Discussion on Social Justice, Corruption, and Abuse Before SBC 2021

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:13

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We have two guests today.

00:18

We have Kyle Witt and we have Randy Adams, and I'll just briefly give you an introduction.

00:24

You can actually go on the podcast and check out episodes where I have talked about Kyle Witt and I've interviewed

00:29

Randy Adams. Both of them, though, are from the Northwest, so that's one of the things they have in common.

00:35

The other thing they have in common is both of them have interacted somewhat with the North American Mission Board from different angles.

00:42

One from the bottom with trying to get involved with church planning, that's Kyle, and then Randy, of course, being the head of the

00:48

Northwest Baptist Association. Both of you, thank you for coming on and being willing to talk about NAMM and the

00:54

SBC. We know the convention's next week. I think there's just a lot of questions people have. They're trying to navigate things, and I appreciate you both helping us do that.

01:05

Thank you, John. Appreciate it. Glad to. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you, John. Thank you. Thank you for having us on.

01:11

Really appreciate drawing attention to some of these things that need to be examined. Yes, sir.

01:18

Well, I want to start with you, Kyle. You put out a video a few weeks, two weeks ago now, almost, cataloging your experience with the

01:27

North American Mission Board. You said you were training with them for two years. You wanted to plant a church in the

01:34

Seattle area, the greater Seattle area, and what ended up happening where you ran into not just a false gospel, it sounds like, which

01:43

I'll let you explain to the listeners briefly, and then you also ran into kind of some corruption, almost, it sounds like, or at least you're kicked to the curb in a way, it sounds like.

01:58

You're not meant to ask those questions, sort of this elitist mindset. I want to ask you, how are you doing since you released that?

02:06

Have you received anything from NAM? Have you received a lot of encouragement? Have people been upset at you?

02:12

What's the story there? I'd say overall, it's been a really positive reception.

02:20

Obviously, there's a lot of people that disagree. NAM very much disagrees.

02:26

They haven't reached out to me at all. They haven't said anything to me, but all of my

02:32

NAM accounts have been wiped clean of any information on them. So their stance on me is very clear.

02:45

It's definitely been still a difficult experience because there still have been a lot of people that disagree with me, even finding friends that disagree adamantly with me that I didn't think were going to, and losing relationships that I really, really value.

03:08

Putting yourself out there like that is going to get you attacked, whether it's from other people or it's spiritual warfare, and that's definitely been something that I've been experiencing on either side, is just that sort of continuous pressure.

03:28

So it's not an easy or fun position. That's my point. Yeah. Well, we're thankful that you were willing to do this and to shed light where it seems like there's a lot of darkness.

03:38

I know I get questions about not just NAM, but other entities and kind of what's going on.

03:44

What are they really teaching? People that would be great whistleblowers, but are afraid of losing their jobs, and they're sometimes telling me, informing me about what's going on, and it's not always that great.

03:55

I'd like to ask you though, Randy, because you're the head of the

04:01

Northwest Baptist Association. Did this kind of thing surprise you, what

04:06

Kyle went through? Have you heard stories like this that haven't made it to the light of day?

04:13

Yeah, it's really not surprising. One of the changes at the

04:19

North American Mission Board over the last 10 years is they have taken control or charge of all of the assessment of church planters.

04:28

So all of the guidelines, all of the funding, the way we used to do it is

04:34

NAM worked through state conventions, which meant we knew who the church planters were. We were much more involved in the assessment process.

04:42

All of the funding that went to a church planter came through the convention. So there was a relationship there.

04:48

We knew who they were. We knew how much money they were receiving, and we were a part of the assessment.

04:53

That's all changed. So that now, any new church planter, the money goes through the sending church, and that sending church for the

05:01

Northwest, for example, which is Oregon, Washington, and North Idaho, sending church could be in Texas or North Carolina, and they have no real relationship or knowledge of our work in the

05:10

Northwest necessarily, and we may not of them. So there's a lack of accountability when you have that.

05:17

You don't have local leadership involved with your church planters, local associational leaders, convention leaders, and whatnot.

05:23

You can get into situations like Kyle experienced, unfortunately, and people are making decisions about your life that don't know you, don't live where you live.

05:34

They live in another state, another region of the country, maybe don't understand our culture, our territory, and again, don't have the relationship with the churches and the pastors so that they can more effectively develop responses and develop strategies and work with guys in a more personal way.

05:55

It's more corporate, in a sense, and theologically.

06:00

Oh, go ahead, Kyle. I was just agreeing with you because that's everything that I was experiencing, that sort of top -down rigidity, which is not officially how they claim they operate, but when you control the training, the assessment, and the posturings, you get that control.

06:22

Well, this sounds like a problem, and I would wonder, Southern Baptists who are listening, that all they want to do is give their money and it to go to making disciples of all the nations.

06:36

What's the solution here? It sounds like, Randy, you are supporting Kyle in some way, at least.

06:43

It's actually almost shocking. I don't know if this would happen with hardly anyone else in the position that you're in where they would actually stand with someone who is at odds with an entity like the

06:53

North American Mission Board, but you're doing that. What's the solution here? How do we get back to local accountability and authority and just getting rid of this secrecy and the false gospel that comes with it?

07:09

Right. I think it begins with transparency. I think Southern Baptists, NAM is really good at marketing.

07:15

They're not very good at planning churches, nor are they very good at helping us do evangelism. So, for example, even though their church planning budget has grown by threefold, $50 million a year increase, we're planning less than half as many churches.

07:29

The reason being is they alienated and eliminated, really, the relationships at the local level.

07:35

They have a strategy. It's sort of like, one thing that came to me the other day, it's like kicking against the goats.

07:42

When you have a top -down strategy in which you, from maybe even a population demographic, decide that the cities are where you need to put your resources and your people and whatnot, not necessarily, however, understanding those cities or knowing how

07:58

God's at work either in those cities or maybe nearby towns. NAM leadership, they know the name

08:06

Seattle. They might know the name Spokane. They probably haven't heard of Wenatchee. Maybe not even Coeur d 'Alene or Richland or any number of towns, sizable in many cases, in the

08:17

Northwest, Longview, Washington, places like that, where people who live there actually know.

08:23

And they know what the needs are. They know what the issues are. They know where the strong churches are and where people and places are that are underchurched.

08:31

You always do better if you defer to those who live there and are at the local level.

08:37

And then the other thing is, if NAM gets it wrong strategically or theologically, it affects all of North America.

08:45

If we go off the rails in the Northwest, then it affects the Northwest. But it doesn't affect

08:50

California or Maryland. But if NAM goes off the rails in terms of their strategy or their theology or their practice of assessing church planters, whatever it might be, then it affects the entire country.

