DownshoreDrift

It Really Is OK to NOT Be Pro-Muslim

As I watch the continuing furor over the Ground-Zero Mosque in New York City, I am amazed at how many people in America have a problem with people having an opinion. Let me be clear up front: Muslims have a Constitutional right to build a mosque wherever they want. I defend their right to do so and if anyone were truly trying to keep them from building the mosque near Ground Zero through legal means, I would oppose that action. However, I don't have a problem with people thinking that it is a bad idea and that it is insensitive. I also don't have a problem with people defending the Muslims who want to build the mosque. The level of debate in America is at a serious low when we are attacking people for having opinions on things.  This is not a post about whether or not Muslims should build the mosque near Ground Zero. Rather, this is a post about how it really is okay to have a discussion about it without losing our minds.

Let me get my cards out on the table here. I am not pro-Muslim. Why would I be? I am pro-Christian. Of course, Muslims have the right to practice their religion in America and I defend that right. But, I am not an advocate of their religion. I disagree with it. I think that it is absolutely wrong because I believe in absolute truth and the exclusivity of Christ. But, I defend their right to practice their religion and I am not offended that they think that I am an infidel. Do you see the difference?  You can disagree with someone and their religion and actually believe that it is completely wrong while simultaneously defending their right to practice it and valuing them as a person. This is a subtlety lost on most in America today. Liberals are scared to death that if anyone disagrees with anything that they are going to somehow take away the rights of those they disagree with. Conservatives are scared to death that some non-traditional group is going to take over America any moment now. I think that both are wrong. Perhaps it really is possible to disagree with someone or with a belief system vehemently while not desiring to destroy the person or strip them of their rights.

The Effects of the Big Sort: The Polarization of America and the Breakup of the Church

One of the most groundbreaking books that I have read in some time has been Bill Bishop's The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. As someone involved in church leadership and community development approaches, this book is very enlightening.  The main premise of this book, is that primarily since 1965, and especially since 1990, Americans have become increasingly mobile and have been sorting themselves geographically according to their personal preferences and lifestyle choices - not just because of economic necessity. The book is full of statistics to back it up and I have no intention of reprinting them all here. But, what I would like to do is to think through the implications of Bishop's thesis on the Christian life and church leadership over the next several posts.

While this is not a religious book, Bishop devotes chapter 7 (Religion: The Missionary and the Megachurch) to the emergence of the Homogenous Unit Principle in the rise of the megachurch.  The idea presented in this book is that affluence has allowed Americans to do what they want, and what they want to do is to be with people like themselves - even in church.  The more that people are educated and the more resources that they have, the more that they segregate themselves according to their personal preferences. So, you have the rise of cities like San Francisco that has become full of cultural creatives. In 1976, 44 percent of San Franciscans voted for the Republican candidate for president, Gerald Ford. In 2004, only 15 percent voted for George W. Bush. As time has gone by, liberal creatives have pushed out conservative value-oriented voters and those groups have moved to areas where they are able to live with people more like themselves.  These groupings have happened all over the country. People have done this in every walk of life, even in churches, as megachurches have arisen to cater to the desires of people who have similar socio-economic and value orientations.  Just like the denziens of San Francisco move their because of the cultural values, people choose churches based not on theological or denominational distinctives, but because of cultural values.

The more that people gather together with people like themselves in larger groups, the more safety that they can secure, or so the thought goes.  A reviewer on Amazon was nice enough to relay Bishop's interview with Republican strategist Matthew Dowd, who explained the thinking behind the 2004 re-election strategy of George W. Bush:

Dowd understood that "American communities were 'becoming very homogeneous'. He believed that to a large degree, this clustering was defensive, the general reaction to a society, a country, and a world that were largely beyond an individual's control or understanding. For generations, people had used their clubs, their trust in a national government, and long-established religious denominations to make sense of the world. But those old institutions no longer provided a safe harbor. 'What I think has happened,' Dowd told me (Bishop) early in 2005, 'is the general anxiety the country feels is building. We're no longer anchored'." Bishop decodes this further, saying "Unsurpassed prosperity had enriched Americans---and it had loosened long established social moorings. Americans were scrambling to find a secure place, to make a secure place...Most Americans have done that by seeking out(or perhaps gravitating toward) those who share their lifeworlds---made up of old, fundamental differences such as race, class, gender, and age, but also, now more than ever, personal tastes, beliefs, styles, opinions, and values."

So, we are no longer necessarily experiencing "White Flight." Rather, we are experiencing "Middle-Class flight," "Liberal Flight," "Conservative Flight," "Religious Flight," "Educated Flight," etc., etc. People want to be with people like themselves. So, they are moving en masse to communities where they can share the same lifestyle as their neighbors. As Bishop says, "Americans joined communities, churches, and political parties in a manner that was almost tribal."

What are the implications of this for the church?  Is this thesis even true?  As Bishop states in Chapter 7, many used this to appeal to people on the basis of their preferences or lifestyles when it came to the discipline of church growth. The church itself is becoming more tribal as churches form around personal preferences and the place that congregants are in their life. So, you have "niche" churches based on lifestyle choices begin to emerge. Is this a good thing?  Personally, I don't think so. The Body of Christ is not to be divided based on economics, interests, race, or personal preference. We are to be one in Christ, not in our hobbies or political persuasions. But, this clustering is happening faster now than ever. Smaller, community based churches are giving way to larger churches based on the preferences of people.

Bishop's research is also showing that people are not being shaped by their beliefs as much as they are being shaped by their geography, at least eventually. The more that like-minded people cluster together, the more that their beliefs harden and keep them from interacting with others who are different from them.  People are finding their safety and security in an ever-changing world by grouping together with people that they share common lifestyles with and America is becoming ever more polarized.

But, what if there was a community where people different in many ways could come together and exhibit a unity that would be shocking to a world that was breaking apart?  Could it be that Jesus' command for His followers to love one another in a way that the world would know that they were His (John 13:34-35) - could it be that this is exactly what America needs right now?  I think so, and I am going to be exploring this thought more throughout the week. 

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.

How To Have a Real #GCR

So, what about the local church? The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force has given us recommendations for how we are to live Christlike lives and for how some of our entities can be restructured to increased efficiency, but we have not heard very much about what the local church can do to bring about a GCR. Southern Baptists say a lot about how the local church is at the center of God's activity in the world and how the SBC exists to assist the local church in their mission, but we don't see a lot of that. Instead, we see cooperation defined as the local church sending money and people up the line to the state conventions and national entities, effectively farming out to parachurch organizations the mission that God primarily gave to the local church. No wonder we have lost our vision! We are not working according to the design that God intiated. But, what if we did? Here are some concrete proposals that the GCRTF could put forward that would encourage us all and could possibly lead to a real Great Commission Resurgence:

