Bobby Gilstrap Talks About His Experience With NAMB

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00:02

Hey everyone, welcome once again to the conversations that matter podcast.

00:16

I'm your host, John Harris today with another episode specifically for you Southern Baptists out there as we approach the convention in Anaheim in a few weeks.

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And I wanted to have on a special guest that has not been on the podcast before.

00:32

That's Bobby Gillstrap. Now Bobby has, um, extensive experience in the Southern Baptist convention.

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He was the director of missions for the North American mission board. He's a former pastor and church planner, uh, currently serving as a consultant at dynamic church ministries.

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And some of you might know him a few of you from the Facebook group that he started SBC issues.

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And there's a lot of conversation in that group about issues that affect obviously the Southern Baptist convention.

01:00

And so, uh, Bobby, I appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule to talk to me and share your story.

01:05

Well, thank you, John. It's a pleasure to be with you. Uh, not so much about the topic that we discussed, but, uh, it's always good to be with you and been a, uh, a follower of your podcast for a while or appreciate what you do.

01:16

Oh, that means a lot. I appreciate that. Uh, Bobby, um, I asked actually to come on because you

01:21

Bobby have a story that I don't think many have heard. And I want to start there and then get your analysis about, um, maybe the

01:30

North American mission board. We can talk a little bit about this guidepost report perhaps. And, and just to, to start off with this point that I've made the other day with Joni Hannigan and Wilma Craney, there's a lot of abuse that's being talked about right now in the convention, especially sexual abuse.

01:46

But there seems to be a number of stories. Some are public, some are not that are inconvenient for the powers that be.

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They don't want to talk about certain kinds of abuse, namely the abuse that they've been complicit in. And I think that that's something that needs to be highlighted now and then.

02:03

And, um, part of having you on was to just highlight, cause you're brave enough to actually come out publicly and talk about kind of what's happened to you as a result of working at the

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North American mission board. So I'm going to just give you the floor and let you talk about your story. And, uh, and then, and then we'll see where the conversation takes us.

02:21

Right. Yeah, no, John, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to tell the story. Uh, let me say that, uh, it's a choice to tell the story, but I have a freedom that many people so far do not have of being able to just basically tell the story and that's because of the way

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North American mission board has been operating, uh, in these recent years with the NDAs and non -disclosure agreements.

02:44

Uh, and I know when I first moved to Atlanta back in 2016, not long after that, I was just standing in the front area of a church and I had a pastor and a couple of other friends there, and he had been formerly with them and had left right after, uh, the

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Eazell, uh, regime had come in after GCR and I just said something about North American mission board and he froze up, got white in the face and said, oh, oh,

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I can't talk about any of that. And I said, well, what's up? And he said, well, if, uh, somebody finds out that I'm talking about NAM and they think

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I've said anything bad, I'm going to lose my retirement, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, you know? Uh, and, uh, that, that's a, that's a big thing to hang over somebody.

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And, uh, this, this is a, this is probably one of the friendliest guys you've ever met, uh, he he's very hard pressed to say anything negative, but most people right now don't have the kind of freedom that they need to be able to do that.

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So one of the things that needs to happen in the SBC really is to remove these NDAs, uh, from, uh, for instance,

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North American mission board. Uh, there, there's probably a few things that need to be kept private that would be, uh, very, very damaging.

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But there's a lot of things that it's, uh, for what kind of, like you said, it's to protect the narrative, uh, or protect certain behavior.

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And it doesn't matter what a person knows, but there's been some kind of agreement that says, we're going to do this for you, but you're not allowed to ever speak about this again.

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Uh, and that's a real problem. So I do have that freedom, uh, because I was an employee of North American mission board at the time when, uh, things really started happening to me.

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I was a North American missionary for 10 years, for a decade in Michigan, worked with associational missions and church planting.

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And then I was asked to be the executive director of the state convention, executive director for the Baptist convention in Michigan.

04:35

Well, during that time that happened only a few months after, uh, the GCR had passed the previous summer.

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Kevin Ezell became the president. Can I just say something real quick to, uh, sorry to interrupt you, but for those who don't know who are listening,

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GCR, I think is great commission resurgence. Correct. Yeah. I'm sorry. I use the abbreviation.

04:53

Well, yeah. And we're talking, I know some of the people that are listening, um, maybe Southern Baptist who aren't familiar with all the jargon and then others are just not

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Southern Baptist at all. So, um, I just wanted everyone to know that what that was, that was an initiative. I think in 2010,

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I kind of really kind of pushed for evangelism and it ended up consolidating a lot of the state resources into NAM if I'm not mistaken.

05:17

Right. Well, uh, not, not initially, and that wasn't really the understanding.

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Uh, it was sold, the bill of goods was sold that this is all about the great commission, uh, at that point.

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Uh, but there was a lot of skepticism even going into that, a lot of skepticism, uh, about what would happen.

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What has happened since has been much more significant on a negative side than ever imagined, uh, before.

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But, um, yeah, and this is kind of an aside, but you know, all of the negotiations, all of the, the conversation about the great commission resurgence that happened with the task force, uh, those, those records were sealed and that was odd in the beginning.

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And they were sealed for 10 years. And then Ronnie Floyd came back and said, the task force said, nah, let's steal them for 15.

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So they've been sealed and, uh, it will be quite interesting to find out what's in those documents and what was discussed as to the future of the

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SBC. So, because things have not gone very well, uh, in almost every way of measuring almost every metric, uh, you can't see, you know, how that goes.

06:23

Well, right. Right. Yeah. Sorry to interject there. Yeah. You can continue on with your story. I just want people to know what that was. I'll try to be more conscious, not to use so many abbreviations.

