Rumblings and Ramblings

I have always heard it said that actions speak louder than words.  When someone in authority says, “Just trust me on this,” the trust has to be earned.  Once trust is lost those words can stink as bad as raw chicken left in the garbage can too long.  The current leadership of the BGCT (a.k.a. the Administration) has lost the trust of many Texas Baptists.  Currently the Executive Board is discussing the budget for the upcoming year.  What is at stake is the loss of around 30 ministry personnel within the BGCT building.  Some in the executive committee are trying their best to save some of the ministry jobs in the BGCT, then this was said during the meeting this morning by one executive committee member.

….. the board needs to trust the leaders that have worked hard on the proposed budget. Research and study has gone into the proposed budget.

Sorry, I have a hard time believing that.  Especially when it could be argued that the leaders inept handling of Cooperative Giving Funds has caused a lack of funds.  Not only have we given away over 1 million dollars to 4 or 5 men for doing nothing but funding their bank accounts, but our churches are not giving to the BGCT  because they do not know what their money is going to.  You can say one thing, but your actions in recent history say something else.  Don’t think that all of us are naive enough to believe in this leadership.  That is the farthest thing from the truth!

Who knows how appropriate this is, but I’m doing it anyway.  Yes, I realize I’m still in the honeymoon phase of my ministry at Key Heights Baptist Church but I’ve got to brag on this church.  I have an amazing group of people to minister along side.

A couple of weeks ago I spilled the beans on the problems of the BGCT.  In the meantime I went a head and pushed the Mary Hill Davis Offering, telling the church that WMU handles the money, not the BGCT (I’m hoping I was right in my assessment).  Anyway we have not supported this offering in a while here (maybe 10 years).  Our mission committee set a goal of 500.00.  We have now more than doubled that goal!  I just hope and pray that a spirit of supporting and doing missions will oversweep us as God shows us what we can do for Him.

The Mary Hill Davis State Mission Offering has been special to me for serveral years now.  I have to thank one of my former pastors Darrell Beggs for instilling in me a love for Texas Missions.  He helped me to see and understand how big a mission field Texas truly is, not only that he led our church in Teague, Texas to help support a new church start down in Conroe.  It was a true blessing to be inolved in something like that. 

Throughout all this mess that the administration of the BGCT has put us through, we must not forget the main reason we exist as churches, to glorify Jesus and to share Him with as many as we can.  I’m proud to say that I support the MHD offering.  I have no reason not to give my money for this cause and to support it with my prayers.  May God use the money to reach more and more for Jesus in this great state!

Well Montoya’s blog http://spiritualsamurai.wordpress.com/, has been a conduit for another black eye for the BGCT and church starting funds.  Apparently a valley pastor (anglo pastor) had been taking church starting funds from the BGCT and pocketing the money for himself at a previous church.  From what I understand this pastor has resigned from his current church as of last night.

I do not have much experience with starting a new church, but I might have more experience than most.  When I served at University Baptist Church in Arlington, we were the sponsor church for a new congregation.  I remember many meetings where our church, the new church, and BGCT personel came together and talked about how the new congregation was doing.  There were reports that showed the flow of money between the 3 groups.  There were checks and balances during the process.  How could people be pocketing money now?  To me it is clearly evident that the policies that were used in the mid ’90s are not being used now, at least not 100% of the time.

This is unfortunate, but it is true, people are greedy!  The ones that we are suppose to be looking up to a lot of the times seem to be the greediest.  Unfortunately what greed leaves behind is nothing short of a huge mess.  Churches in the valley are picking up the pieces because of some greedy men still today.  The cause of Christ has been harmed not only in the valley but throughout our state.  Accountability needs to come back to our church starting program.  They say that this is taking place in Dallas, I hope they are right.  We need to get back in the business of sharing Jesus, equipping the saints, and yes, starting new churches all across the state of Texas!

What red-blooded American male can’t love high school football!?!  I totally love going to the games!  Watching these guys play their hearts out, hearing the bands, and yelling for your favorite team is something else.  The only thing that I don’t care too much for is hearing the irrate fan yelling at coaches and players and even the refs (I figured I had better throw that in for Rick).  Luckily I haven’t heard too much of that.

Anyway, this year I’m having to learn to cheer for Perryton Rangers.  This is the school that was one of my arch rivals in high school.  We had some awesome games against them and it was always a battle.  I figure I will get use to it once it gets to district.  This week Lubbock Cooper gets to travel up to the tundra to play against Perryton.  I’m expecting a good game on our new field here in Perryton.

Last week I got to go see my home school, the Childress Bobcats, pull off a nail-biting win against the Stratford Elks.  Last year these two teams played twice, Stratford was able to win the important game in the area round of the playoffs.  I wouldn’b be suprised that they meet again in the area round this year.  Childress will have to learn to hang on to the ball for that to happen.  This week Childress goes down to play the Iowa Park Eagles.  The Eagles always seems to find a way to pull out a win in the last seconds against Childress.  Hopefully Childress will change their fortunes this week!

Last but not least, I keep watching those Teague Lions down in East Texas.  They have to be in the toughest district in the state (district 22-2A).  Having to play against Mart and Marlin would give anyone headaches.  This week the Lions play against Whitney.

Anyway, if you get a chance to watch some high school football this weekend do it!  Support your home team!

