WHEREAS, The tasks, opportunities and responsibilities now facing Southern Baptists are vastly more extensive and complex than faced our fathers sixty years ago, or than could have been foreseen by them when they constructed the organization and provided the methods by which we have achieved the success of the past: and,
WHEREAS, We all recognize that in the unprecedented conditions of our time Southern Baptists must within a few years determine the place we are to hold in the religious progress of the race, and that the position we are to occupy in the world’s life, and believing that under God we have a commission to contribute definitely, specifically and largely to the redemption of mankind and to the direction of its life in the Kingdom of God on earth; therefore be it,
RESOLVED, 1st, That a Commission of seven judicious men among us be appointed by the President of the Convention, of which he shall be the Chairman, which shall, during the coming year, make a careful study and a thorough examination of the organization, plans and methods of this body, with a view to determining whether or not they are best adapted for eliciting, combining and directing the energies of Southern Baptists and for securing the highest efficiency of our forces and the fullest possible enlistment of our people for the work of the Kingdom in the critical and strategic time in which we live and serve; and to recommend to the Convention of 1914 such changes and modification, if any, as in their judgment would increase the effectiveness of the Convention and the devotion of our people as servants of the Lord Jesus Christ for the world’s redemption.
2nd. That in the prosecution of this study the Commission shall be authorized to incur any legitimate expense for traveling and other items necessary to its task, and to apportion the same among the three general Boards of this Convention, which expense the Boards are instructed to pay.