06:30

No worries. It's like, it's like being in the army, you know, uh, you have all the, uh, the alliteration, but anyway, uh,

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Kevin Eazell had become the president the September before I became executive director in January, uh, and really right out of the gate, there was a lot of conflict and, you know, tension because they were pushing to start removing, pulling back, uh, a lot of the church planting particular control from the state conventions.

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Uh, and they were wanting to defund a lot of the people who were jointly funded through our strategic partner agreements.

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And that did ultimately happen. They defunded your, your associational missionaries, which were jointly funded, uh, and a bunch of others.

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What they did with the associational missionaries transferred them over to be church planting catalyst. But many of them left and some were eventually just released.

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Uh, and then other than that, only funding church planters, defunded evangelism, people, all that kind of thing.

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Well, as time went on, uh, those conflicts continued to, to, to be very tense.

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Now, in my view, uh, I'm the executive director of Michigan. I've been in Michigan now over 10 years.

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I've been working with people who this is their home. I mean, this is their home context for reaching people.

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We've worked really hard to understand the context we're serving in. And the difference in Michigan between planting a church in metro

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Detroit and up in the thumb of Michigan are up in the upper peninsula is like night and day.

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I mean, they're totally different and a cookie cutter approach is not going to work. So we kept pushing back against NAM saying, look, uh, you know, yes, there's some good things you're saying, but we don't want to get rid of everything we've worked towards strategically to try to understand our process, even assessments, et cetera, et cetera.

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Well, it, it kind of finally all came to a head. And in the fall of 2014, uh,

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I was basically forced to resign. Uh, and it was a lot of tension. There were several kinds of secret meetings that had happened.

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Uh, and I did not know at the time that there had also been contact behind the scenes from the

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North American mission board to executive leadership on our, uh, executive board. And I was not aware of that at the time, but since then having left and in the years following, uh,

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I've had at least two pastors that have contacted me who have firsthand information about what took place.

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Uh, and I had another one who said that, uh, my ministry assistant, the executive assistant there at the state commission at the time that she was in meetings post my leaving, where it was made clear that North American mission board had had a part, had a play in getting rid of me.

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Now, interestingly, some of your viewers will be familiar with the Will McRaney case.

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Uh, Will and I, when we started comparing notes after this all happened to him, we found out almost the exact same things were said about Will, as were said about me, hard to work with uncooperative, a lot of the same things, well,

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Will and I were both doing the same thing, working for our state, you know, trying to protect our state.

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Uh, I jokingly tell Will they practiced on me and then, then did him. He, he was pushed out 11 months after I was, but some of what happened was very, very similar in that.

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Uh, it's sad to look back and see that, uh, the

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North American mission board who had nothing to do with my employment had no responsibility have, uh, they're not an organization who supervises the

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Baptist state convention of Michigan. Uh, there, there is no authoritative control over the state convention yet.

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They were operating and acting as though they were. In fact, this is interesting. We have a vice president or at the time vice president of North American mission board who has told us privately, he can't say anything publicly again,

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NDAs, but he's told us privately that he was in more than one meeting where the topic of discussion was, okay, what can we do to get rid of Gillstrap?

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Okay. What, what do we, how do we strategize to get him out of that position? So, you know, that, that ought to be real concerning that anybody would think their mission leadership is trying to do what they can to undermine the leadership of a local state convention, and then take part in undermining that and pushing him out, working with them to manipulate that situation in such a way, uh, to push him out.

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Um, same thing obviously happened with McCraney, but, uh, you know, it didn't, it didn't stop there.

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And that's kind of the concern. Um, when, when I look at what has happened with the

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North American mission board, uh, since 2010, um, I see just a blatant disregard for a lot of different things.

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They have a blatant disregard for the truth. They have a blatant disregard for the legal documents, documents of the

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SBC and what the SBC says, this is the way we ought to operate. They seem not to operate that way.

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They have a blatant disregard for others and many lives have been destroyed in the wake of all the things that have taken place, uh, since 2010.

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Now we don't hear those stories because they got rid of almost the entire, basically the entire evangelism department when they came and state convention evangelism partners.

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And they employed then, uh, a department of marketing and special event people, about 30 people, uh, in marketing and special events.

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So they could better tell you the story. And I have, I have told many people

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I was in two rather small mission area associations, but I was talking to a pastor the day before yesterday.

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And I, and I asked him, I said, do you ever remember being in one of our annual meetings when you didn't hear about church plants and some of the exciting things that were happening?

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And he said, no, we always heard something. We heard testimonies. We heard about lives being set.

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I said, yeah. And at any given time, we didn't have more than two, three, maybe four church plants going on in the 2000 square mile area that was considered my area.

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But we always were able to find a good story to share with our people to get them excited about church planting, excited about missions, right?

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So for the North American mission board to be able to find, you know, six or seven good stories for any

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Armstrong week, they ought to be able to come up with some good stories, but they spent all this money pouring into personnel and people for marketing and for, you know, special events to try to woo the crowd, try to impress all

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Southern Baptists. Look what's going on. But when you look at the metrics behind the scenes, you see the numbers are not, are not, you know, anywhere near showing that kind of success, you know, well,

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I got a little sidetrack now, let, let me mention one other thing, um, that, that is significant that happened before I actually left

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Michigan. Um, and this was really disheartening to me, but it reinforces what

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I mentioned a minute ago about just their blatant disregard for the legal documents of the SBC.

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Um, I believe it's, uh, article 15. I believe that's right. I'd have to look it up again of the

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SBC bylaws, but it, it states that no person who is a trustee serving on the board of one of our entities can be employed or a spouse of theirs can be employed or receive benefit in any other way.