09:03

And so my contention is, they've gone off the rails in certain respects. And even though they have tons and tons of money that they're applying to church planting, they're getting far less for it.

09:14

And now, as we see some of the theological issues emerge, adding the great requirement, which

09:20

I hadn't even heard of until fairly recently, this social justice element to the gospel, and saying that the gospel isn't sufficient if you don't have the great requirement, some social justice aspect added to it,

09:33

I mean, that just flies in the face. If Southern Baptists knew that, and on video, the president of the

09:41

SEND network, Hoddie Lewis, is recorded on video talking about this great requirement and how the gospel is incomplete if you don't have that included in the gospel.

09:52

And it's scandalous. It's wrong. It's not biblical. It's not correct. But it will affect the entire church planting network in all of North America, because it's taught down from NAM, not respecting those of us at the local level.

10:10

Wow, that was powerful. And it's incredible to me to even hear someone going after NAM.

10:18

I mean, this probably doesn't make you many friends, Randy, I would imagine. And actually,

10:23

Randy, I think your video might have gone out there for a second. You know what? I've got to. Oh, okay, that's fine.

10:29

I had a phone call coming in. Can you imagine that? I'm on my iPhone. And so I didn't know what that did to the camera, but obviously it messed it up.

10:38

Oh, that's fine. Yeah, I think I've had that happen before, too. And I know you're in a hotel. Are you in Nashville right now?

10:45

Getting ready for the convention? I'm in Nashville now. Okay. Yes. Kyle, you're not in Nashville, I don't think.

10:50

I can see by the log cabin wood behind you, it looks like you're in the Northwest. Yep, yep.

10:57

When this all happened with NAM, did you reach out to Randy at the time? Because he's over the

11:03

Northwest region there at all. Are you free to talk about some of that?

11:09

Or how did you? I mean, originally, I didn't. I was kind of just going through this, collecting information on my own.

11:19

And eventually, I did reach out to Randy. The main reason I hadn't contacted him before was because I didn't have any contact information besides his cell phone that I had through an email that a pastor had shared with me.

11:34

Can I stop you there for one second? NAM did not tell you about the local Northwest Baptist Association.

11:41

There was no communication or anything there. Is that what you're saying, that they didn't even give you the contact information for people locally that could have helped you?

11:52

Not exactly. Because when I first started with church planting, the

11:58

Northwest Baptist was still heading that up. It was during that process of going through all the assessments and planting that NAM very aggressively took over operations.

12:15

And that's how I learned about Randy and his fight against the corruption.

12:21

Because he was very transparent. So you were part of that transition then that Randy was just talking about.

12:27

Okay, that makes sense. So when you did find out you got Randy's contact info, you were able to call him up.

12:34

Was that encouraging to at least know that you're not crazy? You're not alone. I don't know if you felt that way, if NAM was making you feel that way.

12:41

It was very encouraging. Randy was incredibly gracious to listen to me.

12:49

Even to listen to me talk about certain things that I had experienced in the Northwest Baptist.

12:56

He is, you know, I wouldn't be in this fight right now. I would have made the choice to just walk away completely if it wasn't for people like Randy in positions that are, you know, influential stepping up.

13:14

A lot of people have thanked me for being a whistleblower. But I'm just a domino that was hit by another domino.

13:22

You know, people like Randy, people like Russell Fuller, people like Tom Rush that have come forward and started this.

13:31

I'm just a piece of that. Yeah, well, I think a lot of people are wondering if you have plans to still, even though it's not with NAM, start a church in that Northwest region.

13:45

I don't know if there's resources that the Northwest Baptist Association has or not. I mean, most Christian ministries are struggling right now.

13:51

But is there a way that you can cooperate together, maybe to accomplish this without NAM's help?

13:58

Or is the problem right now NAM has got such a stranglehold on Southern Baptist money that it makes it difficult?

14:05

Well, I mean, I'll let Randy talk about the money stuff with NAM because he knows more than I do.

14:11

But on my end, I had been for at least the past eight plus months already of the opinion that I was not going to take any money from NAM.

14:24

And I was already looking for, you know, funding from other sources. I, the whole point of planning a church was not

14:32

NAM wanted a church planted. The whole point of planning a church was there's a need and I feel confident that God has called me to pursue that need.

14:43

Amen. So that's not stopping. I'm glad, I'm glad it's not.

14:49

That shouldn't stop you. Randy, is there a way to coordinate this?

14:55

Or is it like if NAM rejects you, you can't cooperate with the Southern Baptist to plan a church?

15:01

Yeah, that's a great question. No, in fact, a lot of churches that start every year

15:06

NAM has nothing to do with. Last year, it was reported that there were 588 new churches started by Southern Baptist.

15:14

And I don't know because NAM doesn't report. And that's part of the whole transparency issue. It's part of the trust issue.

15:20

Transparency builds trust. And NAM doesn't tell us how many of those churches they fund. I do know they fund far fewer than that.

15:28

I would guess maybe 300 to 400 last year they funded. So every year we have churches across the country that start without NAM's help or funding.

15:38

So it's very, very possible to do that. And that's true in the Northwest as well. Sometimes because a person like Kyle has just come to the point, they decide they're not going to pursue

15:48

NAM funding. Sometimes guys don't qualify for one reason or another. And there may be a good reason they don't.

15:56

There may not be. Or sometimes they just don't want to jump through the hoops and all of that, that sometimes you have to with North America Mission Board.

16:07

So in the Northwest, for example, we don't have a great deal of funding right now because a lot of our funding came through the

16:14

North America Mission Board. And we had joint funding for church planting staff.

16:19

All of that is ending. So what we've chosen to do, different than some, we are keeping all of our church planting staff.

16:26

So for example, I'll have five guys in the Northwest just to work with people like Kyle. And some of those people will receive

16:33

NAM funding. Some won't receive NAM funding. But they'll at least have someone in the

16:39

Northwest who's working with them, encouraging them, helping, training, all of that. The funding, the monthly funding, right now we don't have a great deal of monthly funding, but we do have relationship.

16:53

And what I've told our staff, and increasingly our convention, is that we're prioritizing relationship over funding.

17:00

And so that's why we've kept our staff. Gotcha. Well, you're both in the Northwest. And I was just recently, obviously,

17:07

I was with you, Randy, near Portland. I went into Portland and I saw kind of the situation there. And it's shocking for anyone who's never been there, if they're coming from especially a small

17:17

Southern town, or even just a small Midwestern town, to see that the attitude, and I won't go into all the details of what that looks like, but secularism is the supreme religion.

