SBC

Reflections on the SBC

/ davidsschrock

[This is the report that I shared with our church upon my return from the Southern Baptist Convention].

This year’s Southern Baptist Convention in Phoenix, Arizona was the smallest gathering of Southern Baptists since World War II (1944).  However, its diminutive size (approx. 4,800 messengers) should not discount the importance of the two-day convention (June 14-15).  As Bryant Wright, this year’s president, put it, “I do believe it could prove to be the most spiritually significant convention over the last 50 years.”

Why?  Why would an off-year convention invite such a statement?

In one sentence, it is because the spirit of the convention was filled with unity to complete the task of the Great Commission here and abroad.  Whereas the 2005 convention in Greensboro, NC began with a two-hour debate between on the merits and demerits of  Calvinism.  This year’s convention was marked by unity around the gospel and reaching the 3,800 unengaged, unreached people groups. Again Wright puts it succinctly, “This was the most unified convention around the Great Commission that I have experienced.  People came here with anticipation of that unity.”

Some of those people were three new presidents of Southern Baptist entities.  Each of these men are newly appointed presidents of the NAMB, IMB, and the Executive Committee, and each man energized discussion with striking calls for church planting, missions, and unity.

The Executive Committee

First, Frank Page addressed the convention with more than 20 entity leaders on the platform.  He introduced a resolution affirming unity and cooperation among Southern Baptists.  The last decade has seen a great deal of misunderstanding and name calling at the convention and on blogs, so Page and others have called Southern Baptists to greater unity.  In his address, he said,

“Our convention is fracturing into various groups, some theological, most methodological…Sometimes there is an honest difference of opinion, but often there is self-centeredness that frequently mirrors our own culture… Christ-like selflessness is our only hope.”

With those sentiments he introduced five pledges for Southern Baptists to embrace.

  1. We pledge to maintain a relationship of mutual trust …
  2. We pledge to attribute the highest motives to those engaged in local church ministries and those engaged in denominational service in any level of Convention life …
  3. We pledge to affirm the value of cooperative ministry as the most effective and efficient means of reaching a lost world …
  4. We pledge to embrace our brothers and sisters of every ethnicity, race, and language as equal partners in our collective ministries to engage all people groups with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
  5. We pledge to continue to honor and affirm proportional giving through the Cooperative Program as the most effective means of mobilizing our churches and extending our outreach as Southern Baptists ….”

I believe these pledges, if kept, will go along way to including all kinds of gospel-minded Southern Baptists, while challenging each Southern Baptist to love, learn, and listen to others who may approach ministry from a different point of view.  My prayer is that this commitment does not reduce biblical precision and doctrinal distinctives, but that maturing Southern Baptists will uphold a spirit of gospel peace even when they disagree on doctrines not spelled out in the Baptist Faith & Message 2000.

The North American Mission Board

Second, Kevin Ezell called Southern Baptists to be honest about numbers.  Boldly, he declared that Southern Baptists like numbers.  We like big numbers.  However, this has led to unqualified and inflated numbers for the convention. This has been a statistical concern for the millions of missing Southern Baptists each Sunday, but Ezell pointed out that it is not just individuals but churches that are missing.  In the words of Jesus, he reported…

”You have heard it said” that NAMB plants close to 1500 church plants a year, “but I say unto you” that NAMB planted 769 churches last year.

You have heard it said that NAMB has over 5100 missionaries, “but I say unto you” that 3480 of those are jointly funded with state conventions, 1839 are missionary spouses, some of whom have ministry assignments and some of whom do not.  He also pointed out that that 1616 are Mission Service Corps volunteers who receive no NAMB funding at all.  Thus the numbers are not as high as we might first think.

Likewise, on the topic of numbers.  Ezell pointed out that through retirement incentives and other compensations, he has reduced the total number of employees at the NAMB head quarters in Alpharetta.  He stressed a desire to do more with less people.  And while this at first sounds cold-hearted or anti-missional.  Here is the payoff.  By reducing the overhead 38%, NAMB will be able to put $8 million dollars into church planting.  Moreover, he pointed out that less than 4% of SBC churches are directly involved in church planting.  Ezell’s challenge: “We must do better.  We are going to do better.”

This leads to the final point.  In addition to improving reporting and oversight of Southern Baptist church plants, he also intends to lead in an initiative to plant more successful church plants.  Thus, he introduced a new initiative to “SEND” church planters into 25 urban centers around the country.

