During the interview Baker pursued a line of questioning that brought forth Dr. Dockery’s great knowledge of Baptist history.  Not only was Baptist history examined in an interesting way, relevant commentary was given in light of who we have been as Southern Baptists.  Highlighted in the exchange were stories of the early days of our convention, the purpose for which we joined ourselves together on a large scale and the missions heart of our forefathers.  The interview continued to track the development of our national polity and the ways we sought to work together, ultimately culminating in the development of the Cooperative Program.

Baker moved the discussion along to the present day and queried Dockery about the current state of the convention in light of the Great Commission Resurgence and the ensuing Task Force that he serves.  Dockery discusses much of the context of the Task Force indirectly as he works through the thorny issues of state convention CP distribution.  Dockery fairly describes the rationale for the various distribution levels that currently exist today by relating the levels to the early days of the CP discussion and the needs that existed and continue to exist for state conventions in the SBC.

As I have already commended this interview to you I want to do so again; it is good and I think it will help the vast majority of Southern Baptists understand their history more clearly.

Part of my job as a DOM is to work with pastors on an almost daily basis.  There is more to my ministry than that, but I would rank my relationship with the pastors of NWBA and outside the association at the top of my ministry priority list.  I visit regularly with pastors both inside my association and across our state, and often the topic of conversation, at least since the convention in Louisville, has been the GCR and the Task Force convened by President Johnny Hunt.  In all the conversations with pastors that I have had I cannot think of one time, truly, not one time when a pastor asked directly or indirectly one of the two following questions:  “Are we doing what we organized ourselves to do in 1845?” or “Are we cooperating together today according to the vision of the CP as created in 1925?”

Now please do not misunderstand, I do not believe that either of these matters are small or unimportant.  I stressed above the importance of Dr. Dockery’s historical assessment of the SBC.  What I am pointing out is the very current reality that who we were in 1845 or even 1925 is not a pressing concern for most pastors or their churches.  It has been said that the past is prologue and with this I would agree.  We have also heard that the person who does not know his history is destined to make the same mistakes.  Agreed.  One strategy for determining how we make decisions today about our future heavily emphasizes who were have been and the direction that leaders in our past have charted as a kind of organizational compass to guide our future.  This is not a bad strategy, but in my estimation it is out of step with the pastors that I talk to on a regular basis.

These pastors seem more concerned with determining our future based on two primary principles, Scripture and cooperation,  that I will illustrate through two questions. 1) What does Scripture call the church to be and do in the name of Christ, His gospel and the Kingdom? and 2) What sort of cooperation will help us move toward the future work that we desire to accomplish in Christ’s name and for His glory.  Please note that this second mode of determining how we move forward as a convention of churches is not truly in contradiction to the former.  This mode simply looks to an alternative starting point for the discussion and moves out from there.  One assumes the broad history of the SBC as a people, movement, convention, and denominational powerhouse and the other looks more simply to Scripture, theology, ecclesiology, culture and the reality on the ground in their churches and their personal networks of affinity.

My purpose is primarily to understand where different voices in our convention are starting as they look to the future and our shared life together in cooperation.  One group looks back for a kind of conformity and integrity to who we have been and the best parts of our history.  Another looks more narrowly at the present culture, Scripture and their experiences in Evangelicalism and seeks a way forward that is nimble and quick to respond to a rapidly changing world.  I would advocate a merging of these two perspectives.  We ought to start with our present situation, our best understanding of Scripture and the movement of the Spirit in our midst and begin to explore how we would live out faith and serve Christ effectively in the coming years.  With this as our primary line of reasoning we should regularly look to our past to learn our best lessons and glean the truth that the Lord has revealed to His people over the years.

In summary I want to hear from our past, but I believe that is the wrong place to start.  Most leaders I talk to are not asking where have we been.  They are asking where should we go.  They are not asking “Is my church doing what the churches who began the CP in the early parts of the 20^th century were doing?”  Rather, they are looking high and low for ways to be effective today in a world that will not wait for them to catch up and is not asking their permission to change.  They are seeking ways to embody the eternal, unchanging truths of Christ and His Word in a world that has largely ignored our best efforts to share Christ.

We near the final report of the GCRTF and Marty reminds us of the quiet work of another committee. Yes, how could we have missed the search to fill the highest “unelectable” post in the SBC? Maybe the committee has been glad the interest has been placed on the GCRTF. Their work has been done in relative quiet. The nexus of these two decisions – the Final Report of the GCRT and the recommendation to fill retiring Morris Chapman’s post may reveal deeper fissures at one time apparent.

Our interest here in recent posts is not to exaggerate the divide but to serve a reminder that nothing has really changed. If anything positions have been calcified. When was the last time you heard any word on IMB policies. Yes, we have heard and read the recommendations in the preliminary report of the GCRTF. But consider this.

