Interview with Dr Iorg
Sarah Graham: Hello. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to meet with you individually, state by state. I don’t know if something like this has been done before, but it’s a really interesting idea at an interesting time. I love it, and I have a few questions.
Question #1: As you know, we claim you as one of our own. You’re more than just our SBC president; you’re part of our family, so I think California Southern Baptists would have feelings if I didn’t start out by asking:
How is Anne doing, and how can we be encouraging her as she walks with you and the extended family in this season?
Dr. Iorg: Anne is doing very well. She is the same consistent, supportive Christian that she has been all my life. I am amazed at her flexibility and her capacity to just roll with the punches. If you want to say it that way. She’s really remarkable. And it’s been a challenging year because, as you know, we have some family obligations that she has to tend to in her extended family. And we’ve been relocating to both Nashville and Portland and trying to sell our house in California. But Anne’s doing fine and has continued to amaze me with her consistency, her support, and her very positive attitude. Partly, it’s because she loves Southern Baptists and what the Southern Baptist convention accomplishes. So, it makes it worthwhile for her to serve as well.
Sarah Graham: Good. Good. I’m glad to hear that. I remember when you were on our podcast, you said this was going to be her time, and then the Lord had different plans, and I wanted to check back and see how she’s bearing this dual life right now.
Question #2: So, I listened to your address at the last Executive Committee meeting, and you cover a lot more than we can tackle here, but I wanted to ask you specifically about the abuse prevention materials. We know that the task force has been working faithfully to resource churches across the nation. But here in California, we’ve seen the disconnect between the current materials and our state’s more robust legal requirements.
Do you know when we might expect updated materials that take California’s regulations into account?
Dr. Iorg: Two things. First, you can expect updated materials by this summer. We are working on them right now, and that work is ongoing. Second, we’re probably not going to release materials that are customized by state, but instead, we’re going to say, “Here are some issues that are unique to each state, and you should, on these issues, go to your state convention or other leaders to make sure that what you’re doing complies with your state requirements.” It’s not just California. There are another half dozen states that are pretty specific and unique in what they’re expecting. And so, we’re going to acknowledge that and help people be directed toward those resources because we really believe state-by-state resources are actually going to be more up-to-date than we could be at the national level and probably more directly applicable by the states in their churches. It’ll be Both/And. We are going to have a revision, and the target is to roll it out at the Southern Baptist Convention this summer, but the revision will not necessarily be detailed state-by-state. It’ll be more of a general saying, “These are areas where states vary. Be sure you get the right information from your state leadership at this point.”
Sarah Graham: That’s really great. We had concerns that some churches might just follow the national [guidelines] without paying close attention to what our California laws mandate.
Dr. Iorg: California leaders were some of the first that brought these concerns to us, and they’re valid concerns. We take them seriously, and we’re working to resolve them.
But thank you for bringing those to us because it does remind me, having lived in California, how unique and sometimes how challenging that context can be.
Sarah Graham: Let me ask about the budget.
Question #3: It’s clear that the CP budget is going to require some prayerful consideration of the messengers leading up to and during the annual meeting in Dallas. And I heard you when you urged the EC members to offer creative solutions to this proposed budget. I’m curious,
Has the finance committee received any alternative suggestions to consider since that meeting? And should we expect to hear about those before June? Or are we hoping that something inspired will emerge from the floor?
Dr. Iorg: Well, I would be delighted for something inspired to emerge from the floor. However, we had many options that were considered by the EC staff and by the Finance Committee of the Executive Committee prior to bringing their recommendation forward. Many of those options were also vetted by the Great Commission Council and others trying to find a way forward. It’s not that there haven’t been other suggestions considered; it’s that the one we came to and (I’ll say it this way) has the least amount of negative attached to it, and it has a lot of negative, which I said in my speech.
I find myself advocating or recommending something I don’t even want to do, and yet that’s where it came to. On the one hand, yes, we’re still open to considering options, but the biggest option that we’re working on still, is the selling and downsizing of our facility in Nashville. We have far more building than we need, and we can certainly function well in a different location. But offering a building for sale and actually selling it are not the same thing. We’re pushing to try to get that sale accomplished. If that were to happen, then we would bring a recommendation that we change the budget and remove the allocation. That’s something that we would like to see happen, but we can’t control the timing. And You know the budget has to be adopted in June, and it has to be effective October 1st. If, at any time in that window, we can sell the building or find an alternative funding source, we would certainly use it instead of the Cooperative Program allocation.
Sarah Graham: So, if the building doesn’t sell before the meeting in June, but it sells after, -within the year, does the EC have the ability to make that adjustment to the budget?
