By Bill Leonard
“Will the CBF make it another 20 years?” That question is asked frequently these days as individuals inside and outside the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship consider its future. While the question is sobering, it need not be discouraging.
In fact, if it is any consolation, the same inquiry is often raised in religious communities across the American theological and denominational spectrum. You could out “CBF” and substitute the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, National Baptists, segments of the Southern Baptist Convention, assorted theological schools, the Crystal Cathedral and numerous “big-steeple” congregations, to list only a few. Nonetheless, the 20th anniversary of CBF’s founding and the realities of American religious life offer ample opportunity to reflect on the past and look toward the future. Indeed, the CBF has established a task force that has already initiated such a process.
The Fellowship began in 1990 with an invitation to Baptists who desired to form something new after years of controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention. Its first decade focused on re-forming old coalitions while doing gospel triage — caring for persons seeking a new Baptist identity while grieving the loss of an earlier one. The second decade allowed CBF-related individuals and churches, schools and agencies to delineate reasons to work together in ministry “partnerships.” Members approved a mission statement for the Fellowship and shaped initial programs in Leadership Development, Global Mission(s), Faith Formation, and Community Building/Networking.
Eschewing the label “denomination,” CBF nonetheless aids its constituency in facilitating ecumenical and interfaith dialogue, supporting theological education, extending collective mission engagement and cultivating relationships with a variety of other Baptist groups nationally and globally. Through direct programs and indirect partner agencies, it seeks to undergird ministry in local congregations and regional coalitions. On one hand it reflects elements of the “society” method of early Baptist alliances, a clearinghouse for multiple ministries in which individuals and churches may choose to “cooperate.” On the other hand it is something of a non-geographic “association” of churches — spread across a large region, but small enough to develop serious inter-church and interpersonal relationships.
In its 20th year, with an eye to the future, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship faces a variety of challenges, many of which parallel those of other faith communities. These include:
- An aging constituency. Like other church groups in the United States, CBF’s most active members are likely to be over 50 years of age.
- Declining congregations. Many of the strongest churches related to CBF are themselves experiencing numerical decreases in membership and participation.
- Financial realities. Declining numbers, an aging constituency and a continuing recession create serious financial stress on families, churches and church-related bodies like CBF. Financial reductions on the congregational level have ripple effects on CBF and its related partners.
- Rapid change in church and culture. Permanent transition seems the norm in a society in which media, technology, politics and economics create what appears to be the almost constant change. Religious institutions often find it difficult to change fast enough to keep up or leap too quickly into short-term fads.
- Baptist identity. Many CBF-related congregations ask: “Why retain the name Baptist?” especially when brand-name Christianity seems out of style or Baptists’ reputation in the public square seems embarrassing at best.
On the way to the future and in response to these challenges, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship might cultivate and extend strengths that are already part of its history. These possibilities offer great hope and potential energy for the future:
- Shared ministry. Churches, especially Baptist churches, need coalitions like CBF for shared ministry beyond localism. If the CBF closed its doors today, cooperative Baptist churches would need to create a new fellowship tomorrow.
- Inspiration and imagination of churches. Churches have to decide if they need CBF and, if so, then engage imaginatively in shaping its future. Churches must determine what they need from organizations like CBF and guide the organization in responding to those needs.
- A willingness to change, sometimes quickly. CBF remains a bit “lean and hungry,” with the ability to facilitate rapid response to social and spiritual transitions. Such rapid responses should be made creatively, not whimsically, with options for both short-term and long term projects that help churches cultivate focused, niche ministries.
- Engaging a new generation. Some of the best money CBF has spent in its 20-year history involves its investment in theological education — scholarships that aid a new generation of ministers. Recent national and state gatherings offer hopeful signs of the involvement of younger affiliates. Now the organization must be willing to share power, extend the voice, and welcome the energy of a younger constituency who will guide its future — and soon.
- A Baptist witness. CBF must continue to reclaim the best of the Baptist identity — not simply on paper but in its witness in the world. It can nurture the ideals of a believers’ church and redeem communities and consciences through worship, spirituality and ministry to those inside and outside the church.