Let’s say the IMB assumes the role of leading the way to reach un-reached people group populations now living as immigrants in the U.S. We still have policies that will exclude those we may believe God intends us to send from our churches. Only this time the matter won’t be so far away – on the field in another country. No, right here in a church’s own backyard will our sending entity still be following guidelines excluding recommended personnel out of fear of “pentecostal” sympathies. James K.A. Smith asserts a “pentecostal spirit” really reflects an acknowledgment God may really do anything. And though not SBC, he is Reformed in his theology and offers an interesting perspective on the sovereignty of God and the need to be subject to the Spirit of God to do whatever the Spirit may do in exalting Jesus.

It seems the BI group holds sway on this subject. Two years ago it was Frank Cox who firmly believed these policies to be appropriate. In fact, if you want a recap follow the links in the compilation post offered by Timmy Brister last year. While everyone’s attention has been on what will come from listening sessions and reports from the GCRTF, what kind of vetting is taking place for the post now held by Chapman?

For instance, the outcry by some to renounce the announced nomination of Tony Gramling is quite ironic. Where was the outcry when CR leader Charles Stanley’s church gave a small percentage to the CP? He was on the right side so it did not matter. Why have we forgotten the late Adrian Rogers who suggested, “Percentages don’t feed missionaries, dollars feed missionaries?” It was noted that Johnny Hunt’s church gave 2% directly through the CP when he was elected President but gave $3 million to SBC causes. So, those who starved out the opposition when they were in charge now have some in their crowd fearful they are “losing the whole thing.” (Frank Cox)

The issue is not for or against the CP. Don’t miss the issue – what appears to be only slight fissures in the competing visions for the SBC is much wider than it appears. And you can be sure some working quietly are well aware. Chapman’s successor will either lead us forward or take us back. Maybe it would be good to re-visit Marty’s reminder of the import of this decision, circulate the post, email it as Marty does a good job outlining important considerations for this important selection.

We have no movement on our hands here at the present point.  I, like so many others, voted heartily for the GCR in Louisville.  Like so many others, I cheered Pres. Johnny Hunt as he preached at the convention.  I was struck by the sober reality painted by David Platt in the Pastor’s Conference.  I was hopeful that a movement was underway.   That is not to say that we do not have some good words working through the convention.  Much of the rationale for the preliminary report given by Ronnie Floyd to the Executive Committee was great.  Consider his call for a renewed emphasis on the local church and a recognition that the church is the true “headquarters” of our denomination.  Wow, truly great words spoken by a great pastor and leader.  The recommendations?  They seem to be primarily concerned with the top level of cooperative life in the SBC.  Some have said this is simply because the GCRTF can’t change anything else.  We would do well to remember that they do not have the authority to change the SBC; only God can do that through willing hearts of faith.  We need a movement of God.

Denominational tinkering makes not a movement.  I was one who hoped the strong words of Danny Akin in his axiom sermon would start a movement in the SBC toward gospel-centered, Christ-exalting ministry.  I had hopes to see a movement toward participating truly in the Great Commission by living out the Great Commandment.  I had hopes that leaders would rise up and point our convention of churches toward Christ, His commands and His commission with great humility and great zeal.  I still hold some hope…but it is fading.

Most of the firepower in the preliminary report has been aimed at “releasing” NAMB, as if there was lying dormant some latent power in this agency.  Don’t get me wrong—NAMB does many good things, but we have no clear idea who will lead NAMB.  There is also much talk that we might not need NAMB and a real lack of clarity about how the proposed changes at NAMB demonstrate that the denominational headquarters of the SBC is in the local church.  This is not a movement.

There is little doubt that whatever the GCRTF brings forward will pass in Orlando.  Some will take exception with that statement, but I have not met one person who has followed the GCR conversation who actually thinks the recommendations won’t pass.  The problem is not whether what is brought forward will pass.  It will.  The real questions are:  1) How can we implement the recommendations in the current institutional environment of the SBC? and 2) How will these changes specifically lead the churches of the SBC toward the gospel movement that God is already at work supplying to some?

IF this is the best that we can do as a denomination, I will accept it and move forward with my brothers and sisters in Christ, in great hope that God will do mighty things through His people.   I do have a pressing question, though.  What will the leaders of the GCRTF do to demonstrate that these changes will in fact move us toward a resurgence of the Great Commission, a movement based in the gospel and carried out by transformed people? How, in particular, will the churches, seminaries and organizations represented by the leaders of the GCR model for us the means of a gospel movement through these and future recommendations?  I would ask the presidents of two seminaries, “What specifically will be different in your strategic plan as key partners in training pastors and leaders in light of the recommendations?”   To the pastors I would ask, “How will the church that God has entrusted to your shepherding care model for the cooperating churches of the SBC a gospel movement specifically by participating in the recommendations?”  To the other leaders I would ask, “What will be different for you and the church you attend in light of the vote in Orlando?

I ask the questions for a very simple reason:  I want you to be leading voices for gospel-centered churches in the SBC.  I have the privilege of working with 20 Southern Baptist churches in my association.  If you show me how you can be more gospel-centered, Christ-exalting and missional in light of these recommendations, I will join up and serve alongside you for the glory of God.  This is a critical time in our life as a convention of churches GCRTF, please show us your hearts for the gospel and the specific work that we cooperate together to do.  Provide clear calls to mission that other churches can join alongside.   I still want to believe that the GCR is far more than a call to manage the denomination; I want to believe in the movement that might have been, is not yet, but still can be with God’s help and grace.

