We have a team going to Northern India later this week to engage in a continuation of work that began there in 2004 with our first trip. We have seen amazing things take place, from raising up church planters, to developing a clean water project, to assisting a Christian hospital, to supporting children in education and in an orphanage. It has been very exciting for our church. We have also had very little overhead as we have engaged in this and almost all of the money that we have raised has gone directly to the work there.

We took up an offering yesterday for the work that we are doing in India. It was substantial – far more than has ever been given before. People give to what they can relate to and participate in. They don’t give to institutions anymore. They give to movement and something tangible. They give to something that they can see. These facts are frustrating the International Mission Board. They also frustrate the proponents of the Cooperative Program for Southern Baptists. They are used to churches just sending them money so that they can do the work and provide a vague report of all that is going on at the Annual Meeting. But, the ground is shifting and things don’t work that way anymore. If I became a huge proponent of the IMB and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for missionaries in our church, I would get blank stares. Our people just will not give to missions offerings, institutions, or nameless, faceless organizations. The emerging Southern Baptist identity is mainly relational and theological, not methodological. The work of parachurch organizations over the past 50 years has also weakened the loyalty of people to both their local church and denomination. But, the church planter that I introduced them to last week was blessed a great deal by our church because they heard his story, saw his faith, and believed in his vision. Plus, they just wanted to bless his family.

The same thing happens when we go overseas or do something in our community. People support what they can see. If the work is to happen at all, people want to be connected to it. They are not impressed with wild claims of numbers of baptisms. They want to see people being impacted personally on a micro-level. Because of the internet, 24/7 cable news, Facebook, texting, email, cell phones, etc., people expect to be connected personally with their passion for change. If there is not personal connection, relationship, and buy in, then it is just an institutionalism that someone is getting rich off of. The real, nitty-gritty work is believed to not be getting done.

Where does this leave the CP and behemoth organizations like the IMB? It leaves them with lots of overhead, staff, plans, and dependence upon the giving patterns of a generation that is dying.  The current generation of Senior Adults came of age when institution building was all the rage. They are used to giving to institutions and continue to do so, but that is beginning to end. Their children, the Baby Boomers, gave less and ended up primarily in Megachurches or larger churches that give less to the CP and IMB than the smaller churches that they left do.  Gen X and Millenials give very little to institutions that they have no personal contact with. So, the next 10-20 years will see a massive shift take place in what Southern Baptists are able to do involving global missions unless some serious changes are made.

Changes . . .

There is still a role for foreign missionaries. But, they need to be tied more closely to the local church and work in directing and assisting the U.S. based local church in their work by working with networking churches  and connecting them with projects. Are these plans on the books? Yes. But, they are submersed beneath the constant calls for more money for the CP and IMB. Missionaries also need to be able to respond to a local church and what they are doing, if God happens to open some doors outside of the current work of the IMB. Yes, we need to send people to do missions because we cannot do it ourselves, but the local Southern Baptist church has become very disconnected from the idea of sending others beyond giving money to a general fund. This will not continue to work like it has in the past. 

I think that the changes that we have seen in the church over the past 20 years (1990-2010) are nothing compared to what is coming over the next 20 years. The past 20 years were just the rumblings of a system that is falling apart on every front. The next 20 years will see the system that has been built come crashing to the ground as the older generation that built it passes on. What will replace it? What will survive?

I think that what will replace it is already being born, although it is being scorned and disregarded, if not outright ignored. I’ll talk more about that in another post.

Several years ago, my wife and I bought one of those package vacation deals with Carnival Cruise lines. We aren’t really cruise people, but we were looking for a cheap getaway that might be fun. So, they had one of these all-inclusive vacations deals where the only catch was you had to listen to their pitch for “vacation ownership,” i.e., a time-share. So, we went and sat through the pitch. Then, we boarded our Carnival Cruise ship in Miami for a 3 day jaunt to the Bahamas and back.

The ship had everything. Food, music, lounging, entertainment. You could take a dance class, or swim, or just read a book. You could do whatever you wanted – or nothing at all. The important thing was that you were on the ship. So, we went to a couple of shows, ate some very average food, took a dance class, went ashore in Nassau and went snorkeling with about 100 other people, and had a pretty good time. But, overall, I was kind of bored with the set-up of the vacation. There was no risk. Everything was prepackaged and predictable.  Read more…

“Our system is perfectly designed to produce the results we are getting.”

