About Rod D. Martin
Praise for Rod D. Martin
Book Rod to Speak
Politics & Economics
Technology & Markets
Faith & Culture
by Joni B. Hannigan
Baptist Press
June 24, 2014
BALTIMORE (BP) — Panelists at the Cooperative Program exhibit expressed universal support for CP missions and ministry during the SBC annual meeting in Baltimore though it is vital to educate grassroots Southern Baptists about how it works.
Local pastors, church planters, national and state leaders and seminary professors who took part in the CP exhibit’s three days of varied panel discussions often underscored the importance, viability and the future of the SBC’s 89-year-old plan for supporting missions and ministry through state conventions and the SBC.
But describing the Cooperative Program as a way of funding state convention and SBC outreach and witness may miss the point that CP not just about money, panelists said during one of the sessions.
Frank S. Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee, said the Cooperative Program represents “long-held Southern Baptist values.”
It’s time to “change the conversation about CP” and to focus less on method and more on relationship and results, Page said in a Q&A with Ashley Clayton, EC vice president for CP and stewardship development.
Clayton said Page’s vision for “Great Commission Advance,” an initiative to steadily increase churches’ missions involvement, asks Southern Baptists to “do more” to advance the Great Commission without naming specific percentage or dollar amounts.
In a discussion, “Fault Lines Within the SBC,” moderated by Tennessee pastor Jon Akin, Page said many of the things Akin described “young pastors” as valuing — such as church plants, theological education, disaster relief and religious liberty — are not limited to that demographic.
Those issues “really transcend beyond a younger demographic,” Page said. “I am passionate about the Cooperative Program because I am passionate about those things.”
Amid Southern Baptists’ diversity — whether theological, methodological, ethnic or cultural — Page said, “We need to support the Cooperative Program, but we also believe that God calls us to go.
“We are going to celebrate all missions” through CP and other ways Southern Baptists are engaging a lost world, Page said. “It’s not an either/or, but a both/and.”
That view was echoed in a “Sending Church” panel moderated by Ken Winter, the International Mission Board’s vice president for mobilization, when J.D. Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., said traditionally generous support of the Cooperative Program has fueled efforts to put missionaries on the field — but churches also are exploring and implementing additional ways of resourcing missionaries.
Another panelist, David Platt, pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., cautioned that social justice issues such as poverty, sex trafficking and hunger, although important, can lead to an either/or mentality when it comes to supporting missions altogether.
With thousands of people groups that have no knowledge of Jesus, Platt said, “That is the greatest social injustice.”
The fundamental role of the church, Platt said, is to create a culture in which missions by a congregation is “the very purpose for which they have breath.” Pastors should work to create a “collision between Word and world,” he said, “and when that collision happens, things change.”
Church planters, who often see that redemptive collision as recipients of CP support, shared why CP is important to them. In a discussion led by Brian Frye, national collegiate strategist with the North American Mission Board, one church planter said he would be “scared to death” if there were no Cooperative Program.
“I don’t know if we would have a general direction to go,” the planter said. “I think we would be looking for someone to point us in a healthy direction.”
For the Cooperative Program to remain viable, several seminary professors said in a discussion of “Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century” that ongoing education of CP’s importance is essential. As Edgar Aponte, a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., put it, people don’t know how “God has used CP to bless them and bless millions.”
In a panel, “GCR and the State Conventions,” Akin said it was clear Southern Baptists had “returned to the Bible as the inerrant, infallible Word of God,” but that the Great Commission Resurgence was a response to a plateau across the denomination, though he was encouraged by changes at the North American Mission Board heightening church planting.
Nate Adams, executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association, said that due to GCR-related changes in CP funding back through state Baptist conventions, 77 percent of Illinois Baptists indicated in response to questions about how CP budgets are allocated that they would not favor increasing giving to national SBC causes as GCR suggests.