Needless.

Baseless.

Pointless.

Vacuous.

Void.

Unhelpful.

Bottom-feeding.

Inane.

Imbecilic.

Moronic.

Incomprehensible.

Nonsensical.

Mythical.

Useless.

Idiotic.

Unintelligent.

Self-aggrandizing.

Ego-stroking.

Unloving.

Unnecessary.

Thoughtless.

Worthless.

Small.

These are the most charitable terms I can find to describe the writings of Peter Lumpkins.

My friend and fellow missioscaper Alan Cross wrote up a piece the other day that I wanted to interact with.  I have great respect for Alan, though I have only met him personally two times, one of which I think he cannot remember.  I have read Alan’s blog for a good bit now and was able to attend a series of meetings with him last year where he presented a talk on decentralized efforts in ministry.  The thing that encourages me so much about Alan is the fact that he is not one who commends ideas to others that he himself does not follow with great passion.  In my conversation with Alan I was inspired by the work that the church he pastors engages in on the sub-continent of India.  Get in touch with Alan’s blog and read away about their mighty deeds for the sake of the gospel of Jesus.

“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.”

Critical Issues Concerning Southern Baptist Structure

With three key presidential vacancies at hand, pardon my analogy from paganism when I suggest that the planets may have aligned for sweeping changes in Southern Baptist Convention structure. Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse is a question. Bureaucratic structures are tenacious under assault. Just consider the repeated attempts at federal tax reform, resulting in an IRS more bloated and a tax code more confused, complex and convoluted than ever before. There is no guarantee that a new denominational structure will be an improvement over what we have now. If recent reorganizations are any indication I’m not optimistic. Would anyone seriously suggest that the Executive Committee has better preserved Baptist history than the old Historical Commission once did? With the debatable exception of disaster relief, has NAMB improved on any of those tasks once the responsibilities of the Brotherhood and Radio and Television Commissions?

Ask any church consultant what happens when two churches merge. In most cases within less than five years the combined congregations will shrink to the size of the larger of the two churches prior to the merger. Mergers of any kind—be it churches or corporations—are hard to pull off. Efficiency does not necessarily equal effectiveness. Yet some suggest that it’s time to merge the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board into one all-encompassing mission agency. At first glance it’s an appealing concept.

The Southern Baptist Convention first organized in 1845, primarily for the purpose of giving birth to two mission agencies, known then as the Foreign Mission Board and the Domestic Mission Board. After a series of name changes and reorganizations we ended up in 1997 with the current North American Mission Board, to serve the needs of the United States and its territories, along with Canada, and the International Mission Board to serve the mission needs of the rest of the world.

In 1845 it was perfectly logical to divide up the denomination’s missionary task into the two big categories of foreign and domestic. Those were the days when a clipper ship leaving the East Coast of the United States would take half a year or more to reach Shanghai. Missionaries boarding those ships said goodbye to family members on the dock not expecting to meet them again this side of heaven. In most of the world in those days people group locations corresponded reasonably well with national boundaries or if not, the people group was typically contained within a contiguous region that included one or two adjacent nation states. In few cases were people groups widely scattered across the globe. (The main exceptions were those European peoples, such as the Irish, who were immigrating to the United States and Canada.) Most people on the planet were born, lived, and died within a few miles of the same cross-reference of latitude and longitude. Most people still lived in rural and small town settings. The few larger cities that did exist were fairly homogeneous in makeup.

In 1845 there were still significant areas of Africa, Asia, and South America that were unknown and unvisited by any American or European explorer. The challenges for missionaries in those days tended to focus on daunting logistical barriers. Crossing oceans, rivers, mountains, and deserts; confronting often hostile native populations who spoke languages unknown to the missionary or his or her sending agency; disease, hunger, snake bite, and isolation; the list goes on and on. IMB Strategy Facilitator for the Western Amazon Valley of Brazil, Victor Nickerson, once told me about his study of the early missionaries to the Amazon. When he examined the historical records he discovered one quality that more than any other determined the success or failure of their work: a natural resistance to malaria. Most of those early missionaries died within two years of their arrival.

Today in many profound ways we live in a radically different world. The world is now more urban than rural. Populations are growing and constantly shifting. A few years ago IMB adopted a people group-based strategy around which to organize its missionary efforts. We stopped talking about sending a missionary to reach Djibouti. We now speak of sending missionaries to reach the Somalis or the Oromo or the Afar people. But the problem is that people groups today represent moving targets. A generation ago missiologists coined the term 10-40 Window as a convenient way to talk about the most unreached region on earth. But population migration has made the term less useful than it was twenty years ago. We once spoke of the Window as defining the people groups within the region between 10˚ north and 40˚ north latitude across Africa and Asia. Today significant pockets of the Window live in London, Paris, Frankfurt, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and in thousands of other cities, towns and rural locations. The 10-40 Window, like the people groups associated with it, has torn lose from its geographical mooring. We must redesign our strategies to conform to these new realities.