The International Missions Board

Third, Tom Elliff called for Southern Baptists to be more involved in reaching the unreached.   Following the powerful missions message of David Platt, Elliff said,

“This convention has been one long sermon…. There is not one thing I could say” that messengers have not already heard. A lost world, Elliff said, needs churches who consider it unacceptable that there are people groups “who do not have somebody deliberately” trying to engage them with the Gospel.

This call for greater outreach to the unreached was championed by David Platt, whose message from gospel of Matthew reminded Southern Baptists that Jesus will not come until all the nations have heard (Matt 24:14).  And since Jesus has not come, there are still peoples awaiting the Good News.  In fact, current statistics say that 3,800 peoples are awaiting the Good News.

As Platt put it, “”This is not a problem for the International Mission Board to address. This is a problem for every pastor and every local church to address.”

Indeed, it is something that I hope our church will address very shortly.  At the convention, more than 1,000 messengers responded to the call to reach the unengaged, unreached people groups.  I pray that we will too.

The church that shines the farthest shines brightest at home. 

I was tremendously encouraged by the unity of the messengers around the centrality of the gospel.  The divergence of speakers at the pastors’ conference was a good reminder that God is at work among many people, and that even when there are disagreements on things like the order of regeneration and faith, and what the doctrine of election fully means, there can be unity in reaching the lost for Christ.  This was also evident in the conversation between Mark Dever and Paige Patterson.  Again, I am encouraged by the evangelistic unity developing among Southern Baptists who in the past have argued over God’s sovereignty in salvation.

I hope that our church will follow suit.  Satan would love for us to wrangle over lesser points of doctrine, and to miss out on the fact that a lost and dying world is still lost and dying.  It is my hope and prayer and mission to lead our church to be more missions-minded and missional in our own community, even as we continue to grow into a greater understanding of God’s word and a love for one another.  Satan would love for us to question the motives and intents of others, but Christ is raising up an army of gospel-witnessing warriors, and I pray Calvary will be a bastion for such life-saving truth.

I want to thank you for letting me go to the convention this year.  I was motivated and encouraged by the things I saw and heard.  And I pray that all that was planned and promised will come to fruition as the Lord supplies the growth to the seeds that were sown and the plants that were watered.

Other SBC Reviews Consulted For This Report

SBC Annual Convention Videos

Baptist Press

SBC Voices

Trevin Wax

Southern Baptists: An Unfinished Denomination

/ davidsschrock

Yesterday, I posted an article on the SBC : “Southern Baptists: An Unregenerate Denomination.”  If left to that singular reflection, it might be assumed that by my assessment, the Southern Baptist Convention is in great peril or that I am a cantankerous critic.  However, I think there is great reason for hope in our convention.  And in spite of the millions of missing Southern Baptists, I think God has mercifully provided for the SBC and revealed once again that he loves those who do not deserve it.

Let me mention just a few of the encouraging things that I see (from my myopically-small point of view) which should be indicators of encouragement, or as C.J. Mahaney likes to call them, “evidences of grace.”

First, before taking my post as pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Seymour, IN, I had the wonderful privilege of helping coordinate the graduation ceremonies at Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY.  It was like I got to plan a party for a thousand people three times a year.  Fun!  However, the real joy was in seeing more than 500 graduates sent out into the convention and to the nations each year.  The graduation of these God-called and trained ministers means that God is replenishing his churches.  As these graduates have had the privilege of sitting under some of the best Christian scholars in the world, they are now going out ready to minister, by God’s grace, to a lost and dying world.  And Southern is only one of six Southern Baptist Seminaries that are graduating faithful and equipped men and women.  While this does not assure success, because not every graduate is uniformly committed to God’s call; it is an encouraging as we look to the near future.

May God be pleased to use such institutions now, as he has in the past (for an excellent testimony of how God uses solidly-evangelical seminaries, read the first two chapters of The Puritan Hope by Iain Murray).

Second, the ministry of Mark Dever (IX Marks) among Southern Baptist churches and ministers has been a salubrious antidote to the bloated results of too many church growth strategies.  It is not by accident that Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC is now bursting at the seems with young Christians and has trained and sent out dozens of young men who are committed to the centrality and the purity of the church.  In time and by God’s grace, these pastors-to-be will have a powerful effect on revitalizing “dead” churches.  9 Marks books, conferences, weekenders, and online resources have influenced thousands of pastors to take seriously the role of the church.