1. Start their thinking with the local church in mind. The GCRTF started with a top-down approach. They got things backwards. If they had started with the local church and worked their way up, they would be in a much better spot right now. But, they went the way that the SBC has been going for the last 60 years and they took a top-down approach.
2. Through state conventions and local associations, identify churches that are already carrying out the axioms for a Great Commission Resurgence found HERE.  Who is already doing the work correctly? Where is God moving? What examples can we hold up to the rest of the SBC locally and nationally? I asked a DOM friend of mine about this and he said that he could think of 10-12 churches in his association that were doing really well in this regard. Let them lead us. Instead of trying to get something going from scratch, we accurately recognize that God is at work in a powerful way in many SBC churches across America. Why can't they lead the denomination?
3. Encourage those churches to partner with a couple of other churches that might be struggling, but who are willing. Again, the state conventions and local assocations are critical in identifying these churches and pastors and in helping to facilitate the connections. Have pastoral and lay leadership meet together in prayer and mutual submission and ask what they could do together locally and globally to impact lostness. How could they help one another? How could they pray for each other? What encouragement could the thriving church share with the churches that are struggling and vice versa?
4. In these clusters of 3-5 churches, introduce the concepts of partnering for global missions involvement. Bring in someone from the IMB that would meet with them and help facilitate engagement with an area overseas that could use their prayer and support. Plan a joint mission trip and connect them with a missionary overseas.
5. Also, introduce the concept of church planting. Have someone from the state convention or NAMB talk with them about helping to support a church plant in an area of need. Prayer, finances, people, and support could be brought out to engage in this work.  Perhaps several clusters could work together. NAMB, state convention personnel, and church planter strategists could help facilitate this, but you still have primary local church involvement.
6. In these clusters of churches, introduce the concept of local community transformation. The state convention and primarily the local association can play a vital role in this. What if 3-5 local churches addressed areas of a community that were struggling? What if they identified the darkest problems in their community and they let their light shine tangibly in some kind of way? I know that God would lead them.
7. As these clusters of 3-5 local churches work together on global missions in some way, domestic church planting, and community transformation, they will have to be praying and seeking God. They will have to be thinking about others.  This will bring renewal to the local congregation as they personally engage in the mission that God has called them to. Pastors will be encouraging other pastors. Lay people will be meeting together to plan, work, and encourage one another. Churches will not compete with one another, but rather, they will truly cooperate. Call in the state conventions, local association, and NAMB and the IMB to help resource all of this. Then, you truly have SBC entities resourcing the local church.
8. Use the best aspects of SBC initiatives like the Acts 1:8 Challenge and GPS in these clusters of churches for training and goal setting. The IMB has some really good initiatives for local church involvement that are not widely known. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. The SBC has been tinkering with these ideas for many years now. Let's bring them out convention-wide and really apply them to local church life.
9. As these clusters become effective in engaging in God's mission both locally and globally, begin to bring more churches into new clusters. As churches that were once struggling begin to strengthen, bring in other churches that are willing to engage. Keep starting the process over again. Create church partnership clusters in pioneer regions on the West Coast and in the Northeast and connect them with clusters in the Southeast. Work to get every missionary adopted by a cluster. Identify 100 target areas for church planting and get clusters to partner with church planter strategists in those areas to fund church plants. Connect with our seminaries to train church planters that are ready to partner with a cluster to plant a church in the target area. Keep encouraging the spread of this like a virus until every SBC church that is willing to engage in this does.
10. Call on our seminaries and Lifeway to project theological education by extension into local associtation and cluster groups all over the U.S. via the internet. Decentralize seminary training so that it is more effectively serving the misson of the local church as they engage in this mission.

Of course, you start with the willing and those who are already working effectively. The GCRTF will say that they cannot mandate anything to the local church. That is true. But, NAMB is autonomous as well, and that hasn't stopped them from completely reorganizing NAMB in their recommendations. If the GCRTF used their SBC-given platform to put forward a plan like this, many local associations and state conventions would pick it up and begin to do it. If you had even 100 clusters of 3-5 churches form and carryout this plan together, that is 300-500 SBC church engaging in this local and global mission in an exponential way because they would be working together and sharing resources. You don't destroy the current structure of the SBC, but rather, you use it help initiate a movement of churches engaging in the Mission of God. As more and more churches engage in this, the things that do not facilitate the movement begin to lose importance and also lose funding. Churches continue to give to the CP because money is needed for church planters and consultants from the state conventions, local associations, NAMB, and the IMB, along with the missionaries/church planters needed to carry out the plans directly. So, you are not destroying the structure, but rather, you are repositioning it and maximizing its effectiveness by creating exponential engagement.

The argument will be that churches won't do this. I think that mine would. I could probably come up with a list of large and small churches in Alabama who would do something like this. What if cooperation actually meant more than sending a check to the CP, but we really did cooperate on a church-to-church basis? What if the church acted as the missionary and initated global and local work in cooperation with a few other churches doing the same thing? Does anyone think that excitement, spiritual life and passion, and the power of God would not spread? Does anyone think that the nations would not be impacted?

The problem in the SBC is not primarily a funding crisis. It is a vision crisis. Every local church has to go it alone. What if we partnered and networked a bit? What if the entities of the SBC lined up BEHIND the local church and helped us? What if the church really did become the frontlines of SBC mission work and every member of every SBC church was considered a missionary because they were directly engaging in the mission of God? What if we flipped everything around?

We might end up with a real GCR afterall. 

Similarities Between Health Care Reform and the #GCR of Southern Baptists

America is bracing for a vote this weekend on Health Care Reform. No one really knows what is in the bill and the entire process is complicated beyond belief. If you ask most Americans the question, "Do we need health care reform?", most people would say yes. I think that we need some level of reform to a system that sees premiums continue to go up and up while coverage continues to go down. It is not good for small businesses or for families to continue to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month for health insurance that still does not cover everything, does not accept prior conditions, and that is often not transferrable. Who doesn't think that the system needs fixing on some level while medical costs continue to skyrocket? I have yet to meet anyone.

However, just because you think that the system needs attention because of skyrocketing costs does not mean that you accept the proposals that the Democrats are putting forward. They seem to have taken the fact that most Americans want some level of health care reform to mean that Americans want what they are putting forward, and if they don't, well, they just don't know what's good for them.  I am not going to debate health care reform here. The problem with the bill (whatever it is), is that it is impossible for people to actually know what it says or what it means. Even members of Congress do not fully know what they are voting for or against. The cable news pundits pick up on one detail and say that that is what health care reform is all about. Then, opposing pundits pick up on another detail and try to persuade the public based on their position. In reality, both sides might be right and both sides might be wrong. It is impossible to tell because the attempt at reform is complicated to the point of making it unintelligible. Still, we are going to have a vote and no matter how you feel about the particulars, President Obama and the Democrats are making this about whether or not you want health care reform, which completely misses the point, because you might actually want health care reform, but you don't want THIS kind of health care reform. Republicans did the same thing on the Iraq War, by the way, by appealing to American's desire to be protected from terrorists, so I am not being partisan here.

Which brings me to the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) among Southern Baptists. Few would disagree with the fact that our churches, state conventions, and denominational entities are in trouble. Few would argue that declining baptism rates and giving is not a sign of difficult times ahead. Former SBC president Frank Page predicted that around 20,000 SBC churches would close their doors in the next couple of decades if we keep going the way that we are going because of the graying of our denomination (we currently have around 45,000 churches). Everyone agrees that there is a crisis going on. Who would argue that at this point?

So, if you ask the average Southern Baptist pastor or layperson, "Do we need a Great Commission Resurgence?", is anyone really going to say no? Would anyone argue that we need a resurgence of a passion for the lost and the mission of God in our churches? That would be foolish. But, just because we agree that we need a GCR, that doesn't mean that we agree on what a GCR should look like. I think that in this situation, taking a top-down approach to the renewal of the SBC does more harm than good.  The changes that have been proposed end up falling far short of what is needed and valuable capital and good will that has been built up through calling for reform is going to be wasted.  What happens in 5-10 years when we find ourselves in the same situation? Will we call for another GCR? Any GCR that does not begin with gospel renewal in the local church is ultimately going to wash out far short of what anyone would consider a success. If we say that we are incapable of bringing renewal to local churches and all that we can do is tinker with denominational entities, then that is the crux of our problem and sidestepping it doesn't change a thing.