So while once the work of the two mission boards could be neatly compartmentalized, a changing global scene has now hopelessly entangled their missionary tasks.

Nonetheless until recent years there has been very little deliberate contact between these agencies. While both are charged with expanding the Kingdom of God under the Southern Baptist banner, they have done so using distinctive approaches and with very different corporate cultures. There isn’t even uniformity in definitions and terminology. At IMB CPM means church planting movement. At NAMB it means church planting missionary. Our boards don’t even speak the same language.

The differences between our domestic and international mission agencies run far deeper than the geography of the regions they serve. The corporate cultures of the two boards are as different as those of Apple Computer and the Marine Corp. Short of firing everybody from the vice presidents all the way down to the secretaries and starting over with a blank slate (Who can forget that seamless transition from HMB to NAMB and its resultant body count?) such a merger cannot help but be incredibly messy and stressful.

Just consider the difference in how salaries are structured. At IMB salaries are determined by two factors: tenure of the missionary with the agency and an adjustment to reflect the local cost of living. Consequently if your spiritual gifts equip you to be an effective church planter you have no economic incentive to seek transfer to an administrative role in some regional office—a job for which you may not be gifted. At NAMB and in virtually all state convention offices, salaries are determined in a hierarchical structure similar to that found in the secular corporate world. Church planters are typically at the bottom. Strategists rank higher. State convention salaries run higher on average than those of associational workers. And as for any cost of living adjustments, often missionary salaries in high cost of living areas such as the big cities of the Northeast and the West Coast are actually lower than their counterparts in old convention areas such as Mississippi and Alabama where the cost of living is greatly reduced. It is not surprising that such a system would encourage people to move from regions of great spiritual need but where compensation for ministers is stingy to areas of the country with a much stronger gospel presence but where the pay is better. In the same way field missionaries sometimes seek promotion to better-paying administrative roles for which they may be ill-suited, often leaving a ministry that they love and in which they were very effective. In our unthinking adoption of a secular corporate model of compensation, we have inadvertently proclaimed that the spiritual gift of administration is more valuable than that of evangelism. But in my 37 years in Southern Baptist ministry I have yet to hear anyone admit this.

Complicating this different approach to determining salaries is the fact that IMB missionaries work exclusively for IMB. NAMB missionaries, with only a handful of exceptions, are jointly commissioned and funded by NAMB and one of 42 different state conventions or with the conventions of Canada or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. These joint funding arrangements are determined by 44 different cooperative agreements.

The two boards embrace profoundly different operational philosophies. This reflects the enormous differences in the nature of their respective tasks. IMB has a monolithic structure that relates to other Baptist groups around the world much the same way that a megachurch in Texas relates to some association in Minnesota in order to co-sponsor a new work in the Northwoods. No matter how gracious their manners or benevolent their intent, they will tend to overwhelm their Minnesota partners—and in the end they will control the decision-making process.

While NAMB exercises considerable power in dealing with the weak and cash-strapped conventions of the north, it must also work with some old line conventions possessing far more resources than NAMB, conventions that send more money to NAMB through the Cooperative Program and the Annie Armstrong Offering than NAMB will ever return.

Risking a very unbiblical metaphor, the role of the state conventions is the joker in the deck that complicates any hypothetical merger of IMB and NAMB. They are autonomous bodies that cannot be ignored nor can they be dictated to by any SBC board, agency, or study group. The only way to circumvent them would be to adopt a radically different approach to missions in the United States, abandoning the concept of joint funding and making all domestic missionaries the direct employees of NAMB or of some new global mission board. Such a move would almost certainly spark a civil war in the Southern Baptist Convention resulting in a catastrophic drop in CP giving.

If we were designing a new denomination in 2009 would we approach it differently than we did in 1845? Assuredly. But we have not the luxury of simply ignoring 164 years of Southern Baptist mission history. We are, at least to some extent, the prisoners of our own past. So while I agree that to do nothing but continue as we are is a long-term strategy for decline into irrelevance we must move forward with all the care of a man traversing a minefield. I believe that rather than approaching this “Great Commission Resurgence” with sweeping changes that could easily cost the denomination more in lost good will and trust than any gains won in organizational efficiency, we ought to focus on the most egregious flaws in the current system and address them one by one. I suggest starting with the following items:

