SBCOutpost

In late February the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma hosted its second Missional Ministry Conference. One of the featured speakers, Ed Stetzer, offered illustration of recent Lifeway Research during a breakout session. During the Q and A he sought to break down some of the technical features of statistical analysis for we average folks. I was left thinking it may be good to include a course in statistics for seminary students - and so we pastors.

I, like many pastors, tend to watch “trends.” For example, one of the trends I have watched over the past five or so years is attendance. Now that is not to imply some kind of weird disinterest in previous years. Instead, I began noticing attendance patterns changing in our church. I will go out on a limb and say ours is not the only church where attendance has “leveled” after a period of growth while we have continued to see additions to our membership over the years. Since we place such an emphasis upon the size of a church in order to imbue another with a sense of honor and prestige it is nigh impossible for we pastor types to leave attendance concerns to someone else. Why, when news breaks about a potential SBC President, it seems we always find mention of the size of church and the kind of growth of said church during the tenure of the “prestigious” pastor. But, I digress.

Growing up in an SBC church meant gauging “regular” attendance by weekly attendance. Over these past five years or so I have found we may need to re-think “regular” attendance. I cannot recall where I read it but it seems that we (SBC) have even adjusted our ruler for “regular” attendance to twice a month, and maybe even monthly. What do these patterns mean? We self-conscious types wonder what we may have done, who we may have neglected, what we have forgotten. After all, when attendance flags the most dreaded description has become, “plateaued or declining.” Yet, I wonder how often that particular category denigrates the work of a local congregation because analysts fail to take into account a host of factors involved in any given local context. When we see the trends we ratchet up our rhetoric and cast about for ways to invigorate and inspire to new heights (read: numbers).

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Art Rogers pointed me to a post by Timmy Brister. “Ministerially Speaking” is a euphemism for exaggeration. Many over the years have given a free pass to those of us who preach when we have overstated to make a point. You may have heard, or said yourself, “Now this is not ministerially speaking.” The reference indicates our own growing discomfort with the reality words mean something. Exaggeration should not pass as the truth.

I repost Timmy’s indictment on us all to continue to make my point our issues tend to be systemic rather than exclusively connected to a single persona. Had Timmy taken the same data from our church he would have made similar discoveries - and dare I say we all would succumb to the evidence of our own pastoral contexts. Tom Ascol’s repeated calls for accountability when it comes to church membership make the same point. Something is amiss when we pass ourselves off as something we are not.

Please note there the peculiar reason Timmy used the illustration he did. Rather than excoriate him, or me for re-posting, pause and think reflectively on the issues at the heart of this problem. Maybe you will offer a solution or corrective. This post is offered with the author’s permission.

“Ministerially Speaking”

“Though official statements still affirm the doctrine of regenerate church membership, statistics indicate a different reality for the great majority of Baptist churches in North America.”
- John S. Hammett, Professor of Systematic Theology, SEBTS

Introduction

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in class when my professor was discussing characteristics of biblical leadership, and during that discussion I learned of a term often used when talking about churches and their statistics. The term “ministerially speaking” is used when someone does not accurately present the facts or stats but rather exaggerates or embellishes the truth to their own benefit.

In Southern Baptist life, numbers and statistics seem to be a big deal. You will hear the defense and argument everywhere from the fact that we have a book in the Bible called “Numbers” to the pragmatic rationale of management principles for ministerial success. Over the course of my experience as a Southern Baptist with the heightened emphasis on numbers, I had become frustrated because of my conviction that we had auctioned the church off to corporate America and unrestrained pragmatism in the pursuit of upholding denominational dominance and triumphalism. Every time for instance, when you hear that we Southern Baptists account for 16+ million people, we of course are “ministerially speaking.” For example, while in 2004 Southern Baptists reported a total of 16,267,494 members, only 6,024,289 (37%) were on average present for Sunday morning worship. The 16 million is the number we report to the secular media, and the 6 million is the number we report to God–and that on a good day.

“Ministerially Speaking” in Focus

But at this particular juncture and season of SBC politics, “ministerially speaking” perhaps is best seen when Baptist Press announces another candidate for an SBC office. At the very heart of their reporting, you will find a lot of numbers, most of which comes from the Annual Church Profile database. For instance, let’s take the most recent candidate for president, Frank Cox, pastor of North Metro Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Georgia.

Baptist Press reports,

“Cox has been North Metro’s pastor for more than 27 years. Under his leadership, the church has grown from 700 members to more than 4,600, with 3,600-plus individuals added to the church fellowship as baptized believers.”

