MARION, N.C. (ABP) — With the death of founding coordinator Cecil Sherman and the approaching 20th anniversary of its birth, the national Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is reaching a point where its viability into the future will either be cemented or proven unlikely.
Current CBF Coordinator Daniel Vestal, 65, wonders why CBF viability would be questioned, though one of the prime movers in CBF’s formation said years ago he considered it to be a “one-generation movement.”
“I disagree,” Vestal said, during a recent interview during a break in revival services he was preaching in North Carolina.
CBF Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal is interviewed in between revival services at a North Carolina church. (Biblical Recorder photo)
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“We were born out of the fires of conflict and a struggle for freedom, as was nearly every other Baptist organization I know,” Vestal said. “The principles that birthed us — the love of freedom and the love of mission — have found new expressions for a changing culture and a changing world.”
Some Southern Baptists upset with the direction of the Southern Baptist Convention met in 1990 in Atlanta to discuss options and formed CBF, which launched officially the following May. The group will hold its annual General Assembly June 23-26 in Charlotte, N.C.
“The SBC became a convention that had a command-and-control culture,” Vestal said. “Either you conformed to that culture or you didn’t have a place of influence or leadership … even fellowship. That was contrary to the Baptist spirit of freedom, autonomy and priesthood.”
Originally CBF was founded simply as a missionary-sending agency, but has since offered a financial and spiritual impetus for the starting of other ministries.
Its admission to the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) was a significant factor in the Southern Baptist Convention’s withdrawing from that worldwide Baptist body.
One reason Southern Baptists protested CBF’s admission to the BWA was that CBF is not a denomination. Such distinction is “not important” to anyone under age 40 said Vestal, and the CBF is “an association of Baptist churches and individuals.”
Although CBF “functions in many ways like what in the past we called a convention,” the group elects no trustees and owns no institutions, he noted. When asked how he would describe his own denomination, Vestal said he is, simply, “Baptist.”
CBF quickly matured beyond “reacting” to the SBC and developed its own identity apart from being “anti-SBC,” he said. When asked about several current issues in Southern Baptist life, Vestal professed unawareness.
The common denominator for CBF churches, he said, is that, “We share a passion for the Great Commission and Baptist principles of faith and practice.”
Members “want to be a part of something bigger than themselves,” Vestal said. “Many want to honor and live out the Baptist tradition that nurtured them. But they want to do that in very different ways than convention Baptists, so we are Fellowship Baptists more than convention Baptists.”
CBF commitments
Vestal believes CBF is the “face of the future” and that denominations that survive into the future will look and function more like CBF, which is committed to the local church as “the center of the missions enterprise.”
Additionally, “We’re committed to women in ministry, which is the future,” he said. “The Southern Baptist culture that denies women can be pastors is not only out of touch with the Spirit, it’s out of touch with Scripture.
“Thirty percent of the churches in China have female pastors.”
CBF also is committed to “biblical justice.” Vestal said, “Our understanding of the gospel is that commitment to justice is as important as personal salvation. The Kingdom of God is coming, it has come.”
Many — perhaps most — of CBF’s partner churches remain at least marginally connected with state and national Southern Baptist bodies, Vestal noted.
He believes local churches affiliating with multiple partners is a feature of the future.
He said “the day is over” when local churches can be expected to operate exclusively within a certain structure identified by a denominational tag. Instead, they will partner “with whoever they choose to partner with to fulfill their mission.”
Although Vestal doesn’t expect the CBF to become a “majoritarian movement” anytime soon, he said, “I think we have a bright future.”
Age of adolescence
At age 20, he said his organization is “barely out of adolescence” and “what God has done in the last 20 years is really remarkable.”
Vestal 65, has recovered from prostate cancer. He said it is natural at his age to think about his future and that of CBF, although he has no “clarity about when I’ll retire.”
The son of a pastor, Vestal was a youth evangelist, and became a pastor at age 25.
He pastored churches for 27 years before spending the last 13 at the helm of CBF, which was a toddler when he took it by the hand. His two sons and daughter have all been ordained to ministry.
“I really believe CBF is a renewal movement within the Baptist family,” Vestal said. “God’s not through yet with Baptist churches.”
Norman Jameson is editor of the North Carolina Baptist Biblical Recorder.