• Some structure or system must be devised that results in ongoing, meaningful communication between IMB and NAMB at multiple levels from the presidents all the way to the field missionaries. The people group strategy of IMB must become truly global. When a Somali man moves from Mogadishu to Toronto to Minneapolis to London to Seattle (and in the case of a Somali that is not as unreasonable a hypothetical scenario as you might think) it is absurd that he not remain the focus of the same strategy coordinator whose team is seeking to reach all Somalis everywhere.
• We must develop missionary recruitment and training strategies that work across existing agency boundaries. We need an expanding pool of cross-cultural missionaries. The cultural skills required of a native Minnesotan trying to reach Somalis in Minneapolis are far greater than those of American leading an English-speaking congregation in Aberdeen, Scotland. Some years ago the US military began requiring joint command training for all their senior officers. Before promotion to general officer rank, all army, navy, marine and air force officers must serve a tour where they work side by side with officers from other military branches. Such cross-training would be invaluable for missionaries both foreign and domestic, especially for those serving in the great global cities of the earth.
• Domestically we must address the disparate salaries of missionaries doing similar work for dramatically different levels of compensation. We have never attempted to seriously address the economic factor in our miserable track record in evangelizing high cost-of-living urban areas such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. It is not uncommon for a Director of Missions for a small city in the South to make tens of thousands of dollars more than his counterpart in a city like San Francisco. The home that the Southern DOM bought for $150,000 could not be touched for ten times that much in the Mission District of San Francisco. Yet the IMB missionary who works in Tokyo or London or Moscow does get at least a partial cost of living adjustment.
• The current makeup of the SBC’s Great Commission Council, a creation of the last major SBC reorganization, is heavily skewed in favor of the interests of theological education at the expense of missions. Six seminary presidents and two mission board presidents all have equal votes. Yet when you consider the SBC budget nearly 75% of Cooperative Program funding goes to IMB and NAMB—not to the seminaries. This lopsided influence of seminary presidents on the council is bad for missions. Combine IMB and NAMB and you go from 6-to-2 to 6-to-1 in favor of seminaries over mission boards. If this body—whose work and very existence is a mystery to most Southern Baptists—is to continue functioning, this imbalance needs to be corrected.
• Any merging of mission boards must be done in a way that protects and preserves the priority of reaching the new convention regions of the United States. Winning Albany, New York will never have the same romantic appeal that winning China or India has. Gary, Indiana has little cachet when competing for the imaginations (and mission gifts) of Southern Baptists with places like Nairobi or Rio de Janeiro. I am not suggestion that these various priorities are equally important. But I am saying that we risk hard-won gains in the U.S. outside the South if we suddenly abandon what we have started.
• Finally, we need to fundamentally reexamine how we as Southern Baptists do missions education. We are failing at this critical task. I believe that the poor job that we are doing in educating our people about missions, from our youngest children through our senior adults, also underlies the weakness of much of our stewardship education. We need to gather the best and brightest from NAMB, IMB, WMU, LifeWay, state convention leadership, as well as a representative group of pastors and lay leaders to rethink how we teach missions.

God bless the men and women of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. They may end up shaping the next chapter of Southern Baptist history. I hope they appreciate the fragile treasure that they hold.

Glen A. Land, State Missions Director
Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention

If you would like to contact Glen you can find him at land@mwbc.org.

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.

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. 

I enjoyed the snorkeling, but my favorite part of the trip was when my wife and I went into Nassau late one night. We ended up at the Atlantis Hotel and we wandered all around their huge indoor-outdoor aquarium. The fish were beautiful. The light shimmered off of them and we were able to watch them swim as graceful as God made them. We kept exploring and finding new things. We didn’t know what was around the next corner and we ended up not getting back to the cruise ship until around 3am.  None of that was on the agenda and that is probably why it was a blast.  We just didn’t know what we were going to find.  Since then, I’ve decided that I’m not a “cruise ship” kind of guy, and I’d much rather experience the unknown and actually “do” something. Not that cruises aren’t nice (they are) and they are good for relaxing, but there is more to life than that – and, there are lots of places that a cruise ship just won’t take you.

A while back, I went by a very large church to drop off something for one of the associate pastors and a lot of activity was going on. Volleyball was being played. A dance class was taking place in one of the side rooms. Sports was going on outside. Everyone looked the same and they were all enjoying the activities that were set up for them. For a moment, I felt like I was back on the cruise ship.  I’m not trying to be critical of these activites. Maybe there was more going on than met the eye. I’m just telling you that it felt like the cruise ship.

There are other types of water vessels, though. I’ve read some about Swift Boats, or Fast Patrol Craft. The Navy used these 50 ft. long shallow water boats for counterinsurgency operations on rivers during the Vietnam War. They held a small crew and were able to travel 400-500 miles and remain self-contained. Everyone who served on a Swift Boat had a job to do and they were constantly in danger, yet their job was crucial. They were penetrating enemy territory, engaging in missions, and bringing back vital information. They often got into firefights and everyone on board was engaged in a life or death struggle.  Except for the water, life on a Swift Boat is nothing like life on a cruise ship.

After visiting that church that day, I started thinking about the concept of the Megachurch as cruise ship and the Missional Church as Swift Boat. I’m not trying to make this a “bash Megachurches” post. That prospect bores me as much as it probably does you and Megachurches can certainly have some “Swift Boat” characteristics through small groups and ministry teams if they are organized well around a compelling gospel vision. But, that is often not the case. The vision is often one of “come and get your needs met,” kind of like the cruise ship. The Megachurch has been held up as the model that we should all attain to for so long, that we need to examine if it is really capable of doing what we expect of it. In other words, can it really make disciples in a post-Christian world, or is it most effective at producing consumers?  Some Megachurches can be effective in making disciples, I believe, as long as their focus is right. But, I think that it is very hard once you start dealing with that many people and all that goes with it – buidings, vast amounts of money, and lots of Christian “stuff.”

