Following are accounts of questions posed by messengers on the convention floor and responses by entity presidents. Not all entity presidents were asked questions.

INTERNATIONAL MISSION BOARD

Ron Wilson, a messenger from Wynnbrook Baptist Church in Columbus, Ga., asked two questions at the close of the International Mission Board report.

"Trustees used to have to read 35 to 40 pages of information before they could vote on potential missionaries," Wilson said. "I've been told that they now only get four or five pages. So my question is, 'How can trustees know enough about the candidates to make an informed decision?'"

Tom Elliff, the IMB's president, said he believes trustees know more about missionary candidates now than they did in the past.

"Besides all the great volume of paperwork, it would be good for you to know that these trustee personnel committees are involved in Skype conversations as a committee, and what we call the 'green-sheet' process; they go through personal interviews ...," Elliff said.

Elliff recounted one former candidate telling him at the convention, "I think they knew more about me than I did by the time they finished with me."

"Our desire is to do everything we can to send out people that would be adequate -- no, not just adequate -- that would be excellent when it comes to sharing their faith on the field," Elliff said.

Wilson's second question, "Is it true that we no longer have to have a seminary degree or two years of pastoral experience before we go as missionaries?" was referred to Clyde Meador, the mission board's executive vice president.

"It has been many years since we removed a requirement for a seminary degree for every missionary going," Meador told messengers. "Nevertheless, you'll be interested to know that even though it is not required for most of our assignments, more than 50 percent, in fact about 61 percent, of career missionary personnel going to the field today do have a seminary degree -- the head of household does have a seminary degree before they go to the field."

The IMB requires at least 20 hours of seminary education for all career personnel and 30 hours for those who will have full-time church planting and evangelism responsibilities, Meador said.

"Added to that, we are now asking that each ... have at least 12 hours of specific theological education from one of our seminaries," Meador said. "This is a brand-new requirement for spouses. At the same time, we are seeking to determine whether we need again to look at greater educational requirements for our personnel. Let me say also that our personnel undergo and experience unusually fine orientation programs including theological education after they come with us, before they go to the field."

LIFEWAY CHRISTIAN RESOURCES

Thom S. Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, was asked to explain how the organization makes decisions about what books, videos and other products to sell. Rainer acknowledged "it's a difficult process because we sometimes make calls on products some people object to." He encouraged messengers to "trust the trustees."

"Southern Baptists have elected trustees who love the Lord, the inerrant Scripture and the Southern Baptist Convention," Rainer said. "They hold us accountable.... I ask you, messengers, to trust the trustee system. How do we decide what we do? We trust the trustees."

Another messenger asked Rainer, "Do we trust the trustees more than we trust the messengers?" He replied, "We trust the messengers to elect the trustees."

MIDWESTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

Following the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary report on Wednesday morning, two messengers voiced questions. The first, posed by Jay Gross, pastor of West Conroe Baptist Church in Conroe, Texas, was, "Recent articles released by the Baptist Press, the Associated Baptist Press, printed in a number of state papers ... have stated that Dr. Phil Roberts, the former president of Midwestern, was encouraged by the trustees to resign for reasons of misappropriation of funds and mismanagement. Yet I've been told by some that the audits of Midwestern during Dr. Roberts' tenure were all unqualified."

Gross said a member of his church requested a copy of the audit from the school without response. He went on to state that donors and contributors to the Cooperative Program were entitled to review such audits, and he wanted to know when a copy of the audit might be provided for viewing.

In response, Robin Hadaway, interim president of Midwestern, said an answer had previously been provided by himself and Anthony Allen, then-senior vice president of administration, that the audit summary would be presented in the convention's book of reports.

"That was given and is for anyone to see," Hadaway said. He added that the audit also was given to the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee at its February meeting. "It was received," he said.

Hadaway turned over personal questions about Roberts to Kevin Shrum, the seminary's trustee chairman. Shrum said there was a possibility that inaccuracies existed in some of the published stories, and the information "did not come from the Midwestern family."

"We are sorry if there's been any misunderstanding as far as the credibility of anyone, but a lot of those reports in the press were not accurate at best," Shrum said.

The second question was posed by Hollie Miller, a messenger from Sevier Heights Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tenn., who said, "One of our finest leaders in our convention has had his reputation severely damaged. There was even an article and his picture in Christianity Today destroying his reputation. Do we not owe him more than a simple, 'I'm sorry,'"?

Hadaway responded, "Dr. Roberts is a friend of mine. He's a good man. We appreciate him, and he resigned.... As Dr. Shrum said, you can't believe everything you read in the press, especially outside our own Baptist family. We are proud of our seminary and our report today, and we would just hope that the friends of Midwestern would accept what Dr. Shrum and I have said today."

NEW ORLEANS BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary President Chuck Kelley was asked three questions as part of his report June 20.

-- David Worley, pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Greeneville, Tenn., asked Kelley to share with messengers about the seminary's ministry training program at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

"I can do that very succinctly: Wow!" Kelley said. Continued...