17:31

It would seem that where you are, and you're close to Portland, I know, this is a place where Southern Baptist ought to be looking towards funding churches and also experiment, not experimenting in a scientific sense, but at least figuring out, okay, what's the best way to go about church planning in this culture?

17:51

Because this is what's happening to the whole country. It seems like all the things we read about in the news that we're scared of happening, they're already happening in Portland.

17:59

So this is the place for Christianity to shine the brightest. And I know you have a lot of experience with that, which is certainly,

18:07

I think, needed. And as you go into the convention next week,

18:13

I know you're running for president. Coming from this very secular world, and then you're going to be in Nashville with all these

18:21

Christians, most of them probably from the Bible Belt. What's on your mind as far as what you'd like to see happen?

18:29

I don't know if you have a written platform or anything like that, but when it comes to NAMM, I know the

18:34

ERLC is a hot button issue right now, so the sex abuse stuff. What do you want to see happen in the

18:40

SBC to prepare this big denomination for what's coming? Because we can see it, and I know you're living it.

18:47

Well, at randyadams .org, I do have ideas and a platform, you might say, and people can see that at randyadams .org.

18:54

I have a lot of articles listed there. But you're right. In the Northwest, about 4 % are in church on Sunday.

19:02

More people claim to have no religion than claim Christianity is their religion in the Northwest, the nuns, as they've been called.

19:10

The Northwest is kind of the home to a lot of the nuns. And so in terms of evangelism, in fact,

19:15

I don't talk about church planting. I talk about church gathering. I don't really like the term planting. I think you plant the gospel in the hearts of people, and then you gather those who say yes to Jesus into a church.

19:27

And so that's really what we think of. Sometimes in the Bible Belt, new churches can start by gathering believers who are disaffected from another church.

19:37

That's not very easy to do in the Northwest. There aren't many of those kinds of people there. What we need are evangelists.

19:44

We need people who are sharing the gospel of Christ and then gathering those people, making disciples, and then gathering those disciples into churches, new and old.

19:52

That's really what the focus is in the Northwest. And increasingly, that's what it is in the country. My platform is transparency.

20:00

Transparency builds trust. Accountability stops corruption. Participation empowers churches.

20:06

And I say that because we do have a lot of issues right now in Southern Baptist life. NAM is one of them. The dearth of evangelism and church starts, new church starts, we're at an all -time low.

20:18

Our baptisms last year, now it was a pandemic year, but we baptized the same amount we did in 1919, which was the last great pandemic, the flu epidemic of 1919.

20:28

So we're really sucking wind. We are in a world of hurt. We're in steep decline. And if we don't wake up to the reality of our current situation,

20:38

I don't think God is gonna bless us with the spiritual resources required to see him do what he wants to do through us.

20:46

I believe God wants to reach people. I believe God wants to start churches. He wants people to know him.

20:53

But God finds a people who are righteous and holy and have a heart for him through whom to work.

20:59

And Southern Baptists aren't those people. He'll find someone else. My hope is that we can be those people, but we got to root out the corruption in our own camp.

21:08

And we have corruption in our own camp. And I document that in a lot of the articles I've written, giving very specific examples, which

21:16

I think we have to do. But when we're talking about theological problems, financial problems, issues with the

21:22

North American Mission Board, the very first step to dealing with all of these is just identifying reality.

21:28

And that's what transparency is intended to do. The reality of our theology, the reality of our finances, the reality of our performance.

21:36

So transparency and the reason right now we are in such bad shape, or at least one huge reason is we don't trust.

21:44

There's very little trust. Trust has been greatly damaged between leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention.

21:50

And that's because there is this lack of transparency. Now, Baptist people, the average Baptist pastor, they just want to love people.

21:57

They want to reach people for Jesus. They want to send missionaries. I mean, that's where our churches are. And I think our churches and our pastors are heartbroken that we're not able to focus on the mission because Southern Baptists are proud of themselves as a mission -minded, mission -hearted people.

22:14

And they're heartbroken when we get distracted from the mission. But what I would say is when you don't have trust, you won't have a united mission.

22:25

And therefore we have to have transparency and accountability to build back trust. If we don't do that, we'll lose whatever we think we now have.

22:34

You know, Randy, you just said something remarkable that I haven't heard a lot of,

22:39

I don't know if I've heard anyone say it the way you just said it, but that God's going to use someone, but it may not be the

22:46

Southern Baptist. You're open to that idea that it just may not be that denomination. And to me, that is a breath of fresh air because I have heard even from conservatives, this sort of institutional thinking that we're the

22:59

Southern Baptist Convention. And there's so much of an identity wrapped up in that, but it's very hard to ever criticize any of the people that are running some of these entities or the entities themselves.

23:10

It's very hard to shine a light when people are unwilling to do it. And so you seem like a kingdom -minded person.

23:17

This is one of the vehicles for God to use, but it may, look, if this vehicle crashes and goes off the road,

23:23

God's going to pick another one. And that is a breath of fresh air to me.

23:29

And I'm so glad you said that. On a practical level, Kyle, and I'll start with you, and then

23:35

I want to hear what Randy says too, but in the Northwest, I know there's not a lot of Southern Baptists. The ones that are there though, that are trying to plant churches, that are trying to make inroads into reaching this very lost culture for the most part, if it's anything like what

23:50

I saw in Portland. If they're doing what

23:55

Nam and Dottie Lewis want them to do, which is this sort of social justice attachment to the gospel thing, number one, is that happening a lot?

24:08

Are the new church plants doing that? And number two, is it working? And Kyle, if you have any examples of that,

24:13

I'd be curious to hear them. I guess it means a little bit, what do you mean by working?

24:20

Yeah, yeah, no, I caught myself when I said that. Working in the sense that like, are they actually getting people in?

24:27

Even if it's, you know, can they point to a metric that says, this is successful and this is spreading

24:33

Christianity or some version of it, even if it's not true Christianity, can they at least try to brag about it and say that, hey, our new strategies are working?

24:44

Yeah, talking about, let's talk about the first part of that question about the, you know, is it happening?

24:53

Because most of my relationships are with younger planted churches and more recently planted churches and things of that nature.

25:04

And I can say, yeah, it exists. It is,

25:11

I mean, up here in the Northwest, not just specifically Southern Baptist, but we were woke before it was cool.

25:19

We were woke before it was a thing. Like you mentioned about Portland, we're ahead of the curve on that.

25:27

But yeah, it's definitely in churches, in the plants that I've seen in the planters that have closely partnered with NAM and it's strongly there for some of them.

