I’m watching friends who graduated from Baptist seminaries change denominations. I’m beginning to think they are no different than politicians who change political party affiliations to get re-elected. What is the appropriate sense of denominational loyalty these days?
The competition for a minister’s loyalty begins early, often even in assessing a Baptist seminary to attend. Affiliations are important; considerations may include a seminary’s national denominational affiliation, state or regional convention ties, institutional connections, combinations of these or sometimes no formal relationship at all. The traditional, assumed ties of a school to a denomination sometimes are not easily discernible in our time. The affiliation of the seminary, or lack thereof, certainly affects the denominational considerations of the student.
As a seminarian graduates, a calling to a local church may lead to a congregation that supports one denomination exclusively or to another that allocates money to two or more denominations or conventions. Serving a local church that supports varying groups may feel more like herding cats than shepherding sheep. In many Baptist churches, the minister must learn to provide leadership and ministry to congregants with pre-existing, entrenched loyalties to different Baptist affiliations and other Christian groups.
Therefore, the allegiances of both schools and churches can perplex and even obstruct a minister’s path of influence. That conundrum may leave the minister feeling denominationally homeless. However, allegiance to a denomination ultimately should intersect with the integrity of the minister’s calling. In which setting can the minister most completely live out God’s personal call? In matters of biblical interpretation, which denomination provides the truest vehicle through which the minister can align the call? In areas of church polity, which denomination most appropriately encourages the minister to serve the local church as called? In concerns of mission, which denomination most wholly supports the minister’s endeavor to share Christ?
The local church is not immune from these complexities. As you seek ministers for your congregation, which seminary or denominational association do most of your members prefer? How do you describe your church’s denominational loyalty? Investigate the individual nature of the minister’s calling. Examine God’s calling in the minister’s life in connection with God’s direction in the church’s life. Appropriate denominational loyalty is an expression of God’s unmistakable activity in collective lives devoted to him. Denominations are conduits through which the minister and the church best follow the will of God—nothing more and nothing less.
Allen Reasons is senior minister of Fifth Avenue Baptist Church in Huntington, W.Va. Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology. Contributors include Baptists in Virginia, Texas, Missouri and other states. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to [email protected].