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 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.

When I look at the local church I’m both aghast and amazed. Reading about the church through the last 2000 years I’m aghast at some of the things she’s done and amazed that she’s survived lo these many years. Shoot, reading the New Testament I’m aghast at the things she’s done and amazed that she’s survived. Even our heroes, like the belching, flatulating curmudgeon Martin Luther, will make one scratch one’s head. It truly is a wonder that the church has made it this far. But made it she has.

She’s made it not because of her resiliency. Not because of her determination. Not because of her moral purity. Not because of her shining example. She’s made it because of whose she is. God is simply doggedly determined to have a people, however imperfect we may continue to be. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

However, as Scripture and history demonstrates time and time again God often leaves his people (or at least some/most of them) to their own devices when they choose to go their own way. The seven churches in the book of Revelation along with many churches-turned-in-to-museums in Europe are some prime examples of that.

But when churches become corrupted, sick, self-serving, unfocused and/or irrelevant to all but themselves, they die and God replaces them with another unlikely group of people meeting in a mud hut or crammed into a small room in some unlikely corner of the world somewhere where Jesus is the main thing and where the gospel rings clear. While it’s tragic to watch churches struggle and die, maybe that’s just a part of a natural lifecycle of birth, death and rebirth that God does throughout history. The church dies in America and thrives in Korea. Who knows but God, whose ways are inscrutable?

This is where we Baptists face our greatest challenge. Our greatest challenge is not figuring out how we will turn NAMB into something we can finally be proud of. It is not in revamping the IMB or revitalizing (or doing away with) the ERLC. Our greatest challenge is in figuring out how we can move a significant number of our 45,000 churches from conflicted, inbred, inwardly focused, self-serving and self-preserving social gatherings to loving, reaching, kingdom-focused, other-serving, world-preserving outposts alive with and for the mission of God. I’m not saying all of our churches are that way. Many are. Not long ago I heard a state executive say that his state’s Associational DOMs unanimously tell him that the number one issue facing local churches in their associations is conflict. In a lunch with leaders from another prominent denomination they told him the same thing is true for them. We’re too busy fighting with each other to be bothered with a Great Commission Resurgence. We like the idea in principle, but we’re too distracted fighting a host of fires that we ourselves too often set. I’ve been told that most of our churches simply don’t have the will to make the changes that will bring vitality and relevance. I also know that, from a denominational perspective, our structure doesn’t lend itself to the sort of outside help/push that can serve as a catalyst for that kind of movement. Local church autonomy, you know.

From that standpoint the GCRTF may feel somewhat helpless. So, they propose to do things they can actually have some control over – which by definition must be outside of the local church. They’ll say that we need a Great Commission Resurgence in the local church, but they’ll do denominational restructuring. They’ll tell us that the local church is vital to our success but they’ll assign the local church’s mission to an agency or entity because they simply can’t make the local church be something other than what it currently is.

So here’s a suggestion to the GCRTF. Take the considerable influence you have and pour it into the local church. Not just your own, but other’s as well. Not just in a once-a-year conference but in an ongoing way. Help that little church in your association figure out how to get healthy. Invite them to partner with you outside of the weekly associational pastor’s coffee-and-gossip session. Resource them. Their pastor wants them to be healthy, but he’s having trouble getting them there on his own. Be an outside voice of reproval, rebuke and exhortation when you can. Help them to see why they are so dysfunctional. Help them see how they can become more effective. Help them and us to ask the hard questions – questions like: how did we get here in the first place? Why haven’t our discipleship efforts produced better disciples? Why have our spring and fall revival services not produced more revival? Why hasn’t our curriculum helped to prevent these problems that are now so large? Can we break unhealthy cycles? To do so what sort of things must happen? How can we get our focus off of ourselves and back onto Christ, the gospel and the Great Commission?

Our problem, as I see it, is that by and large our churches are not healthy. Healthy churches are like other healthy organisms – they show the signs of life, vitality and growth. Unhealthy churches are like other unhealthy organisms – they are weak, feeble and distracted by the things harming their health. Generally speaking, when we are unhealthy our thoughts, time and money are consumed by our problems. If I have a broken leg and you preach to me that I need to be running the race, well….good luck with that. Fix my leg and I’ll jump in. Ignore my leg and I’ll continue to watch from the sidelines.

