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)”.

No Sacred Cows
As the GCRT we would operate from the perspective that only those efforts of ministry that will enable us to be an effective group of cooperating churches IN THE FUTURE should make it out alive.  Everything else is handed off, given up, outsourced or simply laid on the chopping block and…well you know the sound that makes.  We would look long and hard at our shared life and see where we were duplicating efforts to no greater effectiveness and then, regardless of whether our friend worked there, someone I knew graduated from there, somebody I heard of once used a product from there…regardless, it would have to go.  The ideas that led us to ineffectiveness will not lead us forward into a resurgence of Great Commission zeal.  Thinking that allowed duplication of effort, poor stewardship of resources and overall status quo processes must be examined and understood for what they are, a hindrance to our collective efforts to proclaim the gospel.

Back To The Beginning
As the GCRT we would, like Inigo Montoya after he lost Vizzini and Fezzik, go back to the beginning.  We must commit ourselves to examine every part of our shared life from the perspective that Christ has given the Great Commission to the church and she has no ability ask another to do it in her stead.  Though we can cooperate together, organize and work to enhance and improve effective process, we cannot at a denominational level do what only the church of our Lord is called as a part of her vocation to do. With the Great Commission being squarely located in the hands of the laypeople in the local church, along with their leadership, we would begin the hard work of being the Deciders.  Without first thinking about our org. chart, we would begin to work through the tough choices of evaluating a massive bureaucracy that has presided over declining numbers for years.  Inevitably it will lead to changes in jobs and direction but that cannot, must not drive thinking in this all important effort to bring about a resurgence of Great Commission fervor.

As the GCRT we would establish from the outset that it would not be acceptable to see duplication of effort and resources in the convention.  No longer would we say that duplication is inevitable in large organizations with many levels of cooperation.  Waste, outdated, ineffective ministry would no longer receive a blind eye.  We would align our recommendations not with power, structure, or loyalty, but with the axioms that serve as the backdrop of the task force and a commitment to stand before the Lord ready to give an account for resources that he vested in us.

The Chopping Block and the Change to Come
For many simply the thought of GCRT recommendations will stir fear and trembling.  Just the other day I was discussing with a fellow ’scaper’ (my term for those who blog here at www.missioscapes.com) about the reality that changes will begin to appear, almost Harry Potter style, simply in an effort to get out ahead of the perceived recommendations of the Task Force.  With no power to actually ‘do’ anything, the Task Force will exert tremendous influence on our shared life simply by the potential reality that might obtain by the stroke of their collective pen.  Long before Orlando I believe we will see the shape of our convention change based on the perception of change coming down the proverbial pike.  It cannot be the case that marginal changes remove from those areas of ministry where we are not effecting change and are only maintaining the status quo the real need for the axe to fall.

We have to be a people in the SBC who readily expect change to come out of the GCR.  Will institutions that people love be done away with?  Maybe.  Will national efforts nobly dreamed but shoddily implemented and planned be dropped without so much of a second thought?  I sure hope so.  Some might say in response, “What about the years of ministry investment from those who have gone before us?” to which we would respond, “It is only fitting that we make changes fit for our future in the same way that they made changes fit for theirs.”  Past directives were never meant to become future shackles that bind the children.  Rather we must with great courage move out into the world in which live and answer questions that are being asked today and tomorrow so that we can faithfully take the Gospel to the world and watch with amazement as Christ changes hearts and continues the New Creation that began with His powerful resurrection.

I hope that like U2 in need of a new direction back in 1989, our convention can “dream it all up again” and come back better than ever.