I hang out in blog-land a lot, I write and read and comment. As bloggers, we know how to argue and disagree and say some pretty harsh things. Especially on some hot button issues. I would list them, but then someone would hijack the post to talk about them. On second thought, that will happen anyway, so let’s list them. Calvinism Vs Traditionalism, Alcohol, complementary vs egalitarian, and many more. We even fight over if Lifeway curriculum is the best (which it is).
My fellow bloggers, perhaps it’s time to put the focus on our differences on a back burner. We have some issues that I would like to see us begin to tackle. As bloggers, we have the gift of having a collective of heads. We have some issues, the country is pushing for the rights of people to choose everything except those things that are Holy. You can marry whoever you want, kill your baby, teach perversion, run around naked and yell obscenities, but you can’t preach about Jesus.
How do I equip my children to live in our world (without fighting about home school vs public school vs Christian school). How do I survive in a world that is hostile to my belief set? How do we as Southern Baptists begin to move into the community and begin a dialogue that will promote change? How can our churches survive if suddenly we lose our tax exempt status? How can we reach people, lead them to Christ and disciple them, regardless of our view on election and predestination. (Yes, we can talk about evangelism from a human perspective, with or without election).
I’m not saying that the issues we tackle and often disagree on aren’t important. I think the discussion about the hot button issues is very important. I believe your view of salvation matters, the way you interpret many key passages of scripture change how you do ministry. It’s not an issue, however, that I think we need to focus on so much. I appreciate how many other bloggers have been writing content that is moving away from these issues. We need to discuss things like apologetics, we need to discuss outreach and evangelism and current events. We need to tackle church planting and how we can use our Cooperative Program dollars to invest in Kingdom growth.
At a time like this, can we stand together and tackle some hard issues? Can we make a positive movement towards racial reconciliation in our country, towards rule of law and citizens rights? Can we as Southern Baptists contribute to the national dialogue in such a way that saves the lives of millions of unborn babies and gives women hope? Can we move beyond just trying to grow our one congregation and focus on making Jesus known to those who don’t know?
I believe we can, but will we?
“We need to tackle church planting and how we can use our Cooperative Program dollars to invest in Kingdom growth.” While I am certainly not against church planting, is it possible that shifting the focus too much in that direction can lead us to ignore the thousands of existing churches, and their need to reach their immediate community? I think you are right about some of the things we need to discuss…perhaps one of them is hearing from any pastors who were, for a while, in a church that was not reaching people, but then somehow became a church that… Read more »
Andy
Para. 2…great point. I too support church planting. However, the money that was available from NAMB to help existing churches has dried up. I would like to see this changed.
Para. 3…..I would also like to hear from some pastors. As a DOM I have not seen this done very well.
Actually, more money is available for planting through NAMB. The mechanisms and priorities have changed but the outcome, church plants, have increased.
We need not set aside our differences in methods and funding schemes to work together. That’s my view anyway.
I will probably have a short article in the next week or so on NAMB, SENDNA, and plants.
Yes, William is absolutely right.
In Iowa, at least, money for church planting has increased dramatically. Money for other things (DOM salaries, etc) has vanished, but the church planting pot has grown. They have put their money where their mouth is in terms of church planting.
Dave/William
You are both absolutely correct. Their money is where their mouth is. My argument is that their mouth is saying the wrong thing. Existing churches need help and that money has dried up. I can point to several churches that are still online in Montana because of funding from NAMB is term of salary etc.
No problem with plants but we need a balance. Our plant are up but attendance is down as is Baptisms. Can’t make that compute into success.
Hey Andy, I’m basically in agreement with you. The only nuance to it is that I’m becoming more convinced that churches need to see church planting not as competition but as evangelism. We need to move past the “grow my church mentality” and toward growing Christ’s church as He commanded. I believe one of the greatest ways for a church to actually revitalize itself would be to start praying and planning to be able to plant a church in their community. Certainly there are complex issues involved here, but I think what I’m saying can be seen in guys like… Read more »
“While I am certainly not against church planting, is it possible that shifting the focus too much in that direction can lead us to ignore the thousands of existing churches, and their need to reach their immediate community?” To your point Andy,… I believe discussion around this topic would be very instructive. The ebb and flow of ministry at the local level, without the disruption of the single Pastor model on a 2-4 year rotation, would be a great pivot point for a positive discussion on ministry. There is a great many very strong ministries at the local level that… Read more »
chris
You are correct. I have a lot of pastors who go quietly about their work ministering to their communities and they will never be a feature on the SB stage. I have no problem with that, but we need to know that it is happening. i can name churches.
“Can we make a positive movement towards racial reconciliation in our country, towards rule of law and citizens rights?” Too many people are invested in civil strife for their own political corruption. Historically, it usually requires the spilling of blood to set things right, and that’s only ever temporary. But we can discuss it nicely. As for our pet theological issues, there are many who breed distrust. When you don’t trust other people’s motives, you tend to operate on that distrust. Unfortunately, some people actually do have bad motives. But we do need to be better at giving people the… Read more »
Hello Dan, On this blog, I can’t imagine a topic that could not be discussed with the degree of Christ-likeness fitting to the body of respondents. Much of the assistance I need to be more effective evangelistic-ally comes from the discussions I read here. Discussion topics are quite varied and I find them most all helpful. We are retrograding, as I see it, backwards towards the early church years where our minority status is all too evident. Yet we still have leaders assuming the “Ya’ll Come” yodel is going to bring em in. Dan, thanks for your encouragement, but I… Read more »
I think the spirit it of this post is good. My chief concern is that we have no SB voices that are speaking to a national audience. They are speaking to other SB. This may not be all bad but somewhere I would like to see SB speak to the national issues with influence. That is lacking. Maybe the blog can pick up this slack. I really don’t know if this can happen or not but we can try.
Dan Barnes, For the sake of argument I compare the SBC to a group of Firefighters who never leave the training room. Even though there are many fires burning out there, no one is ready to fight the fire. Of course real firefighters will get out there and risk their lives to extinguish the flames. But the SBC are life long trainers and come short of putting boots on the ground to try to save souls from the flames of hell. I’m not talking about missionaries here. I’m talking about folks in the church going out in the communities and… Read more »
When i was a kid in the 60’s we used to go out on Saturdays to witness and invite folks to our church. We picked a different neighborhood every Saturday. It was good for us to grow our faith, and a great way to evangelize the community. I do not see much of that anymore. Why not? Do we need to just get simple again, and return to the great commission here in our own back yards?
Donald,
When I was being born in the sixties….in those early days I remember watching and tagging along with my parents on those community events. Lots of benefit for me, being there and all….
That would be a good tradition to bring back!