So, use your bully-pulpit. Speak prophetically to our churches at the annual meeting, in Pastor’s conferences, in articles in your state Baptist paper. In articles in my state Baptist paper. Through BP. And get involved. You were asked to serve on the GCRTF because someone believes you can be of help outside of simply your own local church setting. You’ve obviously got time to attend all kinds of speaking engagements and what not. Turn down a few of those and spend that couple of days getting involved in the life of a church near you that desperately needs the kind of help you just might be able to give. I know it’s not sexy. There’s nowhere to report what you’re doing on your ACP. You’re not going to receive recognition at the annual meeting. It’s risky business. You might fail. After all, some of those dysfunctional churches simply don’t want to get better. In the end changing hearts is God’s job and we can’t plan, structure and organize God or his activity. We can plan, structure and organize NAMB. [Of course, that may fail, too. Been there, done that. More than once.]

If the local church really is where it all begins and ends, then give us something tangible in your recommendations for the local church. If you’re going to recommend the restructuring of entities then gear the restructuring to best assist the local church. That will most certainly mean that significant recommendations will have to be present for the six entities that were strangely left out of your initial report altogether – the seminaries. How will they equip men and women for service in dysfunctional, inbred, inwardly-focused churches that don’t have a lot of motivation or incentive to change? How will NAMB encourage and resource the local church to reach America beyond the south? How will the IMB encourage and resource the local church to take the gospel to the nations? How will the ERLC do anything that matters for a local church who’s members hardly even know it exists or why?

If a true Great Commission Resurgence will only take place at the local church level, and you’ve said that that’s true, then let your recommendations be driven by the needs of the typical local church. Help them get healthy and I just have to believe that they’ll want a resurgence in the Great Commission as much as you do.

In the spirit of interesting analogies, Missioscapes contributor and former SBC Outpost contributor, considers the parallels of the health care debate and the current GCR Task Force Preliminary Report and its implications.

March 18, 2010

Similarities Between Health Care Reform and the #GCR of Southern Baptists

We understand that this is the most powerful role that the GCRTF can fulfill.  I say this not because of the prophetic image that John the Baptist casts – and let’s just admit among ourselves that all preachers fancy themselves a modern version of the second Elijah.  At least a little.

No. It is not the simple image of John that creates a powerful role for the GCRTF, but it is because they can fulfill no other role that they must become John.

Tasked with calling the bureaucracy of the SBC to a powerful move to fulfill the Great Commission, the GCRTF is the fruit of that same bureaucracy.  Calling for the various entities to move, restructure and reform is all that the GCRT can do, since the Boards of Trustees run their respective entities and do not have to conform to the reports, resolutions or votes of the convention.

So the prophetic call is what must come from the GCRTF.  There is nothing else.

And it must issue that summons with power and conviction.  It must do so with such force that the SBC heeds the call because to not do so would be tantamount to rejecting the Great Commission itself and no Christian should be able to do as much.

With wild hair and a burly countenance, the GCRTF must look the established processes, organizations and people in the eye and expose the semblance of an organization that claims to be about the business of God for all its many failures to actually be so.

More specifically, the GCRTF has to expose the deficiencies of the Cooperative Program and call the masters of the CP to realign it and the organizations it feeds to weed out redundancy, inefficiency, mismanagement and, sometimes, cronyism mixed with nepotism.

I’ll give you just a couple real life examples.

Take, for instance, this graph of the Cooperative Program Distribution of an Oklahoma Church using the CP to partner together for missions.  (I use OK, because that is where I pastor.)  This graphic was provided to us in our past annual meeting on the book of reports and is available through the BGCO website.

As you can see, for every dollar my church sends to the CP, less than 30 cents makes it to the mission boards.

