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.