Putting MoBARF Into Perspective by W.B. (Bart) Tichenor

The Plaintiffs fronting for the MBC's lawsuit and pastors of the churches are as follows: 

• First Baptist Church Arnold - Gerald Davidson 
• First Baptist Church Bethany - Randy Comer 
• First Baptist Church Branson - Jay Scribner 
• Concord Baptist Church-Jefferson City - Monte Shinkle 
• Oakwood Baptist Church-Kansas City - Chris Mason 
• Springhill Baptist Church-Springfield - formerly Kenny Qualls, now with the MBC  

The Missouri Baptist Agency Restoration Fund (MoBARF) is the most important single fundraising drive in the history of the MBC.  One would assume that each of these churches and their pastors would have been the first to pledge to raise a certain amount. 

There has never been another special fundraising effort of this magnitude for any other special cause in the MBC.

• Missouri Baptists have never raised $1,000,000 for the Rhuebin L. South State Missions Offering in a single offering. 
• Missouri Baptists have never raised in a single offering $1,000,000 for World Hunger. 

What this says is that it is now more important to pay lawyers than to do state missions or feed the hungry. 

The MBC's rational is that a million here or a million there to pay legal expenses is a good investment given the MBC's assertion that the combined assets of the 5 institutions are in excess of $200 million.  The rational is based upon a completely false and misleading premise. 

The premise is that $200 million in assets have been taken from Missouri Baptists. 

Not true. No assets have been taken from any Missouri Baptist.  None of the institutions have closed their doors of service and ministry to any Missouri Baptist. 

The very simple fact is that all Missouri Baptists continue to have the full and complete benefit and enjoyment of the ministries of each of the defunded institutions.  No Missouri Baptist who does not want to financially support these ministries through the MBC is required to. 

In reality, the MBC is in the perfect position of having its cake and eating it too. The 5 institutions are not draining money from the dwindling MBC budget, but the MBC has the benefit of still having 5 institutions that are serving all Missouri Baptists. If the current MBC leadership would stop and think about ministry and the real situation of the MBC Cooperative Program budget they would realize that they don't really want to start funding these institutions again!

The best of both worlds is to have the institutions be self-governing.  The MBC doesn't fund them through the CP budget and yet the institutions serve Missouri Baptists. 

Of course, the simple drawback for the MBC's new leadership is that they don't get to elect trustees, and so provide positions and rewards to the faithful Project 1000 followers. 

The fact is that to date none of the Plaintiff churches or their pastors have come forward with significant commitments toward the $1,000,000 MoBARF goal.  Do they think paying money into MoBARF is all right for other Missouri Baptists, but it is not for them?

By the way, how much has each member of the MBC Executive Board pledged to raise for MoBARF?