As the GCRTF meets this week to finalize their recommendations before presenting them to the EC in February, I suggest that the Task Force ask the following question of all of their recommendations:
“How is this going to help the average church with 80 people (our median size church) accomplish their part of the Great Commission?”
How will the GCR help the average SBC church of 80?
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I have asked a representative of the task force to ask this question in their meetings. If their recommendations do nothing practical to assist the majority of our churches with being Great Commission churches, then I think we will have a problem.
Les
Agreed… It will be a very bad sign. (which is why I stole your post- I hope you dont mind!)
No problem.
That’s a good question. I love Les’s constant call for the SBC to remember the majority of its churches.
I’m always thankful for Les’s perspective, even when I’m not in agreement. I’m in full agreement on this one.
JD Greear commented on this question on my blog. I am encouraged.
Check out his comment at http://lesliepuryear.blogspot.com/2010/01/question-for-gcrtf.html#comments.
Les
There are reasons large local Churches are large. There are reasons small churches are small. It seems to me that there is an attitude of sour grapes in the gesture of conversation. All the talk about winning the lost at all cost yet small, medium, large are for a reason. I wonder why? If a small church grows and becomes large have they passed for holiness to hypocrisy because they are now “LARGE”? I am scratching my head because something is missing in this conversation, what could it be?
GL
I left a comment on the ” average church of 80″ under “women and SBC ministry” and can’t copy and paste it over. Win some -lose some! 02/04/10
Small churches in carrying out the Great Commission.
In the midst of all the “Church Planting” going on,
don’t forget the small churches which make up
most of the SBC.
We need SIMPLE tools to work with.
Too many resources are designed for large churches,
which have the personnel to develop their own.
We need more emphasis on Sunday School as
the outreach arm of the church.
Bring back Training Union. It was the greatest
help to building up churches ever.
Maybe the better question is “How will the average SBC church of 80 nurture a GCR with or without any help?”
Why are we always looking to this giant bureaucracy for the answers? The reason the SBC is declining is because it’s full of a bunch of petty politics that have absolutely nothing to do with actually fulfilling the great commission. It’s more like congress every day. There are so many special interests to not tick off that every new “initiative” and “proposal” is nothing but the same sterilized drivel that came before it. The GCR proposals sound little more substantive than the typical SBC resolution, “whereas the bathrooms were really clean at our convention, resolved, we will send thank you cards to the cleaning staff.” Now where’s the nearest Texas Roadhouse?
Deciding where to readjust a couple million dollars without stepping on toes is not the GCR I was anticipating. Actually, it probably is. Our Lord and Savior does not need a welfare check from Nashville or North Carolina or anywhere else to save his sheep. He’s content to use everyday Christians who finally decide that to live is Christ and to die is gain. Surely there are pastors who still believe this.
I should clarify that I was using Nashville or North Carolina for literary effect. It flowed more smoothly than Atlanta or Richmond or anywhere else….
“How is this going to help the average church with 80 people (our median size church) accomplish their part of the Great Commission?”
Apparently, not at all.
I guess I will be the “GCR” advocate here. First each local church has all the resources to evangelize without any help period. Get on fire for God and go out into the field and witness, win, disciple and baptize. Take the Bible you have and teach it to the new converts. You don’t need a program to have a program if you want a program. If you want a “training union” setting, do it and stop waiting for someone to hold your hand. The words “training union” are just words. The literature is out there to use and it is good. If you prefer not to use the existing literature then just teach straight from the Bible or write your own but don’t blame an institution for failure to do what local pastors and lay people are to do regardless. I have been a SBC all my life and I can’t think of a better time than now to re-vamp the bureaucracy as the GCRTF is recommending. They are actually putting the ball back into the local and state convention’s hands. This is a move away from bureaucracy not further into or towards it.
Let me say this too. The literature of the past was liberal and filled with hints and teaching that dishonor the Bible. The reclaiming of the SBC institutions was a miracle for the SBC is the only denomination that has been ripped from the jaws of liberalism. The seminaries are now teaching that the Bible is God’s word and we need to glorify God for that. Now with the GCR the SBC can began to become what it is intended to be and move away from bureaucratic quagmire. The reason churches are dying is because the people in them are dead. The leaders are weak and spindles and lack vision and purpose. We all need to search our souls, repent, and do the work God has called us to do and stop looking for some great institution to bail us out or to blame for our failure to do what we are called to do, the great commission. The purpose for the SBC is cooperation in evangelism / missions not what can it do for us but what can we do to win the lost together. If we are not working to win the lost in our back yard then we are not going to want to expand our reach and we will complain and moon and groan and blame others for our failure. Have we (you and I) witnessed to the lost in our own geographical area? Are we preaching the whole counsel of God’s word to ourselves and those in our hearing? Are we living the godly lives we are supposed to so the power of God can work through us? This recommended move is a good move in the right direction, we just need to stop winning, repent, pray, and go do the work of an evangelist in our back yard and when we do that we will be on fire for all other areas too.
GL – I want to respond to a few things you wrote here:
“First each local church has all the resources to evangelize without any help period.”
This is true, though we have a ton of sick, dying churches. If the local church is the focus of this thing, wouldn’t make sense to put effort in strengthening those local congregations? This would require true cooperation, instead of doing the Baptist thing – write a check.