I am very excited about the GCR Task Force and the potential that exists for us to rethink the direction of the SBC and the relationship of the local church with the larger denomination. Much of what I am going to say here can be objected to with anectdotal stories that might paint a different picture. But, I am talking about overall trends and cause and effect relationships that have had unintended consequences. I am not saying that your favorite denominational worker or Megachurch pastor has a bad heart. I am saying that we have constructed a bad system that rewards the wrong things to help us carry out the mission God gave us. Until we see that, all attempts at tinkering with the structure to fix it will ultimately end in frustration.

If the GCR is to be a success, the GCR Task Force should call for Southern Baptists to withdraw from our addiction to corporate mechanisms and top heavy bureaucracies and return to the local church as the primary staging ground for Kingdom activity and advancement in the world.  Sometime in the mid-20th century, Southern Baptists began to behave like General Motors and we thought that we could coalesce everything into boards, denominational structures, and programs. We thought that cooperation meant that we developed huge denominational enterprises to direct our work. Sure, we said that the state conventions and national entities existed to serve the local church, but in reality, the situation reversed itself and the local church found itself in the role of being the resource mechanism for the entities to do the work for us. We called this fulfilling the Great Commission and we gave to a Cooperative Program to do so. The result has been that the local church has, by and large, hired out its God-given mission of equipping and sending to denominational entities that have become unwieldy in their scope and limited in their effectiveness. Baptism-to-member-ratios stand at around 47:1 across the SBC and we now see the local church in decline everywhere.  This is especially true among smaller churches.

Bill Hybels says that the local church is the hope of the world. Of course, he believes that Jesus is the hope of the world, but his point is that a local community of believers where Christ reigns and rules is exactly what the world needs to be restored to God. Of all people, Southern Baptists should believe this. But, we have gone all parachurch the last 60 years or so and have moved our focus away from local churches to larger, richer, and what we have thought to be more effective and diverse organizations. This move towards conglomeration has ultimately had an adverse affect on our fulfillment of the Great Commission. We have done this in several ways:

1. By flocking to the Megachurch. If there is a giving crisis related to the Cooperative Program in SBC life, one source of this crisis might be the Megachurch. It is common knowledge that Megachurches (churches with 2000 or more attenders) have primarily grown through transfer growth from other churches. As Americans fell in love with the shopping mall, consumer choice, and a “bigger is better” mentality, Megachurches, based on charismatic leadership and excellent programs and services, began to attract people building their lives in suburban sprawl. Many of these people left smaller churches. These smaller churches that often gave large amounts to the CP could not compete with the massive appeal of the Megachurch that often gave little to the CP because they were doing their own thing. Adrian Rogers’ famous statement that percentages don’t pay the bills became the mantra of Megachurches when it came to their relationship with the SBC. Even though their percentage giving to the CP might be 2-4% of undesignated offerings (as opposed to the 10% or more given by smaller churches), they still exerted heavy influence because they gave more money overall than smaller churches could. But, think about this: If we see a migration of people from smaller churches that give 10% to larger churches that give 2-4%, the result will be that overall giving goes down. The financial crisis facing the SBC could be solved (temporarily, at least) if Megachurches gave more. Now, smaller churches are beginning to follow the example of the Megachurches whose pastors influence the SBC and the situation is becoming an epidemic, it seems.  Our system is perfectly designed to produce the results we are experiencing. Megachurches are a part of that system and should not escape scrutiny. While they can do a lot of good and when properly focused they can be a powerful force for the Kingdom, they can also attract a large crowd that becomes increasingly disconnected from engaging in missional living.
2. By calling for continual support of SBC entities through the Cooperative Program, the impression has been given that the real action in SBC life is found in our state conventions, mission boards, and seminaries. While publicly saying that the local church is ground zero for Kingdom activity, the private expressions of many denominational workers has been that the local church is just not going to do the work required, therefore, they must do it themselves.  The local church has gone along with this and has outsourced its mission to state and national structures. The problem is that parachurch structures and denominational entities are fundamentally parasitic. While potentially helpful in assisting local churches in their mission, they are not effective in the long-term when they replace the local church in that mission. They end up removing mission from the context of daily life and community and it becomes something that the professionals do. Through adherence to size, money, and power as marks of success, we are seeing a reiteration of the priest/laity divide in unexpected ways (experts/professionals vs. non-experts/non-professionals). The short-term results of this can be exciting because of the accumulation of resources and speed of action that make so much possible, but the long-term effect is that you retard the Christian movement overall because you remove it from the hands of the people and from smaller churches where everyone can participate.  With an exodus of leaders and resources to larger systems, smaller churches have often lost their own vision and sense of usefulness for their role in the Missio Dei and have settled for sending a check to the CP or for sitting on the sidelines because they believe that they cannot do the real work. Lifelessness has set in with many smaller churches as battles over identity and turf ensue and this only speeds up the exodus of leaders and gifted people to larger systems. A vision and mission must be restored to the smaller church so that everyone can participate in a healthy way.

