A myopia is a condition of nearsightedness where you can see clearly the things that are right in front of you, but things at a distance are blurry. Southern Baptists struggle with this in regard to our spiritual future and I believe that some of this could be reflected in the response to the new document, the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR).
We tend to look backwards well enough, and we also find ways to look at the present critically, but looking forward seems to be a struggle. While the GCR is good and I signed it as a supporter, it seems that Southern Baptists are failing to address the cultural realities that we find ourselves entering and how those realities are presently affecting us now and in the future.
Southern Baptist Cooperative Program giving has dropped and IMB Trustee Chairman, Paul Chitwood, SBC President Johnny Hunt and others are acting like people are not being reached with the gospel around the world because we are being selfish. Well, we are selfish and I understand their sentiment and desire for Southern Baptists to be doing our part, but the truth is, God is working through believers all over the world. The indigenous church of the global South and 2/3's world is taking the gospel everywhere. Chinese are evangelizing Chinese and Muslims. Koreans are going everywhere with the Gospel. There is a huge movement in South America. More and more people are coming to Christ in Africa. Indians are evangelizing Indians. The Holy Spirit is working and the world is seeing the greatest influx of people into the Kingdom that it has ever seen. Yes, there is a vital role for Westerners, Americans, and Southern Baptists, but I think that we should stop with the stories that manipulate money out of people by claiming that missionaries will stay home and the lost will never hear the gospel if Southern Baptists don't do it through the CP and IMB.
Here's the truth: Sob stories and appeals to emotion will do little to make us more evangelistic or generous. The problem with the SBC is a problem with the heart. Threatening to "take the gloves off" as Johnny Hunt is doing over this issue will hardly make a difference. Our priorities are wrong. We think first about ourselves and our own needs. This is a heart issue. I know that that is what they are saying. But, here is what I believe. If you think that you are called to go overseas in missions and you are told by the IMB that they can't send you because of lack of funds and you subsequently stay home, then you are not called to missions - at least not in a way that will be effective in the long term. We are far too depenedent on the institution of the SBC to do the work that GOD has called us to do. If SBC churches are waiting on the 5,600 IMB missionaries to reach the world for Christ and we are putting all of our eggs in that basket, then we are going to be very disappointed. Until individuals and churches take this upon themselves to get involved and begin to engage with unreached people groups and the lost in their own neighborhoods and cities, we are going to continue down the road to irrelevance and death.
I love the IMB. I have been a huge supporter of it for many years now. But, we have to face facts. The Great Commission was given to the local church and when we farm it out to a denominational missions sending agency through giving money, we are going to be very disappointed. Why doesn't the IMB contact SBC megachurches and ask them to support missionaries that are qualified but cannot go through special offerings? They can be overseen by the IMB but supported by the megachurches?
"God is using global events to provide unprecedented opportunities for global advance," Rankin said. "The harvest is accelerating, unreached people groups are being engaged as never before, but we are on the verge of forfeiting the opportunity to fulfill the Great Commission."
If the IMB doesn't send those who have a passion for missions, Rankin said many of them will find other channels for service; many of them will be forced to raise their own support and churches will begin diverting resources to support those called from their congregations.
"They will be forced to be obedient to God's call by going independently," Rankin said. "The Cooperative Program will suffer as a result.
"We need to recognize that we must get on board with God's agenda of going into all the world and making disciples of all nations."
I love Dr. Rankin and I have loved his leadership. I have spoken with him several times at events and I am a supporter of his. But, the issue here does not seem to be getting missionaries to the field. He admits that if the IMB does not send them, they will find other channels for service. The issue is that "the Cooperative Program will suffer as a result." So, is this about sending missionaries or about the Cooperative Program? The two are not necessarily synonymous.
Rankin also challenged Southern Baptists to retool "outdated" denominational formulas to reach a lost world for Christ.
"God has blessed Southern Baptists in numbers and resources, and we will stand accountable before God for whether we use those resources to serve our own needs, church programs and denominational entities or fulfill our mission task to reach a lost world," Rankin said.
Could it be that it is time to take a look at how we send missionaries through the IMB? If the IMB exists to help churches do missions, then why can't we ask churches that are able to spend the $50,000 or so a year that it takes to put a missionary couple on the field? How many churches who had the funds would say no to that?
If we are really serious about being a part of the greatest Christian movement that the world has ever seen, it is time that we put aside outdated means of denominational work. There is a better way to do things than we have been doing them. If the local church would engage mission both locally and globally in a front lines way, and if all of that work could be celebrated as Baptist work, then we would not have any issues. But, if everything has to go through the CP to the State Conventions to the IMB and then they appoint people who have left their churches to go through them, I think that things are just going to get worse - no matter how many tough speeches are given by our leaders.
If we are talking about missions involvement, funding, and sending, as well as supporting the work of indigenous believers, then there are many funding approaches. If we are talking about control (we often think that if we hold the funds then we have control), then I can see where the CP is the preferred route for those in charge. But, it doesn't have to be that way. Denominational entities can serve the local church through direction and expertise while the local church can provide funding and support in many ways. I don't have all of this worked out, but it seems that it is time to look at new approaches.
Final Question: What keeps the IMB from contacting Johnny Hunt's church, First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Georgia (a HUGE church, by the way), and asking them to support a few of the missionaries that cannot be appointed? If it is over fear of a diminishing of the CP, then that might show where our priorities really are, even if we don't realize it ourselves.
Clean water tanks, children's homes, business start-ups, Christian hospital, church planters, future ministry projects.
One God reconciling North India to Himself through the work of His people as they proclaim the Gospel day after day.
Would you please remember to pray for us? Prayer makes a huge difference and I can literally tell when people are praying for us. I'll try to post updates, but internet access is sketchy and even when we have it, I'm normally too exhausted to write anything of substance. We're looking forward to God moving in a powerful way once again.
I often have people question the validity of blogging and wonder if I am wasting my time with my constant writing. Granted, I have to carve out time to write, whether it be in the morning or late at night. It helps that I type very fast. Tonight, I decided to go to my Statcounter just to see if anyone was paying attention. I didn't really even want to check because I had a feeling that my traffic had dropped a good deal. It has dropped, but I was still encouraged by seeing this:
In the past few hours, I have had visitors from
17 states in the United States and the District of Columbia
Australia
Peru
Canada
India
France
Poland
Malaysia
I also was encouraged about what people were looking for and finding by doing the following Google search (corresponding Google rank for Downshoredrift's post on each subject included)
"Identity in Christ verses" (#6 on Google)
"African Child Soldiers" (#8 on Google)
"Invisible Children - The Rescue" (#14 on Google)
"Causes of the Current Housing Crisis in the U.S." (#5 on Google)
"American wealth disappeared" (#2 on Google)
I think that is pretty cool and just motivates me to write that much more. Many of you with blogs have the same experience. Getting the word out concerning where God is working in the world can make a huge difference. Let's keep it up.
By the way, if you read Downshoredrift regularly and have a blog, I'd love for you to link to me. It drives up visibility and traffic for the issues that I think are important and possibly overlooked in the world regarding where God is working. I'd appreciate it!
One of the major issues in faithfully proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ in the South is that so many people think that they know all about it when the really don't have a clue. They've prayed the prayer and gotten the T-shirt. Last year, I was volunteering at a big ministry event in our city that was giving out food, health care, and other types of services. I was working in the prayer tent and was asking people if I could pray with them before they got their groceries and went home. There was one lady that I started speaking with and she immediately began to show me disdain. She was looking away, rolling her eyes, and making it obvious that she didn't want to talk with me. I was trying to talk with her some about Christ and she would have none of it. Then, I asked her if I could pray for her and she did not want to. I said, "Well, it is obvious that you do not believe in Jesus, but I will be praying for you." At that point, she perked up, looked at me, and said, "Oh no, I'm a Christian. I go to so-and-so church." Excuse me? She had no interest whatsoever in the things of God, thought praying with me was ridiculous, and wanted to get away from me as fast as possible. I would think that it was me, but I had bathed and was being pretty nice to her. Other people had responded much better throughout the day.
It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to me. I didn't have a problem with that. I do not expect unbelievers to always want to engage in discussion about God. But, what shocked me was that she was fine with her behavior until I assumed that she was not a Christian. Of course she was a Christian, she told me! She attended church. She prayed a prayer. She believed in Jesus (what she believed, I don't know). Isn't that what being a Christian was all about? Why does behavior need to change? Why do I need to love Jesus? Why do I need to obey God? If I am forgiven and all is well, then what difference does anything that I think or do make?