When Southern Baptists meet in Orlando in June, the GCR (whatever it is) will be put forward before the delegates as a vote for the Great Commission itself. Watch the speeches given in support of it. "Do you believe in the Great Commission? Good, I do too. Vote for this. If you vote against it, you are voting AGAINST the Great Commission." That is not entirely honest, but it is what will happen and it will likely pass no matter what the GCR actually is because the right people will say that this is about the Great Commission and the masses will vote on the basis of which personality is for or against it.  That is how things work at SBC Annual Meetings and people know it.

Here is the truth: Unless we see real grass-roots gospel renewal in our churches, no amount of denominational tinkering is going to make a difference. As a matter of fact, it might make matters worse because it will give the illusion of change when our churches continue to decline.  Does that mean that we can't be more efficient on a national level? Of course not. There are always things that we can do to make the mission that God has called us to more accessible for each of us. But, unless local churches begin to lead the way, or unless denominational entities begin to really see themselves as servants to the local church, then we will not see a GCR just like current attempts at health care reform are unlikely to make the difference that people really want to see nationally.  Ironically, we already have a system in place in our state conventions and local associations that we can work through to try and bring about gospel renewal in our churches. Creating more systems will do little. The main problem is not our organization (although there is much that could be better about it). The main problem is that we need a heart change in our desire to follow Jesus instead of our own desires. Restructuring without a corresponding heart change will only move problems around to different places while ultimately leaving us in the same position as we started. 

So, how do you effect gospel renewal in local churches from a denominational perspective? What could the GCR Task Force have done if they had been thinking grassroots instead of top-down? How could state conventions and local associations play a vital role in this instead of being seen as competitors? The GCR took the microphone last year and had the chance to really call for sweeping change that almost everyone would have bought into, but they went for the easier approach of forced reorganization. What if they had done it differently?

I'll talk about what those changes could have looked like in a future post, but if you want a preview, read what I wrote last August at Missioscapes.com.

I Am Going To Start Writing About the SBC and #GCR Again . . .

Not that I expect anyone to really care, but I thought I'd make the big announcement anyway, it being my blog and all. :)

Back in the day (2006-2008), I used to write quite a bit about SBC issues. Even though I have been Southern Baptist for years and graduated from an SBC seminary, I learned a lot about the SBC, how it works, and who the principle players are. I learned about state conventions, local associations, the seminaries, and our mission boards. I met a lot of people and developed a lot of contacts. I also met some other guys who were blogging on the same things and we blogged together for awhile in a venture called SBCOutpost. We made some waves, brought up some important questions, offered a lot of great solutions, and critiqued the SBC and its decline from many different angles. After a while it all got old and I grew weary of it, as did most everyone else. But, now, much of the discussion that began in 2006 is coming to a head in June of this year at the convention in Orlando with the proposals being brought forward by the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force (GCRTF), a group that was appointed by SBC president Johnny Hunt to study the SBC.  

I agree that we need a GCR. I have supported it from the beginning and I still do. The SBC, as a whole, is in serious trouble. Continuing to do business as usual is not going to address the massive problems that we are facing. However, the recently released GCRTF progress report did not go far enough in addressing the problems that beset us, in my opinion, and I fear that the direction that it did go will not make much difference in the long run. While I agree with much of what was said, the compelling rhetoric of the first point was not accompanied by many action items or recommendations that are executable. There is no roadmap to seeing spiritual renewal - only another call for it. But, the rest of the progress report was full of actionable items that dealt with restructuring and reappropriation of funds. I am afraid that this approach will only exacerbate the problems that we are facing. Actually, I am convinced of that. If the SBC does not or cannot initiate a grassroots gospel movement, then we are in serious trouble and no amount of restructuring is going to make a bit of difference. I believe that we can do that with the structure that we already have if we focus on the right things and stop being so obsessed about money and who gets what. That is not the first question that should be asked. Money follows vision and right now, no one, including the GCRTF is putting forward a compelling enough vision that people and churches can tangibly participate in. It seems to be a top-down approach that will be very difficult to implement.

So, absent any compelling vision that captures my imagination (apart from the first point that is full of biblical injuctions), over the next couple of months, this local church pastor is going to have the audacity to put a vision forward for whoever wants to read it and comment on it. I am going to show how the current structure of the SBC is capable of initiating a GCR so that existing dross and waste will be eaten up rather quickly by gospel movement. We have to change our culture and there is a relatively simple way to do that. I am going to write about how that can happen in a rather surprising way.

I would also like to hear from readers who have their own ideas (If you are interested in SBC stuff, as some of my readers still might be, although most have moved on - if not, ignore these posts and read the others that will also still appear). Most of the bloggers from the past have either stopped writing or are in league with the GCR to the point that they dare not critique it. Now is not the time for half-measures and restructuring proposals. Those of us at work in local churches know that none of that will make a bit of difference five years from now. So, what are your ideas? How would you propose to see renewal in the SBC? 

Maybe we should start by revisiting Dr. Danny Akin's axioms of a GCR and what the SBC applauded last year. Then, we can compare that to what the GCRTF submitted in their progress report. Then, we can ask how the two relate to one another and how a true GCR can result from the direction that we are headed and how the structure that we already have could facilitate all of this if the people within it worked differently. We might take some other roads along the way, but hopefully, we will end up with a good perspective on where God is moving in our churches and how true revival can erupt in the 40,000+ Southern Baptist churches in America so that we can take the gospel effectively to the ends of the earth.

Of course, I will write about other things along the way as I usually do, but inserting this focus into my normal writing on spiritual issues seems like a worthwhile, short-term writing project. I'll be finished with this by June, but I imagine that I will learn a lot.

Hope you read along.

Bart Barber on The GCR Task Force Progress Report

I haven't interacted with my old friend Bart Barber in quite some time. We used to have some great debates back in the heyday of SBC blogging circa 2006-2008. But, I was wondering what he thought about the GCR Task Force's Progress Report, so I checked out his blog. He writes a very thoughtful couple of posts about his take on the GCRTF's work and finishes up by saying this:

This is not a report that "blows up" anything. Praise the Lord. This is a report that respectfully recognizes the value and substance of previous generations' accomplishments and then determines to build upon them.

Were you expecting this report to amount to Moses come down from the mountain with the thing that somebody else was going to do to inaugurate a third great awakening to spread across the globe? Then you're likely to be underwhelmed by this progress report. Obviously, a <1% reallocation of money and a few points of restructuring are not going to mark the sea-change of our spiritual future.

If, however, you were expecting (as I was) a few points of denominational restructuring that stand a chance of helping a little bit, then maybe you're pleased with this progress report. I know that I am. I plan to vote in support of these measures, and I hope that you will do so, too.

That is pretty much how I saw it. Bart also says some really good things at the end about the need for all of us to turn to the Lord and serve Him where we are. Absolutely. So, overall, I agree with Bart's assessment about what the GCRTF is putting forward.

Bart and I would probably disagree, however, on whether or not a modest proposal is a good thing. We have been told that the SBC was facing a crisis of historic proportions and that this was a "watershed" moment. But, at the end of the day, we are looking at proposals that basically advance some minor restructuring. Or so it seems. Interesting.

What do my SBC readers (for those who actually have a clue as to what I am talking about) make of this?