I have to pause for a moment to emphasize a stat that I love, perhaps the most important of them all. Cox has been at North Metro for 27 years and stands as a testament to pastoral permanence in a flighty generation. I praise God for men like Frank Cox who find their life assignment in loving a congregation and leading them to reach their world for Christ.

But notice with me that the church has grown to 4,600 members with over 3,600 added through believer’s baptism. Those numbers are certainly impressive. But “ministerially speaking,” it could be even more impressive if you consider what Bob Terry, editor of The Alabama Baptist recently shared. In the February 21, 2008 editorial, Terry wrote the following:

“Other out-of-state speakers include Frank Cox, who is returning to the Alabama Baptist Evangelism Conference, and Herb Reavis Jr., senior pastor of North Jacksonville Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Fla. Cox, who previously spoke at the 2005 and 1998 state evangelism conferences, is senior pastor of North Metro Baptist Church, Lawrenceville, Ga. During his 25-plus years as pastor, he has led the church to grow from just under 500 members to more than 5,400.”

Now which is it? 4,600 members or 5,400? That’s a significant difference, don’t you think? But we must go on as more numbers await us.

A couple of paragraphs further in the same BP article, they add:

“The most recent information available, Southern Baptists’ 2006 Annual Church Profile Survey, lists 110 baptisms and primary worship service attendance of 1,737 for North Metro.”

According to Baptist Press, North Metro has at least 4,600 members but only 1,737 who show up on any given Sunday. We are not talking here about Sunday School, service, or ministry; rather, we are talking about those who simply sit in a pew on Sunday morning. Doing a little math will reveal that 37% of their membership are visibly present on Sunday (exactly the percentage from 2004 stated above), or put another way, nearly 2 out of 3 members do not attend “primary worship” services. Now the question then, is, why do we not talk about the numbers which are more realistic than the big, bloated numbers which so often get touted on newspaper write-ups and articles? But we must go on as more numbers await us.

Taking the same ACP data Baptist Press uses for their statistics, I have compiled the relevant data from 2000-2006 regarding North Metro as it is not really fair to look at a church over one year. So I wanted to see the church over a decent period of time, so I choose this seven-year period, and here is how the numbers shaped up:

Analysis

2000

3980 members
2636 resident members
141 baptisms
185 other additions
2003 primary worship attendance

2001

4000 members
2921 resident members
209 baptisms
246 other additions
2000 primary worship attendance

2002

4488 members
2960 resident members
140 baptisms
229 other additions
1425 primary worship attendance

2003

3931 members
3164 resident members
193 baptisms
219 other additions
1496 primary worship attendance

2004

4055 members
3278 resident members
140 baptisms
214 other additions
1676 primary worship attendance

2005

4188 members
3396 resident members
162 baptisms
199 other additions
1944 primary worship attendance

2006

4302 members
3486 resident members
110 baptisms
228 other additions
1737 primary worship attendance

Total Baptisms 2000-2006 1,095
Total Other Additions 2000-2006 1,520
Membership Growth from 2000-2006 322
Attendance Growth from 2000-2006 -266
Number of “Inactive” Members 2,565
A/A Differential* 2,615/-266
UCM Index** 60%

* A/A Differential = Total additions 2000-2006 / Total attendance growth 2000-2006
** UCM Index = 2006 Inactive Membership divided by 2006 Total Membership

The last paragraph is the totals of 2000-2006 combined. Take a moment, and consider these numbers with me.

First, while North Metro added 2,615 through baptism and “other additions,” their membership increased by only 322. What are we saying about the relationship of baptism and church membership? Ministerially speaking, the church grew by 2,615 members; biblically speaking, church membership increased by 322.

Second, again while North Metro added 2,615 during those seven years, they had a net decrease of -266 in primary worship attendance. What are we saying about the gospel and conversion when we baptized 1000+ people only to see a church decline in attendance during that same period? Ministerially speaking, the church added 2,615 people; biblically speaking, the church declined by 266 people.

Third, the total membership in 2006 was not 4,600 or 5,400 as Baptist Press reported but 4,302. But even with that number, the average attendance of 1,737 divided by 4,302 comes to 60% of the church not fulfilling their basic responsibility of worshiping God and hearing the Word preached on any given Sunday (a total of 2,565 “inactive” members. What are we saying about church discipline and the covenant community we call the local church? Imagine a corporation (if we go that route) where only 4 out of 10 of its employees ever showed up to work. How would it continue to function? So ministerially speaking, the church is comprised of 4,302 members; biblically speaking, the church has 1,737 members.

