A Preferred Future for the Southern Baptist Convention
Six Essentials for Greater Faithfulness
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of working with Christian leaders across evangelicalism. Despite substantive disagreements, we’re all Nicene Creed people. I love them, they love me, and I learn so much from them about what it means to follow Jesus.
But I happen to be a happy, convictional Southern Baptist. We’ve got issues, which I’m sure I contribute to, but I’m grateful to be numbered among this unfinished lot.
Those issues, however, are not insignificant. If left unresolved, they incrementally dismantle our future role in Jesus’ kingdom advance. He will move on without us.
But rather than unpacking my understanding of our family problems on the public interweb, let me offer these six essential next steps for a more faithful future:
1. Affirm our Hermeneutic.
That’s a big word to start with, but there’s a notion running around that the SBC might be going the way of mainline denominations.
Distinct from our mainline friends, Southern Baptists remain unified around the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. We approach the Bible not as myth, legend, or a set of moral principles, but as the Spirit-breathed Word of God that proclaims the person and work of Christ.
Our hermeneutical approach is shaped by this conviction, taught in all of our seminaries, and by God’s grace, keeps us true to historical Christian orthodoxy.
If the spectrum of evangelicalism is a rainbow, the SBC is the color, violet (remember ROYGBIV?). Let’s lean into that, celebrate it, and give the next generation a foundation that stands.
2. Repent of Corinthian factions.
The year 2019 marked a turning point. Social, cultural, and political tribes exploded, and religious camps followed suit and built fortresses. Now, some are of Paul, and others are of Apollos.
Debates are healthy. Divisions are demonic. Repentance is the antidote.
What threatens our witness is not a creeping theological liberalism. Instead, it seems we’ve become doctrine-rich, but Spirit-poor. This is evidenced by our growing relational fracturing and missional impotence.
Peter Lord once said, “When our desperation factor exceeds our embarrassment factor, we then become candidates for the gracious activity of God.”
Our fracturing has an eternal opportunity cost that will become a reality unless we become desperate for God’s presence and humbled before Him.
3. Elevate trust over tribes.
When godly people repent, we come together and rebuild trust. We all see the online debates, and many people are wooed and animated by the arguments of one side or the other.
We may win few votes along the way, but the progress we pray the Lord will give us only happens when we value the relationships—when preferring others over ourselves motivates us, when overlooking offenses marks our lives, when serving for the success of others is our joy, and when bearing with one another bears witness to the world of the love of Christ.
This trust that breaks down tribal faction is not built from platforms or even pulpits, but in shoulder-to-shoulder work with local pastors and associational leaders.
4. Unite around the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.
One might suggest that the cause is worth the division. I’ve seen people quote Dr. Adrian Rogers', “We don’t have to get along” message. There was a time in our convention that message was the perfect word for the moment. This is not that time.
By God’s grace and the work of many godly leaders, the SBC knows who we are. Now, ninety-five percent of SBC pastors and churches wholly affirm the BF&M 2000.
Amendments don’t pass, not because our convention is moving away from orthodoxy, but because we already affirm it. We believe the BF&M 2000, and we trust local churches to be faithful to it.
One might say, what about the wayward churches? The question is, “How are they wayward?” The issue of the day is the office and function of the pastor. That’s important. But what about the office and function of the deacon, for example? I happen to know of a lot of “deacon-run” churches that have done more damage to the kingdom over the last 75 years than anything we’re discussing now. Or, what about the hyper-Calvinistic pastor who split his church? Or, what about the church who doesn’t connect baptism to church membership?
If we’re amending the constitution, we could all make a list.
But that’s not actually the way forward. Instead, we unite around the BF&M 2000, and we trust local churches to work it out.
5. Value the Cooperative Program.
Southern Baptists are the envy of the missiological world because of the Cooperative Program. For 150 years, it has allowed us to take the gospel farther faster. Currently, however, only 9000 churches of our almost 50,000 churches give to CP.
Some ask, “What does CP giving do for my church?” Like all Christian giving, CP giving isn’t designed to benefit the giver. As inerrantists, we still believe “it’s more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
The work of a denomination is an endurance marathon marked by bursts of adrenaline and walls to plow through. If we are to move forward in power, faithful churches will be known by their faithful giving. If you’re not giving to CP, we love you, but don’t expect a hearing.
6. Cooperate for the Great Commission
Not only are SBC churches declining in attendance, but our capacity to make disciples, send missionaries, and plant churches is in serious trouble. We have more money, education, technology, freedom, and opportunity than any generation in the history of Christianity, and yet we are increasingly ineffective.
IMB President, Paul Chitwood rightly says, “Lostness is the world’s greatest problem.” Perhaps the reason so many of our neighbors and the nations are still lost is because too few of our leaders are using our outside voices to rally our churches around our singular cooperating motivation.
I spoke with an SBC layman recently. He knew I was attending the convention as a messenger. And in so many words, he reminded me to vote against what he perceived as our encroaching liberalism. Together, we couldn’t name an unfaithful cooperating church in our area. But his main concern for the SBC, based on his pastor’s alarm and his social media feed, was a perceived liberalism, rather than the actual, real and present danger of spiritual lostness.
Getting the gospel to the ends of the earth is our mission. Let’s focus on that.
The Next Ten Years
Ten years from now we can be a greater force for the gospel than ever before. In the power of the Holy Spirit, we can impact every unreached people group at home and around the world. We can saturate every city with the Gospel. We can call out, equip, and unleash bi-vocational and fully vocational pastors for every rural, suburban, and urban church.
Ten years from now we can be a greater force for the gospel than ever.
We can experience a revival that sweeps our land so that every child has a home and future, so that our youngest and oldest neighbors are treasured, so that every believer lives as a witness, and so that every church multiplies in its own community and beyond.
This is possible not because we create task forces or make amendments. It’s possible because we are a people of hope, and people in whom the Spirit of God dwells.
We often assume that our doctrinal purity and faithfulness to God are the same thing. Jesus reminded us that is not true.
And yet, by God’s grace, denominations are renewed just like Christians and churches are renewed—by remembering how far we’ve fallen, by repenting of our sin, and by returning to do the things we did at first (Revelation 2).
Let’s use our outside voices for this! Let this vision capture our hearts, motivate our prayers, consume our conversations, fuel our relationships, and fill up our convention halls to the glory of God.
THRIVING PASTORS. STRONGER CHURCHES. TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES.
These three priorities describe the calling of my life, and by God’s grace, I’m able to pursue this calling as the Strengthening Healthy Churches Team Leader with the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board. We serve churches by multiplying gospel leaders who advance God’s kingdom.
I’m also the Executive Director of Everyone’s Wilson and The Everyone’s Welcome Network—a platform for Gospel transformation in local communities. Our mission is to unite the Church to engage the community, so everyone thrives.
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