Why the #GCR Will Not Work the Way Its Leaders Hope

Last night, the GCRTF (Great Commission Resurgence Task Force) of the Southern Baptist Convention released their mid-term progress report on the work that they have been doing to help bring renewal to the SBC. They are going to release the whole report full of recommendations in early May in preparation for the SBC's Annual Meeting in June where it will be voted on. The GCR came about after a groundswell of people calling for massive change in the SBC over the past several years. Here is a link to the full report.

One of the best things that GCRTF leader, Ronnie Floyd said last night was this,

While tonight you will hear our vision that does ask Southern Baptists to considering changing some things, we realize our number one need is to return to God in deep repentance and experience a fresh wave of His Spirit upon our lives, ministries, and work of our denomination. We need a fresh and compelling vision that will only come when we are right with Him.

He is absolutely correct. The SBC is in decline. We have lost our vision and we are focused on many of the wrong things. But, it is not just a loss of vision at the top in our denominational agencies. Our fundamental problem is coming up from our churches. I think that Dr. Floyd and the GCRTF realizes this, and on this point, they are on target. We desperately need widespread renewal and it must begin at the local church level.

He goes on to say,

. . . We believe that every local church needs to begin to operate as a missional strategy center. After the church gathers for worship, the church must scatter and send the people to advance the Gospel. When ministers see themselves as missional strategists and churches begin to operate as missional strategy centers, releasing and sending our people to advance the gospel regionally, nationally, and globally, we will begin to penetrate the lostness in our world.

This is also correct in that the local church must carry out the Great Commission. The local church is to be on the front lines of what God is doing in the world. I have heard SBC leaders say over and over again that the denominational structures of the SBC exist to help the local church carry out its mission. Absolutely right. But, do we really see the local church in this way? That is the rhetoric. But, what is reality?  Theologically, we do see things this way. In reality, we do not.

Much of what was said last night was excellent. It was really good rhetoric. But, when it came time to bring out concrete proposals, the rhetoric did not match up with the recommendations. Here were the 6 proposals according to the Baptist Press article:

1. Calling Southern Baptists "to rally towards a clear and compelling missional vision and begin to conduct ourselves with core values that will create a new and healthy culture within the Southern Baptist Convention." The "missional vision" is "as a convention of churches, ... to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all the nations." The eight core values are Christ-likeness, Truth, Unity, Relationships, Trust, Future, Local Church and Kingdom.  ME:  This is really good. I like these ideas. They are in the Bible and are the character of Christ and I am glad that they are being highlighted by the GCRTF.  But, how will they be carried out? How will they be implemented? When the other plans were rolled out, they were not connected with these values. I like words. I use them all the time. But, it is easy for words to just be words.
2. Recommending the North American Mission Board "prioritize efforts to plant churches in North America and to reach our nation’s cities and clarify its role to lead and accomplish efforts to reach North America with the Gospel." The North American Mission Board needs to be "reinvented and released" by implementing a direct strategy for planting churches in North America "with a priority to reach metropolitan areas and under-served people groups," Floyd said. The plan also calls for NAMB to assist churches in evangelism, discipleship and developing current pastoral leadership. It calls for NAMB to decentralize operations into seven regions and recommends releasing the entity from "cooperative agreements" with state conventions over the course of four years to free up money for national strategy.  ME:  So, NAMB is given the huge mission of planting churches all over North America, especially in the cities apart from state convention agreements. The result of this will be a much larger NAMB working everywhere with churches all over the U.S.  NAMB will come in and work in areas that were once reserved for state conventions, but for everything else, state conventions will be responsible. This creates yet another duplication of resources and work, unless the state conventions just go away altogether. I imagine that they will want more CP money for this, but how will this work, exactly? If you said that NAMB should work in pioneer regions where there are few churches and small state conventions, I can see it. But, everywhere? With no state agreements? It will be easier at first, but it will duplicate resources and strategy long-term.  Plus, NAMB is the only SBC entity that was really targeted for complete reorganization here while most everything else stays in tact. It is also the one that has been through repeated failure and lacks political muscle right now.
3. Requesting Southern Baptists "entrust to the International Mission Board the ministry to reach the unreached and under-served people groups without regard to any geographic limitations." "Globalization has flattened the world," Floyd said. "While years ago a people group was located within a specific geographical location, this is no longer reality. Reality today is that these people groups are located all over the world, including the United States.... Most of the 586 people groups that do not speak English in the United States have [IMB] strategy coordinators working overseas with the same groups. With geographical limitations removed, a new synergy can be created in international missions." Floyd added: "We believe that with this bold and needed change, we are positioning our convention of churches for a major evangelistic harvest, a discipleship revolution and an unprecedented, exponential explosion in church planting."  ME:  How will this be funded? The IMB will receive about $2 million more dollars a year when the percentage of CP giving that leaves the states and makes it to the national SBC goes from 50% to 51%. But, the IMB is struggling mightily with budget problems right now. So, you give them all of the foreign people groups in North America and add $2 million to the budget to do it? Plus, how much confusion will erupt at this point when you have a city that has local Baptist churches, a local association, a state convention, NAMB trying to plant churches, and the IMB working with ethnic groups? All in one area! And, none of them are working together necessarily and money from offering plates is going to all 5 groups. We keep saying that the local church is the front line of world mission, but we keep sending other groups to the frontlines. The reason that the IMB makes sense is because local churches cannot effectively go overseas. But, it makes little sense for the IMB to work in the U.S. apart from a consulting role when it comes to reaching ethnic and foreign language groups, in my opinion.
4. Moving the primary responsibility for Cooperative Program promotion and stewardship education ministry assignments from the Executive Committee to the state conventions. ME: I don't see where this makes much difference other than taking some money from the EC and reapportioning it elsewhere. Of course, it now makes the primary fundraisers for the SBC the State Conventions, where an average of over 60% of CP money stays, instead of making it to the foreign mission field. Does this sound like a good idea?
5. Reaffirming the Cooperative Program "as our central means of supporting Great Commission ministries" and establishing a broader category of "Great Commission Giving" to celebrate all the financial support – CP giving and designated giving -- local congregations provide for Southern Baptist missions. "We are not recommending any changes to the Cooperative Program but are reaffirming it as our central means of supporting the Great Commission ministries of the Southern Baptist Convention," Floyd said, saying the task force calls upon every church "to work diligently at giving more through the Cooperative Program." ME: So, we're not changing the CP, but we are changing the way that money gets counted as CP giving. Ok. There are a couple of reasons for this: 1. So that megachurches like Dr. Floyd's can give to different things in the SBC and still have it count as CP gifts. 2. So that churches can bypass their state conventions and give directly to what they want to support and call it CP giving. The reason that all of the money that you give to SBC causes needs to be counted as CP giving is so that those churches get credit and so the pastors of said churches can gain appointments to certain committees and seats of power within the SBC. If that is not the case, then who cares if the money your church gives to whatever it wants is counted as CP or not?  
6. Raising the percentage of Cooperative Program funds received by the International Mission Board in the 2011-2012 budget year to 51 percent and funding the increase in part with monies previously allocated to the SBC Executive Committee for Cooperative Program promotion and stewardship education. The proposal would reduce the SBC Operating Budget allocation of 3.40 percent by 1 percentage point, or roughly $2 million, and add it to the IMB's budget, currently at nearly $320 million. Calling the proposal "both symbolic and substantial," Floyd said, "This means that for the first time in our history, more than one-half of all monies that come from our churches through the SBC Cooperative Program will go to the reaching of the nations.... We believe this is a great move forward and we need to do all we can to reach the nations." ME:  Ummm, really? Over one-half of all monies that come from our churches through the SBC Cooperative Program will go to the reaching of the nations? That makes it look like that over half of the money that my church gives to the CP goes to the IMB. But, what he means is that AFTER the states take their 60% of CP money, or so, THEN, 51% that goes to the national entity makes it to the IMB. Just wanted to clarify. That comes to about an extra $2 million per year making it to the IMB. Oh, and by the way, they were just given the responsibility of taking the lead on reaching the unreached people groups from other countries that live in North America . . . where we have over 40,000 local churches . . . and thousands of local associations . . . and over 30 state conventions . . . and NAMB . . . and where over 90% of all funds given by Christians stay. Wow.