I would submit that instead of really giving people Jesus for who He is, we have actually inoculated people against the power of the gospel. We have given them a little of Jesus - just enough to make them think that they have the real thing, but not enough to bring them to repentance. The gospel that we preach is often a means to the end of our personal happiness and a trip to heaven. Jesus is more than that, but we have reduced Him to a religious afterthought.
The conversation with that woman frightens me. She wasn't just having a bad day. She actually had disdain for any talk about Christ until it appeared to me that she was not a Christian. Being a Christian and going to heaven was far more important to her than following Christ and loving Him. There is something wrong when that happens again and again. What gospel are we preaching? Are we just inoculating people against the real thing? How do we break through this in people's lives?
Matt Chandler, a pastor from Dallas, TX speaks about this at this years Desiring God conference. He makes some great points about the need to separate the gospel from the religion that we so often proclaim and believe. Check it out.
What do you think about when you hear the word, holiness? Obviously, it means to be separate; to be set apart. But, when I think about holiness, invariably, I think about it from a religious perspective. In other words, I think about holiness as the characteristic that I am to achieve if God is going to be pleased with me. I think about what I need to put on if I am to enter into God’s presence, since God is holy. My religious upbringing has taught me to think about what I am to abstain from and what my life is supposed to look like. The whole, “don’t drink, chew, or go with girls that do,” perspective creeps in.Often, when I hear about holiness, I look for a rock to crawl under because my first thoughts, if I am honest, point out how I am not holy.The word itself condemns me and I am undone. Attempts at holiness, however successful I might be in overcoming sin, putting off old behavior, or acting a certain way, always fall short because there is always a new definition of holiness that I am not living up to. I am always falling short of what someone proclaims as “holy.”
I think that we have done the word a great disservice, however. We know that God is holy and we declare Him as such. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty” we sing along with the angels and the multitude from Revelation. God is holy. We know that much. But, what does it mean?Then, you add in that we are to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:47) and without holiness no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14), and we are all undone.
So, what do we do to reconcile all of this?How are we to be holy?Some, have retreated to the monastery.They have built walls around themselves and have completely withdrawn from the world. Their view of holiness is shown by what they are against and by what they disagree with. They focus on the “putting off” of Ephesians 4:22-24 and show their holiness through outward things. Others, focus on justification and God’s grace and the imputed righteousness that comes from faith in Christ.They often do not make it around to actually living like Christ, but that is okay. They aren’t perfect, just forgiven. Both of these views miss the bigger picture of what God’s holiness really is.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship tells Martin Luther’s journey to true holiness, and I think that it is a story that bears repeating.He says,
When the Reformation came, the providence of God raised Martin Luther to restore the gospel of pure, costly grace. Luther passed through the cloister; he was a monk, and all this was part of the divine plan. Luther had left all to follow Christ on the path of absolute obedience. He had renounced the world in order to live the Christian life. He had learnt obedience to Christ and to his Church, because only he who is obedient can believe. The call to the cloister demanded of Luther the complete surrender of his life. But God shattered all his hopes. He showed him through the Scriptures that the following of Christ is not the achievement or merit of a select few, but the divine command to all Christians without distinction. Monasticism had transformed the humble work of discipleship into the meritorious activity of the saints, and the self-renunciation of discipleship into the flagrant spiritual self-assertion of the “religious.”The world had crept into the very heart of the monastic life, and was once more making havoc. The monk’s attempt to flee from the world turned out to be a subtle form of love for the world. The bottom having thus been knocked out of the religious life, Luther laid hold upon grace. Just as the whole world of monasticism was crashing about him in ruins, he saw God in Christ stretching forth his hand to save. He grasped that hand in faith, believing that “after all, nothing we can do is of any avail, however good a life we live.” The grace which gave itself to him was a costly grace, and it shattered his whole existence. Once more he must leave his nets and follow. The first time was when he entered the monastery, when he had left everything behind except his pious self. This time even that was taken from him. He obeyed the call, not through any merit of his own, but simply through the grace of God. Luther did not hear the word: “Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness.” No, Luther had to leave the cloister and go back to the world, not because the world in itself was good and holy, but because even the cloister was only a part of the world.
Luther’s return from the cloister to the world was the worst blow the world had suffered since the days of early Christianity. The renunciation he made when he became a monk was child’s play compared with that which he had to make when he returned to the world. Now came the frontal assault. The only way to follow Jesus was by living in the world. Hitherto the Christian life had been the achievement of a few choice spirits under the exceptionally favourable conditions of monasticism; now it is a duty laid on every Christian living in the world. The commandment of Jesus must be accorded perfect obedience in one’s daily vocation of life. The conflict between the life of the Christian and the life of the world was thus thrown into the sharpest possible relief. It was a hand-to-hand conflict between the Christian and the world.
Because the monastery was a place that Luther had retreated to justify himself and protect himself from the contaminating evils of the world, it actually became a part of the world system. Everything that sets itself up against the knowledge of God is a part of the world system, even if it looks really good on the outside. Luther could only be justified through faith in what Christ had already done for him and he only came to a point of faith in Christ when he quit believing in himself.
But, here is what really strikes me about all of this:For Luther, and for us as well, holiness was not found in the monastery. It was found in engaging the world as an emissary of Christ. When he tried to separate himself from the world through withdrawing, he just demonstrated the world’s ways of self-justification. But, when he died to himself, renounced the world’s ways, and engaged the world for the sake of Christ, he was acting in accordance with holiness. It is all upside down from what we thought, isn’t it?The reason for this is because Christ is holy.Only Christ makes us holy and we are declared righteous only by faith in Jesus. But, that righteousness plays out in and transforms our lives when we are conformed to the image of Christ in our thinking and our behavior. We reflect the image of Christ when we become like Him.What did Jesus do?How did he act?Who did he care about? What moved him with compassion?Holiness is not just a state of declared righteousness that comes from faith, but the outworking of that holiness involves doing what Jesus did.Caring for the sick, the leper, the persecuted, and the downtrodden is holy. Rescuing the sinner is holy. Proclaiming justice to the nations is holy. Dining with tax collectors and prostitutes to show them the Kingdom of God is holy. Forgiving others is holy. Loving your enemies is holy.Everything that looks like Jesus is holy.Holiness is not just putting off certain behaviors.It is that, depending on what those behaviors are, but more than that, it is thinking about things differently and putting on the character of Christ. Humbling yourself before others and serving them is a holy act. We could go on and on. Holiness is not just a state of denial of certain things, it is action that demonstrates the in-breaking Kingdom of God. Holiness means that we live according to the "Otherness" of God apart and separate from this world system. It is a positive action, not just a negative renunciation.
We need more holiness in our churches.We need to put off the old life and see the world differently.Correspondingly, we need to put on the new life, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:22-24).Our evangelicalism became destructive when it promoted a life that affirmed withdrawal from the world for the sake of its truncated conception of holiness. Jesus did not withdraw from the world. He engaged the world and brought healing and redemption as He did the will of the Father in all respects. THAT is holiness and that is what God wants from us.
Instead of feeling condemned by the concept of holiness because I know that I do not measure up to someone’s artificial standard, I now see holiness as being the outworking of God’s character and life in every area.To see the beauty of holiness in a primarily negative (i.e. what we put off) sense is surely an abomination and it is entirely incomplete.But, to see holiness the way that Jesus demonstrates and to know that we have been called to be like Him is amazing, creative, beautiful, and life affirming!It is something that causes me to want to be holy and to violently pursue Christ and lose myself in obedience to Him as He brings restoration to the world!
Has the SBC now reached a tipping point for change and reform from which there is no return?
Alvin Reid, professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary seems to think so. He thinks that we have reached a point of no return when it comes to being aware of the struggles of the SBC and developing a consensus that change is needed. Although my observations are much more limited than his, I am sensing the same thing. Everyone that I talk to in SBC life is finally recognizing that we are facing a catastrophe when it comes to our churches and our future. The population is becoming less and less Christian. Our churches are aging and shrinking. Evangelism is decreasing. Baptisms are declining. The consensus that kept Southern Baptists together has been shredded and churches are trying to figure out what the Convention is really for.