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In other words, a book deal or what I mean, whatever kind of benefit it could be. So, uh, in 2013,

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I think it was, uh, I believe it's 2013. We had a young man, a sharp, sharp, young guy was a church planter, and he was right on the outside edge in a kind of a suburb area of Detroit.

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And we asked him to be, you know, one of our NAM trustees. And so he went to his first NAM trustee meeting at the

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North American mission board in Alpharetta. And when he returned home, I was informed that North American mission board had hired him to be the new

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SEND Detroit coordinator. Now SEND Detroit obviously was their strategy, which we rarely hear about anymore, but it was their strategy to reach 32 of the major city areas in the

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United States. And so I said, how can that be? You're a trustee.

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And he said, well, they really liked me and they talked to me and they interviewed me and they hired me. So I called Steve Davis, the vice president who we worked with the closest at that time, and I said,

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Steve, what is going on? You can't hire him. He's a trustee. He goes, oh no, we did. And I said, but you didn't talk to us at all.

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Now the SEND Detroit, like the other SEND cities, we were told was a partnership agreement with the state conventions.

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And I said, but Steve, you haven't communicated with us at all. You haven't talked to us at all. He goes, well, it doesn't really matter.

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What's done is done and we've hired him and that's it. I said, but wait a minute, you didn't talk to us. This guy's church doesn't even give 1 % for the cooperative program.

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And you're asking your SEND coordinator to stand up in front of potential planters and planters and say,

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Hey, you're required to give 6 % for the cooperative program. How can you do that? I mean, that doesn't even, well, they didn't care.

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He was a sharp on top of it guy and they hired him. So I chased the rabbit for a little while, even had a meeting with this fellow and he and I were good friends and stayed good friends.

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Uh, but I just told him, I said, this shouldn't work. This isn't the way it operates.

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Well, I was told it's what's done is done and went on. Well, you go back and look and say, look, the

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SBC legal, the legal documents say you cannot do that. Well, he remained both as a trustee and as a paid employee of the

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North America mission board for right at two years, I believe before he resigned. Uh, from being the

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SEND coordinator, he stayed on as a trustee a couple of more years, but you know, that's the kind of just blatant disregard for the legal documents and the procedures, policies, whatever you want to call it of the

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SBC. We're better than that. No, you know what they told me when I asked, how could they do that?

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This is what Steve Davis told me. He said, he said, well, we talked about it and Kevin presented it to the trustees and they all agreed it would be okay.

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So they all said it would be okay. And so we did really, are you serious?

16:54

Oh, okay. Y 'all said it was okay. That, that makes it all okay. Yeah. This, uh, conflict of interest stuff that,

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I mean, there's so many stories about this that are floating around that it just shakes confidence in the, um, institutions that especially

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NAM, because there's a lot of stories about NAM with this kind of thing. Um, I, and it seems like even with the seminaries, the board of trustees are just about worthless and keeping the seminaries accountable, uh, with even just the area that I've focused on the most with the social justice infiltration, you can't really get any redress of grievances from the board.

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Uh, so I, this is interesting. I wanted to ask you about, um, you said you were forced out.

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What did that look like? Well, I mean, what does it mean to be forced out? Well, uh,

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I mean, do they come up to you and like, you know, intimidate you? And so you got to resign. No, no, no, no, no. It was done in, in private meetings, you know, kind of off the record in somebody's house, kind of a deal.

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We want to meet with you privately, but let me give you one, uh, one significant, real significant difference between what happened to me and what happened to Will McRaney.

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Uh, in Will McRaney's case in Maryland, Delaware, their convention was very healthy.

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Okay. They, they were doing a great job with church planting. They had a very healthy convention.

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Giving was good. Uh, supportive missions was good. I mean, almost all of the metrics and their convention was good.

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In my convention, in Michigan convention, it was a train wreck. It was a horrible disaster.

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Uh, when I got there, I was told by Auggie Bodo, who's the chief counsel for the SBC. The second month

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I was there, I was about six weeks in and he pulled me aside and said, do you realize that Michigan hasn't sent us any cooperative program giving in, in a year?

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And of course the agreement is churches send to the state convention. The state convention holds a portion of the agreed amount.

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They send the rest to the SBC executive committee. It's divided up to the seminaries, IMB, international mission board,

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North American mission board, uh, and, uh, uh, ERLC. Well, he said, it's a legal agreement.

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We, uh, the states have a legal agreement that you have to do. We haven't received anything in a year. So I went back and talked to, to my executive assistant said,

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Hey, what's going on with this? Do you have any idea? She was clueless. Well, come to find out a previous bookkeeper had kind of been adjusting the books.

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My executive assistant started just rumbling through the office where the financial assistant had been prior to being released prior to my coming.

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And, and she found in the back of a file drawer in an envelope, 11, it may have been, may have been 12, maybe it's just been 11, but 11, uh, or 12 cooperative program checks, they were made out, put in the envelope and drop down in there.

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And somehow another, they had adjusted the books and nobody had caught it. Well, my soul, all of a sudden now we're in the hole, all this cooperative program money, we thought we were even, they also had been borrowing from their, uh, existing, uh, designated accounts.

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They had borrowed from their own designated accounts, $396 ,000 to continue to pay staff, to continue to do events, to continue to do other things.

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So, you know, I always think of it in terms of all these, you know, little old ladies, little old men, these little boys and girls have given special money designated for the state camp, you know, to help rebuild, uh, we call it build a better Bambi, Bambi Lake's the name of the camp, but you know, they'd put side money for that or whatever.

