On Mother’s Day morning, before church, our phone rang. Picking it up, I could tell from the caller ID it was from our daughter’s household. “Hello!” I intoned cheerfully. The 6-year-old voice on the other end belonged to our younger granddaughter, Brooke, who had obviously rehearsed what she planned to say.
“Happy Mother’s D….” she began, biting “day” in half before pausing. “Wait .…” she said, buying time. In the space of only a second or two she had sorted through her confusion, had identified the cause and concluded that an adjustment in her plans was necessary. “Is Nonnie there?” she continued triumphantly.
Jim White
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Sorting through my own confusion usually takes considerably longer.
For example, I returned home from the Southern Baptist Convention trying to sort through my confusion. The “Ready, Shoot, Aim” approach taken by the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force in proposing its recommendations calls for the backwards approach of deciding where we are going to wind up and then asking the state conventions and North American Mission Board trustees if they want to go there (major reorganization). As in, “You do want to go there, don’t you?” Since reports of that action are included elsewhere in this issue, I will not elaborate here.
State conventions, of course, are autonomous and can make their own decisions about how much they keep to support their own mission work and how much they send on to the SBC. But in the case of NAMB, the trustees are between a rock and a hard place. Either they comply with the task force recommendations approved by the convention, or they ignore the action of the convention that elected them and that provides virtually 100 percent of NAMB’s funding.
When I asked task force chairman Ronnie Floyd what would happen if a state convention simply said, “No,” he replied that no one can force a state to do something it chooses not to do. I’m glad he recognizes that. I predict there is very little likelihood that the Baptist General Association of Virginia will adopt the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as the task force recommended that all SBC entities and partners do.
Neither do I imagine that, given the BGAV’s current level of global missions, it will consent to send 50 percent of all Cooperative Missions funds on to the SBC. The BGAV has international mission priorities of its own.
I am also still sorting through the recommendation of the task force that the SBC be transparent in its dealings while at the same time sealing the recordings of their own deliberations for 15 years. Task force members successfully resisted a motion to make them available. Transparency, obviously, is for others and not for themselves.
Apparently, repentance is also. Much is rightly said of the need for repentance and the necessity of being spiritually revitalized. But repentance requires a change of direction and no change appears on the horizon. The same old politics as usual applied again this year.
Johnny Hunt used his convention presidential address to preach about the 12 Israelite spies searching out the promised land. His point was clear. If you favor the GCR task force recommendations, you are like Caleb and Joshua. If you oppose it, you are faithless in your opposition to God’s command just like those other 10 spies.
It would be fair to say that the task force seemingly missed no opportunity in manipulating the messengers to vote for their recommendations. I’m still sorting through all this.
I could go on providing a litany of irritants that galled me about the Great Commission Resurgence process — not the least of which is applying the term “Great Commission” to it! But to do so runs the risk of neglecting a crucial point. Indeed, if I’m not careful, I can sometimes miss the forest for the trees.
Behind all the wrangling and manipulating is an essential point. Statistically speaking, we have not been as diligent in reaching people for Christ as we once were.
I must sincerely give credit where credit is due. SBC leaders are honestly examining a numeric slide and attempting to come to terms with it. I believe the challenges they included in their report are, for the most part, excellent even if some of the recommendations were not. If we can internalize the challenges; If we can keep them from being mere words in a report; If the Spirit will use them to ignite a fire of passion for the lost within us, we will become a denomination of Christ-following Christ-sharers.
I cannot escape asking the same question I am sure many of you are asking. “How are we doing in Virginia?” I’m glad you asked.
Let me begin my answer with a chide and a challenge. I chide many of you for your unwillingness to provide statistical information to the BGAV through the annual church profile. It is impossible to say with absolute certainty how Virginia is doing because so many Virginia churches aren’t saying! I challenge you to send to the BGAV these vital statistics!
That said, here’s what we do know from the Southern Baptist Directory Services statistical reports. In the year 2000, 1,116 churches reported 8,463 baptisms with 211 church reporting no baptisms for the year. In 2005, 1,030 churches reported 7,638 baptisms with 231 having none. For the last three years the reports show:
2007:
• Baptisms: 7,106
• Churches reporting: 992
• Number of baptisms: 222
2008:
• Baptisms: 7,309
• Churches reporting: 1,131
• Number of baptisms: 278
2009:
• Baptisms: 7,113
• Churches reporting: 1,103
• Number of baptisms: 281
Since the SBC counts from October through September and the BGAV uses the calendar year, these totals will differ slightly from official BGAV figures you may run across. Still, the figures of the last decade demonstrate a declining trend.
What should we do? We all know the answer to that. Each Virginia Baptist, beginning with the state General Association leaders and the pastors of churches, needs to make sharing Christ a priority. A vote in the SBC, CBF or BGAV can’t make that happen. It’s up to us.
I’m still sorting through some of the SBC confusion, but like Brooke I’ve reached absolute clarity about what I need to do next. I need to adjust my plans to fit God’s. “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
Jim White is editor of the Religious Herald.