Okay. So, I am not trying to be critical here. These are all good men, I am sure. But, after reading over these proposals and knowing what kind of trouble the SBC is in and knowing how much desire that exists among so many people in the SBC for change, this looks like, well, it looks like not much of anything. I mean, this is basically some adminstrative and bureaucratic manuevering to put some money and responsibility in different places. It seems far less ambitious than the SBC restructuring in the late 90's that did not solve anything. How are these recommendations going to address the massive problems that we have and be a catalyst for the change that we need? I have been supportive of the GCR, but I am confused as to what is really going to change in the life of people and local churches. Of course, they say that real change has to start on an individual level. With this, I agree. But, if that is the case, then how is that being fostered and encouraged?

All in all, I've come to the conclusion that the SBC is no longer capable on any level of leveraging movement among our churches. I don't think that either state or national leadership of the SBC is able to swing any type of top-down renewal or resurgence. People just are not paying attention. Even a day after this report has been given, there is very little reaction to it. How is this going to get out to the people who are not paying attention? And, even if it does, what difference will these recommendations make? My great fear is that people got their hopes up and thought that some big changes were on their way, and now, when this is what we are looking at, most will realize that nothing much is ever going to change in the SBC.

We'll see. But, that is how this all strikes me. Instead, the change that will come to the SBC will happen with individual churches, Baptists, and leaders begin to take ownership over the mission themselves. That is what the GCR leaders want. But, when that happens, it won't work the way that they want it to. It will look way different than anyone can possibly imagine and it will mean the end of the SBC as we know it as it loses its centralized nature and becomes more of an organic network of churches with the initiative happening at the local church level instead of in the offices of those who control CP money.

And, that might be exactly what needs to happen.  

 

Hinduism, India, Jesus, and Thanksgiving Prayers

The Hindus just began a sacrifice of 250,000 animals in Nepal.  As you know, there are about 1 BILLION or so Hindus in India, the country where our church does the majority of its mission work. They are sacrificinng animals for a Hindu festival honoring the goddess Gadhimai.

The world's biggest animal sacrifice began in Nepal today with the killing of the first of more than 250,000 animals as part of a Hindu festival in the village of Bariyapur, near the border with India.

The event, which happens every five years, began with the decapitation of thousands of buffalo, killed in honour of Gadhimai, a Hindu goddess of power.

With up to a million worshippers on the roads near the festival grounds, this year's fair seems more popular than ever, despite vocal protests from animals rights groups who have called for it to be banned. "It is the traditional way, " explained 45-year old Manoj Shah, a Nepali driver who has been attending the event since he was six, "If we want anything, and we come here with an offering to the goddess, within five years all our dreams will be fulfilled."

Crowds thronged the roads and camped out in the open, wrapped in blankets against the cool mist. The festivities included a ferris wheel, fortune-telling robots and stalls broadcasting music and offering tea and sugary snacks.

As dawn broke, the fair officially opened with the sacrifice of two rats, two pigeons, a pig, a lamb and a rooster in the main temple, to cheers of "Long live Gadhimai" from spectators pushing against each other for a better view.

The article goes on to say,

Chandan Dev Chaudhary, a Hindu priest, said he was pleased with the festival's high turnout and insisted tradition had to be kept. "The goddess needs blood," he said. "Then that person can make his wishes come true."

Every time we visit, we go to the Hindu holy city of Rishikesh on the Ganges River. This city is full of temples, idols, holy men, ashrams, yoga centers, and pilgrimage sites. It reeks with incense and sacrificial prayers. Bells are constantly ringing to awaken the deities from their slumber in the thirteen story high Kailashananda Ashram on the banks of the Ganges. Westerners flock to this place to study yoga and fulfill their search for enlightenment. But, darkness is all they find.

"The goddess needs blood."  This is true about every religion. Blood, sacrifice, and our offerings are required to awakent the gods and goddesses to our plight and give us good fortune. Religion tells us that we can get to God through what we do. This is the spell that the Hindus are under. But, the Bible declares this perspective to be patently false. We can never get to God, no matter what we do.  Yes, blood is required because our sins are great and they require punishment. But, we are incapable of paying the punishment of our sins. A sacrifice is needed, but the blood of bulls and goats is not sufficient. We need a Perfect Sacrifice. This is who Jesus is. He was the atoning sacrifice for our sins. The full wrath of God was satisfied by the punishment that was laid upon Christ. We do not have to continue to offer sacrifices for our sins to to gain good fortune. We must only look to Christ in faith in what He did for us. His death and resurrection is sufficient.

Hebrews 9:11-15 says,

¹¹When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. ¹²He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. ¹³The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. ¹⁴How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

 ¹⁵For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

Religion tells us how we can climb to God. True Christianity tells us that God has come to us to rescue us and make things right. We must only respond to what God has done for us in Jesus Christ in faith and repentance. We must look to Jesus. Hinduism only keeps people in perpetual bondage. Christianity sets people free. People who say that all religions are basically the same know nothing of what world religions teach. They are as fundamentally different as night is from day. As Christians, we no longer have to make sacrifices or perform rituals for salvation, but rather, we must only believe in Jesus Christ, the One that God has sent.

And for that I am truly thankful.

 

 

Post-Secularism and the Role of Christianity in the Fall of Communism and the Remaking of Europe (and America)

Communism fell in Eastern Europe 20 years ago and the church in America is largely unaware of the role that Christians played in its demise. I wrote about the role of Christianity in the fall of the Berlin Wall on Tuesday and today I ran across another article on this subject. Adrian Pabst in his article for The Guardian (UK) entitled Christianity Ended the Cold War Peacefully writes,

The Velvet Revolutions of 1989 are commonly associated with the uprising of secular liberal dissents against atheist Communist regimes. But the extraordinary events that brought down the Iron Curtain are perhaps best described in terms of the victory of religious resistance which foreshadowed the emergence of a post-secular Europe. As such, the resurgence of religion has more to do with 9/11/89 than 9/11/01.

Without Christianity the cold war would not have ended peacefully. Across the East, churches and religious organisations brought together workers, students and intellectuals. Under totalitarian rule, church services and religious festivals often provided the last bastion of freedom and resistance.

In Poland, the opposition frequently gathered during Catholic liturgies and celebrations. They were inspired by Pope John Paul II's rallying cry to all Christians in the Soviet bloc at Gniezo on 3 June 1979 – exactly 10 years and one day before Solidarnosc won semi-democratic elections that ended Communist rule in Warsaw.

Similarly, the famous Monday demonstrations (Montagsdemonstrationen) in the former GDR took place after prayers for peace at the Nikolai Church in Leipzig. Both dissidents and ordinary citizens enjoyed the crucial support of both Protestant and Catholic churches which, according to Markus Meckel, the GDR's foreign minister in 1990, were "the only free space for free communication and thinking".