Reid points out a couple of key issues of concern. One is the Cooperative Program. It is not that churches do not want to cooperate, it is that we are all becoming aware of how much money is wasted on non-gospel issues. When I researched a couple of years ago how our CP money was spent, I was shocked. It is all called missions, but much of it has no resemblance to missions whatsoever. Concurrent with the CP travesty is the redundancy in our ministries. How do we justify spending money on local churches, associations, state conventions, and national structures that are all turning out the same things over and over again - in the South, no less? I have no doubt that through some simple restructuring and alignment of ministry focus, we could save tens of millions of dollars a year. It is very difficult for me to heed fundraising appeals when the people asking for money do nothing to make sure that it is spent wisely. I find it ironic that a Convention that is conservative politically and is generally for small government allows itself to be organized for mission by a bloated bureaucracy.
The other issue that Dr. Reid brings up is the future. He says that while those he talks to love the SBC and its gospel heritage, they are way more skeptical about the future. Where are we going? What are we going to be about? How do we engage a culture that is running from Christianity as fast as it can? How do we revitalize our churches? I think that one reason that we are concerned about the future is because we became captive to a larger culture that is also fading into the past and we feel ourselves being carried with it. Southern Baptists after WWII became thoroughly modern. We adapted to assembly line technology and we thought that through systematic programs and management techniques we could build churches that would turn out a consistent product, er, disciple. We expected this culture of efficiency and technology to continue forever. Then, when the full-blown, narcissitic individualism of the 70's, 80's, and 90's hit us, we realized that we must adapt, so we began to cater to a consumer, me-centered culture based on felt needs. We built megachurches and more programs to appeal to a culture that saw the individual and his self-actualization as the focus. As people moved to the cities, churches grew primarily from transfer growth from smaller, more rural churches and became large suburban enterprises. The factors guaranteeing our decline had already set in, but because we had large churches emerging, we didn't notice. In reality, our culture has changed yet again and we are unaware. Time Magazine has a very insightful article this week (The End of Excess) detailing the change from the "bigger is better" mentality to more frugality, conservation, and community. I highly recommend it and I think that the implications of this kind of talk are huge for the future of the church in America and also in the South. In chasing our culture and growing bigger churches, we could not see the decline that was coming because we didn't see that culture was changing and people's desires were changing with it. The churches that we were building in the 80's and 90's would become distasteful to postmoderns and we would never see it coming.
Now, however, the decline is evident for all to see. In 2006, I joined a group of blogging pastors who were calling for reform of the SBC. We could see all of these things happening. The movement gained steam and people began to take notice. The policies on baptism and private prayer language with the IMB catalyzed the movement, but the issues were much deeper than that. Our churches were missionally ineffective and we knew it and we wanted to see change. Then, I watched as the reform movement was hijacked by those who had a vendetta against Dr. Paige Patterson of SWBTS, believing that he was responsible for what ailed the SBC. I was never interested in that and did not participate in the attacks against him. He was not the main problem, no matter how much power he seemed to wield. The problem existed in our own hearts and in the pews of our churches. We were rotting from the ground up and any problems at the top only reflected what had been going on for a long time in our churches. We had stopped following Christ in a missional sense and we were pursuing our own comfort and prosperity just like the larger culture. Replacing Dr. Patterson without addressing the real issues of discipleship only guaranteed a continuance of our problems. Over time, I grew so weary of the political machinations that obscured the real issues of missional ineffectiveness that I withdrew from meaningful discussions about the SBC.
But, articles like the one by Dr. Reid give me hope. I think that we are going to see a much greater decline over the next decade as the dross is removed and lifeless branches are pruned. But, I do believe that a great number of those that are left will turn their eyes to Jesus. If we would focus on Christ, root ourselves in the Word of God, and follow the Spirit, we would not allow ourselves to be captivated by the larger culture. We would heed the prophetic call to return to God and hold out life to a dying world. This can happen and it is happening. We need more Alvin Reid's to speak the truth and point the way. There is hope for the SBC but it will not be found in our strength or our institutions or our plans. It will only be found in abandoning all and following hard after Jesus.
In my last post, I asked readers what they thought a missiology for the South might look like. I appreciate the comments, Mike, Bob, Les, and Rick. I was hoping for a little more discussion, but, let's face it, I'm not talking about the latest political brouhaha amongst Southern Baptists or anything exciting like that. I'm just talking about the future of the church in the South over the next generation. Relatively meaningless, I know. :)
At any rate, as I have been researching the theological weaknesses behind the evils of racism and segregation in the Southern Baptist South of the 1950's and 60's and how those weaknesses continue to affect us today (all for a book that I am trying to write), I have stumbled across an unexpected culprit that has caused me to raise my eyebrows a bit. In my reading, interviewing, studying, and praying, I have come to believe that a major reason that people could fill churches all across the South on Sunday and then treat others horribly just because of the color of their skin without feeling conviction was because of the gospel that was preached and believed. If your view of the "gospel" is that it is mostly a set of propositions that you agree with so that you can go to heaven when you die (i.e., eternal life) and salvation cannot be lost no matter what you do, then the commands of Scripture about loving others will be ignored when they bump up against a culture that ultimately gives you your identity, especially when that culture tells you that the "other" is inferior to you. What is there to fear? You're going to heaven. Of course, fear came in when you committed really bad sins like drinking alcohol, dancing, or broke any sexual taboos. So, belief and lifestyle were connected on some issues but not others, even though those other issues were just as biblical, if not moreso in some cases. This hypocrisy became a major theological problem and it is still embedded in the "gospel" we preach and the theology that we believe. We've never dealt with it adequately. We still face a theological separation between belief and behavior because we desire and offer heaven without the cross. Unfortunately, this separation has weakened our churches to the point of impotence when it comes to standing against the world. This weak, cheap gospel of personal, individualistic salvation without discipleship is what allowed Southerners to be racists while they filled Southern Baptist churches. It is what allowed the Lutheran church in Germany to turn away from the Nazi brutalities toward the Jews and even accept them as necessary. It is also what allows us today to say that we believe one thing and live a completely different way and feel no shame or conviction. Isn't hypocrisy a great part of what the baby boomers rebelled against in the 60's? Didn't the church have a stake in that regarding how we treated others while claiming to follow Christ?
In our doctrine of salvation then, evangelicals must avoid commoditizing salvation into an individualist consumerist transaction, something we have been prone to. There is a reason why it sounds intrusive to ask a stranger the question "Do you know Jesus as personal savior?" We have privatized the relationship with Jesus so as to make him into a gnosticized faith that seems isolated from everyday life. We must un-privatize our faith in Christ and reconnect our relationship with God through Christ to a way of life that we can invite people into and a movement of God in history. Then we can ask, "Do you have a place where you can ask questions about life?" "Do you know a story that can make sense of your life?" When we do this, we focus away from scaring people out of hell to inviting people into a compelling way of life. We realize that making salvation about being saved from hell irrespective of being saved to new life cheapens it into a piece of individualist knowledge, bordering on Gnositicism, that does not take root in embodied lives.
In postmodernity, truth is about character. Religious truth can no longer be relegated to the realm of private feeling or preference. This is because modern science, which pushed it there originally, no longer reigns supreme. Truth is in the living. Any evangelism therefore that separates one's renewed legal status before God from the new life we have in Christ strips the gospel of its power for a postmodern evangelism. For the postmodern world, justification cannot be separated from sanctification and sanctification cannot be separated from a living people of God. The basis for a compelling Christian account of salvation in postmodernity is a changed life among a living community of Christ. (58-59).
I have been thinking a little about this lately. What does a proper missiology look like in the Bible Belt? Missiology is basically defined as the study of the mandate, message, and mission of the church as it relates to and proclaims the gospel among varying cultures, tribes, peoples, and nations. Church attendance and participation is falling in the South. Churches are dying. Less people are claiming to be Christian every year. It seems that many in the South have been innoculated against the real gospel because they have just had a taste and they think that what they have experienced is all that there is. Southern Baptist leaders are calling for a Great Commission Resurgence, but much of the rhetoric so far has been a call to try harder and do more evangelism. Considering that fact that the church is having less and less influence in the South and the South is a fairly distinct culture in the United States, what would an appropriate missiology look like for this part of the country? How do we make full-blown disciples of Christ in a Southern context?
Some questions come to mind:
Do Christians in the South see our own land as a mission field? Are we aware of our own culture and the barriers and bridges to the gospel that exist in the South? What is unique about the South and it's culture, both good and bad?
