NAMB corrects missionary count data to GCR Task Force

Courtesy Florida Baptist Witness

ALPHARETTA, Ga. (NAMB/BP) — The North American Mission Board has informed the Great Commission Task Force that data it provided last summer regarding the geographic distribution of missionaries in North America contained a significant error. The NAMB error resulted in incorrect data being published in the Feb. 22 "progress report" issued by the GCRTF.

The progress report depicts on page 19 how Southern Baptist resources are distributed throughout the United States. That data indicates that at the end of 2008 3,515 missionaries served in the 14 states considered to be where Southern Baptists are strongest and only 1,735 missionaries serving in the remaining states across the US. In the GCRTF report, the 14 states are depicted in blue and the others in red.

In actuality, 2,573 missionaries, or 48 percent, served in the 14 blue states in 2008 and 2,733, or 52 percent, served in the remaining red states.

Another 133 NAMB missionaries serve in Canada. If Canada is included in the overall numbers, 2,866 of NAMB's missionaries serve outside the blue states, making the percentage 53 percent in North America serving outside the 14 blue states.

The error was discovered by NAMB staff on March 5 while responding to an inquiry from The Tennessean, the Nashville daily newspaper.

"As soon as we discovered the mistake, we notified the GCR Task Force," Richard Harris, NAMB's interim president, told Baptist Press.

"We will leave it to the GCR Task Force members and others to determine the significance of these new numbers. We just wanted to provide this information as soon as we discovered it so the rest of the discussion can include the correct data," Harris said.

Ronnie Floyd, GCRTF chairman and pastor of First Baptist Church in Springdale, Ark., told BP the change in missionary numbers did not alter the major concern of the task force.

"[W]e spend 2/3 of the Cooperative Program dollars on 1/3 of the population and conversely spend only 1/3 of the Cooperative Program dollars on 2/3 of the population in the United States," Floyd said.

Floyd told BP the online manuscript of the progress report available at www.pray4gcr.com has been updated with the corrected NAMB information.

The error occurred when NAMB double-counted the states of Texas and Virginia. Both states have two, independently operated state Baptist conventions with which Southern Baptists are affiliated. The data spreadsheet used listed each of those state conventions with their individual subtotals and also an overall total from the state. Both the subtotals and the totals from those states were added when the overall missionary count was computed, leading to a double-count for the two states.

NAMB's 2009 data shows 2,454 or 46 percent of missionaries serving in the 14 states depicted in blue on the GCRTF's report and 2,850 or 54 percent serving in Canada and the remaining states depicted in red.

NAMB uses funding formulas developed in cooperation with state convention partners to determine how much funding it will send to a state to pay for missionary salaries, benefits and ministry initiatives. Because Southern Baptists have a much stronger presence in the South and parts of the Southwest, NAMB's funding portion is much lower in those states. Conversely, NAMB's portion is as high as 95 percent in Northeast and Northwest states where Southern Baptists have significantly fewer churches.

The GCRTF's progress report states that Southern Baptists "spend $316.6 million on reaching the 108.7 million people" living in the 14 South-Southwestern states depicted in blue on the page 19 map. Of this amount, $10.2 million came from NAMB in 2008 in the form of Cooperative Agreement money to the states. The rest, presumably, is money provided by churches in those state Baptist conventions.

The progress report states that Southern Baptists "spend $71.5 million on reaching 195.3 million people." These are states depicted in red on the page. Of this amount, $34 million came from NAMB in 2008 in the form of Cooperative Agreement money to the states.

In addition to money from Cooperative Agreements, NAMB sends money to state conventions through missionary benefits and national ministry funds. When these items are added, more than three-fourths, 77 percent, of the $62 million NAMB distributed throughout the US and Canada in 2009 went to areas where Southern Baptist church presence is the least. These are the 36 states depicted in red on page 19 of the GCRTF's progress report, plus Canada. Less than a quarter, 23 percent, of NAMB's spending occurred in states where Southern Baptists are strongest. These are the 14 states depicted in blue in the progress report.