Why I Am Now In Favor of the Great Commission Resurgence (#GCR)

Over the past year, Southern Baptists have engaged in a wide ranging discussion about the future of the SBC. This discussion really began back in 2004 when Dr. Jimmy Draper, then president of Lifeway, began to address the obvious exodus of young leaders from the SBC. Then, we had the revolution in Greensboro in 2006 and the emergence of the SBC blogosphere. That is where I entered the discussion and learned far more about the SBC than I ever wanted to know. I was a staunch opponent of the controversial IMB policies that limited missionary appointments on the basis of disagreements regarding tertiary doctrines and also wrote quite a bit about the decline in effectiveness and growth in SBC churches overall. Many SBC leaders were supportive of the bloggers back in those days but did not want to say so publicly. All of that changed with the convention in Indianapolis in 2008 and the election of Johnny Hunt as president of the SBC. Then, last spring, Dr. Danny Akin of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary gave the call for a Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) that would bring revival and gospel awakening to Southern Baptist churches across the land. I agreed with what he had to say and signed my name in support of a GCR.

However, I was initially disappointed with the work of the GCR Task Force. It seemed to be dominated by megachurch pastors and lacked a great deal of diversity. Initial reports from the GCRTF focused on denominational restructuring as an answer to what ails us. I (along with others) made the call for a refocus on the local church as the only vital source of renewal (see HERE) and expressed profound disappointment that the majority of real recommendations focused on tinkering with the denominational apparatus (see HERE). Top-down change will never affect the kind of resurgence that Dr. Akin envisioned, and for that, I reluctantly withdrew my support for what seemed to be another attempt at the proverbial reshuffling of the deck chairs on the sinking SBC.  I didn't oppose the GCR because I was a fan of the status quo. Rather, I began to oppose it because it did not go nearly far enough. It seemed to be full of tepid responses and restructuring agencies in a bid to put bigger pieces of a shrinking pie in the hands of those that could be controlled from a central headquarters more directly. That is never the recipe for initiating gospel movement and the whole enterprise seemed as though it was headed for a colossal failure.

Then, the GCRTF came out with the final report on April 26, while our team was in India. I returned the next week and needed some time to read it and get my feet underneath me. I am not going to summarize the report here, as you can read it at the above link, but I will offer a series of observations. Overall, I am supportive of the work that the GCRTF has done and I think that if their recommendations are followed at the local church, association, state convention, and national entity levels, then we will see a great deal of renewal take place. Here are my thoughts:

POSITIVES:

1. Honesty about the problem. The GCR Report honestly deals with many of the struggles facing Southern Baptists today. On average, 63% of money given by Southern Baptists to the Cooperative Program, stays in their own state. You can probably justify that in a lot of ways, but you cannot say that that money is being given to missions as is advertised. There was also a good deal of discussion about the struggle that we are having in reaching people, including our children, with the gospel. You would not have heard this kind of honest discussion a few years ago.
2. Calling for an examination of how we are doing what we have been mandated to do: carry the gospel to every creature under heaven. This is one of the best things about the GCR, in that, it seems to take seriously the call to be about the mandate of Christ in proclaiming the Kingdom and calling people to reconciliation with God.
3. I am glad the "Challenges" section was inserted addressing individual Christians, families, churches, local associations, state conventions, and SBC entities.  I don't agree with everything listed in that section and it is a very simplistic list, but there is not a whole lot more that the Task Force could have inserted into a readable document. Overall, it is a good list of suggestions and it emphasizes the need for a "grass-roots", bottom-up resurgence, which is the only kind that will work in the long run, anyway.

The substance of the report is found toward the end under "Recommendations to the Southern Baptist Convention" and right after the core values expressed. Things like recognizing "Great Commission Giving" instead of just Cooperative Program giving and realignments of NAMB (getting rid of state cooperative agreements to free NAMB to move toward a more focused missional strategy) and the IMB (letting IMB missionaries work in North America) as well as calling on the state conventions to address stewardship - those things are what this is really all about because those are the recommendations that have teeth. Those are the things that state conventions and SBC entities will have to deal with and that is where you will have the most disagreement. People will protect their turf and they will fight for their jobs. They will also fight for the task that was already entrusted to them by their respective boards and state conventions, and I do not begrudge them that. But, the question remains, "How will be best reach North America with the gospel?" Redundancy, bureaucracy, and spending money on ourselves is not the answer. But, also, just assuming that state cooperative agreements are wrong across the board is not the answer either. Maybe Alabama could continue on without a state cooperative agreement with NAMB but can Delaware? Can Minnesota-Wisconsin? No, they cannot. The state cooperative agreements need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