25:42

What are they doing? Can you give an example maybe of what that might look like? What are the new Southern, some of these Southern Baptist plants that are on this more social justice agenda?

25:49

How are they going about, let's say evangelism or reaching their community? It's again, it's that social gospel.

25:59

We got to focus on the works and the actions in the community rather than giving them gospel.

26:06

Some of the even younger churches, last summer when all of the

26:12

BLM protests erupted, they were not just pushing, we got to talk about these things, but they were pushing specifically

26:24

Black Lives Matter. They were sermon after sermon. There's this one plant

26:31

I was following that I was encouraged to follow as a good example of planting.

26:39

I had to unfollow them on Facebook just because that was week after week after week of just pushing the critical race theory,

26:55

Black Lives Matter agenda, systemic racism, how we should feel terrible as white people.

27:04

Bringing in Black pastors because we've got to hear from them and their voice and their perspective.

27:14

Does that mean that's in every plant? No, but you can see how it's working.

27:21

It's working its way in there. The agendas that Send Network has been pushing, it is having an impact.

27:32

It's having impact how these planters think. It's having an impact on the church structure that's coming out of it.

27:39

A lot of the church structures are very deconstructed. I mean, the popular thing nowadays in a lot of planting is to not have weekly

27:52

Sunday gatherings, but to do rotating things. One week's a small group, the next week's a fun week, the next week is a big church gathering, and the week after that's a service project.

28:07

Now, should all of those things exist in a church? Yes, but it seems like you're lowering the bar rather than encouraging people to participate in more and more.

28:17

It sounds like some social justice version of Loving Neighbor is replacing Loving God and you have a social club emphasis instead of a church.

28:25

Yes, because they're taking the focus. They're taking the focus off of God. God first, believer second, and the nonbeliever third.

28:35

You can't take care of the nonbeliever until you've got the focus in the right areas, but they flip it on its head that we've got to focus on the nonbeliever and God end up being at the bottom.

28:49

I think as people hear this, and I had heard of a story in, I thought it was a Southern Baptist church in that area in Seattle that was going out and apologizing on behalf of Christianity for the racism and the abuse and all these things.

29:04

It's Christian's fault, which kind of in my mind sounds like, it's like saying, hey,

29:10

I'm part of the Ku Klux Klan, but we're not racist anymore, so come and join us. Why would anyone want to join that?

29:17

Exactly. So you're aware, so it sounds like you know about that particular situation there.

29:24

This is something as people are listening, it makes them mad to know they gave missions money to go to plant churches, for people to be missionaries, to spread the gospel, not to become a social club, not to promote the social gospel, but the true gospel that can save men's souls for eternity.

29:43

And then this is what it's being used for. Randy, I would want to know people that are angry about this who are showing up in Nashville next week, what can they do about this?

29:53

Are there floor motions? Are there resolutions they can pass? I mean, if you're elected, what would you do?

30:00

Would you be able to even do something as drastic as call for a stop to maybe cooperative program giving until this issue stops?

30:08

And I know that sounds drastic, but people are that angry. What do we do about this? Well, I can't tell you in the

30:15

Northwest when it comes to cooperative program giving, for example, and we're not unique in this, but we have churches that have told us, and I've made it very clear to all of our pastors, if your church does not want to support something in the

30:30

SBC, it could be NAM, it could be the ERLC, whatever it might be, we will help you do that.

30:37

I don't advocate that as a state exec. I don't advocate it. But what I always tell a pastor is,

30:42

I understand. I understand where you're coming from. And sometimes I go a little bit beyond saying

30:49

I understand. But for example, we had a church just a few weeks ago voted to leave the

30:55

Southern Baptist Convention, but they did not want to leave the Northwest Baptist Convention. And I said, you can do that.

31:01

I said, you, if you want, you can support whatever you like of us, but not support the

31:06

SBC. And I said, we will help you do that. Because we're autonomous. We're not a part of the

31:12

Southern Baptist Convention. We affiliate with, we cooperate with when we can and where we can, but we're not a part of the

31:18

Southern Baptist Convention. And therefore a church can affiliate with us, but not the SBC.

31:24

In fact, we do have churches in the Northwest that affiliate directly with the SBC and not with us.

31:30

I fear that with church plants, it's going to become more common to do that.

31:36

If we don't have a relationship with those guys, if NAM is providing everything or making it seem as though they provide everything, then some of our church plans, and when

31:46

NAM knows that we do not have a good relationship with them, we don't agree with what they're doing.

31:51

It could be that we could have some of our new churches choose not to affiliate with us.

31:57

I hope not, because they're going to be a Northwest Baptist Church after they're no longer a church plant.

32:04

If in fact they align with us theologically. Now I will say, for example, with our churches, they have to adhere to the

32:11

Baptist Faith and Message 2000. NAM church plants are supposed to do that, though sometimes, and as Kyle has said, they get beyond that.

32:21

And I don't know some of the specific examples that Kyle mentioned, but I do know that last summer during the

32:29

BLM riots, and as you well know, Seattle and Portland were two of the worst cities in the country for the violence that was going on, not just peaceful protests, but violence.

32:38

And I know that churches in that area were really struggling in what to do.

32:44

And we had a couple of pastors, I think three maybe that I know of, went down and prayed with people and whether they did more than that,

32:52

I don't know. I did not attend, and I wasn't in CHOP, for example, in Seattle to actually put my eyes on what was going on.

32:59

But it was a very, very difficult time. I will say, I think at least in one or two guys' cases, they learned a lesson.

33:08

You know, they got caught up in what they saw happening. And I think they realized they got caught up in ways they shouldn't have, posting things on social media and whatnot they shouldn't have posted.

33:19

But anyway, that, again, it gets back at the fact that if all of their support is coming from Alpharetta, Georgia, it gives us less opportunity to have influence in their lives and to help them in situations like they found themselves in last summer.

33:37

Remember, too, a lot of these church planters, they're young guys. They're relatively inexperienced guys.

33:44

And, you know, they haven't pastored churches before, most of them. They haven't planted churches before, most of them.

33:50

They're figuring this out for the very first time. And I think we do these guys a great disservice when we don't, you know, put in their lives local leaders who can help them find their way in a way that won't disrupt or destroy their ministry at the beginning.

34:09

Yeah, and I definitely need to put in a comment there because both in my experience in church planting, but also in Echoed and some of the church planters that have contacted me, is approaching church planting.

34:26

You're supposed to have a sending church. You're supposed to have a, or at least they heavily encourage and usually require a mentorship, which is great.

34:38

We need that. But Echoing from both me and other planters, there's no guidance on what that is.