The average Megachurch is built around the concept of full-service attractional ministry.  There’s something there for everyone and often, people will compare churches based on which one has the best services for them or their children. They are kind of like a big buffet. Do you like steak or seafood? Soup or salad? Built on the Homogenous-Unit Principle, it has fit the American consumeristic mindset very well and looks very much like a religious mall. But, how successful has this model been in actually penetrating darkness in America?  Have people learned some things? Yes. Has it had some positive benefit? Yes. Has it gathered a lot of people together? Yes. But, has it been successful in launching a disciplemaking movement in America or has it primarily gathered a bunch of consumers together in the name of religion? Can the Megachurch be Missional?  Does the church exist to bless and make Christians happy, or does the church exist to glorify God and bless the world with the incarnational presence of Christ?  I am seeing people begin to look at these issues critically, and that  can only be a good thing.

The Swift Boat, Missional Church is built around the concept that all of its people are engaged in the Missio Dei as they go into the world. There are not necessarily attractional programs that seek to meet the needs of people who are looking for a better life. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles. Actually, the Missional Church finds its purpose and reason for existence in fidelity to Christ and His Mission to seek and save the lost. Yes, people are ministered to. Yes, there is a place of refuge for needy people and they experience wholeness and healing in the midst of community. Yes, proper doctrine is taught. But, the end purpose is not to just gather as many people as possible together in one place for the purpose of teaching or gathering or making friends, but rather, the purpose is to empower people to live in relationship with God and to live in relationship with others incarnationally and redemptively in the places where God puts them. Instead of being attractional, the church is sent.  Many Megachurches claim to have the same goals, but their energy continues to go toward trying to get people to come to their services. They say that they are sending people out, but the focus continues to be on how many they are attracting to the gathering.  Can a Megachurch be missional in that it focuses more on the “sending” of the church rather than just gathering a crowd together? Perhaps.

I realize that what I am saying is nothing new. This conversation has been going on for some time now and nothing that I have said here is groundbreaking. We see the failure of the church in America to really make disciples. But, what has not changed is the glamorization of “the big.” We continue to make superstars out of those who are able to gather a large crowd and build a big church. But, what about the Swift Boat operators who are taking small teams into unchartered waters to explore the terrain of the soul that has yet to be taken for Christ? What about those who are moving out in fresh ways who never draw a huge crowd all in one place, but they are making disciples that make disciples that make disciples?  When will be stop believing that bigger (as we understand it) is always better?

The Swift Boat, Missional Church has gatherings to build up and equip believers, but it does its ministry in the marketplace and does not feel the need to continually start new programs to attract people to its gatherings. Rather, it makes disciples out of those who are responding in relationship and then those people are drawn into the Christian community. Then, it starts new gatherings, again and again that penetrate new areas to bring the gospel to new people so that more can hear, believe, and root their lives in Christ. We are only just beginning to think this way as the “bigger is better” mentality still dominates our view of church in America.

As we go further and further in post-Christendom, I think that people will be getting off of the cruise ship.  But, what will they be getting onto? Is there another vision of the Church-Engaged, the Church on mission, speeding into the night down river into the Heart of Darkness?  Can we tell a different story than bigger is better?  We’ve engaged in a good bit of deconstruction over the past 10 years on this issue, but we are still struggling to capture the essence of what is coming next. Some call it missional. That seems to be the name that we are settling on right now. But, what does it mean? What does this look like?

Maybe, as we go further down the river, we will begin to figure that out.

Alan Cross is not much of a sailor, but he is a pastor of a church in Alabama who is not upset if you are a big fan of the Megachurch and happen to go to a great one that is doing lots of awesome ministry. He knows that they exist. But, he also really hopes that you are able to see the bigger picture of what he is getting at. He is also wondering why he is writing in the third person.

For those who are newcomers to this blog and may not be as familiar with our past involvement with “The Dark Side,” the men listed on the Editors page were, for 2-3 years, avid (some might say “rabid”) critics of the SBC and, often, some in its leadership. Though motives were questioned then as well (both by us and toward us), to a person our goal was to try and instigate some type of reform that would address the backroom politics, good ole’ boy nomination processes and bureaucratic redundancies all of which we felt were suppressing the SBC’s creative talent and innovation, disenfranchising younger leaders and threatening the long term viability of the Southern Baptist Convention. While we were critical of some of the entity heads within the convention, we also recognized that any lasting change would have to come as a result of the “blog conversation” moving into the arena of official leadership. On June 18, 2007, on the last “SBC” commentary on my (Marty) first blog, SBCOutpost, I wrote that “change must come from Frank Page, Thom Rainer, Geoff Hammond, David Dockery, Timothy George, Danny Akin and others of their tribe.” Sans Geoff Hammond, each of these leaders is involved at some level of driving change in the SBC. Knowing that these men have stepped up to the plate does not make us mad; it gives us varying degrees of hope from fleeting to great.

