…and our greatest (potential) strength.

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.