Do we understand the gospel and how to relate the gospel to this culture in a way that produces disciples of Christ and not just cultural Christians?
How has the gospel that has been preached in the South been different from the gospel preached elsewhere and what were the causes/effects of that difference?
How has the history of the South affected the churches and the message?
What affect has the division caused by the sin of racism had on the abiltiy of the church (both white and black) to reach the South for Christ? How can we address that both theologically and practically? What would it take to begin to see multicultural missional churches spring up all over the South?
What role have the twin idols of personal preference and consumerism had on the church and the spread of the gospel in the South?
What does cultural Christianity look like in the South and how has the church fallen captive to it? What have the results been?
How will the church in the South pass on a vital faith to future generations and reach the native population of this land with the gospel in the future, especially with the widening gap between the Biblical church and culture?
I am surprised that this is not being talked about in our Southern Baptist seminaries or Bible colleges. It seems that our theologians and missiologists do little actual thinking in regard to our current context and how the church is to propel the gospel forward right here at home. I am afraid that the church in the South (the SBC in particular) is facing some difficult days. Are we even thinking about it? Are we giving thought to what it might take to reach a new generation? Are we exegeting our own culture? In a short amount of time, relatively speaking, we are going to see a great exodus from our churches as the generation that is keeping them open begins to die off. With the South holding the largest concentration of Southern Baptists, what does this mean for our national presence and global missions?
I am convinced that God is speaking to us if we will but listen. There is always hope for a people that truly turns to Him. We must first look within at our own hearts and strengthen what remains. Then, we must come to understand what the gospel really is and what it is actually saying about God, humanity, sin, and redemption. We must take a look at the church and our mission. We must discern critically the culture in which we live. We need to learn to think like missionaries and join God where He is working. It isn't impossible. But, the question remains: have be so bought in to the lies of our culture that we are unable to extricate ourselves from its grip and speak prophetically to it?
So I ask you: What would a missiology for the South that makes true disciples of Christ and plants missional churches look like? What would we need to change?
Last night, I couldn't get to sleep. My mind was racing. Finally, I drifted off, but not before I ran through a dozen different subjects. I've been told by friends that I have adult ADD. Maybe so. It would explain a lot. Normally, I write essays for this blog because it is really rewarding for me to lock in on one topic and explore it and I use it as a teaching platform for my church. Today, I'll take you on a random tour of what I'm thinking about in classic, stream-of-consciousness form. Each of these thoughts could be a blogpost all their own and they have been building up in my head. So, I think I'll clean out my brain a little so that I can think more clearly and start over.
I'm going back to India at the end of next month. Around midnight last night, I called Thom Wolf in India and talked with him for awhile. It was almost noon there. He was my professor and intellectual mentor in school back when I lived in San Francisco and he lives in New Delhi. We will go north to the Himalayas and do our normal thing with the ministries there, and then possibly travel with him for a couple of days to the south of India to meet some people doing very interesting things.
I am working through Paul's letter to the Philippians right now in my Bible study and my preaching. I am also writing essays to go along with each topic. Philippians is a great letter to address the "God as a means to an end" syndrome that plagues contemporary Christianity. I am thinking of releasing the essays after I am through with this. It has been really interesting. Today, I am working on one called "Chains" about how Paul volunteered to put himself in less than ideal situations so that the gospel would be spread to others through his life and suffering. Check out Philippians 1:7-14. Am I willing to do the same?
"According to some estimates, Christians in developed Western countries now represent only 37 percent of believers worldwide. As I travel and also read chruch history, I have observed a pattern, a strange historical phenomenon of God 'moving' geographically from place to place: from the Middle East to Europe to North America to the developing world. My theory is this: God goes where He's wanted." ~ Philip Yancey, Finding God in Unexpected Places.
I ran across a fascinating article today on urban development in post-Katrina New Orleans on Newgeography.com by Andres Duany. Duany, of Cuban descent, says that "New Orleans is not among the most haphazard, poorest or misgoverned American cities, but rather the most organized, wealthiest, cleanest, and competently governed of the Caribbean cities." He says that New Orleans is not really an American city at all. Rather, it is a Caribbean city. Jimmy Buffett, after Katrina hit, said that the northern Gulf of Mexico is actually the northern part of the Caribbean, not the Southern part of the U.S. I agree. Being from there, it is different that the rest of the country, and I love it. Totally different way of thinking, worldview, and lifestyle. Maybe this is why Baptists have had so much trouble reaching the Gulf Coast? Hmmm.
My two favorite songs on my ipod right now are "Rocket Man" by Angie Aparo and "A Change is Gonna Come" by Ben Sollee. They are both cover songs, but the music and vocals are really intriguing. If you haven't heard either of these guys, check them out. Here's a live version of "Rocket Man." I think about this when I am travelling too much.
And, Ben Sollee on the cello. Yes, the cello. This is amazing.
This week marks the 3 year anniversary of us finding a lump on Caelan's chest that was a cancerous tumor. It has been a hard three years, but I praise God everyday for His faithfulness. Last night, Erika told me that the little 3 year old girl that my family has been praying for since we saw her at Caelan's last scans died last week. Her name was Cassie. My heart was broken over that. Maybe that is why I keep singing "A Change is Gonna Come." Ben Sollee, covering Sam Cooke, says he doesn't know what's beyond the sky. I do, and more and more each day I pray that God's Kingdom come.
"As heretical as it sounds today, it is probably worth telling Americans that you don't need Jesus to have better families, finances, health, or even morality. Coming to the cross means repentance - not adding Jesus as a supporting character for an otherwise decent script but throwing away the script in order to be written into God's drama. It is death and resurrection, not coaching and makovers." Michael Horton, Christless Christianity.
Baseball season is about to start. I really don't like baseball. Too slow for my taste. During the dead of summer, it is almost like there are no sports going on. I'm just waiting for football. Although, our church has formed THREE softball teams with about 50 players and they'll be playing mostly on Monday nights, so I am glad for the fact that a lot of people from our church will be hanging out together and building relationships. Being blind in my right eye caused me to never play baseball because I have no depth perception, so maybe that is why I don't like it. I do plan to play summer league basketball, though.
The groundbreaking for our church's new building is April 5, right before we have a huge neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. We've been reaching a lot of teenagers in our community lately, and God really moved in their lives at a youth retreat that we had this past weekend. Several came to Christ and many more opened their hearts to Jesus. We have also started tutoring, GED classes, and are helping with job placement. God is doing some amazing things. The building is just a tool to help us with this, and it should be finished by October. I'll be very happy.
I keep watching Jon & Kate plus Eight. I don't know why. Erika keeps asking why I stop there when we are watching TV and I have the remote and I told her that I really can't believe how mean Kate is to Jon and I can't fathom how they manage eight kids like that. Wow. It's like a car wreck. I have four kids of my own. Do I really need to watch someone else's stress? Strangely, I'm drawn to it. That, and Clean House, which is about people who live in an unfathomable mess. I guess that it is cathartic to see other people's stress and mess instead of my own. Normally, these shows come on right after we put the kids to bed. Hmmm.
I turned in my taxes yesterday and I'm trying to get some insurance stuff taken care of. It's a pain and seems to be taking forever. Car tags have to be paid on Monday and I'm doing a TV interview tomorrow for a local religious broadcasting station about our work in India. I lump all of that together because it all feels about the same to me - stuff I have to do that I don't like doing. I'm not just trying to be humble about the TV thing either. I HATE stuff like that. Communication should be two-way and interactive with feedback, not captured on a television for people to pick over and misinterpret as they wish. Maybe I'm just insecure.
Books I'm reading right now (they happen to all be "Christian" books, which is not good - I need to vary things up a bit and learn from some other disciplines):
Finding God in Unexpected Places by Philip Yancey - picked it up in the airport last week. Yancey writes essays about where he sees God working in the world. Excellent.
Christless Christianity by Michael Horton - states that the American church has given itself over to an alternative gospel that he calls, therapuetic moralistic deism.
No Place for Truth - Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology by David Wells. This came out about 15 years ago, but it was recommended to me by a friend of mine. It is pretty dense, but a good read. Makes some of the same claims as Horton, but from a historical perspective.