Having said that, anything that appears to be criticism from our end should be read as a hope that the GCRTF will go the distance and not be, to use biblical phrasing, “of those who shrink back and are destroyed,” but will press to the farthest extent and let the convention itself decide. In other words, we believe the GCRTF should bring “Big Hairy Audacious Goals” to Orlando and let the assembled messengers determine how to proceed from there. We do not want them to “shrink back” out of fear, uncertainty or concerns about walking on the toes of feudal lords.

Therefore, if we were the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force, we would make the following recommendations:

1. That the Southern Baptist Convention intentionally downsize is structural complexity by recognizing the series of autonomous relationships that exist between churches, associations, state conventions/fellowships and the national body and that the local churches must take the lead in re-shaping this autonomy to all extremes in each direction.

2. That the Southern Baptist Convention re-focus NAMB’s ministry tasks, retaining only on those areas that empower the churches through national coordination and facilitate the planting of churches in frontier areas. This would be best accomplished through decentralization. NAMB should begin to act as a true missionary sending agency while funding those missionaries accordingly.

3. That the Southern Baptist Convention cease from the practice of voting on “Resolutions.” The purpose of resolutions in theory makes sense, but in practice they are great tools for making Southern Baptists look like fools. We have long passed the point that our society cares at all what we think about its ills; resolutions have become points of disparagement for our host culture, another stigma that must be overcome by Southern Baptist churches and do nothing to help us fulfill the Great Commission.

4. That the Southern Baptist Convention focus its coordinated efforts toward only what local churches, associations, or state conventions cannot do alone or by voluntary networking. By definition this implies the closure of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

5. That the Southern Baptist Convention instruct the International Mission Board to implement strategies that empower national believers rather than seeking to primarily deploy western missionaries and make those stories a focus of all promotion.

6. That one-third of the trustees on Southern Baptist Convention entity boards be comprised of men and women younger than 40 years of age and that the total number of years that a single person shall be able to serve on all boards combined is twelve.

7. That churches be given the option to direct their Cooperative Program funds through their local association consistent with the mission of the local church and the accountable practices at all levels of our cooperative effort toward fulfilling the Great Commission.

8. That all bodies within the SBC–local churches, associations, state conventions and fellowships, and all national entities–strive for absolute accuracy in reporting of statistics and that a differentiation be made between what is accomplished by our own direct ministry efforts and those of groups with whom we partner both in North America and internationally.

9. That the Southern Baptist Convention explore alternative methods of theological training that retain an emphasis on conservative, classic theology, but are local church-centric and host culture specific. A new educational paradigm should be introduced which places Missiology on the same plane as Theology proper, Christology and Pneumatology and staffed accordingly.

10. That funding the Cooperative Program not be considered as the basis for being a cooperating church. The basis for cooperation should be missional engagement as the local church furthers the stated goals of the Southern Baptist Convention. “Cooperation” should not be reduced to money.

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“Through a Glass Darkly”

With these words St. Paul (1 Cor. 13:12) contrasts the limitations of our present spiritual vision and understanding with the fullness of knowledge that will be ours at the return of the Lord.  This metaphor may be helpful as we consider the last of Biblical Seminary’s theological convictions.

The Necessity of Cultural Engagement

We are committed to ongoing engagement with culture and the world for the sake of our witness to the gospel, and to continual learning from Christians in other cultural settings.[1]

There are three points I want to make about this statement:  1) culture as the context for mission, 2) culture as a way of seeing, and 3) the need for cross-cultural learning.

1.    Culture as context

By “culture” we refer to the traditional ways of thinking, speaking, and acting that characterize a particular group of people. In our highly mobile Western world, we must think of culture not as a single entity but as a complex interplay of contrasting and even competing ways by which different groups construe their world.

This diversity of cultures is one reason the church in North America must now think of itself as a missionary church. We are surrounded by groups of people who do not share our way of viewing the world. To bring the gospel to our world we will need to engage in the missionary task of translation.  We must communicate the truth about Jesus in ways that are faithful to Scripture and effective in crossing cultural boundaries.

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, understands this challenge better than most. “When Paul spoke to Greeks, he confronted their culture’s idol of speculation and philosophy with the ‘foolishness’ of the cross, and then presented Christ’s salvation as true wisdom. When he spoke to Jews, he confronted their culture’s idol of power and accomplishment with the ‘weakness’ of the cross, and then presented the gospel as true power (1 Cor. 1:22-25).”[2] In affirming one gospel, Keller nonetheless argues that different “forms” of the gospel are appropriate to people of differing cultural backgrounds.

So, in the context of his own ministry in New York City, Keller recognizes that people with religious backgrounds understand the concept of sin as an offense against the law of God.  These people can therefore be reached with the more traditional evangelical summary of the gospel which presents the cross as divine provision for human sin and guilt.