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And now the state convention was. Illegally because you can't not supposed to borrow from designated funds had been taking from those designated funds.

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So we were in a huge hole, huge tension within the convention already because of all the financial issues.

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So not only was I dealing with all of these things happening with NAM and all these changes, wanting to release staff, uh, wanting to defund all these people, but we had all these huge financial issues that were going on within the state, which incidentally, we were able to dig our way back out of the hole in a few years, uh, and start moving in that direction.

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But, uh, it, the, the pushing me out came, there was all this tension, huge amount of tension, uh, and there was a lot of conflict and a lot of that kept coming up through the ranks, through pastors.

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And a lot of it was because they couldn't understand why, why was NAM all of a sudden defunding their associational missionary, right?

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That's never been a deal before. Now you're well, you know, the state convention is kind of in the middle, especially in a small convention.

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And they would, they would come at us going, why are you letting this happen? You knew too much.

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Well, you knew too much, but you're, you're the one going to take the hit for sure, because they, they don't have a way to reach out basically to Kevin Ezell or, or the

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North American mission board. And, and everything is, excuse me, everything is kind of, uh, uh, you know, cookies and roses and, you know, that kind of thing.

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They pushed you out because you were going to be a problem. You wanted accountability. They didn't, and you, you knew too much.

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And, and so this was, it seems like it sounds like from your story, that's the reason that you were talked about in these private meetings and pushed out of the organization, um, how has it been since then for you?

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Well, uh, uh, much of the story, and I think some of the story which you heard of, uh, after that point, uh, really happened when

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I was trying to find other employment now, after leaving, uh, the convention, uh, at that point,

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I was, you know, struggling, trying to find things to do. I, I would drive for Uber. I, I did some pulpit supply.

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I spoke at a couple of conferences, that kind of thing. Um, but it wasn't anything full -time coming along.

22:43

Uh, it just, it wasn't, it wasn't happening. Well, eventually I started being recruited by the urban Atlanta church planting network here in Atlanta.

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And the network had been around for a while and had had several part -time, um, you know, directors, uh, church planting strategist,

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I guess you'd call them. And so they began dialogue with me and that went on for a number of different months, uh, for a good long time.

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Well, finally, uh, as we got down to August of 2016, I actually moved and accepted the job.

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But what happened in the time before that I was unaware of until I had actually been here in Atlanta about a year and a half and what had happened behind the scenes was, is they had checked my references and I gave them,

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I can't remember what my reference sheet was at the time, but it was 25 or 30 references. I mean, I just gave them a long list, uh, and some reference letters, that kind of thing, uh, overkill, uh, to some extent, but they had taken it beyond that and had checked references beyond my references, just call people, um, who may have known me or heard me or seen me or whatever, somewhere.

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And they were right toward the end of going ahead and deciding on me.

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And, uh, Dr. Larry Cheek, who is the, or was, he's not now he's retired, but he was the associational missionary director of missions for Stone Mountain Association.

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And the urban network was, uh, basically a partnership of five Atlanta area associations.

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And he was what they call their lead facilitator or the guy kind of, uh, coordinating everything.

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And their search team was the directors of missions and a few other individuals from these associations.

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So, uh, one day he was at the office and he got a phone call and it was from Kevin Eazell.

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And basically very little else was talked about according to Larry. Now I've not gotten this information from Eazell, but just Larry and what, you know,

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Dr. Cheek said was that he called and basically after just a little bit of chit chat, he said, look,

24:49

I hear you guys are talking to Bobby Gilstrap about coming as your lead strategist for the urban Atlanta church planting network.

24:55

And he said, well, yeah, now I've always kind of wondered how he found that out to be honest, but I don't know that, but anyway, he did.

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And so he went on to tell Larry that they did not need to hire me. That was going to be trouble.

25:11

And he was just so concerned about the association and the Atlanta church planting network, and he just didn't want to see things go bad.

25:19

And boy, if I got hired, it was just going to be one problem after another. And I mean, he just told him, you know, just, you don't want to hire this guy.

25:27

Well, Larry being a very sharp guy, he responded and said, you know, what you're telling me is the opposite of what a multitude of other references have told us about Bobby and his ability in church planting and everything else.

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He said, who can you tell me who could validate what you're saying?

25:50

Somebody else who could, who could corroborate what you're saying? And he said, well, why don't you call the new executive director in Michigan, Tim Patterson.

25:58

Now, incidentally, Tim Patterson, who had become the new executive director, uh, was the chairman of the

26:04

North American mission boards board when Kevin Eazell was called to be the president of the

26:10

North American mission board. And he had lost his position with his church some four or five months before he went to Michigan and Kevin Eazell hired him as a national mobilizer.

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He continued to live in Florida where he was, but Eazell put him on a salary and insurance and all that kind of stuff, uh, until he was placed in Michigan.

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Now, Steve Davis, who had told me he would have nothing to do with giving references to anyone because he didn't want to be misquoted or misrepresented.

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He took it upon himself to make multiple pleas and work on behalf of, you know,

26:48

Tim Patterson to get him there in Michigan. Well, Larry calls him with a little understanding of the relationship there.

26:56

And he asked him, yeah, I need you to tell me what, you know, what kind of mess?

27:01

Kevin says there was just a big mess when, when, uh, Gillstrap left Michigan. He said, no, he said just the opposite.

27:09

He said he knew what was going on. He said all the stuff he did with church planting here, he was right on the money.

27:16

He understood what's going on. He understood what's happening. Uh, I don't know everything else he said, but Larry communicated to me.

27:23

He said, he gave you a great reference. Now understand Patterson and I have never met personally.