On a side note, it is ironic that the individualism that initially fueled the Megachurch and parachurch movements can often result in a bland conformity to large structures that end up squelching the God-given creativity of the individual as large systems replace affirming and empowering communities. With the emergence of the Millenial generation, there is a much greater desire for people to actually participate in the mission/cause themselves instead of hiring proxies to do it for them. Technology and connectedness make this personal participation not only possible, but necessary. Many Megachurches are realizing this and are adapting accordingly with great effect (Willowcreek and Saddleback come to mind and are influencing many others by reconnection the Missio Dei with the people of God, turning spectators into initiators).  Can denominational entities follow suit? Read more…

In a rapidly changing world, where little is as it seems and the landscape changes like sand dunes pushed across the desert by hot, African winds, there remains a desire for a better day; a yearning for a brighter tomorrow. In the midst of global chaos, cultural upheaval, and a general loss of vision and hope by the masses, a group of humble men – pastors and leaders – arise from the ashes of cultural conformity to stride across the stage of history and take their place among the phalanx of the wise men changing the world – one blog post at a time. Like the great minds of old, these leaders have come together to dispense wisdom to a starving populace yearning for direction and guidance in the midst of an age of uncertainty and doubt regarding the future . . .

Okay, we don’t know who those people are (what’s a phalanx, anyway?), but if you find them, could you please let us know?  We’d like to listen to their podcasts or something – they are probably awesome. As for us, we’re just a group of people who are trying to figure out what God is doing in the world and how we can join Him in His mission of redemption and reconciliation.  We don’t take ourselves too seriously and we don’t have all the answers, even though we do have a lot of questions and ideas that we don’t mind sharing. So, we thought that we would start a new joint blogging venture that could serve as a workshop for our thoughts, so to speak. Lots of ideas will be constructed, sanded down, and nailed together. A lot of pieces will end up on the workshop floor to be thrown away when they are no longer needed. But, our hope is that something will emerge from these ideas that will help us chart a course forward for the church as it engages in the mission of God to redeem the world.

We are all practitioners – local church pastors and leaders – who are attempting to live out these ideas every day. We are not new to the blogosphere and we have had individual blogs for several years now. This is not even the first time that we’ve collaborated together and you might have run across some of our writings in the past, although our focus will be a bit different from what it once was when last we wrote together. You can expect us to write from a Southern Baptist context, especially in the initial days of this enterprise.  Given our context, we will begin with a series of posts designed to interact with a current important topic in SBC life, the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) Task Force.  This seven-part series, entitled “If We Were The Great Commission Task Force…”, will provide a means for us to share some ideas that we’ve had about the task force, providing positive fodder for discussion.  The purpose will not be to provide a critique of decisions made by the group (as evidenced by our writing in advance of decisions they will make), but what we would do if we were the group itself.  From there, we plan to branch out and engage other voices and ideas. We hope to have guest contributors from different settings to provide their perspective on what God is doing in their venue. Our goal is to exemplify what we believe Southern Baptists could be doing to engage non-Baptists as well as our lost world.  We also hope to have some fun along the way.  (Well, that part is pretty much guaranteed.)  You can expect something new two or three times a week.

The Church in the 21st Century faces many challenges. How do we live missionally as the landscape of our world resets again and again? MissioScapes is an attempt to engage that question and put forward some answers and ideas that we hope will be helpful to each of us as we endeavor to follow Jesus in the work that He is doing.