Assume that half of the IMB’s budget goes to administrative costs, including of all employees’ salaries, benefits, travel expenses and then the exorbitant cost of the Trustee Board meeting 6 times a year.  (You could take that money, buy a new laptop for every member of the Board, staff the IMB with an IT team exclusively dedicated to facilitating communications among board members and still save the IMB a couple million dollars annually, I suspect.)

This is not to mention the fact that, even though the NAMB claims over 5,000 missionaries, the vast majority of them are people who are supported in ministry by other means – like several state denominational employees I know that are commissioned as missionaries.  Can you really call money “missions dollars” if they are going to support middle management at the state convention?  The BGCO has 18 full time staff members who are “missionaries” commissioned by the NAMB and receiving 65% of their salaries from NAMB’s budget dollars.

Bottom line?  If my assumptions are accurate at all, just over 10 cents of every CP dollar in OK will make it to the “Mission Field” – international and domestic, things that are actually focused directly on fulfilling the Great Commission.  Ouch.

Task Force member J.D. Greear recently expressed a similar sentiment on his blog as he talked about the responsibility of the GCRT:

[Younger SBC Pastors] question whether or not giving money to the Convention is the best use of their resources. They see what they believe to be a great deal of bureaucracy, inefficiency, and activity in the Convention not related to church planting.

Whether right or wrong, most younger pastors will not give to the SBC solely out of a sense of loyalty. They want to know if the Convention will assist them in the fulfillment of the commission God has given to them as church pastors. While some of us are young, arrogant, and naïve, we also have the understanding that we must be more committed to the Great Commission than we are the Convention. If the SBC is an efficient tool in fulfilling that commission, we will use it. If it is not, most younger pastors will discard it.

Fellow Task Force member, Dr. Al Mohler, said in an interview concerning the GCRTF at the SBC in Louisville last summer that churches should hold the SBC accountable.  If the entities of the SBC are not doing what should be done, the churches should not send the money.

I’ll conclude by reminding us all that John the Baptist lost his head over the call he issued.

I pray that the members of the GCRTF will be strong enough to risk calamity and the end of their stature among the established processes, organizations and people in order to prepare the way for God to use our little SBC culture in His plan for the world’s redemption.

This is all or nothing for the SBC.  If the GCRTF isn’t able to reflect John the Baptist or if they are unwilling to lose it all to fulfill that role, then I fear their impact will be slight.

God, give them power.

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.

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.

Not only would we declare an end to secret meetings, we would open ours. We would lead by example. Marty noted in our opening post how we would offer Town Hall styled listening sessions. One is already planned in Arkansas. We would report after each meeting the pertinent details of the discussions. Our goal would be to engender trust where it has obviously been called into question.

Since the horse is out of the barn, we would have selected all members of the Task Force without respect to our friends, we would work tirelessly as co-chairs to listen to input from every member regardless were they among the first group (18) selected or the last (4), whether they served one of our entities and exhibited brilliance or served as pastor of one of our smaller churches and demonstrated common sense, whether we had known them a lifetime or just met. We would hold the floor for those who we selected not showing deference to another who made the GCR motion or was the representative figure head of the “movement.” We would risk underplaying the role of those more prominent members of the Task Force. Too many have made meetings only to discover the decisions were in the bag before the car ride or the plane trip to the appointed destination. Everyone must be valued in the process.

The USA Today article carried a reference to “cronyism.” That should not have been a word Ronnie Floyd or Johnny Hunt need look up in the dictionary. In fact, it is quite humorous we are calling attention to cronyism in the USA Today article but have seen few references to such in our state newsletters newspapers. If there is one thing we know something about in the SBC is cronyism. I was once told to “get a group of my friends together” and “do what we did” when I suggested things seemed our of whack. We cannot do without friends. But, in the task at hand, we need more than friends. We need someone who would draw attention to our shortsightedness, our narrow perspectives, and call us on the carpet when we use our power or position to exert undue influence into a process on which many have staked their future SBC hopes. And, do not begin to think that an overstatement.