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He was operating based on, I guess, my reputation, what other people had said, what he saw, the systems that were in place, whatever, you know, at the

27:39

But Larry said, he gave you as good a reference as anybody else. We talked to who had worked, worked with you for a long time.

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So Larry took that back to their search team. They all agreed that this is an outlier.

27:52

Uh, Eazell must have a beef, you know, with me. And, uh, they went on and they called me and hired me and moved me to Atlanta.

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Interestingly enough, my last interview with them. Uh, and I thought it was a little suspicious how it was asked, but they asked me, well, what is your relationship with Kevin Eazell North American mission board?

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And there hadn't been a lot of discussion because this network didn't work directly with them. Although they work side by side with plant

28:18

Atlanta, uh, the church planting network from the board. And I just told him, I said, look, as far as I know,

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I mean, there there's nothing that would cause a problem there. I said, I was doing my job in Michigan, taking care of our convention.

28:30

He was trying to do his job in North American mission board. We strongly disagreed. We had our disagreements.

28:37

We got into it toe to toe, nose to nose, belly button to belly button. But I don't have any, you know, hard feelings against him at this point.

28:43

I don't know why he would with me. I was just trying to do my job. Of course, understanding. I didn't know any of this stuff that happened behind the scenes.

28:50

And, uh, so I let it go and, uh, they hired me well, come to find out, you know, 18 months later, some other things that happened in Larry told me the story, uh, which he had chosen not to tell me prior to that time.

29:02

He had been working to try to prevent me from getting gainful employment for my family.

29:08

Uh, I had a couple of associations that I was dealing with that. I had very odd communications come back from NAM staff members who said,

29:16

Hey, I was just told that you're their, their top choice and they should be calling you pretty soon. And next thing

29:22

I know, the phone lines go silent as such. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but I'm a little suspicious now.

29:29

I mean, I can't put my finger on anything, but I'm a little suspicious now. This is a, so this is a pernicious issue.

29:37

Um, the, the back room things, the jostling for control, the,

29:43

I mean, it's kind of interesting to me that you'd even have someone of that stature making phone calls to prevent you from getting employment.

29:52

Uh, later on down the line. Well, and think about it, John, think, think about this for a second. Okay. Here is our top

30:00

North American mission leader, right? Okay. We've entrusted him with an abundance of, of position and prestige just by the position we've, we've called him to in that position, but here he is receiving millions and millions, hundreds of millions of cooperative program dollars.

30:20

He picks up his cell phone, which the cooperative program is paying for. He sits in his office chair, which the cooperative program is paid for.

30:28

He sits in his office complex, which the cooperative program is paid for. He picks up that phone and he uses the pay, which we pay every month to pay his phone bill, cooperative program dollars.

30:39

And he uses that to call, to try to prevent people for whatever reason he doesn't like could be somebody like me.

30:47

And it could be others, which we know of. And he uses that our cooperative program provided tools to try to prevent other

30:55

Christians from being able to find gainful employment. And it's not that they're just other

31:00

Christians. Many of the people that he has really called such grief by that kind of behavior have been people who are so fully called to the areas where they are.

31:12

God has called them to service and ministry, and they have faithfully served for many, many years.

31:19

And it's like, there's just no regard. It's a disregard for other people and whether their lives are destroyed or not, it doesn't matter.

31:27

He goes on smiling and he goes on talking and tight telling how great everything is and just everything else is kind of swept under the rug.

31:36

You know, it's just really sad. I'm sorry that you had to go through that. I'd like to hear your thoughts on everything leading up to the convention.

31:44

I mean, given that you've had this experience, which I'm sure has been somewhat difficult and maybe even devastating for you to undergo, are you hopeful about reform?

31:59

I mean, this guidepost thing just came out. People are talking about accountability now in certain areas.

32:05

I mean, what's your take on the current movement in the

32:10

SBC? Yeah, well, it is all very disheartened. I'm one of those who's been a

32:17

Southern Baptist from the moment of conception on. And I mean, I just always have.

32:23

Our family served overseas as international missionaries in Central America and Guatemala. And, you know, we've been involved in churches or ministry all my life.

32:34

And so I'm really deeply invested in Southern Baptist. And so I'm really distraught about what

32:41

I see going on. A lot of it is because of the behind the scenes political stuff that I kind of knew before.

32:50

I mean, it was happening during the conservative resurgence. You know, people came out publicly and talked about the people that they had pushed aside and people they had heard and people they had derailed, which didn't seem like a real

33:02

Christian thing to me as a young minister, as I saw that. But all that kind of thing is still going on.

33:08

And it's still happening. And there's a lot of manipulation, a lot of behind the scenes.

33:14

Just think for a minute about the lack of accountability that's going on. What we have just seen through this

33:21

Guideposts report, the big bombshell for most people was the Johnny Hunt allegation, right?

33:28

So a lot of the other things are things that have been kind of known or been dealt with or talked about or whatever.

33:34

They published the list, you know, over half the list is not actually Southern Baptist, about half of that bunch are people that are already deceased.

33:42

You know, I mean, it's kind of a big mess, but there's a lot of attention being given to all of this.

33:49

While at the same time, there are a lot of different kinds of abuses that are going on in the convention.

33:56

Now, don't get me wrong. The sexual abuse of a child or an adult, either one, doesn't matter.

34:03

But the sexual abuse of an individual is a horrible thing and it needs to be dealt with.

34:10

I'm not sure the national organization, the way our policy is as Southern Baptists is the way that has to be handled.

34:17

But absolutely, Southern Baptists can, from the national level, help provide better tools and all those kind of things to help local churches, associations, even state conventions do a better job.

