HOUSTON (ABP) — Nearly 20 years after its founding as a small breakaway group birthed by controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship exists today as a work of God’s grace, the group’s top executive said July 3.
“Our very existence is a testimony of grace and providence,” Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal said in his annual report to the CBF General Assembly.
“Our birth was a miracle,” Vestal said. “Our survival amidst brutal and sustained attacks against us is amazing. Our growth and influence within the Baptist family and the broader Christian community is humbling.”
Vestal, who has directed the organization since 1996, said today’s CBF is held together less by history or structure than by shared values, community and commitment to God’s mission for the world.
Vestal described the CBF as a “Jesus people,” a “Bible people” and a “mission people” with theological grounding including the notion that every church is free to order its own life and choose its own leaders.
Daniel Vestal says CBF is identified less by history or structure than by shared values and community.
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“I know there are people who think the Baptist witness is not relevant or important in the 21st century, but the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship disagrees,” Vestal said. “And one reason we disagree is because of our love of freedom.”
Vestal said people who make up the Fellowship “have a love affair with freedom.”
Vestal said the CBF provides a community both for Baptists and within the larger community of Christians.
“I know there are some who do not value community and connection beyond their own local churches, but for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship this larger community has become sweet and life giving,” he said
“For many of us CBF has become like an extended family that has shaped our Christian discipleship and formed our Baptist identity,” he said. “It has become a Fellowship in the biblical sense of the word. It has created relationships that have changed our lives.”
Vestal said nearly 2,000 churches partner in some way with CBF. Together they support 150 field personnel placed strategically around the world, have endorsed nearly 600 chaplains and pastoral counselors and serve churches through staff, partner ministries and state and regional organizations.
Tying those groups together, Vestal said, is a growing awareness of “the global mission of God.”
“I often hear the question, ‘Is CBF relevant to local Baptist churches and individual Baptist Christians?’ or ‘What is our future?'” Vestal said. “My answer is that our relevance and future is in proportion to our relevance to what God is doing in the world.”
“To the degree that we are missional and to the degree that we model being missional and to the degree that we help churches be missional, we will be vital and vibrant,” he said.
Ultimately, however, Vestal said the CBF owes its existence to providence, defined as “that mystery of God’s superintendence and grace unfolded in our individual, as well as collective, existence.”
“I know we are living in a recession,” Vestal said. “I know that we are in a culture — both secular and popular Christianity — that in many ways is hostile to what we believe. I also know that some of you live and serve in difficult and dangerous places.”
“I know some of you feel isolated, and at times discouraged,” he said. “I feel that way at times, but I believe in the grace of God and the providence of God working in and through us.”
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.