Dr. Iorg: I believe the Executive Committee would be applauded if we made that adjustment. I don’t think it would be a legal or parliamentary hurdle to get over for us to say that we are not using that priority allocation as we indicated and instead sending it on to the mission. I think that would actually be celebrated by Southern Baptists.
Sarah Graham: I’m inclined to agree, but I was just wanting to make sure that that could happen; that there was room for that.
Question #4: Since I’ve been in this role just a few years, it’s been really encouraging to me to see the resurgence within our CSBC family as we engage more and more at the state and in national meetings.
Is there a word that you want to offer to our leaders who might still be on the fence about the investment it would take to go to Dallas?
Dr. Iorg: I would encourage leaders to consider coming to Dallas because the people who are in the room make the decisions.
Sarah Graham: Right.
Dr. Iorg: I speak to many pastors who don’t come to the Southern Baptist Convention and then are frustrated by the decisions that are made, and I would say, “come and use your voice, use your vote, and help make a difference in whatever way you think it needs to be made.” Because, the people in the room? – they make the decisions. The root word for convention is convene. When you convene, that’s who the convention is, and that’s why I would encourage people to participate. We need every voice. And we especially need the voices in the West that are really on the cutting edge in many ways of what we’re accomplishing. I know it’s expensive and difficult, and I understand that. But I would encourage pastors and others to participate as much as they practically can.
Sarah Graham: Yeah, I’m concerned about the cost, especially in this economy right now. We know that our churches are struggling.
Dr. Iorg: There’s no question about it. It’s a significant cost.
Sarah Graham: Okay, I have one more question. In your address to the Executive Committee, you had a personal moment where you said something like, ‘I don’t know why the Lord saw fit to put me in this situation at this time…’ … Thank you for sharing that, by the way…
Dr. Iorg: Yes. Let me, let me say something about that.
You know, I have what I consider a very personal and intimate relationship with God, and sometimes my prayers are not as serious as people might think they need to be. But I remember one morning praying with a twinkle in my eye. “God, there’s 12 million Southern Baptists. Isn’t there someone else that could have the honor of making this speech?” And, of course, the answer is, “No son, you get to make the speech.” But I’m like, “You know, Lord, I’d be glad to give the honor to someone else at this point. They’d be just fine with me.”
So, I’m willing to do it. But it was with a twinkle in my eye, a little bit of a mischief. A mischievous prayer, if you will.
Sarah Graham: I feel like that’s how I pray too. And the Lord understands me. I just very much appreciated that moment in your address. So, with that in mind, let me ask you:
Question #5: If you looked down the road a little bit, you know, to your tenure, however long it’s going to be:
What is your overall vision for our convention and what do we need to be doing today to ensure that that vision becomes a reality?
Dr. Iorg: My vision is that Southern Baptists would come together and spend 95% of their time talking about how to get the Gospel to people in the world who’ve never even heard the name of Jesus. That’s what I think about every day, what gets me going every day, and what makes me stay with this work every day.
In practical terms, for my tenure, what I’d like to do is lead us through what is a very rocky time and bring us to the conclusion of some of these issues related to legal challenges establishing sex abuse prevention and response in our convention as an ongoing work that we’re doing. I don’t want to demean the importance of it, but I want it to be a routine part of what we do. I don’t want it to be something that we’re having to create or add to. I want it to be, that’s what we do. That’s part of who we are. And I want to get to that in the next two or three years as well.
So, I want to see us talking mostly about getting the Gospel to the nations. I want my personal tenure at the EC to be a time of leading us through and putting behind us some of these difficulties and really returning, I hope, to a quieter time of leadership where the Executive Committee is not in the news. We’re at our best when we are behind the scenes facilitating the work of the entities, and the entities are the stars, the IMB, the North American Mission Board, the seminaries, the ERLC, Guidestone, LifeWay. These are the people and the organizations and the missional accomplishments that we ought to be talking about all the time, not legal battles that the EC is fighting on the SBC’s behalf.
Sarah Graham: Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. And I am ready to get on board with that and help our leaders get on board with that as well.
I know our time is really short, so thank you for putting this window aside for us. As someone who’s a Californian, really, through and through, is there anything else you want to add before we wrap here?
Dr. Iorg: I would just say if you’re in California, you have the greatest missional opportunity in America. You have millions of people around you who need the Gospel. You have the capacity to touch the nations of the world who’ve come to California. You have the opportunity to do that in a cutting-edge kind of way in a culture that celebrates innovation. I can’t imagine a better place to be on mission with the Gospel than in California.
I loved living there. Southern California (Sorry, Northern Cal), but Southern California is my favorite place I’ve ever lived. I just see the vibrancy, the possibility, and all that can happen for the Gospel. So, if you’re in California, celebrate and get after it.
Sarah Graham: Yeah. That’s perfect. A great way to end this. Thank you so much.
Dr. Iorg: Thank you.