Well the Baptist Standard is now reporting that the report has been turned over to authorities and exactly who has it (thank you Ken). 

http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=6801 

It is comforting to know that the report is in the right hands and at least an investigation by federal authorities has been initiated according to the reports.

This week David Montoya was believing that the report had not been turned in due to a letter he received from the Chief of the Fraud Investigation of the Southern District of the U.S. Attorney’s office.  We now know that the material was turned into the Brownsville office and then given to the appropriate authorities from there.

This flare up, I believe, could have been avoided if the BGCT would just give us some updates. The last update that I can find was in the Baptist Standard dating back to May 25.  If I’m reading this story right, this update was given to the Executive Committee when it last met.  I believe that if the BGCT would give us more regular updates the speculation on what is going on would go down.  Communication is the key.  Remember that you serve the churches, not just the Executive Committee.  With something so big, us little people need to stay informed.

There are still some other things that are sounding fishy.  Maybe they can be cleared up in an appropriate manner.  Credibility needs to be restored in Dallas from the administration.

It’s amazing what misuse of money will do to a church.  It is also amazing the kind of work to clean up the mess.  Last night I mentioned to the Finance Committee “Valleygate”.  Most of them did not know what had happen and what was going on.  So I did my best to explain it to them the best way I could.  After I finished, they voted to withhold our funds to the state convention untill we are satisfied that this is taken care of.  Then I got to explain it again to our church body during our business meeting.  It wasn’t very fun, but I made it through.

Now I get to figure out these things.

1.  How much money we need to send to Dallas so that we can still have messengers at the convention?

2.  Is there a way that we can give to give to our state ministries that are not messing things up?

One thing that I hate is holding money that could be used for ministry.  But we do not want to give our money to the state if it is not going to be used responsibly.  We realize that we don’t give a lot, but we give what we can and we want it to be used right.  So our current course of action is to hold on to our 30% untill things get straightened out in Dallas.  It sure would be easier if some people would admit their negligence and just resign/retire now so that we can get someone in who we can trust.  Maybe that will happen by February 2008.  If not, I know that my frustration will continue to grow.

If anyone has any answers to my questions I’ll be happy to hear from you.

Till next time!

Well in the tundra of Texas (Northern Texas Panhandle) it was 43 degrees for a low this morning according to my weatherbug.  Yes!!!!  Now in a few weeks when it gets below zero I might be singing a different tune, but right now I’m enjoying this cool morning.

 Well, wherever you are I pray that God will bless you mightily this morning.  You know we can nick-pick the bad stuff around us forever, but we need to remember who is on the throne!  May God bless each one.

Even with the transition in my life, one thing that I have been watching and waiting on is the investigation on the misuse of BGCT mission dollars in the Valley, or affectionately known as “Valleygate”.  This time last year, a prviate investigation was concluding and we were waiting on a report to the Executive Board of the BGCT.  The report revealed at least 1.3 million mission dollars spent on new churches that never existed.  Some believe that amount is only half of what was lost.  We have an Executive Director that has been slow to investigate this matter.  In December 2006 I believe that he reported to the Executive Committee of the BGCT that he turned over this report to federal authorites in the Valley of Texas.  Since then not much has been heard about the investigation officially.

David Montoya, http://spiritualsamurai.wordpress.com/, has been keeping many abreast of what is going on, or more likely what has not been going on.  David, I believe has been practicing restraint on this matter since the report was turned over to the authorities.  He has been asking questions on his blog, and every so often he has mentioned that nothing has been heard about concerning the investigation.  Eventually, David wrote a letter to the US District Attorney for that area of Texas.  In a respone to David’s letter, the Assistant DA in charge of fraud investigation told David that he has never seen a report on this issue!

So now what is gong on?  Did our Executive Director actually turn over this report to the proper authorities?  Has this investigation even begun?  Or has report in the middle of the landfill for Dallas slowly decomposing?  I would love to give the leadership of our state convention the benefit of the doubt, but they have shown that they do not deserve it.  I want to call the state office, but I doubt that I will get a straight answer.

Charles Wade is retiring in January 2008.  Our Executive Board is meeting next week.  I pray that the board will demand answers on this investigation.  If Charles Wade has messed up this investigation, he needs to be shown the door.  We can make it without a Executive Director for a few months as the search committee continues their search.  As I think about it, I believe that we may have not had an Executive Director for a few years now?!?!

Well it has been close to a year since I’ve posted.  A lot has transpired since then.  I’ve gone from youth ministry to the pastorate.  A church running close to 200 in Sunday School to a church that had 54 in Sunday School yesterday.  People kept telling me that God was going to get me to this position of pastoring ….. I just laughed.  Now they are laughing at me. 

Anyway this has been a fun ride.  I feel like I’m playing catch up more than ever.  How can God use a person like me to lead this congregation is beyond my understanding.  But I know this for sure.  I’m loving every minute of it.  I feel more alive and more used now than I have in a long time.  This is not to say that I did not love the youth ministry, I do!  I don’t think that blood will ever run out of me, but God has given me some life that I seemed to have lost the past few years.  God is good!

Anyway God is moving in this small congregation.  The life is coming back due to God’s work in all of us.  It will be exciting to see what God will do.  I’ll keep you posted.