Even in the Soviet Union, the Orthodox church – benefitting from Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika – constituted a core pole of resistance against the official state ideology of "scientific atheism". In 1988, the millennial anniversary of Russia's Christianisation saw an upsurge in popular celebrations of Christian traditions and the re-opening of ancient churches and monasteries. In turn, Patriarch Alexy II and the church were decisive in defeating the attempted putsch in August 1991 by KGB hardliners against Gorbachev.

Crucially, 1989 saw the triumph of civil society over totalitarian states. And behind civil society stood the churches and religious organisations which defended and promoted workers' associations, professional guilds, intermediary associations, educational establishments and communal welfare. As such, 1989 marked an unprecedented opportunity to overcome the bipolar order of the communist east and the capitalist west, building a genuine "third way" beyond centralised bureaucratic statism and unbridled free market capitalism.

Add to this the peaceful Christmas resistance led by Christians in Romania in 1989 in defense of the pastor Laszlo Tokes in Timisoara and you can make a strong case for the essential role that Christianity played in bringing freedom to millions of oppressed people throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet bloc. Prayer, dependence upon God, a heartfelt desire for peace, freedom, and justice, and a righteous stand for the freedom of the gospel were the sparks that ignited the populace to revolt against the oppressive Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. The fact that these movements were ignited by men like Christian Fuhrer and Laszlo Tokes is not an historical accident, but rather indicative of the hand of God in their personal lives and in the shaping of nations. We give too little credance to the power of prayer and peaceful, non-violent resistance to the powers and principalities that have set themselves up against the knowledge of God. 

Pabst goes on to say,

However, the post-1989 secular consensus is already unravelling. The ongoing economic crisis once again highlights that the primacy of individual freedom over communal justice is undesirable and unsustainable. Similarly, value-pluralism alone can neither secure the integration of religious minorities nor solve ethical questions like assisted suicide because it negates universal principles such as cultural cohesion around religion or the sanctity of life.

We are entering a time of post-secularism because the secular ideals of individualism and unending prosperity and advancement continue to unravel on every front with the economic collapse of 2008-09 being the latest example. The stories of the Fall of 1989 and the role of Christians in remaking Europe should be told again and again. While the influence of cultural Christianity in America wanes, similar movements of change can begin by handfuls of Christians living out their faith in the midst of opposition from a culture that is steeped in opposing values.

Pabst concludes by saying,

Twenty years after the collapse of atheist communism, 2009 has seen the failure of secular capitalism. There is now a unique opportunity to enact a new socio-economic settlement centred on human relationships, families and communities rather than the binary, secular logic of the individual and the collective. Together with other faiths, Christianity in Europe will be a formidable intellectual, cultural and social force in arguing for alternatives to the post-1989 secular consensus.

Is Christianity capable of the same "intellectual, cultural, and social force" in defining the future of a multicultural America? Most definitely. But, we will only take part in this when we stop trying to reclaim an America that has passed, if it ever actually existed in the first place, and start working to create an America that is not yet, but could one day be.

Putting Away the Sunday School Jesus

Russel Moore has a good review of the movie Where the Wild Things Are. He says that the problem with it is not that it is too wild or dark, but that it is not wild enough and is not as good as the book because it does not properly deal with the existence of evil. He says that Christians are upset by the movie and are saying that it is not appropriate for kids because it is too scary, but Moore says that it is not scary enough. Evil is real and kids know it and they want something done about it. I haven't read the book or seen the movie, so I can't really comment on that, but there is something that he said that I think is important that we can all reflect upon. He compares what was done with the book to what we do with the Bible for children by saying:

Too many of our Bible study curricula for children declaw the Bible, excising all the snakes and dragons and wildness. We reduce the Bible to a set of ethical guidelines and a text on how gentle and kind Jesus is. The problem is, our kids know there are monsters out there. God put that awareness in them. They’re looking for a sheep-herding dragon-slayer, the One who can put all the wild things under His feet.

A couple of months ago a few of us went to hear Alan Hirsch in Mobile, Alabama and he said the same thing. He was talking about our different false images of Jesus and how they keep us from encountering the true Jesus. One of the images that he took on was the Sunday School Jesus. This Jesus is sugary sweet and is not a threat to anyone. He calls all the little children to come to him and he is just an overall nice guy. He was crucified for being a nice guy and if we believe in him, we can be really nice people too. The church is nice and everyone is nice. I think that it is wonderful to be nice, but that is a very incomplete version of who Jesus is. Yet, we do this with many of our Bible stories that we adapt for children.

A lady (who works with children) spoke up and opposed what Hirsch was saying. She said that it was important to have Bible stories for children and that many of them, like Daniel and the Lion's Den, were appropriate for children. Hirsch was not against telling children Bible stories, but he said that we needed to be careful to not sanitize everything so that the real story is lost. I agree.

Let's look at what REALLY happened in some of the Bible stories that we reserve for children:

• Adam and Eve? No, we don't tell that story too often. They are naked.
• Noah's Ark:  Usually a nice story about animals going two by two onto a big boat. It even has a rainbow! But, we often leave out the fact that the entire human race (save one family) along with every other animal drowned and died a horrible death. I'm not saying that you have to go into great detail here, but you can't leave out God's judgment on sin and stay true to the story.
• Joseph's Coat of Many Colors: Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery. Kind of scary.
• The Parting of the Red Sea (Exodus): The first born in Egypt died and the whole Egyptian army drowned.
• Giving of the Ten Commandments: 3,000 people were killed by Levites wielding swords after the Golden Calf incident (more than died in 9/11).
• David and Goliath: David cut off Goliath's head and held it up for everyone to see. Kind of gory.
• Daniel and the Lion's Den: Daniel was saved because he trusted God, but his false accusers were thrown into the Lion's Den along with their wives and children and they were dead before they hit the floor. The Lions were hungry.

It goes on and on. Even the birth of Jesus was attended to by filthy shepherds and pagan astrologers and was accompanied by the slaughter of all of boys under two years old in and around Bethlehem. The Bible is not exactly a book for kids, at least the way that we think about what a proper book for kids is. It is filled with violence, death, and human struggle. Sin is real, as is suffering, disappointment, rejection, and loss. When we sanitize it, we strip judgment, pain, and death out of Scripture and we learn to not fear God. We see God as the one who makes everything better all the time. It is wonderful that we provide comfort and safety for children, but should we do so by creating a false understanding? Does the fact that we have done this with children for the past couple of generations have anything to do with lack of fear of God that we currently have as adults? Or, the unbiblical views of God that affect us so deeply? Perhaps.

Hear me: I am not saying that we should fill our Bible stories for children with blood, gore, and horror. But, I am saying that we need to find ways to tell the stories as realistically as possible so that our children can see that evil is real, that God judges sin, and that Jesus' coming meant something more than he was nice and kind. We do not do our children or ourselves favors when we sanitize everything to the point that we make a baby nursery out of scenes from the almost total extermination of life on the planet because of judgment over vile sin (Noah's Ark) and we fail to consider what we are doing and the story that we are telling.  Without understanding, at least on some level, judgment for sin, it is impossible to understand and appreciate the redemption that we have in Jesus. 

As best we can, we need to read and tell the stories of the Bible rightly. Do our children need to hear everything when they are 4 years old? No. But, they need to hear that God is good and holy and that sin has consequences and that there is evil in the world, but God delivers us and protects us when cry out to Him. These were the stories that the Hebrew people told their children and these stories inspired courage and confidence in their God. May we do the same.