My church is always heavy on my mind and my heart. I graduated from seminary over 9 years ago. I've been the lead pastor of our church for 3 1/2 years. I'm realizing more and more each day that I am not smart enough, talented enough, entertaining enough, or gifted enough to do what needs to be done, no matter how many books I read. God has to work through me. I need Him. I carry the weight of people's struggles pretty intensely. I greatly desire for people to walk with the Lord and to glorify Him and I want our church to hunger after Christ with their whole lives and to reach people who do not know Jesus. But, I am really having to pray about this and release it to the Lord. I can't make anyone do anything. I am completely powerless to make anything happen. God has to do it. I have always known that intellectually. I am learning that emotionally and spiritually and it isn't easy, believe it or not.
Ashtyn has started soccer.
I have great kids and an amazing wife who listens to me go on and on about everything that I am thinking about. She is really patient and she always gives me great feedback. I do not deserve her, and I'm not just saying that because it is what I am expected to say. She's really something. She texted me two days ago and said that we should go on the mission trip with the youth group this summer. I told her that I agreed. Not many mother's of four kids would do that.
My city, Montgomery, just elected a new mayor in a special election a couple of weeks ago. In his election night interview, he said that he hoped that he would "rule" well. Rule #1 in American politics: Never tell the people that you plan to "rule" them. It doesn't sit well in a democracy. Then, he said that he was pushing the inauguration back a week because he was taking his family to the beach. Rule #2: When we are in a severe recession, don't tell the people that just elected you that you would begin to rule, er, serve them, but first, you have to go to the beach. Go to the beach in a few months AFTER you have worked for them for a little while. Wow.
Look, a BUTTERFLY!!!! Sorry, had to get that out. Does anyone ever feel that way? Random as can be.
I've lost 10 pounds in the past two weeks and I don't know how. I guess that I haven't been eating as much. Duh. Stress? Busyness? I don't know, but I'll take it. I could stand to lose a lot more.
Well, that's about it. Not really, but I figure that no one is still reading at this point, so I might as well stop. Believe it or not, engaging in an exercise in complete randomness actually made me feel better. So, I leave you with a picture of my kids that I really love.
God is good, by the way. And, He's always working in every thing. Big, little, important, mundane. God is always at work.
Really, why do we have such a problem ministering in the cities?
My time in San Francisco last week was amazing. Ashtyn and I had a great time together and we will never forget it. I know my daughter much better than I did before and I am incredibly impressed with her. She is unbelievably smart, charming, and interesting. I can't wait to see the woman that she is going to become. An added bonus of our trip was that we got to stay in the home of Eric and Linda Bergquist. Eric is the director of the Page Street Baptist Center in San Francisco and Linda is a church planter strategist for the SF Bay Area with NAMB and the California Baptist State Convention. I knew them back when I was in seminary at GGBTS and they graciously invited Ashtyn and me to stay with them while we did the tourist thing. One of the favorite parts of our day, however, was when we got to sit and Linda and Eric's kitchen table each night and talk about what the Lord was doing in the Bay Area. God is moving.
Churches are being planted as God is placing it on the hearts of individuals and teams to move to the Bay Area. Responsiveness to the gospel is beginning to grow. The San Francisco Bay Area is really like another country and we should treat it as such from a missiological perspective. 6.5 million people live in the Bay Area and every nation in the world is represented. The population is only 2% evangelical Christian. Many are resistent to the gospel, but many are also open, especially among immigrant groups. Unfortunately, there are only 3 SBC churches that are primarily english speaking in the city of San Francisco with it's population of 750,000 people. Linda and Eric and the others working with them are trying to change that.
Ministry in this area is very difficult. Many church planters come and go. However, it is not impossible. More resources and more church planting teams are needed. Really, a great need would be for Christians who can work and support themselves to move out to the Bay Area with an intentional plan to be a part of a church plant. Could we provide theological/missiological training to people who want to move to and work in the Bay Area so that they could help churches grow and reach those communities? Could local associations and state conventions in other parts of America partner with Southern Baptists in the Bay Area? There are SBC associations out there and an SBC seminary along with the state convention, yet not one state convention or local association in AMERICA has a partnership with what Baptists are trying to do in San Francisco. Why is that? Alabama, my state, has 4 million people. We have over 3,000 Southern Baptist churches. We have over 80 local associations. We have a state convention with 66 state missionaries. We keep tens of millions of dollars of our cooperative program money in our state, not to mention the millions upon millions that we keep in our churches to spend on ourselves. Still, the number of Christians in Alabama is DECREASING instead of increasing. Is this a good investment?
However, if we can figure out how to reach cities like San Francisco, New Orleans, New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, etc., then won't we see a change in America as a whole? The Apostle Paul seemed to understand this when he went to the cities of the Roman Empire to establish churches. He knew that if he reached the cities, he would reach the countryside as well. Why don't we do the same?
Southern Baptists struggle in these cities (even though we have seminaries in SF and New Orleans) because we, as a whole, really don't want to be there it seems. We are more comfortable in the suburbs or rural areas where life makes sense to us. We struggle to go cross-cultural because at that point, we have to change. We have to stop thinking about things in ways most comfortable to us and begin to incarnate the gospel, putting ourselves in the shoes of others. We have to sacrifice. We have to admit that life is not all about us and our needs and our desires. This is difficult for Southern Baptists as it is with most Christians. Yet, isn't this what God calls us to?
I fear that America has already succumbed to the homosexual agenda that is so accepted in San Francisco. The battle has been lost, even though we do not see it yet. Public opinion has turned. I truly believe that gay marriage and homosexual rights will be established in America in the very near future. The evangelical church must learn how to minister in this environment or we will be overwhelmed by it. Yelling at homosexuals has not worked. How do we minister to them with the truth of the gospel and the love of Christ? San Francisco is a great place to learn. What would it look like if 10 Southern Baptist associations partnered with Southern Baptists in San Francisco to plant 5 new churches over the next 2-3 years? What if those churches that were planted then began to support other church plants and you brought some more associations or churches on board? Within 10 years, you could possibly see an additional 40-50 churches in the SF Bay Area! That would make a HUGE difference in the spiritual climate of this region that is so important to the future of America culturally, spiritually, and economically.
What if we did the same in New Orleans, LA by partnering with the local association and the seminary there? Many seminary students at NOBTS go there to get an education and then try to get out of the city as quickly as possible. What if we sent some folks there who truly loved New Orleans and its people and weren't just looking to pastor a church somewhere in rural Mississippi? What if we had families move there and partner with church planters sponsored by local associations throughout the South? How different would New Orleans be in just a few years?
What about the great cities of the north? What if a group of churches worked together to support a church plant in New York City? What if state conventions appropriated some of the millions of dollars that they kept from CP giving and put it toward church planting in urban areas in the northeast, led by the believers that were already there? What we we moved to these areas with the idea that we were going to incarnate the gospel into these cultures, we were going to work and build relationships, and we were going to see the Kingdom come?
What if our missions dollars were used more directly for missions instead of for us?
Anyway, those are some thoughts. Now, for some pictures from the trip:
Richard Florida, the director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and writing for The Atlantic, tells us that America has changed forever with the current economic crash. As a country, we will have to remake ourselves and the future will not look much like the past. Gone are the heady days of manufacturing, construction, and the suburbs. The creative class will group in large urban conglomerations of cities and those areas full of educated and versatile people will drive economic growth in America. This is a fascinating essay and if you want to be educated on what is happening and what is coming, I highly recommend that you take the time to read it.
Florida says,
On one level, the crisis has demonstrated what everyone has known for a long time: Americans have been living beyond their means, using illusory housing wealth and huge slugs of foreign capital to consume far more than we’ve produced. The crash surely signals the end to that; the adjustment, while painful, is necessary.
The result of this, according to Florida, is that the suburbs are dying. Housing wealth is declining at a rapid pace and it will not return. People are going to be stuck in areas because they will not be able to sell their homes. This will lead to rising unemployment and suburban blight. Florida says something that I have been saying for about six months now: It is smarter to rent than to own a home. Instead of an investment, home ownership is going to be seen as a liability in the future. Glenn Beck has an amazing video on that HERE (the average American home was worth twice the historic market value in 2006. A correction has started and will likely not stop until the average American home loses half its value from 2006-2007.).
Baptist Press had a couple of really good articles tonight. This one is outstanding and confirms all that we have been doing in India and around the world. British columnist for the Times of London and atheist, Matthew Paris, has declared that Africa needs God. Although he himself does not believe in God, he cannot deny the difference in the lives of those on that continent that know Him. Paris lived in Africa years ago and after a recent visit to Malawi, he makes some absolutely stunning assertions for an atheist. I highly recommend that you read this article.
