I grew up in a Southern Baptist church. I attended Sunday school as a child in a Southern Baptist church. I made a public profession of faith, accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and was baptized at the age of 9 in a Southern Baptist church. I spent my teenage years in a youth group in a Southern Baptist church.
In college, I was a summer missionary to California and New York, sent by Southern Baptists. I answered the call to ministry and was ordained to ministry by a Southern Baptist church in 1987. I sat under the teaching of a pastor’s wife in a couples Sunday School class in a Southern Baptist church.
Chuck Strong
My wife and I attended a Southern Baptist seminary, where I graduated with two degrees. Both our daughters were born while we were at seminary. We moved from seminary and were active in a Southern Baptist church until — until the time our daughters were getting old enough to ponder for themselves the call of God on their lives. And we realized their call might not be freely encouraged in a Southern Baptist setting.
Around that time, we felt God’s call on our lives to serve as church planters alongside a small group of people in a neighboring community. The new church was affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, but we were thankful to maintain friendships and a free exchange of convictions with our Southern Baptist colleagues.
But soon, the Southern Baptist Convention left us.
One of the reasons we left Southern Baptist life is that our girls would not have had the same encouragement to answer God’s call on their lives as was afforded to boys. It was not the only reason we left, but had it been the only reason, it would have been sufficient.
Our daughters both have listened to and responded to God’s call on their lives. One is an ordained deacon in a CBF congregation, and the other is an ordained minister in a CBF congregation.
As I look back on my Southern Baptist days, what I see is, without fail, women in every church I’ve ever been part of were the sustainers of church life. I truly cannot comprehend why SBC leaders have fought so hard to exclude women from exercising God’s call on their lives.
“I grieve for girls and young women who are members of Southern Baptist churches who are told their calls to ministry are mistaken.”
Some would say it should not matter to me. They would say since I have left Southern Baptist life I should not be bothered by this. Others might say it is truly none of my business and I should keep my nose out of Southern Baptist issues.
And on some level, they would be correct. Yet, Southern Baptist blood runs deep in my veins. And so, I grieve for my former denomination, whose executive leadership continues to be obsessed with some type of doctrinal purity that excludes those who do not meet certain standards.
I grieve for girls and young women who are members of Southern Baptist churches who are told their calls to ministry are mistaken. I grieve for a world that may miss a gifted preacher or minister who has been told she is not adequate to receive God’s call on her life — and she believed it. And, yes, I grieve for male leaders who demand control and are threatened that God may be calling others as well.
And I hope any woman who feels called to minister will know the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship welcomes her with open arms.
The New York Times quoted William Wolfe, executive director of the Center for Baptist Leadership, as saying, “It feels good to win.” Really? Is this all about winning? Winning what?
Southern Baptists used to be known for trying to win folks to Christ. Now, you are feeling good about winning a floor vote? Just what is it you have won? What have you attained? And maybe a more important question is, what have you lost in the process?
Chuck Strong serves as pastor of University Baptist Church in Montevallo, Ala.