34:28

No question about all of that. But there are so many other areas of abuse.

34:35

Let me, you know, most of what I've had to deal with relates to the North American Mission Board. So let me give you another illustration.

34:42

There have been a number of allegations the past few years about abuses of power, some of which

34:49

I've already alluded to. Abuses of power, abuses of the finances that have been entrusted to the

34:57

North American Mission Board. Let me give you just a couple of illustrations. For some reason, North American Mission Board has, unknownst to many of us, started trying to partner with historically non -Southern

35:09

Baptist groups, organizations, and individuals. That's a problem. Now, yeah. And I've always been one, even the

35:16

Associational Missionary and State Convention. If I had a church, particularly, you know, a certain church was trying to do something unique and I didn't have the tools, the resources, our

35:26

Southern Baptist didn't have what could help them. I'm the first to get on the horn and start looking and working my contacts to find out who best understands that kind of ministry that I can connect them to.

35:38

Okay. I'm all about that connecting. Okay. But to go out of your way to do things that you're partnering with,

35:49

I mean, just think about the David Platt connection over at McLean. Okay. Some, according to people at McLean, some 600 plus million dollars have been spent in partnership from NAMM to help plant some 50 or more, quote, unquote,

36:09

Southern Baptist churches with McLean Bible Church in Washington, D .C., which is not a

36:14

Southern Baptist church. They have in their documents, in their constitution and bylaws, that they will never be affiliated with a denomination.

36:23

Now, that's a great church. It's been a strong church historically. A lot of great things have happened, but in the last years, it's been very woke.

36:31

It's been very, a whole lot of other stuff. Right. Okay. But what a lot of people didn't know is behind the scenes, they were being funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars.

36:40

Okay. What about the Mahaney situation? Here's a guy who doesn't have any historic background to Southern Baptist and all of a sudden we're buying houses.

36:48

We know of at least three houses that were bought for his use, not him personally, but his church and plants that they're working on.

36:56

Why are we doing that? I mean, that makes no sense to me. Right. Why are we doing that? Then you go back to what

37:04

I said about the disregard for legal documents. Southern Baptist entities are not supposed to be raising money any way other outside of the cooperative program or Annie Armstrong, Easter offering,

37:17

Lottie Moon, those kinds of things that are already designated. Those are the parameters.

37:22

The only way they can raise funds some other way is for them to be able to get written, written, documented permission from the executive committee.

37:32

Okay. But what we know is now has been lobbying the

37:37

U S Congress to the tune of $600 ,000 so that they can get monies from Congress, legal monies from Congress to provide for send relief.

37:52

Now Southern Baptist have had the disaster relief organization for a long time. And it's one of the best organizations that Southern Baptist ever had.

37:59

We're just every Southern Baptist can in some way, shape or form get in there and, and just boots on the ground, get in there and give a cup, a cup of cold water, somebody in a time of need.

38:09

But when NAM came along, they did as he's L said, in one of his interviews, a podcast interview with Jimmy Scroggins.

38:16

He said, when I got to NAM, I just had to blow everything up. Okay. Well, you look back and that's basically what they did.

38:22

They blew up all the evangelism. They blew, they got rid of community service. They got tried to get rid of disaster relief, but there was such an upheaval from the, the, you know, groundswell that that didn't go away.

38:33

And too many state conventions and associations already had disaster relief trucks and people and all that kind of thing.

38:38

So then they started send relief on the side. Of course, they put all their marketing to that and started pouring money into it.

38:45

But now we find out that they're soliciting. They're soliciting more money from the

38:50

U S Congress spending 600 ,000 of our cooperative program dollars to do that.

38:56

Now, when you ask the North American mission board, why are you spending that kind of money on that?

39:01

Why are you spending that kind of money on gifts to try to buy loyalty? So it seems from individuals and from churches and pastors, why are you speaking?

39:10

This is their response. Their response is, well, it's a private donor. We've got private donors doing that.

39:15

Really? You know what? Every time I give to my local church, I'm a private donor. And every time churches give those private gifts to the, the, the cooperative program to the

39:24

North American mission board, those are private. And without a friend's got it. You have no way of actually knowing if they're lying to you.

39:31

So you, one of the things that you brought up that just made me think of something that is bigger and broader, culturally speaking, perhaps here is that.

39:41

Okay. So I've seen this on a small scale. I've seen this on a large scale. There's a lot of innovation today.

39:48

I mean, so much so in the secular world that, you know, we don't even, we're inventing our own genders, but in the, in Southern Baptist life, what you just said rings so familiar with stories

40:00

I've heard. And one in particular, I'm thinking of that is FBC Naples, where they were going to have a pastor come in, who was, um, had some new ideas.

40:07

We'll just say for the church and those who wanted the pastor to come, who were leading the church also had new ideas for the church.

40:14

They wanted to gut things. They wanted to get rid of certain ministries or size them down. And, and it was all pretty immediate, pretty drastic stuff.

40:23

And, and this is, um, a problem even with a lot of seminarians. I was told this when I was in seminary a few years ago, that a lot of the graduates going out and sometimes maybe their ideas were correct on certain things, but they would go in like a wrecking ball into churches and churches were being destroyed all over the place, which is why apparently, according to one of the professors

40:42

I had, they were implementing courses in, uh, discipleship and Christian. Um, I forget the title, but it was, it was basically

40:48

Christian living, you know, holiness, those kinds of things, prayer, because they, they realized like, well, people are going out and implementing things that they're and they're not doing it with the spirit of graciousness.

