by Greg Warner
 
GILROY (ABP) - The North American Mission Board has terminated its support for an associational missionary in California who has crossed swords with Southern Baptist leaders.

Michael Stewart, director of missions for Central Coast Baptist Association, lost his NAMB funding in June. His position - like those of many DOMs in Southern Baptist Convention life - has been jointly funded by NAMB, California Southern Baptist Convention and the association.

A NAMB spokesman said the "rare" dismissal is unrelated to Stew-art's recent accusations that the SBC Executive Committee interfered in a church property dispute in his association. Instead, Marty King blamed it on a "deteriorating relationship" between Stewart and NAMB. In addition, he said, Stewart has been critical of the missions agency.

Stewart also has been in a long-running dispute with NAMB trustee Ron Wilson, pastor of First Baptist Church in Thousand Oaks who serves on NAMB's missionary personnel committee, which made the decision to terminate Stewart's missionary status.

A transcript of a May 30 meeting between Stewart and NAMB officials, obtained by Associated Baptist Press, revealed those officials were concerned about Stewart's relationship with Wilson, who had lodged the complaints that prompted the "showdown" with Stewart.

"What about your relationship with Ron Wilson, who happens to be a trustee?" asked Terry Fox, trustee chairman of the missionary personnel committee. "It would be important to get that resolved," Fox said, according to the transcript.

Stewart told ABP he understood the underlying message: "I was told at the May meeting that I had to get along with Ron Wilson if I was going to continue as a missionary."

Wilson did not participate in the May 30 meeting. But he told ABP he did attend the June 12 meeting of the missionary personnel committee, and that he voted to dismiss Stewart.

Wilson declined to discuss the reasons for Stewart's termination.

Stewart remains director of missions for the association, and CSBC has issued a statement of support for him (see box). But Stewart's salary supplement and insurance coverage from NAMB have been eliminated - an estimated $25,000 annually.

"What is of most concern for our family is that our youngest son is under the care of a cardiologist for a congenital heart condition," Stewart wrote in an e-mail to supporters. "Affordable insurance that is of high enough quality to treat him will be difficult to obtain."

Wilson acknowledged he brought the original allegations against Stew-art to the missionary personnel committee in 2004. "The original thing was that people in his association made some complaints to me as a trustee," Wilson told ABP.
However, those charges were investigated by the association and dismissed.

The allegations - made by Charles Callis, pastor of Alum Rock Baptist Church in San Jose and a friend of Wilson's - were twofold. First, Callis and Wilson alleged Stewart made "derogatory" statements about the 2000 "Baptist Faith and Message," the SBC's statement of faith, which all missionaries must affirm.
Second, they said Stewart tried to "take over" San Tomas Baptist Church, a troubled congregation in Campbell.

In December 2004 NAMB informed Stewart of the allegations. Central Coast Association then formed an investigative committee.

According to the committee's report, released in late 2005, Stewart opposed an attempt by Callis in 2001 to require each church in the association to adopt the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M) as its official statement of faith. Stewart said such an action would violate local-church autonomy and decimate the association. Callis' motion failed 148-2.

Stewart got involved in the controversy at San Tomas Baptist Church in 2001 because Mike Nichols, the pastor, had sold $900,000 worth of church property and took a portion of the proceeds for himself and family members, the investigative committee concluded.

After a 2001 meeting that included Stewart and several association pastors, some decided to recruit volunteers to join San Tomas "for a period of time to try to help the church get back on its feet and grow." About 35 individuals presented themselves for membership in the church in January 2002, but the pastor and his supporters, the investigation found, rejected the would-be members.

However, Stewart and the association helped three San Tomas members file a lawsuit that, on the eve of trial, ended in a settlement ousting the pastor and regaining control of most of the church's assets.

"The committee concluded that all allegations against Dr. Stewart are totally without merit," the report said. "Dr. Stewart is in complete agreement with the (BF&M) and did nothing unethical regarding the San Tomas church."

