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.”

The Kingdom Principle

Several years ago I accompanied a friend on hiking trip. Our objective was more than just spending a few days in the great outdoors. The location was a restricted-access country in Asia where mission work is forbidden. My friend, a strategy coordinator for an unreached people group, asked me to join him on the trip high in the mountains to locate and mark with a GPS villages previously untouched by Westerners. His desire was to count doors, do a needs-assessment and hopefully encounter men of peace through whom he could introduce the Gospel to a secluded people. As a journalist, I planned to do a feature package on the people and the challenge of bringing the Gospel to them.

We spent our first day navigating dusty trails and narrow goat paths straight up a mountain nearing 10,000 feet. At one point, having run out of water, we resorted to drawing and filtering from streams that were no more than mud puddles. Periodically, we encountered people living on the mountain; villagers tending to crops on semi-flat fields or goat herders on patches of mountain grass. At one rest stop, two members of our team engaged a couple of farmers in light conversation and gave them tracts in their language.

In our ignorance, we didn’t realize those farmers were heading down the mountain to a village at a lower trailhead. I can imagine their report to the local officials: white devils were on the mountain handing out (illegal) materials. To our dismay, as we broke camp the following morning we saw coming up behind us a trail of military vehicles. Needless to say, the language barrier didn’t mean much as the officials angrily interrogated our leader and hauled us all off the mountain.

We were held for several hours in the village headquarters. Our team leader received the brunt of their wrath since he knew the language, but after a time we were left under the watch of one of the armed guards. As we sat in the sparse room, our team leader sat at the doorway engaged in conversation with the guard.

After several hours a bus arrived. We were told we would be taken down the mountain to the provincial capital and expelled from the country. As we loaded our gear on the bus, I noticed our team leader place both of his hands on our guard’s shoulders and speak to him. The guard’s head lowered. He nodded, seemingly with resignation.

I knew my friend was telling this man about Jesus. I couldn’t wait to hear the whole story.

The guard had continued to tell our team leader that what we were doing was illegal. But “I put my hands on his shoulders and looked him the eye,” my friend shared. “I told him: ‘You know that the Kingdom of God has come near to you today.’” The guard nodded his head and said, “Yes, I know.”

It was a simple statement, but it reflected our marching orders. Before our hike we were told we were operating under the “L.K. 10 principle” just as Jesus had instructed the 72 as He sent them out – to proclaim the Good News; to speak to those who would listen; to pray for the sick; to proclaim the Kingdom of God.

While this story is digestible in the context of being overseas in a country resistant to the Gospel, I feel this basic principle is one that is too often overlooked in the safety shell of our American church. Most understand the mandate to be the hands and feet of Jesus, but do we take seriously the mandate to intentionally intersect the lost, the questioning, the maligned, the people all around us; to look them in the eye and proclaim the truth, challenging them to understand through our actions and words that the Kingdom of God has come near to them? How have I brought near the Kingdom of God today? Did anyone even realize it?

What does “L.K. 10” look like in the missional context? Is it enough to hope that the waitress serving us thinks we are “different” because we smile and leave a decent tip? That the store clerk is impressed that we don’t get aggravated in the long checkout line like those around us? That maybe we give a sandwich to the homeless vet on the corner? These things are good and should be expected of Christ-followers. But isn’t there more?

There is intentionality in the series of instructions given to the 72: Ask the Lord…Go!…Speak peace…stay…eat…drink…heal…tell them: “the Kingdom of God is near you.”

I’m not suggesting you grab someone on the street and say, “The Kingdom of God is near you!” That could get ugly. But why are we afraid and intimidated to ask about the needs of someone’s heart and explain how every desire and broken promise they have been harboring can be found in the person of Jesus? Is it because we know it’s been attempted so many times in harmful “turn-off” ways that we’re fearful of being lumped in with the offensive kooks? Is it because we really don’t have a clue how to effectively translate God’s story into someone’s context and language? Is it because we ourselves don’t know it well enough? I wonder.

