Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 13, 1992 TAG: 9201130136
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SECULAR SECTOR BECKONS
No, Steve Teague says, he has not suffered ministerial "burnout."No, there was no split at Calvary Baptist Church, no bad blood.
At 41, though, he has felt a new call out of a pastorate and into a board room.
After 16 years in the ministry, Roanoke's most outspoken "liberal" Southern Baptist clergyman has moved into a secular job providing a new service.
The company - Decision Audit Corp. of Kansas City, Mo. - aims to help corporations and non-profit organizations make better decisions. That should help them thrive and protect them from expensive litigation by disgruntled shareholders or clients.
Teague is the company's director of sales.
"I know this might sound funny, but I have almost a providential sense or feeling about it. It's just the thing for me to do," Teague said in an interview last week.
"I found ministry very rewarding. I was not looking for anything, not even another church. This opportunity just came along."
Many of Teague's parishioners were taken by surprise by the move. In his five years there, Teague has led the church into new programs designed to reach out into the inner-city neighborhood where it remains, despite the fact that many members now live elsewhere.
The church started a program to help provide medical care for those who cannot afford it.
During the struggle between moderates and ultraconservatives for dominance in the Southern Baptist Convention, Teague and Calvary became aligned with the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A. The resulting dual affiliation was among the first in Western Virginia.
After the dual affiliation, Teague, who once had been active and outspoken on the controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention, pretty much dropped out of its political life.
"I love the SBC and what it has been," Teague said. "It has nurtured me and brought me forward in faith."
But, "I think the Southern Baptist Convention, as I grew up in it and was educated in it, is over."
Moderate splinter organizations such as the Southern Baptist Alliance and The Fellowship are likely to be the nucleus of a new denomination, Teague believes, or at least to continue the fracturing of the existing structure.
Teague said he was occasionally frustrated by a few Baptist ministers who accused him of not believing in Christ or the Bible because he rejected their fundamentalist doctrine - such as the inerrancy of Scripture.
He found solace from that hurt in the church family at Calvary. "Many have allowed me the privilege of entering the sacred places of their lives . . . places where we have often found God waiting for us."
Now, he says, he sees his new job as "part of a branching out into a new vision of ministry."
Though the field is new, it already has its own jargon and is creating a "decision-making science" based on principles of sociology, psychology, ethics and law.
Teague said the idea is to help boards of directors evaluate their decision-making process.
Decision Audit will come in after a board makes a decision but before it is implemented and review the process by which it was made. Lawyers will review documents and a team of experts will examine board members' actions to make sure the right questions were asked.
That should ensure that a legally defensible "due process" was followed and should mitigate claims that the company acted rashly or improperly.