34:49

And it's not usually a fruitful and productive thing. A mentorship, just in word of you're being mentored, isn't worthwhile unless there's that actual practical one -on -one engagement and growth happening.

35:07

And we need that. We need that as younger planters. Again, as people who often haven't pastored, you know, many have pastored before, but taking on the role of lead pastor, especially in a church that's going to be very small, where you're probably going to be the only pastor, the only elder to start out with.

35:31

We need that accountability. And that just wasn't encouraged.

35:39

Kyle, what you just said, I wonder whether or not this is, it sounds like it's a bad ecclesiology, is this something that is a problem at the highest levels?

35:49

In other words, is this something that isn't meant to be this way? Do they want people loyal to the institution or loyal to NAM or loyal to the

35:57

SBC or something like that, rather than having meaningful connections with local pastors?

36:04

I'm not saying they do. I'm just, I'm wondering if that's a part of this. I don't know,

36:10

Kyle, if you have any insight into that or Randy, if you know anything that would answer that question.

36:16

I mean, I can definitely say that among the, again, the younger plants and planters, there definitely seems to be a

36:27

NAM first attitude, that NAM is their first loyalty rather than any church or state convention or anything of that nature.

36:42

And I feel like that's what NAM breeds. Some of the conversations that I've had where I've even just hinted that there might be a little bit of a question or a problem with NAM among planters.

36:58

I mean, it's literally an aghast reaction. That's scary.

37:04

That's scary to me. Not only is that not the way

37:10

Christians should probably treat each other, it's not even a probably, that's not the way Christians should treat each other. But at the same time, that just seems like a bad ecclesiology.

37:19

It's the local church. This is not an institution that's going to make its way into heaven.

37:24

It's the church that Christ died to redeem. So Randy, what do you think about that? I mean, is that something you've also seen over the years as you've watched

37:33

NAM operate and stuff? Is there greater consolidation, greater loyalty to the brand than there is to the church itself?

37:41

Well, there certainly is an effort to create loyalty to the brand. Almost every funded church planter who's funded by NAM calls himself a

37:50

NAM church planter. I think they're taught to do that. I'm a NAM church planter. And this is true even when they're funded by, say, the

37:59

Northwest Baptist Convention as well. They still call themselves a NAM church planter. Something else that NAM did, began doing a few years ago, is they bring all church planters to Alpharetta, Georgia.

38:09

They bring them to the headquarters. And they have a very nice headquarters. And they take them to Atlanta Braves baseball games and feed them really, really well, wine and dine them.

38:19

And you're really developing a loyalty to the North American Mission Board. And they have the assets to do that.

38:25

Their church planning budget is $75 million. If you're only funding 1 ,000 to 1 ,200 church planters, something like that, you have a lot of money.

38:34

And they're giving them maybe $1 ,000 to $1 ,500 a month. So it leaves a lot of money to do a lot of other things.

38:42

And they can treat them really well. They can send them gift cards. Last November, church planters all across America, the funded church planters got a $5 ,000 gift from NAM.

38:53

Some of that, some of those churches, the money went into their church plant budget. But some of them, it was received as a personal gift.

39:00

My understanding is it was whatever the supporting church chose, if they chose to give it to the planter as a gift or not.

39:06

But that was a gift from NAM. That's the kind of discretionary money they have. So it's not hard for them to develop that kind of loyalty.

39:14

And by the way, they have pastors all over the country, NAM ambassadors, but others as well, who receive a monthly check from NAM.

39:22

These are often very influential pastors, successful pastors, sometimes megachurch pastors who are making a good check, you know, good living already.

39:31

And they're getting $1 ,000 a month from NAM just to represent NAM in the state convention. Usually that means contacting the churches that give the most money and keeping that relationship there.

39:42

But those guys also run interference for NAM. If there's negativity toward NAM in the convention, then they're going to speak up and say a good word on behalf of NAM.

39:51

And by the way, there's also this lawsuit right now before the Supreme Court with Will McCraney. NAM has appealed to the

39:57

Supreme Court. That happens next week. My understanding is the Supreme Court is going to hear that next Thursday.

40:03

If NAM prevails, essentially what that means is, is that they will have the power and the right with no legal recourse from a minister to interfere with your employment and to say defaming things about your character.

40:22

So you think about that. These church planters and pastors, if they get out of sorts with NAM, NAM can effectively destroy their reputation and destroy their ministry by spreading bad information.

40:35

And actually what they're asking SCOTUS, the Supreme Court to do, is to protect them if in fact that is what they do.

40:42

They want First Amendment protection to interfere with the employment of a minister and defame that minister.

40:50

Now I know business has that kind of protection, but because they are a religious institution, they want that kind of protection.

41:00

It's unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, I think of the election, the national election and the term swamp was used so often.

41:09

Drain the swamp. It almost seems like the SBC is ripe for someone to come in and say, make the

41:15

SBC great again and drain the swamp. One of the things I know you've talked about,

41:20

Randy, is doing these forensic audits. And so I don't know the full answer to this.

41:28

I was told recently by someone who is in, who has been higher up in the

41:35

SBC, that's not something the president can order. Even if the president has fiduciary responsibility by nature of being part of the various committees, trustee boards, they cannot open the books.

41:50

And then if they use the bully pulpit, that doesn't work either. That backfires. So it's not, that's not really something that's realistic.

41:56

I know you've said this a lot, though, that not ordering it, but at least trying to put pressure on them to somehow bring an audit about.

42:04

How are you going to do that? Well, again, the first step is transparency. And transparency does involve the audits of the books, but also the president of the convention is a trustee of every entity.

42:18

As such, trustees have fiduciary responsibilities, and that gives them, or it should give them, access to all the financial information.

42:27

Now, I know that some entities don't want that to happen, but I would not serve as a trustee for any entity if they wouldn't give me access to the finances, because trustees are responsible.

42:39

Legally, trustees have an obligation when it concerns the financial propriety or good work of their institution on whose board they sit.

42:50

So that would be number one, the transparency. And then if an entity resisted that,

42:56

I would point out every area of difficulty, corruption, or possible corruption

43:02

I could see. I would make comparisons, as I have with NAMM, but NAMM can choose to ignore me if they want right now.

43:09

But when you're the president of the Southern Baptist Convention and you're demonstrating to Southern Baptists that there's about $50 million in the church planning budget beyond that which goes to the church planter and a monthly supplement, and you want to know where that $50 million goes,

43:24

I defy any entity to defy the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. I'll have a mandate.

43:31

Everybody knows what I'm for, and that's the thing. And that's why I've been so clear. Every Southern Baptist who votes for me, they're voting for me because they want the books open and they want accountability.

