SBCOutpost

I’ve gotten to know quite a few people over the past two-and-one-half years as we’ve discussed the IMB policy/guideline changes.  No one seems to express what I’m thinking better than my friend Alan Cross.  Recently Alan completed quite a bit of homework on our missions work and has written down his conclusions to the information gathered from a variety of first-hand sources over an extended period of time.

Over the past few years, I have been very active in the blogosphere opposing the policies regarding private prayer language and baptism initiated by the IMB’s Board of Trustees in November, 2005. I was very excited to see others take up the struggle against these extra-biblical and extra- BF&M policies as seen through the Time to Change Statement, which I quickly signed. Even though I am a stateside pastor, I have had relationships with missionaries on the field for many years now. I have been a big advocate for the IMB and believe that they are doing great work. As the current IMB BoT chairman, Paul Chitwood recently said, “The work of the IMB is the primary thing that brings us together.” I agree. That is why it is so important to all of us.

Recently, I have begun to hear about the disastrous effects that these policies are having upon our missionary force in the field. Read the rest of this entry »

Seeing as how most of us are in Christian ministry one would think that the time to be honest would be…well…just about any and every time, though in these days being honest may get you branded a malevolent spirit being. But I digress.

Friday morning, May 2nd, Dr. Steve Lemke, Provost at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, sent an e-mail encouraging various faculty and staff to consider the Barber/Yarnell Resolution on Integrity in Church Membership. He certainly did not suggest that they should sign their names to it. He simply stated his own support and offered it to them for their own support if they might be so inclined.

Of course, Tom Ascol has proposed a similar resolution for the past two years and it has been rejected both times. The arguments against Ascol’s resolution have been quite stellar. In Greensboro the official stance of the Resolutions Committee was that we should keep unregenerate people on our church rolls for their prospect value. And a majority of the messengers in session said: “Amen.” Undeterred Ascol submitted his resolution again at last year’s meeting in San Antonio. There it was argued before the messengers that to adopt such a resolution would infringe upon the local church’s autonomy. And a majority of the messengers in sessions said: “Amen.” Read the rest of this entry »

No. It isn’t falling, but it appears to be in disrepair. Ed Stetzer has come out with Part Two of his analysis on SBC growth trends (or un-growth trends, as the case may be).

The wailing and gnashing of teeth has personally been quite unexpected. I never would have thought that his three-pronged prescription: seek to broaden convention participation, quit fighting so much, and get focused on the gospel, would have been viewed as so much poor medicine. I guess I continue to underestimate the penchant for people to deny what appears to be such clear reality.

I, like Todd, am a little incredulous that people would propose that the SBC has all of a sudden gotten a conscience about church membership or that a significant number of churches have gotten the will to act on that conscience. We’ve tried to address the regenerate church membership issue in our church and I continue to hear objections that “they might come back” or “aren’t we telling them we don’t care about them any more?” Admittedly, I’ve only been here four years and this issue has not necessarily been what I’ve been overly focused on. We’ve had our talks, but I’m not going to shove it down people’s throats. That’s just not how I tend to lead. We’ve been trying to talk more about missions, generosity, the gospel and community impact.

But maybe there are a significant number of churches cleaning up their rolls. Given the convention’s inability to express a positive resolution in favor of such a thing I remain quite skeptical. Let’s not forget that one chairman of the Resolutions Committee actually argued, publicly, that we should keep them on our rolls as prospects. And his argument won the day. This was but two years ago.

Now it appears that Thom Rainer, LifeWay statistician Cliff Tharp and Southern professor Chuck Lawless agree that the trends do not look good. You know where I stand (here, here, here and here).

As Ed says at the end of this second article, “…the fact is that we don’t need to say this is not real. It’s deadly real and has eternal significance. If trends continue, we are entering a period of decline and we need to repent and ask God for His power to change.”

Right you are, Ed. Right you are.

Today Ed Stetzer is reporting that, for the first time in our history, the Southern Baptist Convention is in decline in terms of overall membership. We’ve been in decline in baptisms for about seven or so years and now we are seeing that reflected in our membership numbers.