But the associational committee did not stop with clearing Stewart. It also asked Ron Wilson and NAMB to repent for making false accusations.

Wilson refused, saying he had done nothing wrong.

NAMB did not apologize either. But in a crucial letter to the association's moderator Oct. 12, 2005, NAMB's Eduardo Docampo wrote that, after the association's investigation, "the matter was closed and remains closed."

However, the controversy was far from over.

A month later, at the CSBC annual meeting in San Jose, a messenger and member of the association's investigative committee challenged Wilson for interfering in the association's affairs and refusing to repent. Without his being named, messengers voted to bar Wilson from participation in the meeting.

By December, NAMB was again looking into the allegations against Stewart - concerning San Tomas as well as the BF&M. On Feb. 13, Stewart was told to meet with NAMB vice president Harry Lewis, Fox and others to "clarify" those issues that had been closed four months before.

Marty King told ABP Stewart's case had been reopened. "NAMB had received concerns from others in California, including pastors, including some in his association, about some of his actions and activities," King said.

After several months of trying unsuccessfully to get all the parties together for a face-to-face meeting, Lewis e-mailed Stewart April 11 to confirm a meeting for May 30 at NAMB's offices in Alpharetta, GA. "If you choose not to accept this invitation, I will assume that you no longer wish to be a North American Mission Board-appointed missionary at this point," Lewis wrote.

Stewart said he was "startled" and "perplexed" to learn that his termination was now on the table. At the association's insistence, he said, he took his attorney and a local pastor to the meeting. The issues of the doctrinal statement, San Tomas and Ron Wilson were discussed, but no resolution was reached.

The meeting transcript does not mention an intent to dismiss Stewart.

That came June 26 in a phone call from a NAMB personnel officer informing Stewart the trustee personnel committee - which included Wilson and Fox - had voted June 12 to remove his missionary endorsement and defund his position.

Stewart told ABP the NAMB vote bears the marks of Wilson's wrath.
"I think this has everything to do with Ron Wilson not being seated at the state convention," Stewart said. "They are taking it out on me."

"He said that? Really?" Wilson replied to ABP. "I don't think that the North American Mission Board's action has anything to do with the actions he pulled at the California Southern Baptist Convention."

King declined to give details about Stewart's dismissal. "Because of the personnel nature of the issue, I'm just not able to go into that," he said. "The funding was withdrawn due to a deteriorating relationship with Dr. Stewart," King said, adding Stewart had been making negative comments about NAMB in association churches.

King declined to say whether Wilson's dispute with Stewart was a factor in the dismissal.

For the last two decades, Wilson has been a vocal and visible trustee in Baptist life, serving on two of the SBC's most influential boards - the Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) and NAMB.

In the 1990s, Wilson proposed moving IMB headquarters out of Richmond, VA after Virginia Baptists voted to cut funding for the Board. The IMB considered moving but later declined.

Wilson also argued for the de-funding of the Baptist Theological Seminary at Ruschlikon, Switzerland, which IMB did, creating a breach in the relationship between the SBC and European Baptists that still exists.

On the BF&M issue, Stewart said he abides by NAMB's policy, which requires missionaries to "maintain theological convictions consistent with" the 2000 statement.

Stewart said he did not oppose the doctrinal statement, only the "misuse" of it by those who wanted to make it a requirement for associational membership.
Regardless, Central Coast's policy is "an associational issue," Stewart said, not one of missionary employment.

He noted the association's churches "are all shocked" about the NAMB termination, but "we're going to move on."

Stewart said his problems, as well as recent trustee turmoil at the IMB, demonstrate "that the trustee system is broken in Southern Baptist life."

"We need something like a missionary 'bill of rights' to protect home and foreign missionaries, so there is a process that protects us from this kind of thing," Stewart concluded. "We just can't allow this to keep happening to missionaries of good conscience."

Wilson said efforts to increase the profile of the BF&M won't stop with Central Coast Association.

"If you can't make the Baptist Faith and Message a test of fellowship, then what good is it?"