America is changing rapidly. A little over 40 years after his death, the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King and others is becoming a reality as Americans of different races and ethnicities learn to live with one another and be one nation. The fact that the holiday that commemorates Dr. King and Obama's inauguration are on back-to-back days is not lost on those paying attention. The inauguration of Barack Obama is just the first major event that will usher in a new America, one very different than the nation that we have previously known. Newsweek has a great article about the changing demographics of our country and it links the most dramatic changes to the immigration bill that Lyndon Johnson signed in 1965 that effectively opened our borders.
Closer to home, public approval of interracial marriages (like the one between Obama's parents) has risen significantly in the past decade, from 54 percent in 1995 to 80 percent today. The percentage of Americans who say they know a mixed-race couple has risen from 58 to 79 percent since 1995, and more than a third (34 percent) say they or a close family member have married or live with someone of another race or who has a very different racial, ethnic or religious background, including a quarter (24 percent) who say it is specifically an interracial marriage or live-in relationship.
By and large, the younger you are, the more assimilated you are in this new tapestry of daily life. The key cohort is the 75 million-strong generation known as the millennials (those born roughly between 1980 and 2000). To state the obvious, the experiences of the younger generation—now voting and beginning their adult lives—are not the experiences of their parents or of their grandparents. Vietnam seems as distant as Saratoga; Roe v. Wade as far off as Dred Scott. That much is self-evident, and perennial. (Every generation is shaped by unique forces; that is part of what makes them a generation, aside from the accident of a birth date.) What was less than clear until the election of 2008 was whether the experience of younger Americans would produce a shift in political attitudes, and would such a shift be felt beyond Facebook and Starbucks? Could Obama count on them to show up?
Yes he could. The disparity between older and younger voters was greater in 2008 than at any other time since exit polling began in 1972, according to the Pew Research Center. Obama won 66 percent of the 18- to 29-year-old vote, 12 points more than John Kerry attracted in 2004. The younger cohort is more diverse than the general population, more female, more secular, less socially conservative and more willing to describe themselves as liberals. Note to the ghost of LBJ: 20 percent of this crucial group are children of immigrants.
And 2009 is only the beginning of the story. According to Pew, if current trends continue, the U.S. population will rise from 296 million in 2005 to 438 million in 2050. Eighty-two percent—let me repeat that: 82 percent—of the increase will be attributable to immigrants arriving after 2005 and to their descendants. By that point, whites may make up only 47 percent of the country, ending centuries of a majority-white America.
Meanwhile, the church in America is in decline. During the same period as the immigrant influx, evangelical churches have remained white and middle class and have begun to decline. We know that the SBC is in decline. Ed Stetzer has some interesting analysis of this in a recent blog post:
In 1978, just before the start of the resurgence, there was one baptism for every 36 members of the convention. By 2007, that ratio was one baptism to every 47 members.
"We are baptizing fewer of our own children, and fewer unchurched people," LifeWay's Rainer said.
More than 9,000 congregations, or almost a quarter of all Southern Baptist churches, reported no baptisms in 2007. And, in that year, only 8.3 percent of the churches were responsible for 49.8 percent of the convention's baptisms.
Also:
In 1971, there were 1,434,892 children ages 6 to 11 in Southern Baptist Sunday schools. By 2007, the last year for which statistics are available, that number had dropped by about 455,000 to 979,429. At the same time, the U.S. population grew by 46 percent.
Could it be that part of the reason (among others) that our churches are declining is that we have refused to understand and embrace the reality of a racially and ethnically changing America? Up until about 40 years ago, white evangelicals (especially Baptists), were aligned with forces that sought to disenfranchise minorities and keep them out of the mainstream of American life through segregation. When segregation was abolished, many whites (including evangelicals) fled to the suburbs where we built our malls, gated communities, country clubs, and megachurches so we could be with people just like us. Those days are fading. In 40 years, America will have a majority of minority groups. How will the predominately white evangelical churches respond? Will we finally become multicultural the way that God intended? Will there finally come a time when there is neither Jew, Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, Slave, or Free? Will we finally put aside our consumeristic preferences and live out the implications of the gospel and become one in Christ? If not, our demise will be well deserved.
Dr. King said that 11 am on Sunday morning was the most segregated hour of the week. It still is. On Tuesday, January 20th, this nation will celebrate the inauguration of its first black president, Barack Obama. It will celebrate its multicultural promise. What will the church do?
The church is not a sanctuary for people who want to hold onto the past and their culture and not change. It is not a place for protection from a changing world. The church is the people of God who follow in the Missio Dei to seek and save the lost. We are not consumers who huddle together to get our needs met and indulge our appetites and preferences. We are disciples, followers of Christ. We are to live wasted lives for the Kingdom and for those who need Jesus. We live in a rapidly changing world. No one will be left unscathed or unchanged. The time to soothe feelings and make sure that everyone is comfortable is long past. We talk about missions all the time and how we care about the nations. Well, God has brought the nations to our own doorstep. How will we respond?
How much money net worth have you lost since September? With the market crash and the loss of equity in my home, I have personally lost thousands of dollars. I don't even look at my retirement accounts. The belief is that we will eventually get all that back, but many economic analysts are doubtful. Between the plummeting value of our real estate and the markets, Americans have lost trillions of dollars in net worth over just the past 6 months.
So, how are you managing? Are you miserable? Has your life fallen apart? Are you dead yet? Did the loss of money destroy your life? Hopefully, if you are a follower of Christ, the answer will be a resounding NO. Yet, I couldn't help but think about the poor around the world. The 1.5 million children a year who die because they do not have clean drinking water. The 3.5 billion people in the world who live on less than two American dollars a day while the average American teenager spends nearly $150 a week. The 1.6 billion people in the world with no electricity. The 40% of people in the world who lack basic sanitation while Americans use and throw away 49 million diapers per day.
Trillions of dollars lost in the economic collapse. How much did Christians lose? Recent estimates are the Christians in America give around 2% of their income to local churches for ministry. How much do you think we lost in the last 6 months? How much money just vanished into thin air with nothing to show for it?
What if we would have used it to bless others? For only $10 billion, every man, woman, and child in the world could have clean drinking water, yet we spend almost $500 billion per year on average on Christmas presents. What if just a fraction of the money that we lost over the past 6 months had gone to bless the poor, to support missionaries, to build the Kingdom of God? What if we had not been so selfish and we had not been trying to build our own Kingdoms of Comfort? What if?
It is all gone now. Moth and rust has destroyed it. Many of us cannot afford our pricey, lavish homes. We've spent the blessings of God on ourselves and we wonder why we lack a sense of purpose and why with all of our wealth, the number of Americans taking antidepressants has tripled in the last decade.
What if we had given it away? What if we had blessed others? What if we had followed the example of the Wise Men who traveled hundreds of miles to lay gifts at the feet of the newborn Savior in Bethelehem? What if we had not just thought about ourselves?
It is all gone now. We will scramble and work to get it back so that we can live in comfort while millions die around the world without their basic needs being met or without knowledge of salvation in Christ. It is not even because of them that we should live differently. It is because of God. God is the great giver. Freely we have received, now we are to freely give. When we live with open hands and hearts, we reflect the glory of God and we live in communion with our Creator. When we store up treasures in Heaven, we worship God with our faith and our lives. When we horde here on earth, we worship ourselves.
Eugene Peterson says that it is the role of the pastor to keep the community attentive to God. In speaking of community here, I think that he means the church. He is right and I take that role very seriously, however imperfectly I carry it out. But, I also think that it is the role of the church to make the larger community attentive to God. God is always working (John 5:17) and He works through us, His body. So, every Christmas season, we have begun looking for ways to be attentive to God ourselves and to call our community to be attentive to God as well.
This year, we have seen some amazing things happen. We had our annual Thanksgiving Dinner where the place was packed and we had 19 nations represented. Two weeks later, we had our annual Christmas Extravaganza, where we joined with Family Life Bible Fellowship, a predominately African American church for a night of worship, singing, dance, instrumentalists, food, and fellowship. It was amazing to see people from different churches and cultures come together as one in Christ. Christmas is about the Incarnation and we got to experience Christ in our midst through this gathering. I really feel that when we do these things, we are prophetically saying that we live differently from the world. The world divides according to all kinds of things. In Christ, we come together. Where there is strife and struggle in the world and peace is usually false, in Christ, all dividing walls are taken down and we are one. This is our lost witness and it must be reclaimed. I am not talking about oneness based on nothing, but oneness based on Christ and the unity that He has already provided for us. If Christmas is about Jesus being made flesh to bring us salvation and redemption, then the best thing that we can do is to herald the reconciliation that we have in Christ. We are reconciled both to God and to one another. Praise God!
