situation at the IMB is that the entity ultimately needs more funding than is provided through the Cooperative Program and the LMCO. “It is an understandable concern that it (other funding sources) could hurt our primary funding channels. But it doesn’t have to,” Harris said. “A rising tide lifts all ships.”
Harris observed that Southern Baptists are going to have to seriously answer: What is more important? Preserving funding models as they are or impacting lostness?
“In my perfect world they are not opposite questions,” Harris said. But in reality, “if we don’t get creative in reaching a lost world, our funding models can become idols.
“Does that mean we do away with the Cooperative Program? Of course not! It was ingenious in 1925 (when it was approved by Southern Baptists as its primary funding mechanism). It is ingenious now and it will be ingenious in the days to come,” Harris said.
“We have to look at a both/and approach,” he continued.
Harris acknowledged there are no easy answers but in order to reach peoples of the world it will be imperative to “build upon this ingenious foundation (Cooperative Program) and maximize it rather than cannibalizing it.”
The Brentwood missions minister is optimistic about the future. “The trustee board is unified around a passion to reach every tribe, tongue, and nation.”
Harris, who served on the search committee that recommended David Platt as president, also is confident in Platt’s ability to lead the IMB. “As part of the search process I was convinced David was God’s man and I’m even more convinced today. He has an incredible appreciation for the IMB’s history and legacy.”
Harris serves with four other Tennessee trustees: David Coombs executive pastor, Bellevue Baptist Church, Cordova; Dean Haun, pastor, First Baptist Church, Morristown; Phil Mitchell, director of missions, Weakley County Baptist Association, Dresden; and David Miller, director of missions, Indian Creek Baptist Association, Waynesboro.