By the way, we created a second chance for ourselves that day on the mountain by giving the bus driver the slip and trekking back into our targeted territory. God’s story was communicated to a people for the first time. May His Kingdom come.

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.

We Need More Cowboys!

Sitting on his stallion, he overlooks a range full of cattle about to begin the long drive to market. The cowboy, that quintessential image of the Old West, knows the days will be long, the trail difficult, and the season, though short, will feel like forever. Yet he embraces the challenge that lies before him, for the sake of the herd, his employer, his family, and even himself.

The Old West means many things in American history. It was a period of time encompassing the latter half of the nineteenth century until the beginning of the twentieth. It was also a location, that huge area of land purchased by President Jefferson in what was known as the Louisiana Purchase and is now known as the area West of the Mississippi River. The Old West was a time of great expansion and growth in USAmerica. It was even a time when many thought we had finally fulfilled our “Manifest Destiny” as we extended our country from sea to shining sea.

It was the rugged, creative, and self-reliant nature of those who moved West that allowed the country to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The West was not a place for those seeking an easy life. It was dangerous and difficult. Some flourished. Others could not handle it. It was full of lawlessness, a much different way of living from those in the genteel East.

The West is where people on the fringe live. They go there because they get to be creative without the reach of those trying to control. This is where our country was changed. It is where our own denomination can be changed.

For the purposes of this article, I want to define the West as any area where Southern Baptists have limited influence in United States, primarily in the West, Northeast, and Midwest.

A Southern Missiology
The Southern Baptist Convention is primarily a regional denomination with continental aspirations. The majority of our denominational mass is found in the Southern region of our country, primarily in the states of Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. 80 percent of churches and 70 percent of the net gain in churches from 1990-2000 were in the South. From a 2002 NAMB report, even though the Southern Baptist Convention is national in scope, 4 of 5 SBC churches are still located in the South. In percentage distribution of SBC churches, the Midwest is the second largest region (11.2%), followed by the West (7.6%), and the Northeast (1.6%).

Let me say it again: The Southern Baptist Convention is primarily a regional denomination with continental aspirations.

What are the implications of this truth?
1. Because five of the six SBC seminaries are located in the South and Midwest, professors at these seminaries are limited in their ability to interact with and do research with those from a non-Southern, Baptist-dominated culture. Professors have a lack of understanding about ministry in the “West”. This can be easily illustrated.

A few years ago, our church brought a professor from NOBTS up to Delaware to help us for a weekend in ministry. We showed them around our area and talked with them about our struggles, issues, and how we do ministry in the Mid-Atlantic. As they made suggestions, those suggestions were made from a purely Southern, culturally-Christian perspective. They could not fathom a developer would not give five acres in a subdivision to build a facility, though the going rate for land at the time was $500,000-$1,000,000 per acre. They used words like RA’s & GA’s and revivals. I suggested over lunch one day that they take a summer or a semester off from teaching and to come and learn how to do ministry in the Mid-Atlantic. It would give them a broader perspective and a greatly enhance their ability to teach. The professor responded that he would love to but Dr. Kelley, NOBTS president, would not allow it. Even on their sabbaticals they could not do that kind of field research.

With very few professors having any extended experience outside of the Southern, Baptist context, they can read all they want, but they cannot teach how to do ministry outside their Southern, Baptist context. Since this is what they know, all these seminaries are prepared to do, with the exception of Golden Gate, is produce little Southern Baptist ministers who understand Southern Baptist literature. (My Intro to Christian Education class at NOBTS literally included a discussion of each of the three SBC Sunday School literature programs.)

2. Students who leave the five Southern, SBC seminaries have to shed much of their Southern Baptist mentality to effectively minister in the “West”. I graduated from NOBTS. I spent 6 years helping start three internet companies in Central Florida after spending a year as a pastor in Louisiana after seminary. I learned more about evangelism and ministry in those six years than anything I was taught in seminary. When my wife and I got back in ministry, and then eventually moved to Delaware, I had shed most of my seminary training regarding ministry. I was thankful, because what I was taught would not be effective in Delaware. New seminary graduates that move to this part of the country to do ministry either shed their Southern, SBC training or they simply will not last. It is a different world.