43:43

And therefore, I'll have a mandate to which and with which I can take to every entity.

43:49

And if they try to resist that mandate, they're not just resisting the president. This is the Southern Baptist Convention who has spoken through their new president.

43:58

And I would dare say there's no president who has come into that office with a more clear agenda than I than I will.

44:06

And, you know, the bully pulpit now, it may be said that the bully pulpit, it sometimes backfires when presidents have used that, use the pulpit in that way.

44:16

But no president has demanded transparency. I mean, who can stand against an argument for transparency?

44:23

Who can stand against an argument for corruption? And I've had people come to me.

44:28

So, for example, we know that Tom Rainer got an over a million dollar compensation package when he left

44:35

Lifeway. And I've talked about that. Well, just recently, when Russell Moore left the

44:40

ERLC, we learned through a whistleblowing trustee who called me. Now, the reason he called me is he didn't know me.

44:47

I don't know him personally. I've never met him. But he knows what I've been calling for, transparency and accountability.

44:52

So he felt like he could tell me privately the compensation package that they gave

44:58

Russell Moore, which was four months with benefits. Again, he wasn't negotiating this. This is what he was informed through the trustee officers.

45:06

Four months with benefits and another two month salary. And so the question is, Russell Moore quit to take another job.

45:14

He wasn't fired. He didn't retire. And so they're not giving him a retirement gift. He quit with two weeks notice to take another job.

45:21

What pastor has received six months of pay when he leaves one church to go to another?

45:28

I don't think anyone has ever received that. And when you learn that, and when Southern Baptists learn that, they will demand answers for things like that or they'll withhold giving.

45:39

And as I mentioned before, our convention makes it possible for our churches not to support entities that they don't want to support.

45:48

That's the one thing I think these entity leaders really care about is continued funding for their ministry.

45:56

And there are different ways. By the way, the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, if they were not so weak, which they sometimes are weak,

46:04

I believe, they have the power to recommend a change in cooperative program allocation.

46:09

So when we have a problem with an entity, the executive committee can recommend that their cooperative program allocation be reduced.

46:18

Now, they've not yet been willing to do that. They didn't do it with the RLC. They haven't done it with anyone in my memory.

46:24

But they do have that power. They are hesitant to use that power, but they have it.

46:31

And if pressure is brought to bear by Southern Baptists, either in the national meeting or through their president, then that can happen.

46:42

Well, you have now, what, almost 17 ,000 people showing up next week, which many have interpreted this as this is conservatives who are angry coming to right the ship or whatever.

46:55

I think there was some controversy. I'm not even sure what it quite was about. Some guy used a flag, or so I don't even know.

47:01

But there's this anger. There's a sense that they've been giving money to this entity, entities, and this denomination that they're actually getting any return for it.

47:14

It's going to, like politicians, corrupt people. And so my question is, not what can't be done, but what can be done.

47:26

So you've outlined a few things there that you would be able to do as president.

47:33

I'm wondering, you know, are there floor motions that can be brought? Can we start, you know, you said there's kind of the executive committee has been kind of weak.

47:42

Are there board members, maybe not even the executive, but NAM and other entities. But, you know, who knows, maybe the executive too.

47:50

Are there board members that can just be replaced from the floor? I mean, if you have that many people showing up, what can they do to really turn the convention around?

47:59

Right, there are, you can replace board members when they are up for election. But you can only do it one at a time.

48:06

So you would have to pick the board member that you want replaced when he's up for election. And you have to submit an alternate name.

48:14

So it's difficult to replace an entire board that way. It's really not possible because our business session doesn't last that long.

48:21

I think the quickest way to create change is through the president. Because the president has great influence in who the new trustees coming on are.

48:31

The president can appoint committees. In fact, it's interesting to me that I hear from the three machine candidates because the other candidates all represent parties in the

48:40

SBC. And I hear from them what can't be done sometimes. And they say, oh, Adams is promising things he can't do.

48:47

Well, back in 2009, Johnny Hunt established a task force called the Great Commission Task Force, which brought a recommendation to the 2010 meeting called the

48:57

Great Commission Resurgence Recommendation. I think it was a bad recommendation. I think it's the result of much of what we've suffered today in terms of our decline.

49:07

But that motion did pass. And it was a motion voted on by the Southern Baptist Convention, a task force recommendation by the

49:15

Southern Baptist Convention. So it had a lot of authority, a lot of power. The staff at the executive committee could not usurp the vote of the

49:24

Southern Baptist Convention. So that's one thing a president can do. He can appoint a task force that brings recommendations to the convention.

49:32

If the convention accepts those recommendations, those are binding as long as they don't violate the bylaws and the

49:39

Constitution of the SBC, those are binding. And that's one thing that I would definitely look at doing.

49:47

You know, so far as asking NAM to re -up and come up with a new evangelism strategy, people don't even probably know this, most

49:58

Southern Baptists, but NAM eradicated evangelism back in 2011 and 2012.

50:03

We had 50 evangelism staff in the national office. They reduced that to one part -time person and his assistant.

50:11

And he was a pastor, just a part -time event. That's all they had. And they defunded all of the evangelism positions, virtually all, if not all, across the nation.

50:20

If I'm not mistaken, I'm sorry to cut you off. If I'm not mistaken, I think that's been reduced further.

50:26

I just got a message. I'm remembering it from someone, I think in Georgia, but they messaged me.

50:32

And I think they said that the staff person is now the only, they have one person essentially that's focused on evangelism.

50:42

Could you just rattle off those numbers again? They had, what did they go from? They went from how many?

50:48

They went from 50 to a part -time person. And then - 50 to part -time, that's insane.

50:54

50 to one part -time person. And then there were hundreds of positions across the country that were evangelism, associational, collegiate ministry positions.

51:03

They defunded all of those or virtually all of those. And there were hundreds of them. And that's one reason we plummeted into baptisms is because we don't have strategy being developed at the national and the state level like we once did because the funding was reduced.

51:17

It was eliminated actually. Well, then a few years ago, I actually wrote an article and I mentioned this.

51:24

I really outed what had happened and it created kind of a firestorm. And that's when Johnny Hunt was hired.

51:30

He was hired about two months after I wrote this article right before the SBC that created kind of a firestorm.

51:36

Well, Johnny Hunt's a great preacher, but he's not full -time to my knowledge. He's a preacher. He's not an evangelism strategist.

51:42

He doesn't have the staff to do that. They've hired a couple of others. And I know one, the collegiate person still has his collegiate job in California and he works part -time with NAM.

