“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…

This post was originally published at Examiner.com.

Early Wednesday afternoon, around 1:50 local time, a sudden tornado traveled from south Minneapolis into the city damaging the Convention Center, a Lutheran church and a music shop. Dozens of homes and trees were damaged in the early touching down, while a different tornado crushed the roof of a North Branch middle school about 50 miles away, bringing doubts as to whether that school might open on time. The tornados were described as “weak” as the Weather Service gave both wind funnels a rating of EF0, the lowest on the scale.

Perhaps it was the “weak” designation that prompted popular Minneapolis pastor, John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church, to wonder on his blog whether God was giving a gentle warning to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America who were about to debate the ordination of practicing homosexuals into the ranks of their ministry. Piper wrote of seeing the cloud from distance, posted a picture of the damaged steeple of the Central Lutheran Church where the ELCA attendees were meeting and divined that the purpose of the tornado was related to the ELCA’s decision, writing, “The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction.” Not the possibility of one of the damaged houses being a crack den, or the school being a poor use of money or the music store having the name “Electric Fetus,” which, had I been God, would have received a lightning strike in addition to wind damage.

Finish reading at the Atlanta Southern Baptist Examiner

Change is never easy, especially in the church. That much we can know for sure.  To effect change that is lasting, useful and effective a few things must obtain.  Leaders must know their minds, be confident of their purpose and have clear direction.  Leaders must have a strong imagination, one which enables them to see a world where changes have already occurred and then move backward to unpack the process of that change.  Leaders must have hearts that are large enough to hear from both their proponents and their detractors in order to exercise the very best ideas possible to move forward to the goal of faithfulness and effectiveness.  Leaders must be the sort of people who draw the best from those around them, inspiring greatness of heart and mind for the good of those who follow and the goal that they pursue.  Leaders must lead.  In short, leaders must break the ground, lead the way, chart the course, encourage the process and be willing to allow many people to share in the journey without losing their own way.  Leaders must have great vision.

Do Hard Things
Leaders must be willing to say and do hard things, things that defy the status quo, upset the system and seek the good that is shining in the future, not the past.  Leaders have to be those able to rise to the difficult task of choice.  Leaders have to be those who will choose between “this” or “that” all the while knowing that vested interests will call any choice for change an abandonment of our most sacred efforts to follow Christ.  The call to lead can be lonely, it can cause conflict and it likely will be misunderstood.

Tasked For Leadership
Leadership is precisely what we have asked the GCR Task Force to give the SBC.  We have given them the heavy task of recommendation.  We have set them aside for a purpose that comes with great authority.  We have not convened a group simply to ignore their recommendations, rather we have given the GCRT a de facto authority which says, “We will take seriously what you have to say about our cooperative life and will use your recommendations to help shape the future of our churches’ efforts to cooperate together.  With that said…

To The Slaughterhouse
If we were on the GCR Task Force we would go to the slaughterhouse.  Even as I type these words I know that some will object.  I did. The first time that phrase was put in front of me I quickly looked for a work around, a way out, an easier option to say what needs to be said.  Leaders lead.  If we were placed on the task force we would not have the luxury of the “easy”.  We would travel to the place where programs go to die, budgets get cut, denominational staff are sent back to the church to take up their work of serving Christ and whole entities are phased out.  We would have to go to that place we call the slaughterhouse and spend time there.  Though not easy, we would have to learn by heart the way of subtraction before we engaged the art of addition.  We would go to the slaughterhouse precisely because we have been called to the task of assisting in reshaping a denomination that has clearly lost its way.  We do not call people BACK to the task of the Great Commission of Christ our Lord if we are already engaging it in faithfulness and fidelity.  This is no time of minor tweaks, small adjustments, re-organization, or reallocation.  This is a time for seismic change to set a course for a future of local church centered, cooperatively effective mission in the name of Christ.  By going to the slaughterhouse we mean one thing uniquely: “Everything that makes it out of the GCRT recommendation process only does so because it can prove its vitality and usefulness in a 21st century effort to take the Gospel of Christ to the nations (including our own)”. Read more…

Something is leaking. According to an article in the USA Today dated August 6 (taken from The Tennessean), someone’s computer sprung a leak. That is, an email was leaked which altered the course of the upcoming NAMB Board of Trustees meeting. Someone left the gate valve open and water sprung from a circuit board inviting unintended readers a look-see into upcoming discussions by the “executive committee” of the NAMB BoT. In an environment of trust in people and process “leaking” would not be necessary.

If we were the GCR Task Force we would avoid “watergate.” You see, we are familiar with “leaking computers.” Well, maybe not leaking computers, but leaking sources. During our time with the now defunct SBCOutpost, read SBC Drudge Report, there were many willing to “blow the whistle” on questionable tactics yet they feared reprisal. Over and again we bantered back and forth about “anonymous sources.” Some pontificated with erudition. In the end the atmosphere was the problem. In an organization, institution, intending to bear the Gospel of Jesus to the world one would assume ethical decisions would run through the ethic of Jesus. In order to move us from the pragmatic and narrow agendas of a few, we would declare an end to secret meetings from the outset.

Rather than offer an expose’ on the countless secret meetings held over the past 30 years, we would schedule all meetings inside a local church building. From the now famous or infamous meeting at the Cafe du Monde to the present hour our history is full of examples of these private meetings. The stakes are too high to undermine the process behind the cloak of secrecy. Sometimes symbolism is as important as substance. We hear much about the Great Commission being given to the local church, then we would plan to meet there. Our history is full of meetings held at airports. Sometimes the outcome of those meetings has been less than profitable.

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.

We will be going live Monday, August 3. Stay tuned.