Yet Florida pastor Jimmy Scroggins said he is confident Florida is “on track” for a 50/50 allocation of CP receipts between state and national/international SBC causes.
“I am not wringing my hands,” Scroggins, pastor First Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, noted in view of the challenge he faces as a pastor of making sure offerings are used for missions in some way — including reaching children, premarital counseling and multicultural ministries – while Florida Baptists continue their ministries in Haiti and other countries that utilize CP funds.
The Cooperative Program already has established a “very healthy pipeline” to organizations that do tremendous good throughout the world, said Jeff Palmer, executive director of Baptist Global Response, citing key partnerships between SBC entities like the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board.
“It’s just amazing to see us come together … around a common cause, helping with what we’re passionate about—lostness, human needs, (and) hunger,” Palmer said.
Paul Chitwood, executive director of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, said CP undergirds a system that helps to educate pastors and missionaries and provides support on the local field.
“When you piecemeal, and direct them towards the one piece, you break the system that as a whole is an incredible Kingdom resource,” Chitwood said.
Rod is one of our nation’s leading minds. He’s smart, original, and very committed—a combination that one rarely finds.
Rod Martin and [former Howard Dean campaign manager] Joe Trippi are America’s two foremost experts on online politics.
Rod Martin is a Reaganite-Thatcherite conservative…[and] a man who has spent much of his life ministering to and working for the benefit of others. I know Rod as an advocate for freedom, a leader who understands the real changes we need in Washington, and who has the drive and ability to make those changes happen.
Rod Martin is the kind of dynamic leader who has the knowledge, ability and experience to lead us successfully into the 21st Century. His vision for America is compelling.
Rod Martin literally wrote the book on excellence. Humble yet brilliant, a man of love and compassion, with penetrating clarity he illuminates the world around us, and we are both stirred and enlightened.
Rod Martin is a born leader and an outstanding political mind. Anyone who takes him on is going to have a serious fight on their hands.
Rod Martin is a man of uncommon vision and character. Ever since I first worked alongside Rod in the early days of PayPal, I’ve been struck by his powerful vision for the future. Rod understands the intersection of technology, politics and culture in a way that few others do.
Rod Martin wears with uncommon grace an uncanny ability to link his vigorous faith to the practical challenges of both the business world and the political arena. Yet the respect he shows for others carries a warmth and modesty that are both too rare among those who are strong advocates of feisty positions.
America badly needs more leaders who really get the future. We need more Rod Martins.
Rod Martin is a modern day philosopher-statesman. He is a capitalist intellectual, a conservative iconoclast, a gentle adversary and a kind prophet. He inspires us towards a fresh national vision built upon the original founding principles.
Rod Martin is not only effective and efficient, but he is also perceptive, wise and gracious. He gets things done. He is a great friend and a great ally.
Rod is one of the sharpest, most gracious men I know, and one of the most gifted political thinkers today. His ability to analyze issues and communicate thoughtful insights on them have earned him the respect of people across the political spectrum.
I am proud to have been Rod Martin’s friend for a quarter century, and I can tell you that he is one of the finest men and most outstanding leaders in our church and in our country today. He has a knack for turning everything he touches to success.
Rod Martin is a cornucopian entrepreneur and eutropic thinker whose influence radiates through an array of companies, institutions, movements and churches. A renaissance American, he is also a prolific friend of freedom and faith around the globe.
If Rod Martin represents the next generation of leaders, America has nothing to worry about.
A leader and a servant, in public life and in private, Rod Martin strides at the top of his profession, and has nowhere to go but up. He is in the truest sense of the word ‘outstanding’.
Rod Martin is undoubtedly one of the most accomplished thought leaders today. He is a wonderful mentor, a humble role model, and a deep inspiration for the next generation of scientific innovators and entrepreneurs.
Rod’s achievements pale beside his character and his brilliance. He sees what others can’t. He leads when others won’t.
Rod Martin is one of America’s finest young minds.