We would avoid manipulating the moment. Politicos understand the necessity of trial balloons. Already some form of consolidation between NAMB and the IMB has been broached as a topic du jour. We confess it seems all to coincidental this news comes out now when as noted it is nearly a year in the making. Surely you would understand the NAMB BoT wanting to go above and beyond so as not to be seen as “the problem” with two successive firings. This is not the time to capitulate to the pragmatic, which is our general penchant. We have had far too many instances of entities dabbling in other entities affairs. We need not continue the practice with the GCR Task Force. After all, the Task Force may only make recommendations. NAMB will need leadership, and solid leadership, long before recommendations may be parsed and evaluated by the Convention. We would need to maintain focus on the larger picture of empowering our churches to more effectively, and with resourcefulness, carry out the Great Commission.

We would seek to live out the Great Commandment as we consider carrying out the Great Commission. The Nixon administration went off course. Cover ups became necessary. We must admit running off course began before statistics demonstrated a decline. Our issues run deeper than bus tours and development of more creative witnessing tools. We would certainly want to pray for the process and encourage others. Even more, we would call on each Task Force member and the sum of the SBC to practice Jesus’ call to love one another. Recently SBC provocateur Wade Burleson remarked that he must learn to love the liberal, moderate Baptist among us before he could possibly be considered to know how to love our Muslim friends. And, if that is not enough for some of you, Jimmy Allen has long contended that our love for each other must reach beyond our theology. We have pushed out, preached out those who did not draw our narrow lines. We remain in danger of continuing this practice. Only by committing to the Great Commandment do we have any hope of fulfilling the Great Commission.

Out of the 4 million committed members of Southern Baptist churches (not the supposed 16 million on rolls), there are 3,999,977 who have not been asked to be GCR Task Force members. Count us among the masses, as none of the writers on this blog are among the chosen. Just for fun, though, we asked ourselves this question: What if we were the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force? Or, at least, what if we were on it? Rather than waiting for task force decisions to be made and follow them up with critique, we decided to put ourselves in their place and see what ideas might be generated.

Our attempt is to be careful to only address what we feel is within the purview of the task force, rather than what only the convention itself can do. This is also something that the convention peanut gallery might do well to remember. The GCR Task Force can only make recommendations; it cannot implement a single change, be it structural or ideological. It can only study, review and recommend to the gathered convention next June at Disney World Orlando.

First, we would read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team before our initial meeting and take its lessons to heart. Patrick Lencioni’s seminal work on the causes of team malfunctions lays a framework that cannot be overlooked. It will not be enough to pray and ask God for things to go well. This team of eighteen have never worked together; some have (or had) never even met each other, yet the expectation is a report that will be nothing short of revolutionary. Without a specific plan to create teamwork on short notice, a lot of time stands to be wasted and the end product could be in jeopardy before the first gathering in Atlanta.

Lencioni argues that the foundational component of any effective team is trust, ergo its absence is the root cause of dysfunction. When the team members cannot have absolute trust in each other’s abilities, motives and efforts it creates a mental morass where healthy conflict cannot take place. The atmosphere becomes, “Oh, that’s a good idea” or “Yeah…,” followed by awkward silence, rather than, “Uhm, that sounds good, but here’s why I don’t think it will work” or “Now that you have trotted that out, I’m going to shoot the legs off of it.” Lack of healthy conflict further manifests itself in a lack of commitment to the end result (which could result in members resigning or being less than enthusiastic about the outcome), an unwillingness to have true accountability and then carelessness about results. When you are not in for a dime, who cares about the dollar?

Trust can be quickly gained if there is a level playing field where no attention is given to ranks, positions and titles. The freedom for meaningful conflict will come when those with “power” (Floyd, Hunt, Mohler, Akin, et al) make it clear that there is no advantage gained and that all ideas will be judged on merit, not on the prestige of the presenter. It will be crucial that Ronnie Floyd and Johnny Hunt facilitate this and we would insist on it.

Second, we would remember just why those calls for live streaming or open meetings exist. There is a trust factor across the convention that the mere reading of a book cannot fix. For the last 30 years, whether valid or not, there is the perception that too many decisions in SBC life have been made in “smoke-filled” rooms, midnight phone calls, or by improper pressure and influence being placed on convention processes. Already there are whispers in the wind that some decisions are set in stone before the task force has even met. Because of these issues, many people now want the GCR Task Force to have completely open meetings and perhaps even live stream the proceedings.