A few years ago, we also started doing "A Time to Serve." I actually read about a church in Colorado that did this and ripped the whole thing off from them, so I am not claiming originality. Each year, we develop 8 or so service oriented projects and get people to lead them. Then, others in the church sign up for them and carry them out. We will wrap presents for people for free at the local Wal-Mart, have children sing at retirement homes and homes for disabled children, adopt needy families and buy presents for them, pass out Christmas cards in the neighborhood around our church, etc. Each year, the projects vary, but the point is that we encourage people to serve someone else and to share the real meaning of Christmas. It has gone well again this year and I praise God for all those who are taking part.
Last night, we danced, ate, laughed, and laughed some more. And, we ate. Our LIFE Group had our Christmas Party at our house. We had almost 40 people come over (adults and children) and we had a great time. Christians don't seem to have a lot of parties, or if we do, we tend to be pretty stiff about it. But, not this group. I love our group because they are made up of real people that know how to share life together, laugh, cry, give, and minister to one another. We have seen God do miracles in one another's lives and we have been able to intervene and intercede for one another. There is little pretense. Basically, this small group of people acts as the church within a larger church and it is a blessing to be a part of it.
I really do want to brag about my church. Gateway Baptist is the finest church I have ever been a part of. It is not perfect and it is not made up of perfect people. But, they know that they aren't perfect and they depend on God's grace. They also really want to follow God and make Him known to others. I have a lot of friends that are pastors and I hear stories about the struggles with their churches. Honestly, I can say that Gateway does not struggle with the vast majority of things that other churches do. We give God the glory, but I think that the reason is that we have kept following hard after God a top priority in our fellowship. People who have other agendas or who don't want to do that either repent and live for God themselves (that is always what we work toward and there is much love and grace for people to do just that), or they don't stick around very long. I was telling some folks last night that it is a blessing to know that there is a church that is supportive in what we are trying to do so that we can all face a broken, needy world together, instead of us all having to focus on unnecessary problems within the church. Jesus living through His people is a beautiful thing.
I just wanted to praise God and thank Him that in this time of Christmas celebration, He causes us to be attentive to Him and enables us to represent Him to others. That's about all that I want for Christmas and I have already received it. God is good.
The Church as Missionary: A Global Networking Dialogue January 12, 13, 2009-St. Louis, MO
The world is changing. Actually, it has already changed several times over in the past decade or two. Technology and globalization are creating quantum change instead of the linear progression of generations past. But, when it comes to the local church and mission, things plod along as they have for decades. Many churches still primarily engage in mission through sending their dollars off to a denominational agency or parachurch ministry while their own people remain passive in the task that God has given them. With the world nearing 7 billion people, the rise of the indigenous Church of the global South, and America emerging as one of the greatest mission fields in the world, we believe that the local church has a more vital role to play now than ever before in proclaiming and living out the gospel, both globally and locally. It seems, though, that few churches really step into the purpose of God in this area. What if local churches networked together to pray and find out where God was working, share opportunities and best practices, and encourage one another along in their God-given task? What if the Church became the missionary, instead of farming out our calling to others? What if we partnered together to directly engage in global missions and domestic church planting?
Some of us believe that this is possible. We believe that God is igniting the local church to step to the forefront of His work in the world. Each local church has gifts, talents, vision, and people who are already engaged in the world around them. Each Christian and church has a God-given purpose to fulfill. What if a network formed that encouraged each participating church in the task of impacting the world globally and locally by maximizing what is already happening the lives of the people in our churches? If churches in the network partnered together to share vision, people, and resources to impact lostness, couldn’t we do far more together as the engaged people of God to transform the world, than we could separately? We’d love to join with some other folks who are thinking about the same things.
On January 12-13 in St. Louis, MO, a group of pastors, leaders, and thinkers, will come together to engage in guided discussion regarding the possibility of networking to specifically engage in global and local mission by putting the local church on the forefront of the task God has given us: discipling nations. Some of us are Southern Baptists. We have our own missions agencies and cooperative giving program. This is not meant to take away from that, but we recognize that just sending money to denominational agencies and passively waiting for them to initiate work will do little to fulfill the Great Commission. Local churches must be engaged in the task in a more direct way. We’re thinking that we would be more effective at that if we partnered with others.
We are specifically inviting you to join a few dozen leaders to engage with this concept and see if God is wanting to link some folks together to help one another become more effective. This is not about starting an organization or collecting money-the last thing we need is more bureaucracy. If this goes well, the local church will be at the forefront and the network will exist in the shadows. We don’t have a name for what we are wanting to do. We might just call it, “that missional thing.” But, we believe that God is up to something and if we can help one another engage the world more effectively, then we will have accomplished our task.
This is not a standard conference or seminar where a lineup of speakers download terabytes of information to process later. Discussion initiators will be brief and on point leading to dialogues directly related to network building. Real value will be added to your ministry objectives and church mission as a result of your participation.
If this resonates with your heart, plan to be in St. Louis so that together we can help one another move our churches to the front line of Kingdom work in this world!
For more information, please leave your email address in the comment section (use this format: name[at]provider[dot]com to avoid spambots). You will be contacted in short order.
Grace and Peace,
Marty Duren, Lead Pastor New Bethany Baptist Church Buford, GA
Alan Cross, Pastor Gateway Baptist Church Montgomery, AL
Every year, we have a huge Thanksgiving Dinner, the Sunday night before Thanksgiving. We bring tons of food and pack out the sanctuary, which also serves as our fellowship space. Each year, we are almost filled to capacity with our members and their friends. We eat, sing, and people share from the floor what they are thankful to God for. It is really a beautiful time as the Body of Christ is on display and we see the beauty of Christ at work.
This year, our Thanksgiving Dinner promised to be a little different. Over the past couple of years, we have been praying about how we could reach across ethnic and cultural lines and we are starting to see that happen. We are seeing African Americans and Hispanics come to our church. Our youth group has doubled in size, primarily with African American boys who are coming to Christ and being discipled. God is at work and it is amazing to see.
Also, we live in Montgomery, AL where Maxwell AFB is colocated. So, we have a lot of military personnel in our church. Every member of the Air Force will come through Maxwell at some point in their career because Air University is here. All of the schools for the Air Force are located here. This also means that international officers and their families from the nations of the world come to Maxwell each year for Air Command and Staff College. Over the past couple of years, people from our church have been adopting these families and have been spending time with them. When a lady in our church told us that she had invited about thirty of them to our Thanksgiving Dinner, I was happy, but I was also thinking, "Where are we going to fit everyone!" Our youth minister had already invited the families of the 20 or so new youth that were coming to our church. We are already usually packed for this event. I am always talking about outreach and missional living, and here was a prime example of how our church had been doing and they wanted to bring everyone together. But, we just don't have much room! My excitement over the evening was mixed with the implications of a looming disaster as people would not have seats and would bump into each other all night.
I met with my administrative assistant and we just decided that we'd make it work and we weren't going to worry about it. Somehow, it would work out, we hoped. So, we set up every table and chair that we possibly could, started serving early, and trusted God for the rest. And . . . it all worked out! Somehow, we fit everyone in, and people didn't mind sitting in corners and along the walls and down the hall. It was our largest Thanksgiving Dinner ever! People shared with one another, gave praise to God for His work in their lives, and enjoyed being together. At one point, I asked people to shout out what nation they were from. There were people there from America (obviously), Mexico, Peru, Brazil, The Philippines, The Ukraine, Germany, India, Egypt, Jordan, Bangledesh, Pakistan, China, Turkmenistan, and other countries that I cannot remember. There were people from 19 countries in all. We also had a great number of African Americans that are coming to our church now and are getting involved in our body. That is notable because we are a Southern Baptist church that was lily white just two years ago, and I understand how difficult it is for these barriers to be broken down.