Conclusion

I could go on, but you do not need more numbers or my analysis to get the point. Numbers do matter - even the ones we cringe to look at and accept. But we must accept them. We must not be “ministerially speaking” but “biblically speaking”. My dean, Dr. Chuck Lawless, has a great blog entitled “Biblical Church Growth,” and I believe that is what we need today. I think it is clear to us all that adding 2,600+ members to one’s church should result in something more like 2,600 regular attenders (roughly speaking), not a decrease of 266 attenders. You see, behind these numbers tell us a lot about how serious we examine our churches, church membership, church discipline, the gospel, conversion, and a whole host of other things that distinctively make us Baptist. But more than being Baptist, we must be biblical, and to be biblical, we must begin with a humble confession and a honest assessment of where we are today. The problems we face will never be solved by denominational politics or presidents or anyone else “ministerially speaking.” They will be solved when we take a look at the Bride of Christ and say, “I will give my life for her that she may be pure, holy, and devoted to Christ our Head.” The reports in heaven will set the record straight, but God forbid that we wait until then to see our great need in the here and now.

It just doesn’t have to be that way, and we don’t just have to be “ministerially speaking” either.

Jerry sutton, pastor at Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville and a candidate for President of the SBC in 2006 has been reaffirmed by a vote of his church which took place Sunday morning. The vote was 1,101-286 and was announced in the Sunday evening service.

Sutton has been embroiled in conflict throughout the sumer, including a law suit filed last month by 54 members of his church. At least some of the issues at stake involve access to church records, how money is spent and openness from the staff.

The BP story is here.

The ABP story is here.

The AP story is here.

The New York Times has an article about the Clarkston International Bible Church, in Clarkston, Georgia (metro Atlanta). Clarkston International Bible Church used to be known as the Clarkston Baptist Church.  It’s still Southern Baptist.  By around 2001 the church had gone from an attendance of 600 to just around 100. The community was changing. Nearly one-third to one-half of the residents of Clarkston were immigrants. Facing a changing community one church member was noted as saying, “If you think black folks are going to come in here and take our church away from us you got another thing coming.”

Today Clarkston International Bible Church has among its members immigrants from the Philippines, Liberia, Sudan and even Afghanistan, among other countries. In a culture in which 11:00 on Sundays continues to be one of the most segregated hours in America, Clarkston International Bible Church stands out as an example of “exegeting the culture” and reflecting heaven. It hasn’t all been smooth. Some long-time members have left. Others, like William Perrin, believe they have no other Biblical choice. The NY Times states, “With his church failing, Mr. Perrin and other longtime members looked to the Scriptures for guidance and found what they believed was a mandate from Jesus to diversify their church.

‘We realized that what the Lord had in store for that old Clarkston Baptist Church was to transition into a truly international church and to help minister to all these ethnic groups moving into the county,’ Mr. Perrin said.”

David Phillips encourages us all to think outside of our own southern culture to find where and how God is moving. Commenter Greg Hicks makes a great observation that the south itself is changing and those of us who minister in places where the SBC is firmly established might need to re-examine our own cultural surroundings as well. The article Ben posted suggests we rethink both our preaching and our historic Enlightenment concepts of God and the relationship between the physical and spiritual worlds.

What challenges are your churches facing in terms of cultural transition? Theological re-thinking? How are you approaching those challenges?

Yesterday I read a quote on Emily Hunter McGowin’s blog. Her trip to Starbuck’s left her with a bit of wisdom for the ages. She read the quote on the back of her cup,

The Way I See It #280
“You can learn a lot more from listening than you can from talking. Find someone with whom you don’t agree in the slightest and ask them to explain themselves at length. Then take a seat, shut your mouth, and don’t argue back. It’s physically impossible to listen with your mouth open.”
- John Moe, Radio host and author of Conservatize Me.

Sean McKenzie writes for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In a piece published yesterday McKenzie suggests immigration reform needs the collective voice and weight of the Southern Bapitst Convention. Should you read this and get to the credit noting McKenzie a Methodist and decide to take swipes at he or his tradition, do not bother commenting. Instead, re-read the quote. Read carefully what is written and see if you do not get the sense someone has identified the SBC as a potentially helpful force in the public square on matters of immigration reform. You may want to note what your local congregation is doing in the wake of this “hot button” issue.