51:54

So they've got a few people who are part -time, maybe one or two full -time people. The person who is actually the executive director for evangelism for the

52:04

North American Mission Board is a female who just two or three years ago was a ministry assistant at NAM.

52:10

Now she's probably a great woman. She's maybe a great personal soul winner, but she's never been a pastor, obviously.

52:17

And she was a ministry assistant. I really don't know her background. I don't have anything against her.

52:22

She may be awesome and wonderful, but I just don't think that a person who's never pastored a

52:27

Southern Baptist church who is a ministry assistant two or three years ago should be leading as the executive director for evangelism the

52:35

North American Mission Board. It just makes no sense. Wow.

52:42

And I think I should have let you talk because I think that's what I was very vaguely remembering. And you just articulated very clearly.

52:50

One more issue I want to get to is the sex abuse thing that's happening that's controversial right now.

52:58

I've talked about this on the podcast. I don't like the way that Caring Well went about this just because I see the...

53:08

And people who are wondering about this can go back and watch or listen to the podcast I put out. But I see standpoint epistemology very at play in who they platformed and how they did it.

53:19

Out of all the people that they had speak, only four of them were pastors and only one was speaking in their capacity as a pastor.

53:27

And that was someone from a counseling pastor from J .D. Greer's church. Everyone else, I mean, they had some lawyers and some other people, but most of it, the emphasis was just on survivors, on victims.

53:38

And their stories, as sad as some of them may be, they possess the knowledge necessary for navigating this.

53:46

You have to believe them. And then they put out a document, the people participating in Caring Well, which is more radical in my mind than the actual conference and the deeper you get into it, my point is the more radical it gets, the more me too, the more believe women.

54:05

There was even one part that said innocence until proven guilty is only for legal matters, not for any matters in the church.

54:13

And they took 1 Corinthians 13 and said, love believes all things. So you should always believe the victim. So without any investigation, without,

54:21

I mean, I think there's a lot of wisdom and discernment that must come with this. And pastors know about that.

54:26

They know that there's people who come to them with stories that aren't true sometimes. And maybe based on past experience, they might have some skepticism.

54:33

They also know there's people that are very trustworthy. They know that come, they're more likely to believe that story or investigate it more.

54:39

And of course the Bible does, there is even in the church, this sort of standard of two or three witnesses.

54:45

But all that aside, not liking Caring Well, that's my own mini critique of it.

54:51

Doesn't there need to be something done? When you do hear some of these legitimate stories of people who,

54:59

I mean, my wife told me a story about when she was young in the church she grew up in, there was a man who came, there was some issues with this man, a pastoral, we became the pastor,

55:10

I guess. And they ended up finding out after he left and did a lot of damage that he had been doing that all over the place, going from church to church, destroying churches, causing a trail of destruction.

55:22

And because there was not communication, because there was not accountability, and the churches weren't motivated to reach out,

55:29

I guess, or they didn't know where this guy had went. It's hard to catch these guys.

55:35

And I know we don't live in a perfect world, but Randy, is there a better way? There's gotta be something.

55:42

Well, yeah, there does. I think one thing we've learned is that we are not very good at investigating ourselves.

55:49

And so when there is a charge made, we need to find an independent way of investigating.

55:56

You know, the Rabbi Zacharias case, among others, have taught us that. They tried to do an internal investigation.

56:02

They totally bungled it and they lost their entire ministry. Basically, they've gone down the tubes.

56:08

And so for the most part, I think. So I think one is you need outside independent investigations when you have allegations like this.

56:18

And there are, I mean, I personally know of a pastor who had multiple affairs in a church.

56:25

This is many, many years ago. And the church was embarrassed by it. And the leaders were.

56:30

And nothing came out publicly to the congregation. But they let the man leave. And he left and moved to another state and found another church.

56:40

And the man who followed him, I didn't know that man. I knew the man who followed him. In one year in a church of less than 150, he had four women come to him and confess that they'd had relations with the former pastor.

56:53

Unbelievable stuff. And so we know things like that happen. We know abuse happens.

56:59

We need to do everything we can to root it out. I'm in favor of an interdenominational database system for offenders.

57:11

Now, here's the thing. Some have said that we need to put people who've been credibly accused into a database.

57:19

That makes me very nervous because first of all, define credible. What is credibly accused? Certainly, we can agree that anyone who's been convicted of a sex offense can be put into that database.

57:31

And there may well be a way we can put others in a database. We would need attorneys and a legal process to do something like that.

57:41

But I do think that the victim or the person who's been harmed and hurt needs to come first.

57:50

And at the end of the day, our churches will be better and stronger and more healthy if we always put the victim first and do everything we can to help that person.

58:01

Again, like you said, John, it doesn't mean you believe every story that you hear, but it does mean that you have to do all you can to help that person and do some kind of investigation to find out if their story is credible.

58:15

And that investigation, again, needs to be some kind of outside independent investigation. Now, I will tell you one thing

58:21

I've done. I've only had, fortunately, once in my whole ministry, a staff member commit acts of immorality that were ever caught.

58:29

In this case, we don't know that he ever did anything illegal, but he was a multiple offender of his marriage vows.

58:37

And he just immediately resigned when he was caught. But what

58:42

I did is I emailed all of our churches, all of our pastors, told them why he resigned, why he was gone.

58:49

We put it in our magazine that we do as well, which is online. It's also printed because we wanted to leave a digital footprint for anyone who did a search of him should he move to another state and try to find another job in a church or something.

59:05

So I think there are things we can do. And in this case, he confessed. There was no question. He confessed what he did.

59:11

So we didn't have a he said, she said type thing going on, which complicates things, obviously. But we're in trouble.

59:18

There's no doubt about it. And I mean, just today, there are stories about how our executive committee of the

59:26

SBC maybe did not handle abuse victims well. And there are executive committee members calling for an independent investigation of the executive committee at the

59:36

Southern Baptist Convention. I mean, that has never happened to my knowledge in our entire history that they have called for an independent investigation.

59:44

So this is a developing story right now. And it's a very serious story. And really how it's all going to settle out.

59:52

I don't know. I had no idea. I'll give you an example, though. We're talking about NAMM. Here's another example.

59:57

So I've written about this. We had a reporter a few years ago write about the fact that the president of the

01:00:04

North American Mission Board and he and this was legal for him to do. But he he claimed a pastoral privilege when a church member was convicted of molesting, as it turns out, seven children, as I understand it.

01:00:17

And the pastor did not testify against him. Kevin Nuzell did not testify against him. In Kentucky, he could legally claim a pastoral penitent privilege.