 

Scot McKnight: Self in a Castle

Scot McKnight: Self in a Castle

How modernity and postmodernity have conspired to warp the current generation.

by Scot McKnight

Leszek Kolakowski, a Polish philosopher who weakened Marxism’s grip on Eastern Europe, recently died. Few, I suspect, knew who he was. I consider myself fortunate to have read some of Kolakowski, one book being his scintillating sketch of the history of ideas by probing the central idea of twenty-three thinkers. That book is called Why is there Something Rather than Nothing? My own reading of it impressed me again with the connection of philosophers with their world. From Socrates to Kierkegaard, philosophers are products of their day.

So are we. Which raises the profound problem of blinders when it comes to perceiving what is influencing us, and which raises the other profound problem of needing to understand our cultural blinders in order to break through them with the light of the gospel. Kolakowski’s chapters are short, and everything short when it comes to the history of ideas risks simplicities that mask nuance. I risk the same in what I am about to suggest: the current generation emerges out of a toxic combination of modernity and postmodernity.

In another context (the summer issue of Leadership Journal) I called the toxicity of the current generation a “self in a castle.” Modernity’s singular contribution to the history of ideas is individualism. David Bentley Hart gets this exactly right in his new rant against the flimsy ideas in new atheism when he writes:

“We live in an age whose chief value has been determined, by overwhelming consensus, to be the inviolable liberty of personal volition, the right to decide for ourselves what we shall believe, want, need, own, or serve” (Atheist Delusions, 21-22).

That is, “it is choice itself, and not what we choose, that is the first good.” Personal freedom, which both Kolakowski and Hart understand far more profoundly than most, has become getting to do whatever I want, when I want, and how I want – and government’s job is to make sure it happens now. That’s, of course, an exaggeration, but it’s the exaggeration that is causing our problem in gospel work today.

Perhaps the most important words in Hart’s lines above are “by overwhelming consensus.” The consensus is so overwhelming that the emerging generation – each of us – believes we can form our own religion. A religion of our own making, however, never leads to transcendence or worship of God or anything like the ancient Hebrews’ “fear of God.” Instead, we tinker on the edge of holiness with the notion of experiencing The Beyond.

How feeble of a god is that? When “The Beyond” evokes mystery or suggests to our minds that we are on the edge of something important, then we need to look into abyss of where we are headed.

If modernity gave our culture a sense of individualism that has been ratcheted up beyond what either Bible or philosophers would ever recognize, postmodernity tells us that individual choice itself is relative. I don’t believe we should dismiss postmodernity with the derisive, and far too often unthinking, label of “moral relativism,” but there is within postmodernity’s deepest impulses the belief that universal truth and all-encompassing metanarratives can’t be had. We are too finite and when folks believe they’ve found the magical metanarrative for all, they abuse power and turn violent.

Well, yes, there’s some truth to that, but that’s the whole problem with postmodernity. Genuine insights become, paradoxically enough, all-encompassing metanarratives against all metanarratives. This tendency is one of postmodernity’s addictions.

So, here we are. Staring at a unique cultural product: humans turned inward investing sanctity in the Self. We have constructed a postmodern castle wall around that Self believing it is so sacred that no one may violate your choice – you determine what to believe and what is right and wrong. The Self is protected by the Wall of Individual Relative Choice.

The tragedy of the “self in a castle” is that we are blind to it – blind to see it in ourselves every time we choose to think we are the most progressive and wisest of all generations, every time we fool ourselves into thinking we have achieved levels of love that we call tolerance, which is a vapid imitation of what genuine love is, and every time we think our moral struggles rival the profound struggles of an Athanasius or an Augustine, a Luther or a Calvin, a Bonhoeffer or a Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Self is so large because our walls are so high, blinding us from seeing the Morning Light. That Light is the Light of All Light.

Scot McKnight is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University, and a regular contributor to Out of Ur.

What the Health Care Debate Says About Post-Christian America

This is a spiritual conversation that everyone is having without the Church.

Death panels. Town hall meetings. Grandma dying because she can't get the hip replacement. Socialized medicine. Communism. Nancy Pelosi's swastika meltdown. Chuck Grassley's whatever that was. So-called mobs protesting the whole thing and wanting to keep their privatized insurance. The public option now being removed. Obama's presidency sinking. Life, death, choice, autonomy, personal freedom, and the role of government all rolled into one big yelling match. Taxes, deficits, the slumping economy, and fear for the future. The media going nuts over all of it.

Coming Shakeup at NAMB and What It Says About the Future of the SBC

The Associated Baptist Press is reporting that the president of Southern Baptist's North American Mission Board (NAMB), Geoffery Hammond, appears to be on the way out over leadership issues and conflict.  Hammond replaced Bob Reccord in 2007 who was removed for mismanaging the agency. What exactly is NAMB doing? Why does it exist? What is its role? How is it to interact with state conventions? How does it serve the local church? I don't really know if anyone knows the answer to those questions. I really don't know if anyone is even asking the right questions. I do know that we keep seeing failure across the board and we keep looking for scapegoats. Maybe Hammond is horrible as a leader and there are better leaders available. Maybe he isn't and the culture is just broken and no one knows why they exist. I don't know. But, this makes two presidents in a row that have been removed (if it does happen) and that points to some larger problems, I would think.

I write this post because reading the article made me think of the seminar yesterday at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit with Gary Hamel.   I put my notes up in a post yesterday (follow the preceding link) and I want to say that Hamel has gotten me thinking about developing bottom up, organic, leadership structures for the 21st century. Marty Duren and I have been working on a concept called "ChurchAsMissionary" where we are saying that the local church is to function as the missionary. Our new collaborative website (along with Todd and Paul Littleton, Art Rogers, and David Phillips) is called missioscapes.com. We will be exploring how churches can reposition themselves for mission in a rapidly changing world as they launch out from older structures. I don't know what kind of future denominational bureaucracies like NAMB have in this world where the only constant is change, but I do know that they ought to talk with Gary Hamel and see what he thinks about which way they should go. That guy is brilliant. Of course, he must be, because he is saying the same stuff that I've been saying since about 2003 about network theory!  :-)  Um, plus he teaches for the London School of Business or something and has written books and speaks all over and stuff. In other words, he's really smart. And right.  Southern Baptists ought to start paying attention to what is actually happening in our world instead of continuing to lead organizations as though we are living in the Industrial Age.

Marty Duren on the GCR: If We Were the GCR Task Force

A new series begins today at http://missioscapes.com entitled, "If We Were the GCR Task Force." Marty Duren writes the first of seven scheduled posts by the editors during the month of August addressing the GCR and offering our thoughts on what we would do if we were them. It should be a profitable discussion and I hope that you take a look at it. Leave a comment and give us your thoughts. By the way, I'll be writing quite a few posts like this announcing new articles for missioscapes.com since it is a new site and we are trying to let people know about it.

Look Not Only To Your Own Interests . . .

Philippians 2:4 says that. We are to look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others. Do Christians take that seriously? I mean, I know that we are often kind and generous and we help people, but do we really go around looking after the interests of others?

What would happen if we did that?

What would happen if when we went to church, we didn't think about ourselves, but instead, we thought about how we could look after the interests of others?

What if we saw our neighborhoods and cities that way?

What if we saw those different from us that way? How can we look after the interests of those who are not just like us and don't make us feel comfortable?

Is Jesus serious about the whole sacrificial love thing? I mean, surely he just meant that He would love us that way and we would just get to be happy, right? No, He actually does call us to love extravagantly, not getting anything in return, laying our very lives down.