Quotes to stir you to go over and read,

It is undeniable that Baptists are committed people who do good works and take the Biblical injunction to love their neighbor literally. They form the backbone of many, perhaps even most, Southern communities. They coach Little League, visit shut-ins, and pray for the sick.

On the immigration issue, they have an opportunity to extend the open arms of Christ to souls who are more unwanted in the United States than any group in quite some time. Baptists do not have the luxury of some worldly rationalization for not helping the needy. The Bible says what it says. Baptists claim to believe it, so that must settle it.

Now is the time for them to act. They could truly be the “tipping point” that comprehensive immigration reform needs. They could change the direction of the political wind. It is time for Baptists to take a long, hard look in the mirror and do what they have always done: act in good faith.

Read the piece here.

John Frye, author of Jesus The Pastor, has some really good posts on The Joy of Mini-Church.  It’s a five-part series you can find here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.  Of course, Les Puryear has done a series on pastoring in a smaller church context as well.  As of today’s post he has completed a series on fifteen characteristics of the smaller church.  Rather than give fifteen links, I recommend you go to Les’s blog Joining God In His Work and you can’t miss these posts.

As we noted earlier, Les will be hosting a conference for smaller churches  March 27-29th at the Lewisville Baptist Church in Lewisville, North Carolina, the church Les pastors.

One wonders if the description of one large entity may be applied to another. Just  prior to the vote, in Spain, - and yes, the formal vote came the following year but the efffective move came in Seville, that resulted in the withdrawal of  the SBC from the BWA one leader in the SBC referred to the BWA as a, “Byzantine” organization. According to Merriam-Webster’s Online when the word “Byzantine” is not capitalilzed it refers to,

4 often not capitalized a
: of, relating to, or characterized by a devious and usually surreptitious manner of operation <a byzantine power struggle> b : intricately involved :

Since the other definitions make little sense regarding the use of “byzantine” when applied to the BWA as a negative adjective, I am  left to conclude this would have been the definition referenced. Everyone is entitled to their  evaluation of a given organization. Apparently this view won the day.

The question of this post is whether or not we may apply the same descriptor to the SBC. Some may recall the Baptist Identity Conference at Union University. Mike Day offered a perspective on the dupication of efforts when the work of local associations, State Conventions and SBC entities is considered. He used his own experience in denominational work  to point up ways we could be more efffective.

Reader Brad Brisco, D.Min student studying missional ecclesiology, alerted SBCOutpost to a book recently discussed relating to the effectiveness of denominations and judicatories (those organizations utilized by other denominations). A couple of quotes which may spur readers of the Outpost to explore the book more include,

The problem with denominations is that they want to shape the mission around their polity, rather than shape the polity around the mission. The latter view is the spirit of all the founding fathers and mothers of every denomination, while the former is the sorry state of every denomination today. The lack of mission urgency in North America means that denominational leaders think they still have time to develop modest, incremental strategic plans to tinker with polity, and time afterwards to then go about mission. The truth is just the opposite. The eternal destinies of individuals do not allow such laxness.

And,

Our current polity systems usually enfranchise those people who are the least able to lead while tying the hands of the most creative and able leaders. This statement assumes that the most able leaders are still around after any brief exposure to how religious bodies function. Our polities allow the managers, administrators, and politicians who understand complex bureaucratic systems to become the leaders in congregational, judicatory, and denominational life. In the meantime these systems weed out those with entrepreneurial and leadership skills. These people for the most part leave and create their own ministries or shadow organizations that go around the bureaucracies created by our polities.

Critics will immediately assume SBCOutpost considers denominations to lack viability moving forward. Contrary to this “reader-response” move, the question begging to be asked may be phrased, “How will the SBC move forward?” We may point to continuing efforts and solidarity behind the Conservative Resurgence. That too would miss the point. How will the SBC move forward networking with local congregations? The question is not, ‘How will churches move forward for the benefit of the SBC?”

The question is an attempt at self-critique. “How may we be more effective networking together for the Kingdom as a denomination moving further away from the historical rationale for the existence of such cooperative beaucracies?” (One might consider the historical retracinng of denominations in America described in Craig Ven Gelder’s essay, “Understanding the Church in North American,” found in The Misssional Church,edited by Darrell Guder.