He writes:

…you cannot miss the fact that a dubious historical milestone has been reached—and it needs to be noted in denominational and church offices across the country.

There are three issues Stetzer says we, as a denomination, should address:

1. The absence of young leaders and ethnic leaders in denominational life.
2. Denominational infighting.
3. (most importantly) We’ve lost our focus on the gospel.

Check out Ed’s blog for more details. More commentary to come.

In a recent blog post Tom Ascol opines about the controversial nature of reform movements, remembering that for decades the Conservative Resurgence was, itself, a reform movement. He writes:

My editorial in this issue of the FJ [Founder’s Journal] looks at the “Calvinistic Resurgence” in light of the “Conservative Resurgence” and makes two points. First, the latter did not occur without significant controversy, which makes the makes the castigations against the doctrines of grace and those who believe them as being “controversial” lose their force (especially when they come from the very controversialists who led the charge in the 1st CR). Second, despite all of the good that was done in the 1st CR, by and large, the Southern Baptist Convention is in need of dramatic renewal in our day. Arguably, our churches are worse off today than they were in 1979.

If you want to know why he thinks so, order your copy of the Founder’s Journal today.

I got a call the other day and was asked, “So why are you writing this series of posts?”

Well. I suppose on one level, as I survey the Southern Baptist landscape, I see some negative trends and I think we ought to own up to them. I think we should try to creatively address them. I’ve been a Southern Baptist since nine months before I was born. I’ve got a lot of life personally invested in the SBC and I’m not particularly fond of the idea of it becoming a shell of what it is now. I tend to be more of a kingdom-focused guy than a denominationally focused guy, but that doesn’t mean that I’m ready to throw the SBC on the trash heap - even though there are those who might like the SBC to throw me on one.

But I don’t have all the answers, either. I hope we can generate some positive discussion about how a re-visioned SBC might look. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t believe the SBC has a positive vision that is capable of inspiring us to move ahead. We seem to be either stuck in the past (focusing on “Baptist Identity”), or we’re captive to the present (what’s the latest fad/program/novel idea?). I would like for someone to articulate a vision of the future that won’t just inspire a bunch of preachers in a convention hall, but will inspire the people of God known as Southern Baptists and most of what I hear in denominational life is geared more toward short-term inspiration. Whip the crowd into a frenzy for an hour. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week James Galyon posted an interview with Bill Wagner specifically related to his position on missions and Dr. Wagner’s publicly stated position on Calvinism as it relates to missions and evangelism. Dr. Galyon does a fine job in this interview and we link to it as we all continue to consider who might serve as the next President of the SBC.

The state or health of the SBC is not only measured in the number of people who stay away from SBC events but also in what local churches are willing to give to.  The trends, once again, are not good.

I say that trends are not good.  I guess what I mean to say is that trends are not good for the denomination.  It is still possible that those trends are good for the local church and for kingdom work overall.  It sort-of depends. Read the rest of this entry »

Denominations become self-perpetuating. They exist to exist. To survive. But as we’ve all seen from the TV show Survivor, once everyone gets into survival mode things start getting ugly.

When denominations and denominational entities begin to exist for themselves, for their own preservation, the denomination is in decline. When denominational leaders (the ones we used to call “servants”) begin acting in self-preserving ways the denomination is in decline. Some people will tell you that the problem begins with the denominational entities and flows down to the churches. Others will counter that unhealthy churches make up unhealthy denominations.  Reality is that the relationship flows both ways.

The Southern Baptist Convention is in decline. It hardly matters that “membership” is up if every other indicator is down - including weekly attendance, baptisms and the percentages given to maintain the denomination and its ministries. Can it turn around and will it?

I am, by nature, an optimist. The glass is almost always half full. In fact, I often wish I was a postmillennialist. But it will probably come as little surprise to know that I am not very hopeful when it comes to the future of the SBC.

I think we are too institutionalized. Adrian Rogers once called the Cooperative Program our sacred cow. If it was a sacred cow then it has nearly become a fourth person in the Trinity today.

Some of our leaders share in concerns about what we are becoming and have become, but most are too invested to do anything that would lead to substantive change. If the structure of our denomination were to radically change then their jobs might change with it, so there is often too much at stake for them.