How does this view of looking after the interests of others apply to the public school kids in your community? The poor? Those without fathers? Those who cannot find work? Those who have quit trying? The rejected? The sinners? The cast-out?  What does it mean to look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others when we decide to move to a "better" neighborhood because our old neighborhood is "transitioning?"

I could keep going, I guess.

I am just coming to the point where I am amazed at how much of the Bible's teaching I just never thought much about or took that seriously. I mean, I see words on a page and I believe them, but I often fail to think about their implications for all of life. These words in Phil. 2:4 have massive implications for ALL of life if we will believe them and obey them.

How would the world be changed if Christians just started obeying Phil. 2:4? 

Clarifying the GCR? Not Quite . . .

Ronnie Floyd, chairman of the GCR Task Force gave an interview for Baptist Press that was posted today. In it he says positive things about the GCR and a movement toward the Great Commission by Southern Baptists - all good stuff. He also says that the battles and wars for control and power from the past will not be repeated in the GCR. I am glad to hear it. I suggest that he spread the message to all on the task force and others in support of the GCR that the old political battles that we have seen so much of in the past will have no place here. I fully commend this attitude and plan to remember that he said this. Then, the article says this:

Why Won't Johnny Hunt Contact Morris Chapman? #clarklogan

The Florida Baptist Witness again reports that SBC President Johnny Hunt continues to have concerns about the Clark Logan firing at the Executive Committee.  Here's a question: Why can't Johnny Hunt pick up the phone and call Morris Chapman and get his side of the story without asking questions in the press? If Hunt wanted to resolve this the right way, he could find out all he needed to know, I am sure.

This looks like politics to me.

Chapman opposed the GCR. Hunt is a supporter of the GCR. Almost everyone upset about Logan's firing is a GCR supporter. The dust up over his firing has died down the past week or so. Hunt just stirred it up again. Now, he's threatening to bring this before ExComm's trustee meeting to ask for an investigation. Make a few phone calls and you'll find out exactly what happened.

This looks just like a political maneuver to clear the playing field of opposition to the GCR. With this hanging around Chapman's neck, he won't be able to effectively speak against the GCR (or do anything else for that matter). Admittedly, I don't know Hunt's motives and I can't judge his heart. But, it LOOKS like politics from here and I thought that the GCR wasn't going to be business as usual. I support the GCR, but if this continues, it will be just one more thing that Southern Baptists have tried.

If Dr. Chapman did anything wrong, then can we please handle this the right way? Can Hunt please give him a call and try and clear this up? Aren't we Christians? Do we have to go to the press? If Hunt can't get to the bottom of it that way, then go to the board privately and exert influence to get some answers. None of that has been done, apparently. I have supported the GCR and its proponents should be above political machinations if they want to unite the SBC. Don't play politics with the Great Commission, guys. If this isn't politics and hearts are pure, then please do the right thing and handle this man-to-man. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Phil Busbee, Pastor of First Baptist, San Francisco, Passed Away June 27th

This is very sad news.  Pastor Phil Busbee of First Baptist Church, San Francisco, passed away June 27th. Visitation will be on July 6 and the funeral service will be July 7. All of the funeral arrangements are listed at First Baptist's website.

When I was a seminary student at Golden Gate in the late 90's, Erika and I spent months looking for a church where the Bible was taught and believed and where we could engage in ministry with a loving body of believers. We looked for several months and had trouble finding the place that we felt God wanted us to be. We went to a store front church for a few months led by Andrew Jones (Tall Skinny Kiwi), and ministered to street kids in the Haight-Ashbury on Sunday afternoons. But, that wasn't where we ultimately connected. A friend of mine invited me to First Baptist Church, San Francisco where Jim Higgs was the pastor. Erika and I visited and immediately sensed God's presence and a leading to join with this wonderful church. Two weeks later, Pastor Higgs retired after 17 years or so pastoring the church. We stayed.

Eighteen months later after a long search, FBCSF hired Phil Busbee to be the pastor. He was from Southern California and had served under Thom Wolf at The Church on Brady (now Mosaic). Pastor Phil had a great heart, a focus on Jesus Christ, a love for the city and the nations, a love for people, and rock solid Biblical convictions. He took stands against homosexuality in San Francisco, yet he loved gay people sacrificially. He was a man after God's own heart. He was also an extremely generous and compassionate man. Our daughter, Ashtyn, was dedicated to the Lord by his prayers when she was just a few months old. He blessed us as we left San Francisco and moved to Alabama to minister. I returned to San Francisco on mission trips for during two summers (2000 &amp;amp;amp;amp; 2001) after moving to my current church and he let us stay in the church basement and use the church as a home base. When we visited, he invited me to pray during a service, which was a surprise to me. I was also fortunate to visit with him at a conference that he was speaking at in Seattle in 2005 and we had rich fellowship together. 

This past March, I took Ashtyn back to San Francisco on a Daddy-Daughter trip, my first return to San Francisco in 8 years. Of course, we visited First Baptist for their Sunday worship service and I was fortunate to see him one last time.  He preached from a stool that he was rolled up to in a wheel chair. Because of diabetes and other health issues, Pastor Phil was very sick and frail at this point. Yet, he spoke of God's love and care for him, even though he did not understand the reasons for everything that was happening to Him. He trusted God and he was passionate for Christ, even as he faced his own decay. I sensed God's presence in that church and during the worship I was greatly moved. Pastor Phil was a leader, a pastor, and a prophet to so many people. Hundreds of seminary students came through First Baptist during the 10 years he pastored there and I know that they are better for it. 

When he first came to FBCSF, Pastor Phil preached a series on worship. I'll never forget that. He started his ministry there by teaching us about passionate worship of Christ. He ended his ministry there worshiping Christ and I praise God that that is what he is doing now with the Lord. I can still see him sitting in that wheel chair in March, with his hands lifted praising His King. He will be greatly missed and even though I only sat under his ministry for about a year, I was greatly impacted by his heart for God, his passion for prayer and worship, his missional lifestyle, and his deep love for people. 

I am praying for his family and for First Baptist Church, San Francisco. 

~ Alan Cross, Golden Gate Alum and member of First Baptist Church, San Francisco 1997-1999.

I also found this video of Pastor Phil teaching last year at a minister's meeting about bringing transformation to San Francisco through prayer and marketplace ministry.

The Secret to Getting Along in the SBC: Morris Chapman, Calvinists, and the GCR

Disclaimer:  SBC RELATED POST.  It seems that I am going to be writing about SBC Issues more, at least in the near future. After not writing about the SBC hardly at all over the past year or two on this blog, I have found myself really interested in what is going on in America's largest Protestant denomination when it comes to the promotion and adoption of what is called the Great Commission Resurgence. I wrote about it last week during the convention and will continue to do so until I get bored with it or no one is reading anymore.

Dr. Morris Chapman created a firestorm last week when he addressed Calvinism in his Executive Committee report at the Southern Baptist Annual Meeting. I wrote about it HERE.  Calvinists were upset that he seemed to call them out in ways that they felt were inaccurate. Baptist Identity folks have been making their claim for control of the SBC for a few years now. Before that, it was Conservatives. Before that, moderates. Now, we have the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) and its band of Calvinists/Non-Calvinists/Missional types and those focused primarily on missions and fulfilling the Great Commission. Still, it would be unfair to say that Traditionalists and Baptist Identity adherents don't care about the Great Commission. But, we are all wrestling with each other again and what had been happening primarily on the blogs has now broken out into the SBC at large. The next year is going to be very interesting.