[Conversations with Marty Duren led me to ask if he would write a short piece chronicling the story of New Bethany and how they are living into the “mission dei.” Marty Duren is the founding editor of SBCOutpost and now an occasional contributor. His desire in life and ministry is, “To see the glory of God displayed through all the peoples of the world.” He is passionate about his wife, Sonya, and his children, Beth, Timothy and Abigail and he considers himself exceedingly, abundantly blessed to be the Lead Pastor of New Bethany Baptist Church in Buford, GA. He loves to hike and backpack, read and hang out with new believers who have not figured out the “Christian thing.” He is the sometimes exasperated owner of a collie, Amos, and two cats, Ginger and Scully. He now blogs at ie:missional, where a narrative of this story is recorded.]

A couple of months ago, I stepped up from SBC politics having decided that I had given as much as I could afford to the effort to reform the SBC. Time is short and, as my calling is local church ministry, I wanted to remove the distraction that SBC involvement had become for me. It was the right move and the right time.

A little over a year ago, a couple in our church sold a piece of land in a developing residential area. Since their names were not Ananias and Sapphira, they actually brought “so much” and gave it as a tithe to the Lord. It was a very large amount of money, in fact, more than our entire budget receipts for all of 2006. Our Finance Team was very judicious to set virtually all of it aside, split about 50-50 toward future remodeling/building projects and community/international missions. From this amount, we designated a portion for an Unreached People Group project.

For several months we considered what we were to do. I attended, with two others from our church, a West Africa Summit held at Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa, sponsored by the West Africa region of the International Mission Board. We were very impressed with the missionaries, but, due to mounting concerns over narrowing trends supported by that regional group of trustees, were hesitant to become involved there. That proved to be the right decision.

Earlier this year, a team from our church was in a former eastern bloc country teaching business English to university students. There they were involved with an M from our church who has been in country for about 5 years. One of our team shared with him our goal to “adopt” an Unreached People Group in some region of the world. In the ministry activity of our M there, he had occasion to speak with an IMB M who was in his area. Their conversation turned to our goal of adopting, when the IMB M mentioned having just met a person from an UPG in Siberia.

That information was relayed to us and we decided to plan a vision trip for this August, the same trip from which we returned and which is chronicled at ie:missional. In addition to the way God obviously worked in the process, at least one more thing was demonstrated: God can and does use existing (and growing) networks of people to get things done outside of denominational channels.

It is my opinion that American Christians in particular can no longer depend solely upon the resources or guidance of any mission board or agency to fulfill the Great Commission. We are the wealthiest nation on earth and have the ability for ease of travel that is not enjoyed by 2/3 of the world. We speak the international language of business, which puts us in a position not unlike those writers of koine Greek in the 1^st century. I have a growing conviction that we will give an account if our answer to the missio dei question is “CP, NAMB, IMB, ANNIE and LOTTIE.”

We have unprecedented opportunities for mission that could have only been in the dreams of our forefathers. We have unprecedented responsibility for mission that was not expected of our forefathers. Shall we have a greater percentage of American Christians answer the call to the world when travel was a hardship than in our day when it is so much easier? When in 28 hours I can be in a time zone literally half a world away–a trip that once would have taken weeks if not months to make? Shall we sit luxuriously by and allow the pioneers of mission to accomplish more with less?

I have to echo the words of Keith Green who said, “How about us not sending our money this time; how about us going?” And while God does not call each and every believer to leave home and transplant into another culture, local churches (individually and through partnerships) can create a long term presence in which strong relationships are forged, rather than two weeks and a hearty, “Hasta la vista!” and “I can’t wait to show these pictures to everyone!” Budgeted with the missio dei in mind, there is virtually no American church that cannot have a Kingdom impact on an UPG somewhere in the world.

My encouragement to every pastor and every church would be to actively seek the will of God for individual and corporate involvement in those areas where there is little to no access to the gospel. And, that we begin working toward local church budgets that reflect God’s priority of worshipers from every nation, tribe, tongue and nation, rather than more and more pumped up empty “busy work” that, while making sound and fury, signifies nothing.

The following first appeared on Alan Cross’ personal blog Downshore Drift last Friday. We thought it was so good it was worth a double-post over here as well.

*******

So says Eugene Peterson as quoted by Michael Spencer from Peterson’s book, Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity. This perspective is important not just for pastors, but also for Christians who are serious about what their relationship to their church and the Lord should look like. I have heard people who come to our church of around 200-250 people say, “I love the preaching, teaching, worship, fellowship, and sense of spirituality and focus on Christ that you have here. My children made friends and we love their Sunday School teacher. We have made friends and have never been in such a warm, loving spiritual environment where the Bible is taught and people take their relationship with God seriously. We just don’t know if we can be in a church this small. Read the rest of this entry »