JACKSONVILLE (FBW)-Pledging ongoing support for Southern Baptist main funding mechanism for missions, Mac Brunson, newly elected pastor of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville said he is “a product” of the Cooperative Program and believes it is something he will continue to strongly support.

First Baptist Church in Dallas gave 16.4 percent of their undesignated gifts to the SBC’s Cooperative Program in 2004 as well as giving more than $1 million through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions—an amount twice as large as the biggest offering ever from a single church.

In Jacksonville, Brunson told Florida Baptist Witness his father was a Baptist deacon and his home church in South Carolina gave 20 percent to CP, though his father said he believed it would be good for a church to give 50 percent and operate on 50 percent.

“I’ve always tried to get my churches to do at least 10 percent, that we ought to tithe the tithe,” Brunson said. “I’m a team player. I believe in the Cooperative Program.”

Brunson said his maternal grandfather was one of the first children to be cared for at Connie Maxwell Baptist Children’s Home in Greenwood, South Carolina, a ministry, funded, in part, by the South Carolina Baptist Convention. Additionally, Brunson said his father and two sisters were “saved” through efforts of Baptist church planters.

“I owe a lot of what I am to Southern Baptists and I try in every way I can to support Southern Baptist work,” Brunson said of his leadership in this area at First Baptist, Jacksonville. “I want to put our money where our mouth is. I think we will try to begin to incrementally increase that and increase what we are doing to Lottie Moon and missions.

Brunson said missions support involves “not just giving, but going. We’ll be very involved in both--in giving and going.”

On public policy issues, Brunson said he is aware First Baptist, Jacksonville, collected a large number of petitions in support of a marriage amendment to Florida’s constitution which leaders believe will earn enough signatures to be placed on the 2008 ballot.

“I will be vocal and will give leadership for conservatives in that area, for Baptists in that area,” Brunson told the Witness. In a press conference after the interview, Brunson told a reporter he intends to stay involved in public policy issues involving morality.

“I’m just a preacher and this is just a church. And I realize that a lot of things that we adhere to cross over into the political realm,” Brunson said. “I have a right to speak out. Some people will call that separation of church and state. In the area of moral issues, I think that the church has a command to speak out. And we will.”

Brunson is not new to political issues in Southern Baptist life either. Reacting to a news reports from some years back which characterized him as kind of middle of the road on the issue of women’s ordination—something over which Southern Baptists have wrestled with—Brunson said he did have a definite idea on where he stands as a church pastor.

“Well, back then, I was the second conservative ever elected in North Carolina [as president of their state convention]. And that paper was and is in the hands of the moderates and that was an issue they wanted to use in an attempt to get me to feed it,” Brunson said. “And you know, I made the statement, ‘that’s up to a local Baptist church.’ Well, it is. That’s up to a local Baptist church.

“Now, the church I’m pastor of, we’re not going to do that. I don’t believe Scripture teaches that,” Brunson continued. “If you read Act chapter 6, it says you choose six men. [and] it’s very specific …. So I think Scripture’s very clear about that.”

Important theologically, Brunson said is that his people are “tied to the Word of God.”

“I think that’s so critical,” he said “we are to be evangelistic, we’re to constantly be lifting Jesus Christ to a lost world and we are very committed to missions.”

Brunson said his personal commitment to missions includes involving his family in mission trips and encouraging his daughter, Courtney, who was a missionary to an unnamed country for a two-year period prior to getting married last year. Brunson’s wife, Debbie, is a trustee for the SBC’s International Mission Board.

Calling the annual Pastors’ Conference at First Baptist, Jacksonville, “incredibly influential,” Brunson said he plans to continue what has become a two-decade long ministry to pastors throughout the United States.

“It has filled a need in a lot of churches in the lives of not only pastors, but in the lives of a lot of lay people as well,” Brunson said of the conference in which he has also been a featured speaker.

Announcing plans to start ministry in Jacksonville on Palm Sunday, April 9, Brunson responded to an assortment of questions by the local news media Feb. 19.

Well, we love the city. It’s beautiful,” he said of Jacksonville, where it was in the seventies the day before. “We enjoyed the weather yesterday!”

Pointing to the similarities between First Baptist in Dallas and First Baptist in Jacksonville after a reporter asked him to respond to the differences of the two churches, Brunson said “both great congregations” are the only two Baptist downtown mega-churches in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Brunson later responded to a question about having reacted to a media report which released his name as the prospective new pastor at First Baptist in Jacksonville before he was able to share that information with his congregation there. He said it caused him some discomfort to know “speculation” had been confirmed by unnamed sources.

“You had two great congregations here that I’m very much concerned about. I’m concerned about my people in Dallas and I’m concerned about my people [here],” Brunson said. “I stand really … with a foot in two worlds right now.” He said he felt the “weight of responsibility” for both churches at this time.

“And I wanted to be able to share with that congregation,” Brunson said. “They’ve been so good to me and they have blessed us in so many ways.”

In retrospect, however, Brunson said the “amazing thing” was that “when it was given to the press, it really took the sting out of sharing that with the people at First Dallas. So God causes all things to work together for good.”

On “filling Dr. Vines’ shoes,” Brunson said “I can’t do that…. I can be me, that’s all I can do. I can be me.” Admitting it will be a “big learning curve” to understand the workings of the church’s large staff and “huge congregation,” Brunson said it will take him some time to get his hands “around some of this.”

On his energetic and lively preaching style, Brunson said, “the way I preached today is the way I preach. At some point I may go off the podium up there,” he joked and then sobered. “I imagine if I went off the front of it, I’d probably calm down.”

At First Baptist, Dallas, the church sanctuary and platform is much smaller than the cavernous First Baptist, Jacksonville which seats 10,000. In Dallas, the church auditorium seats 2,000 and offers three morning worship services to accommodate church-goers.

Brunson admitted to being “scared” before stepping into the pulpit at First Baptist, Jacksonville, in view of a call that morning, but said evangelist Billy Graham, who is a member at First Baptist, Dallas, also admitted being nervous every times he steps into a pulpit to preach. “I’m so wiped out because I was so emotionally caught up with this morning,” Brunson said.

If he had any hesitation in leaving First Baptist, Dallas, Brunson told the Witness it would be because of “all of the things” happening there—like 600 visitors on one Sunday in January.

“Things … are growing there, things are going in a great direction and to see the work there—that’s hard to leave,” Brunson continued. “It’s like watching your children. I got a daughter that’s just got married right at a year ago. I’ve got a son who was engaged last week. And seeing these children get out of the house--it’s kind of like when you lose something.”

Brunson said it’s the same with First Baptist, Dallas. “That’s the difficulty, turning loose of it after you’ve cared for it, and prayed for it, bled for it, all of those kinds of things. It’s difficult to let it go.”