A couple of years ago, our church planted a church twenty miles South of ours. When the planter was here to be assessed, I told him that he was not to tell people he was a pastor until he had developed a relationship with people, or someone introduced him as a pastor/church planter. I told him this out of experience. When we moved into our house, it was strange to us that none of our neighbors would talk to us. Finally, I was able to strike up a conversation with one neighbor while getting the mail. He told me that the man who sold us our house had gone to all the neighbors and told them a pastor was moving in. A year later, one of our church members was looking for a house and visited two that were for sale across the street from us. We met them and their realtor looking at the houses. The next week at church, the lady said their realtor got all nervous and asked them why they would want to live across the street from a pastor. It took people moving out for us to get to know our neighbors, and some we still have not said anything more than “Hello” to because they know I am a pastor.

Back to our church planter. When he moved in, he had at least six neighbors helping him unpack, and even had his family over for meals. He played the pastor card too early. None of them will have much to say to him as a result. And the church plant never took off because he could not get his Southern, Baptist training and mentality out of his head.

3. Most of the Leadership of the SBC and the GCR have a limited understanding of the “West” because their world revolves around a Southern Exposure. Southern, Baptist culture is different than the rest of the country. The majority of the GCR task force reside in the South and have limited exposure to the “West”. Thus, without a great influence from those in a “Western” world, the recommendations will flow from a Southern mindset.

So What Would We, as the GCR Task Force, Do?
Here is reality. The West and the South are the fastest growing areas of our country. Where are people moving into these areas from? The North and the West. The “West”, as I have defined it, is moving into the Southern, Baptist culture. That will mean a decline of the Baptist, culturally-Christian mindset in these areas. We have actually felt that in Delaware as people are moving from New York and New Jersey. This area has become more like New York and New Jersey in concept in the five years I’ve been here because of the people moving in. So what would we do as the GCR Task Force?

1. We would use Golden Gate Seminary as the model of practical seminary education for the entire convention. They live, practice and minister in San Francisco surrounded by every culture and religion. They know how to do ministry in the coming American culture. They are on the frontlines more than any other SBC affiliated group. They need to be studied and used a model for apologetics and practical ministry in the future.

2. We would spend most of our time in the “Western” areas. We would go and learn in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, New York, Vermont, and Boston. We would interact with church planters and pastors. We would hold our town hall meetings there. We would talk to those who are reaching “Westerners” from outside the SBC. We would see ourselves as learners and consider that education in our decisions.

3. We would spend time learning from churches and organizations in large, urban areas. Southern Baptists do not do urban ministry well. We are primarily a rural and suburban denomination. Only one of the Strategic Focus Cities could not be called a failure. The task force needs to spend time with Tim Keller in New York, Mark Driscoll in Seattle, Francis Chan, Dave Gibbons, or Erwin McManus, all of whom are in California, or Rick McKinley at Missio Dei in Portland, along with any other groups who are effective reaching people in urban populations in the “West”.

4. We would diversify more. 52% of the American population and most of the members of our churches are female yet there are only 2 females on this task force. In addition, there are not enough people from “Western” areas. Too much emphasis placed on Southern, male, SBC leaders, demonstrates an ignorance of the culture outside of the South.

5. We would have on the task force a “bomb thrower”. We need someone on the task force that is willing to fight to blow the whole thing up and leave the remains on the slaughterhouse floor. We need someone who is willing to risk their career and reputation to say destroy it all and start over or to stand against those on the task force with the larger than life personalities.

If the SBC is going to live again, one of the things it must do is head “West”, learn from the “West” and learn from those who are ministering in the “West”. Otherwise, the Southern, Baptist culture will die on the vine. We need the mindset of the cowboy with his stirrups, sweat and manure, not the Southern, genteel, gentleman plantation owner with his non-alcoholic mint julep.