Really disturbing articles have been written about the SBC North American Mission Board by the Christian Index of Georgia. The agency, successor of the Home Mission Board and others, appears to be in trouble.The president of the agency is Bob Reccord. Reccord has been shown to have some interesting expenditures over the last year or so. One is spending $142,000 over the last year for the use of a private corporate jet through a company named InovaOne, which is owned by a friend of Reccord’s. Remember that name.

Another interesting expense is the amount of $3,771, which Reccord spent to go on a four-day trip to England and see The Chronicles of Narnia on premier night. That sounds a lot more like some spoiled actor than the head of our mission board.
Knowing that resources have been increasingly tight for missionaries, it is pretty hard to believe Reccord is flying around in a private jet rather than suffer through commercial air travel like the rest of us, or that he is traveling to England on the tithes and offerings of working Baptists so he can rub shoulders with the cool people at a movie premier.

While this is going on, how is the ministry going, the business of the NAMB? The Index also published some interesting facts about that. Last year the denomination was supposed to show 2,500 new congregations and 1 million new believers. It came in with 1,636 church starts and 390,000 baptisms. That performance would get you fired where I work.

One step in the right direction is that the board has finally quit trying to run off one of its own members and has set some guidelines the president must live with and be accountable for. More on that later. Still, I do not think this is how the churches and members across the country expect the president of the NAMB to conduct himself.

He should seriously think about resigning.