Rhett Burns Launches One-Stop Shop for Information on 990-Level Financial Transparency Motion at SBCTransparency.net
The 2025 Southern Baptist Convention’s Annual Meeting is now just under six weeks away. As the Dallas gathering rapidly draws nearer, the ongoing fight to secure common-sense levels of financial transparency from SBC entities is receiving renewed attention.
With that increased focus, Rhett Burns, Senior Pastor of FBC Traveler’s Rest and one of the leaders of the SBC financial transparency movement, has just launched a new website as the next step in his campaign to bring true transparency and trustee reform to the SBC.
His website, SBC Transparency, is an easy-to-navigate collection of resources aimed at equipping SBC churches and messengers to 1) understand how broken trust, financial mismanagement, trustee failure, and ever-growing entity-level secrecy are hurting our Cooperative Program giving and Great Commission mission, and 2) support his motion to amend the SBC Business and Financial Plan to include “990-level” financial reporting from our entities.
Since the 2023 Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Burns has made multiple motions to amend the B&FP to require SBC entities to provide financial information to SBC churches at a level equivalent to that of the IRS Form 990. Even though his motions have been 1) in order, 2) germane, and 3) worthy of a Convention-wide debate and vote, they have been repeatedly referred to and subsequently blocked by the Executive Committee.
However, the movement is gaining steam as mounting legal troubles and massive expenditures continue to plague the SBCEC and other entities.
To better educate, equip, and activate messenger support for the motion, Burns recently launched sbctransparency.net. This self-funded site offers a library of resources, all of which make the case for increased financial transparency.
Organizations like ours, Christ Over All, and others have pieces linked on the site, in addition to a variety of podcasts and X-Space recordings.
Perhaps the two most helpful aspects of the site are its concise “FAQ Section” and its inclusion of an entity scorecard, which, with numerous red Xs, clearly highlights the lack of transparency across the Convention.
As you can see from the Transparency Scorecard, this is a desperately needed amendment.
At the Center for Baptist Leadership, we’re excited about this new resource. We have supported Burns in his efforts from the very beginning, making “financial transparency” one of our main issue areas of focus.
And we urge all messengers to the 2025 Annual Meeting to support Burns’ forthcoming motion to amend the B&FP to require this financial transparency.
CBL continues to believe that financial transparency is not only an industry-standard best practice and a logical requirement for entities entrusted with tithe dollars, but also a biblical necessity. Engaging in financial transparency promotes trust among shareholders, ensures proper oversight of trustee activities, encourages entities to be more mindful of their expenditures and potential conflicts of interest, and trains the trustees to focus on holding entity heads accountable to their prescribed mission on behalf of the Convention.
If entities are operating in a manner consistent with biblical commitments, Christian principles, and SBC requirements, they have nothing to fear or lose by increasing transparency.
If an entity were to voluntarily offer 990-level disclosures, it would deserve to be celebrated and strongly supported. Burns makes this point clearly in a recent piece at Christ Over All, now linked on his website, writing:
“The real issue is the erosion of trust. Transparency can rebuild it. If daylight reveals corruption, we can confront it with the Gospel’s power. Jesus Christ died so that men could be forgiven their sins, and Southern Baptists are a forgiving people. If suspicions prove baseless, we’ll move forward united and confident in the health of our institutions. Either way, trust wins.”
Unfortunately, many of the SBC’s institutions have been unwilling to even engage in conversation about these disclosures, let alone support them publicly. However, on April 30, SBTS President Albert Mohler said 990-level financial transparency “makes sense” but helpfully notes that, even then, it doesn’t “necessarily tell you everything you need to know.” That may be true, but 990-level disclosure is still a necessary first step.
Burns had a helpful thread on Mohler’s comments, which you can find below.
Given the widespread silence at best, and behind-the-scenes opposition at worst, from almost every other entity head in the SBC, Burns’ motion continues to be sorely needed.
As Burns put it, both clearly and persuasively, “This is not a decision for the entity heads. This is not a decision for the denominational bureaucracy. This is not a decision for the Executive Committee…Their decision is, ‘Is this legitimate for a vote?’ and the answer to that is yes. The right thing to do is to allow us to vote on it, and I hope that they do.”
Consider, if you will, if a local church would refuse to account for how it spends its congregation’s tithes. Doesn’t a congregation have a right to know how its mission money is spent? What about how much they pay their pastors? No congregation should be satisfied without that information.
Likewise, no church should be satisfied with the obfuscation and avoidance of this issue from the Executive Committee or other SBC entities.
Even though some financial information is made available to SBC churches, the reality is that many individuals are still woefully underinformed on this issue. That is what makes Burns’ website such a helpful resource—it brings together quality content from across the spectrum of SBC life into one centralized place, easily shared with friends, family, and fellow church members. This website also helpfully counters misinformation about Burns’ motion, pointing them directly to the author so they can hear the need and his godly motivations firsthand.
When asked for a comment on why he created a dedicated website to this cause, Pastor Burns said:
“My hope is this website will be a one-stop shop for messengers to learn about 990-level financial transparency—what it is and why we need it—so that they come to Dallas prepared to take the action needed to strengthen the Cooperative Program, restore trust in our Convention, and ensure our Great Commission partnership keeps thriving into the future. I hope messengers will read through it and forward it along to other pastors and messengers.”
We are thankful that Pastor Burns has provided this resource to those interested in this crucial battle for trust and transparency in the nation’s largest theologically conservative denomination. Despite many recent struggles, including declining membership, decreased giving, and growing liberalism, we believe that the SBC can return to its Gospel mission and regain a position of positive influence in American evangelicalism and public life.
But we cannot do so without rebuilding a culture of trust, and that begins by taking the painful but necessary steps to reform the Convention from within.
The SBC is sick, and financial transparency is the medicine we need.
If this is a cause that you want champion—and we encourage you to do so—then share Burns’ site with as many messengers as you can, encourage your church to maximize the number of messengers that they send, and show up in Dallas ready to rebuild trust and restore cooperation in the SBC through increased financial transparency.
CBL will continue to support Pastor Burns in this common-sense and worthy cause, and we will not stop until the light of truth fully illuminates every SBC entity, so that all churches can see it. Because the churches do not exist to serve the entities, the entities exist to serve the churches.
It’s time to open the books. Our SBC churches deserve truthfulness and transparency, the trustee system needs reform, and obedience to God demands it.
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