01:00:26

So he didn't have to do that. Well, she wrote an article in which she outed or talked publicly about several men by name who had either committed acts of immorality or had covered up abuse.

01:00:38

And then she told the story of what he had done. And again, not claiming that what he did was illegal.

01:00:44

It could certainly be questioned whether he took the right path or not. But here's what happened. His PR person,

01:00:50

Mike Ebert, messaged her and I've read the message threatening her that maybe what she said was libelous and and said that she needed to take out of her article the the paragraphs that dealt with his failing to testify in court.

01:01:06

Well, now that is a blunt force, you know, move against a reporter who herself was a victim.

01:01:13

Joni Hannigan had been a victim herself. And now using the power of NAMM again, talking what we were earlier,

01:01:20

NAMM has so much money and so much influence they can destroy a person's career.

01:01:26

And that's essentially what they threatened to do to her is destroy her career. If she didn't. And by the way, what she reported was already in a

01:01:33

Kentucky paper years prior. They didn't you know, she didn't say anything that hadn't already been reported.

01:01:40

But they just tried to use their influence to get her to change her story. She didn't do it.

01:01:45

But that's the kind of thing that can happen. You know, that kind of intimidation.

01:01:51

So I believe it. And accountability certainly would help all of these things.

01:01:56

It's it's been grieving. I haven't heard everything you just mentioned about what's going on today. I do know what

01:02:02

Russell Moore did in trying to burn burn the place down on his way out. And that to me, just disgusting.

01:02:09

It's just it sickens people to see someone, you know, if these are really legitimate issues, you would have you'd have talked about it a year ago.

01:02:16

You would have. But, you know, it's it's political. We can see the political game being played trying to smear people.

01:02:25

And, you know, I just I'm with you on the whole accountability thing that that needs to happen.

01:02:30

And some of these people who are in it for gain, for for self propelling their own career, need to find a better job.

01:02:37

Maybe they should get into real politics or maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they wouldn't be good at it. I don't know. But that's where they that's where they would logically go.

01:02:44

Not not in ministry. Can I say a thing about Russell Moore? About please, please, please do.

01:02:50

What I would say, because that was all news to me when I read that, like everyone else. And that's all going to play out.

01:02:57

But I agree with you, John. My great disappointment in Russell Moore, in a sense,

01:03:02

David Platt did something similar when he left, is that going out the door, they talked about these problems instead of being men of courage while they're in the job, while they're still in the job and dealing with it head on while they're still in the job.

01:03:18

So I think and that's what what I'm trying to do. Not that I'm, you know, without warts or have total courage and and fear doesn't creep in at times.

01:03:28

But I tell you, I would hate for fear to keep me from doing the right thing. And I think in Southern Baptist life, we have a lot of people fearful of saying or doing the right thing.

01:03:38

They're intimidated for whatever reason. And it's only when they go out the door, they have nothing to lose, so to speak, that they finally speak.

01:03:47

And if this what Russell talks about and what the tapes today that were released, the audio tapes released today, that should have been, those should have been released.

01:03:56

That should have been dealt with last year when the audio tapes were made. Russell should have talked last year, I think, should have tried to resolve issues in whatever way he felt necessary while he was still on the job.

01:04:09

So for me, there is a question and I don't even know him, but there is a question of courage and appropriateness in terms of timing, things like that.

01:04:20

Yeah, well, it's certainly cached on the whole thing when you're not willing to talk about it in the moment, when you have power to do something about it.

01:04:28

Right. So, well, I appreciate, yeah, Kyle, I know you haven't talked a lot lately. Sorry about that.

01:04:33

Thank you for joining and for having courage on that note. Thank you for having courage and speaking out, sharing your little slice of the pie.

01:04:42

And Randy, I appreciate you supporting him. I just thought that was when I heard that, I thought that was an amazing thing for you to do that because it's more important for you to have a relationship with a local church planner than it is as powerful

01:04:54

North American mission board that controls millions of dollars. So kudos to you for that. And, you know,

01:05:00

I hope things go well next week and some change is called for. So I'm proud of Kyle.

01:05:06

I'm proud of Kyle because Kyle is the young guy. If anyone can get hurt, quote unquote, by the establishment, by the elite of the

01:05:15

SBC, it's a guy like Kyle. They can't do much to me, you know, but a guy like Kyle, potentially they could.

01:05:22

So Kyle really is a person of courage, I think, in this whole story. Amen. Amen. Well, God bless you both.

01:05:29

And I hope you have a good evening and we'll find out what happens next week. We'll be praying about it. Yeah. And just before we go,

01:05:36

I want to kind of, sure, just say a couple of things more just to remind us of where we're at because we talked about the lofty things of corruption and the top end of what's going on in the

01:05:51

SBC and these organizations. But one of the experiences that I've had after, you know, kind of blowing the whistle on some of this stuff from more the ground level is the influx of responses

01:06:07

I'm getting from people, whether it's at NAMM church planters, people that were in the assessment and left like me, people at IMB, people just at their churches.

01:06:24

The outpouring I'm getting from people real people that exists, not theoretical things, not organizations is overwhelming.

01:06:35

I mean, I've just been brought to tears over and over again by how all this corruption is playing out in the lives of Southern Baptists and playing out in the lives of ministries that's damaging people's ministries, that's destroying the cooperation that we used to have.

01:06:59

Terrified people, absolutely terrified people contacting me.

01:07:06

I never could have imagined where people were at and the damage that's going on.

01:07:13

And we've got a real problem. We've got a real problem and it's affecting people.

01:07:22

It's affecting people. It's affecting ministry and it needs to change.

01:07:29

We need to take care of those people, of those people that are being damaged by NAMM, of those people that are being damaged in their ministry.

01:07:39

Pastors that need help in their church, that are reaching out to SBC organizations and aren't getting help, aren't getting responses, are being turned away.

01:07:54

Why do we exist if we're not helping one another? Why do we exist if we're not cooperating and pushing the gospel forward?

01:08:01

Yeah, that's a good word, brother. I think we all bear that burden to one degree or another. And the sexual abuse issue and this corruption money issue and the social justice, these are all connected.

01:08:15

I'm convinced. I didn't see it until recently, but they're all connected. And it's in many cases, the same kind of people.

01:08:24

It's just obvious. When you don't have accountability, when people are free to operate with money and they're sinful men that get into these positions of power, you're going to have those things.

01:08:35

And so hopefully we can shed the light of the gospel and also maybe get some real accountability.

01:08:44

So I appreciate it and I'll let you guys go. I know you probably have a lot to do. Thank you for giving me so much of your time this afternoon and I look forward to seeing what's going to happen next week.