Calling attention to 9 biblical, but oft neglected, marks of a healthy church– expositional preaching, biblical theology, biblical conversion, biblical evangelism, biblical leadership, biblical discipleship, church discipline, rightly defining and proclaiming the gospel, and church membership–will surely meet opposition in Sardis-like churches (Rev 3:1), but they are key ingredients to seeing God’s glory in the local church again (Eph 3:8-10).  Joining his ranks are the ministries of Tom Ascol, Johnny Hunt, and countless unnamed church leaders who have invested in training pastors to cherish disciple-making more than numbers inflation.

Third, this years Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, Florida was filled with hope-giving activity.  For starters, the Great Commission Resurgence was received and passed with overwhelming support (75-80%).  While all the details of this will be worked out in the following years, it means that Southern Baptists are wanting to put their money where their mouth is–namely the Great Commission.  The strong support of this motion indicates self-sacrifice and a willingness to reevaluate the ways we are doing ministry today.

Additionally, at the SBC, the list of resolutions that were passed by the convention were very encouraging.  The first resolution was “On the Centrality of the Gospel,” the second emphasized the need for greater “Family Worship,” and the third addressed the “Scandal of Southern Baptist Divorce.”  Each of the reflect the heart of SBC pastors to lead their churches towards greater gospel-centrality, greater family discipleship, and greater accountability to Scripture.  May God be pleased to bring these resolutions to reality.

Fourth, and finally, I am encouraged by the leading spokesmen of our convention, those who possess great conviction and commitment to the gospel.  Younger pastors like David Platt and Matt Chandler are pressing Baptists young and old to suffer joyfully for the sake of the gospel; while seasoned pastors and theologians like Johnny Hunt, Albert Mohler, Russell Moore, and Danny Akin, are leading our denomination towards greater gospel precision and more fervent great commission vision. I pray that new SBC President Bryant Wright will have the same vision and commitment to the gospel.

For all these reasons and more, I believe that the Southern Baptist Convention is an UNFINISHED DENOMINATION.  It is not perfect, but it is petitioning God to work in us, and there are evidences that Christ is answering prayer.   This is why I am glad to be called a Southern Baptist.

Going forward, I hope and pray and believe that the Conservative Resurgence of the last three decades has great potential to cause a Great Commission Resurgence and Gospel Advance in the years ahead.  Still, it won’t just be the leaders in denominational offices that will bring change in local churches; it will be the bi-vocational pastors in small churches faithfully preaching the word of God and the lay leaders who sacrifice their time to invest in the lives of others.  It will be the result of the Spirit of God to grip our hearts to do what Paul said so long ago, “to entrust [the gospel] to faithful men [and women] who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2).  It will take a grass-roots movement of gospel-breathing people, living for the sake of Christ’s name, at the expense of their own.  May God be pleased to do that in our generation!

May we who preach the word do so with boldness and consistency, and may we all hear the word with openness and anticipation of what God can do in a people radically surrendered to him.  May we not simply point fingers at others, may we examine our hearts (2 Cor 13:5) and show ourselves to be approved before God.

Lord Christ, galvanize your churches in the Southern Baptist Convention and throughout the world.  Unify us as a cooperative army of gospel-centered churches, wherein the grace of God is proclaimed and the glory of God is displayed.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Southern Baptists: An Unregenerate Denomination?

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

In Major League Baseball, 38% is outstanding.  If you can hit .380, you will be an All-Star and if you can do it year-after-year, you’ll be a Hall-of-Famer.  Sadly, the same may be true in the church. If your church brings in 38% out of its members every week, as the average SBC church does–according to the “SBC 2008 Annual Church Profile Summary”–it may be regarded as a thriving mega-church and the pastor a successful soul-winner.  Yet beneath the active veneer (or trendy website), something more pernicious may be at work.

Revelation 3:1 warns, “You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead,” and in his article, “Southern Baptists, an Unregenerate Denomination,” Jim Elliff explains why this warning to Sardis applies to the churches of the SBC.