But Keller notes, “…Manhattan is also filled with postmodern listeners who consider all moral statements to be culturally relative and socially constructed. If you try to convict them of guilt for sexual lust, they will simply say, ‘You have your standards, and I have mine.’ If you respond with a diatribe on the dangers of relativism, your listeners will simply feel scolded and distanced.”[3]  For this audience Keller finds it more effective to speak of sin not as guilt but as idolatry.

My point is not to argue the rightness or wrongness of Pastor Keller’s specific approach to preaching, although I agree with much of his article. The point is rather to emphasize the missional challenge we face. Careful interpretation of Scripture must now be combined with careful interpretation of culture(s) if we are to witness faithfully to our generation.

2.     Culture as a way of seeing

Paul talks about seeing in the mirror “dimly” or “obscurely.” This is due both to our finiteness and our fallenness, and both play out in the influence of culture upon us and upon those to whom we bring the gospel.  Culture allows us to see certain things while it makes other realities opaque.

Here’s another way of saying this: None of us perceive reality (including the Bible) in a purely objective way. We are all imbedded in our culture. We observe from a limited perspective.  No one enjoys a God’s-eye view of the world except God himself.

When I was a beginning student in theology, most evangelicals were objectivists. We saw ourselves as people who could simply observe the world and the Bible without being impacted by our cultural surroundings. Perspective (bias) was not a problem, at least not for us! Abstract scientific induction was our model for the study of the Bible and the articulation of theology: begin with the pure data and by careful, logical process craft your sermon or build your theology.

But now postmodernism has powerfully critiqued that type of naïve modernism. There is a growing convergence among evangelical scholars that objectivism is not workable. No less a conservative than D.A. Carson now says that “… human beings may know objective truth in the sense that they may know what actually conforms to reality, but they cannot know it objectively, that is, they cannot escape their finitude and (this side of the consummation) their fallenness….”[4] Similarly, John Franke writes, “We simply cannot escape from our particular setting and gain access to an objective, transcultural vantage point.”[5] The result, says Carson, is that we are all perspectivalists.

This has both positive and negative consequences. On the one hand, culture may function in a positive way to help us see particular dimensions of our humanity or of the world that may otherwise escape us. Our conviction statement reads:  “It is also true that God can work in a culture to surface issues of justice, equity, or mercy that the church has neglected.” Clearly the civil rights movement of the second half of the 20th century surfaced a glaring inconsistency in the theology and practice of many white Christians in North America.

On the other hand, culture can impact the church negatively as well. In this case it blinds us to truths that may be obvious to those of a different cultural background. For example, the narcissistic individualism[6] of the West has left American Christians with an anemic understanding of the church.  As a result many of us would summarize the gospel with no reference to the centrality of the church in God’s purposes, and many of us live as if salvation were merely a private affair between Jesus and me.

3.     Cross-cultural learning

So, any particular culture both illuminates and obscures aspects of reality. To quote Carson again, “…every expression of human culture simultaneously discloses that we were made in God’s image and shows itself to be mis-shaped and corroded by human rebellion against God.”[7]
How then are we to live out Christian faith without being co-opted unknowingly by the most dangerous elements of our surroundings?  The primary answer is that we must be willing to bring our most fundamental assumptions back to Scripture in the recognition that a fresh hearing of the Word may yet disclose points of correction or expansion in our living of the gospel.

However, our convictions statement speaks of the need for “continual learning from Christians in other cultural settings.” The way we understand and live out the gospel needs to be compared with the ways brothers and sisters in other places hear the same message. In the process we will find elements of similarity and difference; the commonalities will confirm our faith and the plurality of views will humble and perhaps instruct us.

The growing weakness of the church in the West and the explosion of the church in the two-thirds world should make us teachable. Wheaton College professor Kevin Vanhoozer says, “Those who cannot see their own cultural conditioning are doomed to repeat it. It is just here that Western sytematic theologians have much to learn…. It is ultimately for the sake of better biblical interpretation that Western theologians need to attend to how the Bible is being read and practiced in the non-Western world.”[8]

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In summary, none of us can escape culture. It is the context in which we understand, embody, and communicate the gospel. The church’s missional challenge in every particular cultural setting is to incarnate the message faithfully. At Biblical Seminary we believe the best hope for carrying out that mission is a fresh listening for the voice of the Spirit as we read Scripture together with the global church.

[1]The full text of our Convictions is found here:  http://www.biblical.edu/images/discover/Convictions0808.pdf
[2] Tim Keller, “The Gospel in All Its Forms,” at http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2008/spring/9.74.html?start=1
[3] http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2008/spring/9.74.html?start=5
[4] D.A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited (Eerdmans, 2008), p. 101.
[5] John Franke, The Character of Theology (Baker, 2005), p. 90.
[6] See my earlier Missional Journal on Narcissism:  http://www.biblical.edu/images/belong/PDFs/Vol1No11.pdf
[7] Idem, p. 49
[8] Kevin Vanhoozer, “One Rule to Rule Them All?” in Globalizing Theology edited by Craig Ott and Harold Netland (Baker, 2006), pp. 116-17.