What if they just say no?
You may have recently seen in the news that the IMB will be, in the next week or so, offering an early retirement package for missionaries who meet certain qualifications. They are doing this in attempts to bring their spending in line with their income. Over the last 6 years expenditures have outpaced income by 210 million dollars. That’s right, million. They are implementing a plan to reduce their missionary force by 600 to 800 missionaries. This isn’t the first reduction in their history. The high-water marker, in terms of missionaries on the field, occurred seven years ago when they had approximately 5,600 missionaries serving around the globe. Through natural attrition, they reduced that number over the years. This further reduction will represent a 25% cut from their high-water mark . Obviously this is not the trajectory that we as Southern Baptists want to see. In practical terms not only are we reducing our fron...