40:59

They're not actually thinking about the tangible people. This is going to affect, it's just impose the idea that we learned.

41:06

And, um, and so you're talking about the same thing with NAM here. It's it's let's go in with like a wrecking ball. Let's be innovators.

41:12

Everything that happened before us, it's prideful. It's like, they just must've gotten everything wrong.

41:18

We're the ones to all of a sudden get right. Cause we have so much wisdom. And instead of building on the past, uh, and, and maybe, um, some gradually introducing things that could help, there's just a dismissal of everything that associated with the past.

41:34

And, and so what you're saying is just part of a larger trend in my mind going on all over the place with out with the old in with the new.

41:44

Uh, and who cares who gets hurt in the process? You know, there's as a, who is it?

41:49

Stalin who said it takes a few, you're going to break a few eggs. So we'll break a few eggs and that's fine.

41:56

Um, so anyway, I, I just, um, I feel like you do as far as optimism for the future of the

42:03

SBC. It's very hard to see any silver linings, but. Is there anything, I mean,

42:08

I don't know if you're going to the convention, but what kind of hope do you have for maybe a turnaround here?

42:14

What I was going to say is, you know, when, when the great commission resurgence first passed in 2010, Kevin Eazell became the president at North American mission board.

42:24

We saw a change over in several entities as far as leadership. Um, and there was an optimism.

42:31

Okay. There was an optimism across the convention. Many people were not happy with the task force document and the things that stated and how they explained away things, but there was an optimism.

42:43

Let's wait and see, you know, maybe this will be better. Well, you know, here we are more than a decade later.

42:50

We look back at all the metrics. We look back and we can look at the numbers. We can look at the North American mission board numbers.

42:56

We can look at, at other things that we see the social justice movement as it's impacted, you know, seminaries and other organizations.

43:04

We see the kinds of leadership that we've put in places so we can look back. And it, it just reminds me of a saying that we used in, in church planting assessments all the time.

43:13

And it's a real simple saying easy to remember, but it'll make a big difference when you look at things. And it's simply this past behavior is the best predictor of future performance.

43:23

Past behavior is the best predictor of future performance. So we are far enough along now in this whole thing with the great commission resurgence that we can see what the past has been.

43:35

We can see how people have been just bulldozed over. We can see how people have just been walked over.

43:42

We can see how our SBC, SBC legal documents have been ignored. I mean, we haven't even hit on the things that NAM did related to taking the

43:51

Southern Baptist convention to the U S fifth circuit court. And then to the United States Supreme court and the kind of things that they said that are not in line with our

44:00

SBC documents. Okay. They blatantly deceived saying that we were a hierarchical organization saying, you know,

44:08

I mean, they told the U S fifth circuit court agreed at the U S fifth circuit court that the trustee board for the

44:15

North American mission board was a hundred percent ministers. It's not, it's about 50, 50 give or take, but they wouldn't admit to that because they knew it reflected poorly on their defense.

44:25

So you look at all these kinds of behaviors. You look at how they manipulate the truth to come out with a certain narrative, how they want to paint a certain picture.

44:33

And you realize that past behavior is a definite predictor for the future. And so that's why

44:39

I don't have near as much optimism. I'm not going to say that we're going to disintegrate away, but I think we've been in a slow spiral down for quite a while.

44:49

The numbers show that. Uh, and I think part of that is because of the power grab, the, the, the elite leaders that we've had behind the scenes, you know, we've got the, the

44:59

Tom McRainers, the Al Mohlers, the Kevin Eazels, the, I mean, all of these guys that are behind the scenes that, uh, had been working together.

45:07

Uh, I mean, even David Platt, when he was at IMB, remember when he left, I can't remember. I wish I had that quote, but he made the comment that he just couldn't take the backroom deals and all that stuff anymore.

45:17

Yep. Well, that was true. I wish he'd said that while he was there and made a stand, you know, and named some of the names.

45:24

Absolutely. Yeah. And said, Hey, look, this is what's going on because that is what's going on. And, and the problem is, is it's a very narrow mind and especially a mind for those who don't fully understand what it means to cooperate as Southern Baptist.

45:39

And most of the people in your, my, well, I'm, I'm in a small church plant right now that I'm helping, but, uh, whatever church you're in Southern Baptist church you're in the largest majority of the people would be flabbergasted to hear even a portion of what we have been talking about, to hear something like that about one of our national entity leaders.

46:02

Oh, my soul. That can't be true. I think you're right. I think, I think it would shock. It would just create such a,

46:09

I mean, that's why you're on this podcast. Cause a lot, thousands of Southern Baptists, uh, listen to this and, uh, and I want them to hear what you're saying because, um, the, the word it's hard to get the word out there.

46:20

I, I did want to ask you though. Uh, so are you going to the convention in Anaheim or no? No, there's, there's no way financially possible.

46:27

I can do it. Okay. So this is one of the pernicious issues. Yeah. Uh, every year for the last few years, at least, um, for conservative churches to go, it's very difficult.

46:38

So I do want to say this and I'll talk to you more off screen about it, but, um, I have been told there is a, uh, a website that you can go to and apply for.

46:48

This is the first year I've ever seen this. And I think it's coming from an outside group that wants to give scholarships to help people go.

46:55

Um, so yeah, I have seen that one year and a little bit this year, but the stipulation on the one

47:02

I saw was you had to vote for a particular candidate. We'll give you money to go. Oh, it might be. And it's like, yeah, that's no different than NAM paying for people to go.

47:10

Like they said they did last year. Yeah. I haven't seen the website yet. I just, I was told about it a few days ago. And that'd be interesting to say.