“Get on fire for God and go out into the field and witness, win, disciple and baptize. Take the Bible you have and teach it to the new converts.”
This what we do, on our own with no help or cooperation from anyone. See, we are a small, old church in a rural area in the poorest county in one of the poorest states in the country. Everybody wants to cooperate with the urban mega churches…but there are way more of “us” than there are of “them”. So, our funds are extremely limited, and we have all we need to fulfill the GC in our area. Wouldn’t it make more sense for us to use our limited reources to reach our county? The way you make it out, the SBC is nothing more than a charity to send money to. We are willing to cooperate with the SBC, and we have for the last 125 years. Noone, however is interested in working with us. Our money? Yes. The lost, rural, meth addicts that we see everday? No way.
“This is a move away from bureaucracy not further into or towards it.”
I don’t see one thing that lessons the bureaucracy in this. If anything, it makes it larger. Adding new offices around the country…aren’t they going to be needing staff?
“The reason churches are dying is because the people in them are dead. The leaders are weak and spindles and lack vision and purpose.”
Patterson Springs Baptist in NC. Come check us out and see if you still believe this rhetoric that you are spouting.
“The purpose for the SBC is cooperation in evangelism / missions not what can it do for us but what can we do to win the lost together.”
The problem with that arguement is that there are tons of lost people in Patterson Springs that noone cares about. We do.
“Have we (you and I) witnessed to the lost in our own geographical area?”
Yes.
“Are we preaching the whole counsel of God’s word to ourselves and those in our hearing?”
Yes.
“Are we living the godly lives we are supposed to so the power of God can work through us?”
You’ll have to point me to the passage that says that God can only work through perfect people. If that’s the case, we’re all going to Hell.
“do the work of an evangelist in our back yard and when we do that we will be on fire for all other areas too.”
Exactly.
What are you lacking concerning your situation, “Strengthening those local congregations?”
What do you mean by “those”? Are you one of “those”? If so what is lacking in your local church that needs strengthening?
Would you kindly identify the area you need to be strengthening in?
Where is your local and state convention with regard to helping you in this unknown area of need, the area where “strengthening” is needed? Are you sure that the local and state boards and resources can’t help you? Where is the discrepancy, please be specific to what it is that you and your local church are in need of that is lacking?
Thanks
GL
“those local congregations” = “local congregations”, and yes, we are one local nogregation.
Well, there are several areas where cooperation could be very helpful. We are very poor financially. My pastor’s (I’m the music leader) vision has been “for the least of these”. The people who were big givers didn’t feel comfortable sitting in a room with homeless people, drug addicts, recently released convicts, and kids from the local housing project. We have 200- 300 attenders every week, and without exxageration, most of congregation is made up of handicapped people, homeless people, prostitutes, addicts, and ghetto children. I love it, but there is just no money there. As far the local and state associations, we never hear from them. I’m in contact with the local association, and there are great people there, but it’s just not something they do.
Now the cooperation doesn’t have to be all about money at all. We could share resources with other churches. We could provide plenty of hands on mission opportunties for other churches, and would be glad to help them with anything they needed. I mean, there are lots of ways we do a better job at reaching this county, but that has to start with conversation which noone else seems to want to have. We all seem to be to busy building our own kingdom.
Oh well, no big deal. I just found the opening rhetoric of the report (we can die a painful deathy…) to be WAY out of line the proposals that followed. I am SBC. I love it, and I’m not going away. However, this report was akin to putting a bandage on a mortal wound.
You have a problem now, why? The system in place now is not what you like. You state is not helping you. Your county association is not helping you? The GCR is not even a reality, yet you are having issues with the CP as it functions in your county and state. It seems that if there is a problem in help is starts at the local level. Why won’t they help you? Have you gone to them personally and ask for help? If you have and they have refused what is their reason for refusing? There are a lot of unanswered questions. A fruitful discussion must have answers to these questions to resolve the reason/s for your particular issue/s.
GL
Gl,
I don’t expect you, or anyone else to fix our situation. I love where I am working and will continue doing so. My problem with the GCR, and I totally love and respect the guys on the task force, Is that all the rhetoric about about how crucial changes had to be made, and that it needed to be centered on the local church. Based on that info, I saw a glimmer of hope that we could see some real cooperation. I don’t see anything in this report that will help our situation at all, and I have to assume that there are a lot of other churches just like mine.
And just for clarification, I do speak with the local association regularly. They never flat out say no, but they also never take any action. We have a few large churches in our county, and that is where the efforts of the association go. I would never ask for a handout though, just some cooperation with the association and other area churches. It just doen’t happen.
However, even though we have no money, and not much in the way of resources. I still think it’s the best church in the world. Our pastor is the most honorable caring man I have ever met. We see lives changing on a daily basis. We see little kids from the ghetto getting excted about Jesus, and deciding to try to live different than what they see in the environment the grow up in. Last week, one of the mothers surrendered her life to Christ. Personally, I wouldn’t trade those miracles for anything in the world.
I just don’t agree with the current direction of the GCRTF. They wanted to hear opinions, and I have given mine. I’ve interacted with two of them personaly, and though I stll don’t agree, I very much appreciate their willingness to discuss the issues. They are great men of God, but I’m afraid they are wasting an incredible opportunity here.
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