Jesus was represented and the gospel was spoken by people as they shared. It was beautiful. At one point, an international officer from the Middle East stood up and said how happy he was to be here. He thanked us for inviting him and his family. He also said something very interesting: He said that he was amazed and honored to be in a place where Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and many more could come together and gather in peace. He couldn't believe it. For many of these people, this was the first time that they had been in an environment like this. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Through Him, we, as Christians, can respect and love others, even though we know that there are differences. We believe and represent that Jesus is the only way to the Father. But, unless we build relationships with people and love them, they will not hear that message. Jesus also enables us to love people different than us because we recognize that each person is made in the image of God.
In two weeks, we will have our Christmas Extravaganza. We will join together with Family Life Bible Fellowship, an African American church in our city and have a mass choir, singing, praise dance, poetry readings, and other artistic expressions of worship on display. We will celebrate our unity in Christ. We will eat lots of good food together and we will laugh, pray, and celebrate. The international officers and their families will be invited again and the place will be packed out. I can't wait!
Christmas is the celebration of the Incarnation of Christ, where Jesus took on flesh and made His dwelling among us (John 1:14). He is doing it again in churches and communities all across the world. We'll make room for Him, no matter what it takes, or at least we should. I praise God for people in our church with great imaginations and faith to believe God for great things!
I wrote this around 4am in a guest room in a remote area of the Himalayas last week. There was no electricity where we were, so I wrote by candlelight as my travel companions slept on cots beside me. Through this writing, I was able to capture my thoughts about India and the work that we are able to do there. I hope that you enjoy.
The Road to Dehradun
It is an early morning hour as I sit by candlelight in a distant valley of the Indian Himalayas. I am surrounded by verdant forests and mountains while the night is filled with the roar of waterfalls from a nearby river. Creeping through the forests are panthers and tigers and I have been told that men who wander often do not return. I sit at a little desk in a 10X12 room owned by a school that we have traveled many hours to visit. My two companions lay sleeping on their cots beside me as I endeavor not to wake them. I have journeyed many days and find myself precariously at the ends of the earth.
What has brought me here? I have been to India over and over again in search of God's Hand as He calls people to Himself. I have met His servants in this place and have seen their sacrifice, their courage, and their passion for the Lord Jesus. Risking life and fortune, they have spread wide into the hills and valleys of this remote land bringing Good News of Salvation, hope, and eternal life. Persecution has met them. They walk miles each day with no regard for their own lives. They strengthen fledgling believers, heal the sick, cast out demons, and proclaim the in-breaking Kingdom of God.
There is no easy route to this place - at least not one that I have yet traversed. Arriving in the sprawling metropolis of Dehli, 16 million living, breathing souls on the edge of eternity, we only pause to gather ourselves briefly before setting out on the Road to Dehradun, which takes us to the provincial capitol of Uttarakhand, the northernmost Indian state straddling the Himalayas. At all hours of the day and night, this road is filled with weary travelers, rising from the sweltering mass of Delhi and following the twisting, dusty trail north to Dehradun, the threshold of the Land of the Gods. Men, women, children; oxen, goat, and holy cow; truck, car, motorcycle, and bus - cross the sandy plains and decaying villages that lie on the edges of the Road to Dehradun. India, in all her romantic, confusing, shifting and contradictory manifestations, is present along this road.
Relational India - men sit together, locked in close conversation at roadside respites in the early hours after midnight. Industrial India - trucks carrying food, crops, goods, and supplies belch their black pollutants into the air as they crawl and lurch along the highway. Religious India - pilgrims ride the cramped busses and jostle for air at the windows opening to the night sky. They are traveling to the holy cities of Haridwar and Rishikesh to dip themselves into the River Ganges to wash away their sins. They travel along the road to climb the winding paths out of Rishikesh on their way to the resting places of Krishna, Vishnu, and Shiva - the Land of the Gods high in the Himalayas. Their trek along this road sends them in search of salvation and hope; a deliverance for the grinding struggle of life with its unforgiving Karma and ceaseless punishments for past sins. They hope to be unlocked from the chains of the cycle of life and unending rebirth into human forms and less.
As the Road rises it enters Dehradun, the city with its feet in the plains and its head leaning upon the edge of the mountains. Dehradun is the gateway to Beautiful India - the Himalayas, rich in majesty and mystery. It is into these mountains that we have traveled, searching for and finding the people of God who have forsaken all to live among the mountain tribes, far removed from the larger world that is unaware of their existence. Patterns of life continue here as they have since the dawn of civilization. Nomads tend their herds of goats and water buffalo; farmers scratch at the hard, rocky soil, bringing sustenance out of barreness. Life goes on here as it always has - birth, life, death, and according to the Vedas that were written here eons ago, rebirth. Fear and superstition cloud the minds of the people and traditions are adhered to ceaselessly. The fast moving world of technology and globalization has barely made its mark here, and when it does intrude, it bows to the flowing waters of time, tradition, tribe, culture, and religion.
In the midst of this Hindu Haze, a light flickers, not unlike the dancing candle flames that sit on my desk in my sparse, dark room. While there are many dark corners where the light does not reach, the illumination of the flaming glow enables those with eyes to see the contours of the room itself - the reality that exists, not the illusion imagined. The actual light that illuminates these mountains is the light of God's Children - native born Indians who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. For God has not left Himself without witness, even in this distant, idolotrous land. Vessels of Christ have come, led by the Holy Spirit for years now, bringing light and salvation to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear. For a few days, I am privileged to be among their number.
The dancing candles also remind me that our lives are fragile and temporary. While the Divine Light of the Presence of Christ will never be extinguished, our own journey along the path of this life is a misty affair. We appear here only for moment before we make our way to judgement and eternity. I think at this moment of how I spend the few days that I have here. I think of my wife and children, God's precious gifts to me. I think of their love and the hope that dances in their eyes. I wonder where God will send them and if they will also find themselves at the ends of the earth, living as candles to light the darkness. Our days here are so few - how do we use them? God calls us to Himself and spreads us throughout the world to flicker and flame in dark places. He puts us in families to propel His glory and Good News across the generations. Do we journey with Him, or do we make our homes in familiar places, arranged for our own comfort?
The Road to Dehradun is filled with danger, mystery, and adventure. It is a dry and dusty road, teeming with trials and temptations. Yet, it must be traveled and the pitfalls along the way must be overcome so that we can arrive at our destination. At the end of that road, the mountains rise into the heart of darkness - the Land of the Gods awaits. Light must penetrate darkness and the chains that enslave those that God loves must be broken. Christ won the victory over darkness and evil on Golgotha, but the message of this victory must be brought to those who slumber in the night, with no light to illuminate their path. It is carried by those who have stepped off the road of progress and civilization because their hearts belong to Another and their ambitions are lashed to the fortunes of the damned. Like yeast in dough, like a flickering candle in a dark room, their presence brings transformation and illumination.
Redemption lies at the end of the Road to Dehradun and it flows from there to the Ends of the Earth. For a time, I flow with it and I praise God.
I've obviously been thinking a lot about politics lately, as have most Americans. I've continually made the statement that Christians are to be prophetic on issues instead of being political. We are to live from the ethic of the Kingdom of God rather than the power plays of the kingdoms of men. Being prophetic is about adhering to the truth while being political is about grasping for worldly power, something that is forbidden to Christians. That does not meant that we should not be engaged in politics. Political activity is only the way that human beings govern themselves and establish an ordered society. Christians should most definitely be involved in that. But, we should always involve ourselves in the political process on the basis of truth instead of on the basis of ideology or party affiliation. If we lean toward worldy ideology without being tied to the truth of Scripture, we end up sacrificing truth for political expediency and we become nothing more than a special interest group attempting to get our own way. It all becomes very selfish and unchristian.
That is why I brought up the issues with Sarah Palin over the past few days. I am not rejecting her as a candidate or as a person. I am a conservative, so you can probably figure out which way I will end up going in this election. But, it is important to praise the good in our candidates while also sticking to our convictions on the issues that matter to us. Sarah Palin and her husband both work very long hours and they have 5 children. She has a newborn with Down's Syndrome. Her 17 year old daughter is 5 months pregnant. I would imagine that her husband will quit his job if they move to Washington, so he will obviously be around with the children and that is a good thing. I bring all of this up because we've never had a female candidate for our highest offices who was a mother of young children. What we say about that has everything to do with the message on the family that we have been proclaiming for 3 decades now. We can't just jettison that message because we have a chance to have access to the White House and get conservative justices elected to the Supreme Court.