47:16

Yeah. Okay. So, so I'm assuming it's probably Tom Askle. If you're going to go vote for Tom Askle, then we'll pay. Yeah, it might be. Uh, okay.

47:22

Well, I'm going to look into that. And if, uh, if I can find the website, I'll put it in the info section, uh, just for people who are curious about it, but, um, so, so you're not going to be in Anaheim, uh, if, okay.

47:34

So for people who are going to Anaheim, any, uh, any thoughts you'd want to leave with them before we, um, and, and this interview?

47:44

Well, uh, I think the significant things is, you know, our, the core of, of where our issues come back to really is our trustee system.

47:55

And the, the things that we are seeing happen, whether it be the North American mission board, whether it be

48:01

Lifeway, you know, chairman, uh, of the trustees giving a million dollar payout to Rainer, you know, without anybody knowing it, whether it be whatever it is, then the trustees don't reign those things in the trustees feel as if they're there to serve the elite leaders that are in those positions rather than to oversee rather than to help administrate rather than to help give the vision for what needs to happen for Southern Baptist.

48:27

And so, you know, many of the things that need to take place, you mentioned forensic audits a while ago.

48:33

Absolutely. I mean, there needs to be forensic audits of the North American mission board for sure.

48:39

Because when they say we've got 90, 92 million, whatever it is in a church planting line, but there's no explanation of, of what, what, how are we spending $92 million to get less than 600 churches?

48:51

Okay. Where is that money going? What are we spending that much money on? Well, I know some of those church planters who are receiving a small stipend from, from North American mission board.

49:03

And I say small because many of them are just like $500 or a thousand dollars a month. Well, that's not been 12 ,000 a year.

49:09

Where in the world is the other 90, 92 million going? Okay. Well, why do we not ask for, for a better accounting?

49:16

Okay. Well, there, there, and I don't know if there's anything being done illegally or not. I don't know if there's money laundering.

49:23

I don't know. There's no way to know how much of the money is being spent because it's all being hidden.

49:28

And when you ask, even for things as simple as you ask for, you know, we'll send us the salary structures.

49:34

Yeah. I mean, from the stage last year in the convention, a messenger from Tennessee, Western Tennessee, he got up and he said to Kevin Ezell publicly, and you look it up on the website and see him actually do it.

49:48

He says, look, I came to get the salary structure for our top execs at the

49:53

North American mission board. And he was told, look, you know, we've given you everything we can give you.

49:58

And he turned it over to the chairman of the board. Well, the messenger said, when

50:04

I've called your office multiple times, I was told there's nothing else you need. If you want anything else, you're going to have to bring it up on the floor of the convention.

50:12

He did. Okay. After that, this messenger and other West Tennessee pastors were in a meeting where Kevin Ezell came and Kevin Ezell said, now there's more than one witness to this.

50:24

He said to them, and it's a rough quote, but he said to them, I don't need your money. 90 % of the money

50:31

I get comes from 11 % of the churches in the SBC. And I don't need your little church's money.

50:37

Wow. And the Sam Hill has the gall to say something like that. These are small.

50:43

In fact, I can almost guarantee you that man's church. And I don't know him personally, but that man's church,

50:49

I can almost guarantee you that historically that man's church has given more to the cooperative program on a percentage basis of their undesignated gifts than Kevin Ezell churches ever have.

51:00

I pastored two churches that the one I was pastoring. When I went to Michigan, we gave 32 and a half percent to the cooperative program, seven and a quarter to the association.

51:08

The church I went to that church from, which was basically right out of seminary, the church

51:14

I pastored there, we gave 25 % to the cooperative program and another 5 % to the association.

51:19

Those people would be infuriated to hear that we've got a guy saying something like that, who pastored a church that didn't even give 1%.

51:28

Well, you know, it just goes to show what I was saying earlier, that there is a disrespect for the past.

51:34

That little church could have given for a hundred years and it doesn't seem to matter because what's happening right now, we got some mega churches that are filling the coffers.

51:42

You know, I know of situations. There's a church I'm even thinking of now that's just, it's bloated with pastors paid for by NAM, but it's a little bitty church.

51:54

They can't sustain the amount of pastors they have. And it's just, I don't know. I've seen so much waste, you know, is what are they doing?

52:01

What, what actually on the ground can you point to that says there's actually effectiveness going on here?

52:06

Or is it just, is it just a job that NAM is paying for? Maybe even some nepotism or something like that involved.

52:16

There's this stuff is, is, is under the surface it's, it's bubbling. And I think it may bubble over at the convention this year.

52:23

We'll see. I know they try to keep kind of a lock on kind of what's going on, but you know, there's a lot of people going that are upset.

52:33

So your message is to fight for those forensic audits, accountability. That's the big thing here.

52:39

And I think that that'll go a long way. That's a good first step. If there's a way to do that. And I think with the sexual abuse task force, there's it, there's been proven now a way to do that, to at least try to, to bring about some accountability.

52:55

And so anyway I appreciate you sharing your story and coming on. I appreciate the opportunity and sorry to get worked up, but.

53:02

Oh, I understand. These things can work people up. So if people want to check out your website or I should say your

53:07

Facebook group, you don't have a website, do you? Well, yeah, I know I do. You can go to dynamicchurchministries .com

53:13

and find the, just the business website. That's the business that I started a while back and do consulting with.

53:20

And then of course on Facebook, all my social media, but Facebook is slash Bobby Gillstrap.

53:25

And then Twitter and Instagram is Bobby underscore Gillstrap. So I'm pretty easy to find.

53:32

I'll post links in the info section for people and they can check out the SPC issues Facebook page if they're interested in that.