DURHAM, N.C. (ABP) — Moderate Baptists and mules have a lot in common. Both are strong and hard-working, and both have problems reproducing — at least according to Curtis Freeman.
But a nationwide network of churches is banding together to end that similarity — the reproduction part, that is — and avert a clergy shortage in the years ahead.
So far about 40 churches across the nation have joined the Shiloh Network, a covenant-based program to discover and mentor ministers. The network is getting help from several Baptist organizations, including the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, the Fund for Theological Education, the Center for Congregational Health, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Baptist House at Duke Divinity School.
“What we're really trying to do here is find a way to help moderate Baptists learn how to reproduce,” said Freeman, the director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School. “It's good to be strong, but we also want to help folks to have some babies.”
The idea of developing a Baptist culture more conducive to calling young people to ministry has emerged in recent years among local churches, according to several people involved in the Shiloh Network. Freeman and George Mason, senior pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, have each preached about the need for more young pastoral candidates in moderate Baptist life.
Freeman preached at Wilshire more than four years ago about the need for a “culture of call” for young pastors, and in 2003, Mason spoke at Duke about the “ecology of vocational ministry” in local churches.
“If their mothers don't drop them off at the doorstep of our offices, then we need to be looking around for young people who have the aptitude and the appetite for spiritual things,” Mason said in his speech. “We need to take initiative about this.”
Three years later, that initiative began in earnest during Duke's “Baptist Heritage Week.” Now with a 13-member steering committee, the Shiloh Network hosted a Feb. 22 meeting aimed at equipping churches to actively recruit and develop young Baptists for pastoral work.
Terry Hamrick, CBF's coordinator for leadership development, was there.
“The whole idea of vocational discovery is a key part of CBF,” Hamrick said. “We see a critical need for this, and the discovering leaders piece is right in line with what we're doing at CBF.”
Hamrick said his goal involves convincing as many churches as possible to “take seriously their calling” of investing time and energy in pastoral development.
To that end, Freeman sent his covenant letter to 400 churches listed in his personal nationwide database.
“The covenant defines what we are and what we are promising to one another,” Freeman said. “We will pledge to one another to make our churches communities of calling. And this applies to churches and to individuals as well.”
The breadth and depth of the response has encouraged Freeman. Participating churches include First Baptist in Tyler, Texas, and the 207-year-old Cane Creek Baptist Church of Hillsborough, N.C. And while some churches will have more resources than others to invest in the mentorship, Freeman said, discussing the work and supporting others remains its ultimate goal.
“We all commit to [attend] a service or retreat once a year, and each congregation has to develop its own plan,” Freeman said. “One of the things we'll be trying to do all the time is talk about the work in our churches, trying to learn from each other.”
Part of that learning involves discussing how to convince parents of the value a religious career has for their child. Lately, Freeman said, parents have steered their children away from vocations in the ministry, opting instead for “respectable” jobs in medicine or law. According to Freeman, more than two thirds of seminary students nationwide will not go on to church-based vocational ministry.
Freeman said he prays that his young grandson might someday work in a pastoral role, and he said that everyone on the Shiloh Network board “feels that way about our kids.”
“A lot of times when moderate Baptists get together, they grouse,” he said. “But we care. We want to see young men and women come along in this [ministry] life. It's a good life.”
Mason echoed that sentiment.
“More of us need to be searching out young people who are slumbering in pursuits they weren't meant for,” Mason said in his Duke address. “We need to call them by name and see if behind our voices they hear the voice of God calling them, saying, 'You belong to me. I have an important mission that needs your service.'”
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