We would not do this, but would proceed in this fashion: we would schedule three meetings that are completely open to any Southern Baptist who wants to attend. (One meeting of this “town hall” style has already been planned.) At these we would schedule 1- 2 hours of open mic with a two minute limit for any attendee to voice concerns or ideas. The task force will have to determine whether any usable ideas are generated, but at least there is a process in place for input. These three meetings and these three only we would live stream for anyone interested in watching online.

The other meetings would be closed. At the conclusion of each we would issue a press release summarizing the topics discussed, but not solutions to be recommended. This would allow the group to have confidence in their ability to have open, honest discussion without being sniped at for every comment made. It would also keep the convention up to date with the process as it unfolds. The final step we would take to help ensure integrity in the process would be to publish the name of every person who attempted to unduly influence the process and the higher up the denominational ladder the person was that tried, the bigger and bolder the font would be when we published the name.

Third, when encountering #IX of the GCR Declaration (A Commitment to a More Effective Convention Structure) there will be inevitable talk of consolidating or closing seminaries. We would insist that Al Mohler (SBTS) and Danny Akin recuse themselves from those discussions. No matter how diligent an effort is made to avoid undue influence, the issue will not be with the men themselves, but with the impressions given and friendships made among task force members. While in these discussions, it will already be difficult for task force members to avoid thinking, “We need men like this leading our seminaries” and perhaps they will be right in thinking so. That, however, creates an out of balance situation for the other presidents, and thus the other seminaries. Certainly at the drop of a hat a hundred graduates, trustees and supporters could speak as to why the other four presidents are the kind of men to lead those respective seminaries in addition to these the two on the task force. In fairness to the other four and to protect the process, Drs. Mohler and Akin should not be allowed to participate in seminary discussions. Any and all enrollment information, CP support, etc, can easily be gotten from the SBC Executive Committee or the offices of the various seminaries.

Potentially making this matter even more complicated is the Council of Seminary Presidents, the name given when they convene to discuss theological matters concerning the convention. This council has an agreement that when they deal with any matter that requires their involvement, after debate and discussion, they put forth a unified front with whatever decision is made. Our concern would be that the presidents not involved in the discussion might be forced to choke down a cyanide pill under the guise of presenting to the convention a bill of health.

(We do not see as large a concern regarding the IMB and NAMB, since each has a representative on the task force who can provide concurring or contrasting opinions.)

Fourth, we would seek statements from the president of each SBC entity and the chairman of its board of trustees to the effect that, no matter how far reaching any task force recommendation might be, there will be no public criticism or disagreement. This is a matter for the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention to decide, not those who work for us. If this or that entity head or trustee board start making statements or fighting the process, it will create fiefdoms that will make medieval Europe look positively communistic by comparison. The politics of the convention are filled with an inglorious history of manipulation and improper influence; the GCR effort is an opportunity to put all of that aside for the furtherance of the Great Commission.

(Further, we would ask every state convention or state fellowship executive director for a similar statement of agreement.)

Fifth, we would do our best to ensure that these discussions are guided by mission, not by dollars and cents (although sense would be just fine). After all, this is about the Great Commission, is it not? But, because so much talk has been generated about “efficiency” there is a danger that many decisions will fall under the domain of “cost cutting” turning the SBC into the denominational equivalent of Big Lots or Goodwill. What should guide us is the missio dei and all decisions should be subservient to that. The mission of the SBC, whether you call it a “Great Commission Resurgence” or something else, should be seen as within the mission of God, not separate and distinct from it. We would be hesitant to make any recommendations that we could not reconcile with the missio dei.

Finally, because there has been concern about #IX becoming the focus of the entire work of the GCR Task Force, we would make sure that every recommendation concerning restructuring was tied into at least one of the other nine points of the declaration, since, arguably, the other nine stand head and shoulders above it in relation to the gospel.