NEGATIVES:

1. In Dr. Akin's initial report, he spoke directly about the issue of racism and racial prejudice in our churches. I believe that racism as an undercurrent that now pops up in the form of "personal preference" is continuing to severely harm our churches, especially in the Deep South. I was glad to see Dr. Akin address this and I was grieved to see it not adequately addressed in the final report. Southern Baptist leaders have a huge blind spot when it comes to this issue and they have exhibited it yet again. Racial Reconciliation through the Cross is not a social issue - it is a gospel imperative (see Ephesians 2:11-22). To leave it out of a document calling for a Great Commission Resurgence, especially considering the past and the present of Southern Baptist churches, is to display a misunderstanding of the gospel itself and the Great Commission, even if it was unintentional. At the very least, there is a misunderstanding as to the severe problem that continues to plague our churches in this area, if not in outright racism and prejudice, then in missional ineffectiveness when it comes to reaching people different from ourselves.
2. The focus on Great Commission Giving is misguided. The GCRTF wants all giving to Southern Baptist entities by churches to be recognized by the SBC, not just giving to the Cooperative Program. While it is good to celebrate all that churches do, this seems to be a push by large churches who do not give a great deal to the CP to be recognized for designated giving. Who cares who gives what? Why are we recognizing and ranking and comparing churches anyway? Give what you feel led to give to and support what God is putting on your heart. If you are afraid that you will miss out on a committee assignment because your church designated gifts, give that to God. There is way too much judging one another by size of church and amount given in the SBC. It is part of our sickness and this recommendation only feeds into that.
3. The missional vision of the SBC that is promoted is "As a convention of churches, our missional vision is to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all the nations."  I don't want to get into semantics here and I do appreciate calling us to a missional vision. But, the idea of "presenting" the gospel to people is part of what our problem is. The gospel is not a presentation. We are not selling Amway products or Tupperware. The gospel is to be proclaimed, preached, demonstrated, and incarnated. It is a way of life and the message of salvation. It is to be lived out as well as proclaimed. I get what they are saying here and I am not trying to split hairs - much of the rest of the report covers this. While I am very much in favor of having a missional vision, if this is the statement that they are wanting us to all adopt, I would spend a little more time on the language. Do we see biblically where we are to "present" the gospel to people? 

I am in favor of the GCR final report because it kicks the can down the road a little further on having the conversation in our churches that we need to have. I don't see how we can go backwards from here. There are a lot of problems with this report and a lot of unanswered questions. But, as I was saying to someone today, I can't make a grocery list without getting something wrong, so I don't expect the 22 members of the GCRTF to get this perfect either. It is quite imperfect. But, Southern Baptists are a very messy convention of churches and our polity is beyond confusing. The Task Force cannot mandate anything to a grouping of autonomous churches, local associations, state conventions, and SBC entities. All that they can do is make suggestions. Many of their suggestions are good. Some are not. They left some things out that I wish desperately that they would have covered. But, they put some things in that have not been adequately talked about much in the past. Overall, while it is an imperfect document, it advances the missional conversation and I am certain that it will work to dislodge the inertia of varying groups of Baptists and many local churches who will read over this and begin to consider how to carry some of it out. For that I am glad.

In Southern Baptist life, change does not come overnight. But, when you look at where we were in 2004 and in 2006 as many young, blogging Baptists made their way to Greensboro, NC for the convention that year, we have clearly come a long way. Are we headed in the right direction? In some ways, yes. In other ways, I don't know how much of the old system we can ultimately save, or even if we should. Some will use parts of this for their own gain, be certain of that. Some entities will grow stronger and more powerful at the expense of others just as local churches have been doing for some time now. God works all of that out and I am thankful that it is not for me to sort out sincere from the selfish. But, there will always be local churches that are striving to take the gospel seriously and take it to the ends of the earth. That is the movement that I want to be a part of, and if the GCR can help in some small way with that, I am supportive of it.

Comments

[Alan Cross]

I keep hearing that comments aren't working for this post. Just testing . . .

[Alan Cross]

Well, apparently they now are. According to a couple of readers, the comments weren't working on this post previously. If you have any further trouble, email me at (alancross at charter dot net) and I'll look at it again.

[Doug]

Very insightful as usual. However, your excellent point regarding "presenting" the Gospel is not "splitting hairs" - it is a key point. Thanks for this.