Elliff writes honestly about the condition of our Southern Baptist Churches, and calls for churches to stop playing number games and to find the millions that are missing.  Appealing to the New Testament church, not the neo-evangelical church, he shows from Scripture how every author of the New Testament warns of false conversion and spiritual deception.  He makes the case that if a church is healthy and regenerate, attendance should outnumber membership.  And he points to our baptists forefathers as prime examples.  Citing the work of Greg Wills, he writes:

In the Philadelphia Baptist Association Minutes, our first association, our initial American statistical record shows that five times as many people attended the association’s churches as were on their rolls. Greg Wills in Democratic Religion in the South (Oxford University Press, 1997, p.14) reports that three times the number on the rolls attended Baptist churches, then located mostly along the eastern seaboard when surveyed in 1791 by John Ashlund. In 1835, the Christian Index of Georgia recorded that “not less than twice the number” of members were in attendance.

Today, in rough numbers, it takes 300 people on our rolls to have 100 attenders. In the 1790s, it took only 33. Or, to put it in larger figures, it now takes nearly 3000 people, supposedly won to Christ and baptized, to result in a church attendance of 1000. Then, it took only 333. Our potency has diminished to such an extent that we must “win” and “baptize” over 2,000 more people to get to the same 1000 to attend.

Churches today, who possess the same Holy Spirit, should expect nothing less.  And in truth, we should long to follow in the wake of these Great Awakening churches.

While his article points out a number of depressing features about the health of churches in the SBC, he also points out the possibility for great recovery if we will be honest about the problem and return to preaching the Word of God and applying its principles of church discipline and evaluating sinners according to biblical standards, not decision cards.

Consider, for instance, Elliff’s comments about preaching on regeneration:

It was the preaching of regeneration, with an explanation of its discernible marks, that was the heart of the Great Awakening. J. C. Ryle, in writing of the eighteenth century revival preachers, said that they never for a moment believed that there was any true conversion if it was not accompanied by increasing personal holiness. Such content was the staple of the greatest of awakening preaching throughout the history of revival. Only such a powerful cannon blast of truth could rock the bed of those asleep in Zion.

Love for the brethren, longing for the Word, and desire to serve others are necessary marks of the genuinely converted.  Failure to assemble is a mark of God’s judgment (cf. Heb 10:25-39).  Thus 38% attendance bespeaks of our great need for humility to be honest about our numbers and the condition of our churches.  Only once we properly assess the problem, can we petition God for the solution — a fresh outpouring of his Spirit and a harvest of lasting fruit.

Though it is a bitter pill to swallow, Jim Elliff’s argument points us in the right direction, as he points us to the mirror of God’s word.  The glory of Christ’s church is at stake, as well as the souls of millions of missing “believers.”  May we labor with contrition and confidence for the sake of Christ’s church.

To read the whole thing, see his CCW article “Southern Baptists, an Unregenerate Denomination.” For more on the nature of a healthy church see Mark Dever’s Nine Marks of a Healthy Church and Thabiti Anyabwile’s What is a Healthy Church Member?

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Biblical Theology for the Real World

/ davidsschrock

In The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Krister Stendahl defines Biblical Theology as what the Bible ‘meant,’ while Systematic Theology was defined as what the Bible ‘means.’  However, as it is shown in by James Hoffmeier in his recent book The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible and Eric Schumacher in a recent associational sermon, Biblical Theology has everything to do with life today and for making biblical decisions in the church (Schumacher) and outside of it (Hoffmeier). 

With Goldsworthy-esque style, Pastor Schumacher defines a Biblical Theology of Cooperation in the church like this:  Biblical Cooperation happens when God’s people, under God’s rule, trust God’s promises and obey God’s commission in the pursuit of God’s glory.  His sermon follows 7 points that trace cooperation from Creation to the New Creation with application for today’s church.

Likewise Hoffemeier writes in the introduction to his book how we must move from the biblical text to the contemporary application following the pattern of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation if we are to rightly discern the biblical teaching on immigration.   Appealing to the example of C.J.H. Wright, Hoffemeier uses a “comprehensive approach” that moves from biblical theology to objective/subjective principles to practical ethical applications.  Mere analogy and principalization that fail to recognize historical differences, cultural settings, and situational incongruities are unhelpful, but a well-ordered biblical theology that recognizes these complicating factors lays the groundwork for ethical conundrums and modern-day decision-making.  (While I haven’t read his book, his proposed methodology is sound.  You can read the whole first chapter online to see where Hoffmeier is going.)

These are just two more examples of how reading the Bible with an eye to the storyline of Scripture helps us make sense of the world around us.  Really, we do not have a better option?  God has given us a book that makes us wise unto salvation and that helps us proceed in an ever-complicating world!

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

(HT: Jim Hamilton; Justin Taylor)