Some of my blogging friends do not believe the SBC can change apart from those leaders taking the lead. They also believe that it won’t happen, so they have left blogging about “Baptist” stuff altogether. I don’t particularly blame them.

But if things continue as they have been for the past 25 or so years what will become of the SBC? What follows are some of my thoughts. I’m not a prophet or the son of a prophet, but I think I can follow some trends and perhaps draw some reasonable conclusions from them.

Let me begin with the implications I see in the dwindling attendance numbers at annual conventions and other SBC events. If the denomination continues to decline the Baptist Identity folks will win/maintain control of the convention because they will be the only ones left who care about it enough to hang around. Of course, if the convention continues to dwindle they may be left with very little to hold on to, but have it they will, nonetheless.

If that happens we can probably expect to see much of what we’ve seen for the last 30 or so years. The same old same old evangelism conferences, the same old same old pastor’s conferences, and the same old same old programs. They will likely continue their present effectiveness as well. I don’t think the SBC will thrive with thinking that says we need to keep doing what we’re doing (or go back to doing it the way we used to), but to try harder. Honestly, that is what we are already doing - or at least trying to preach ourselves into doing - witness more, baptize more, learn more theology. Do what we do, just do more of it and with more passion and energy. I don’t know. Maybe that will work. It hasn’t in my lifetime, but perhaps things will change. I’m not hopeful. But the SBC has a long history of revivalist thinking, so I may well be in the minority (just keep doing what we do and pray for a mighty outpouring of the Spirit in revival and we’ll be back in business).

Meanwhile there are churches needing assistance in other ways and they aren’t getting it because we’ve allocated all of our resources to maintaining what we already do. If we quit doing it this way there are a number of older folks who are used to it this way (and who typically give most of the money and are the majority of those who even show up) who will complain about it. Go ahead. Just try to do something radically different with your state’s evangelism conference. Or skip it one year for a completely different approach. You’ll be able to hear the wails and cries and complaints from a thousand miles away.

Our state conventions can’t all afford their own Catalyst conference, or Q Conference, or Desiring God conference. So we’ll just line up the same speakers we had at our evangelism conference/pastor’s conference three years ago and have another go at it. Meanwhile, all of the attendees laugh at Junior Hill’s jokes and get excited by Herb Revis’s fiery presentation and homespun stories, and return to our churches where attendance, baptisms and giving continue largely to decline (and those that are growing are almost exclusively doing so at the expense of the dying Methodist church or the troubled Baptist church down the street).

My own opinion is that we neither want to re-think how we do what we do, nor are we able to. And the results will continue to show as more and more choose to stay away from the things we do.

Of course, a denomination is neither sustained nor doomed based upon attendance at denominational events, but people do often vote by their absence and they are voting in the droves. Without some form of personal contact with the entities we help support how long will that support last?

Next up: what about the money?

In the last five weeks we’ve had four families/individuals who have joined our church. Of those only one family came from another Baptist church. In our four years in this church over half of those who have joined, coming from another church, have come from something other than a Baptist church. Yes, we do have the word “Baptist” on our sign. Yet, this is a trend that other pastors I’ve talked to are seeing as well. Some of them do not have “Baptist” on their sign, or are in the process of having it removed.

When I arrived at this church they were not using official Southern Baptist literature in most classes. No children’s class used it, though the Middle School and Youth classes used it as well as some of our adult classes. The church did not deem the denomination’s children’s literature to be evangelistic enough. So we use a very conservative, non-denominationally published brand of literature. Most of our adult classes today use something other than LifeWay material. There was a day when that would have never happened.

We are Southern Baptists. We give to the Cooperative Program. We give to our local association. We give to Lottie Moon. We also give to a local community-based Christian organization that helps with benevolent needs and we do benevolence ministry directly as well.

For decades now the larger (mega) churches have trended away from strong cooperative giving in favor of more personal involvement in missions and ministry. A Southern Baptist mega-church may allocate as much or more to things like missions work through the local church than to missions work through denominational channels.

One even wonders how many people who are members of Saddleback church even know they are Southern Baptists. Some have questioned whether or not their pastor knows. Read the rest of this entry »