12 Witnesses

I’ve done, now, several posts on young people leaving church (pt. 1, pt. 2, remix, remix redux), but now Lifeway has produced some data revealing that young people are dropping the convention (at least the annual meeting) as well. That is to say, these stats reflect, not that young people are leaving the SBC (that would be the implication of the previous studies referenced), but that young Southern Baptists are absent during the annual meeting.

Scott McConnell said it best in the article when he said, “The general trend is the aging of attendees at the Southern Baptist Convention.” I think I say it better: People aren’t leaving the convention (annual meeting), they just aren’t starting. The surey shows that the same group of people who surged to the meeting back during the CR have remained very faithful to the meeting year after year.

Ed Stetzer, as usual, has a pointed insight:

“Oddly enough, in some quarters there has actually been a debate about whether the SBC attendance is aging and losing its young leaders,” Stetzer said. “Of course, facts don’t convince everyone. My hope is that now, finally, we will stop debating and instead ask the hard question: ‘What is causing so many young leaders to stay away?’

Allow me to speak for myself here, if not for Younger Leaders(1), and answer the question of the day, voiced by Ed.

The SBC I grew up in was a culture and environment that valued the Word of God as Inerrant. The current SBC is a place where the reading of an Inerrant Word is no longer Sufficient, but particular applications(2) of God’s Word have now become divisive - the various resolutions, lawsuits and consistent misrepresentations of others being most openly experienced at the meeting itself.

Moreover, the SBC in which I was raised taught me that the purpose of our organizing as a convention was to better reach the world for Christ. If you have read much of what I have written over the last two years, it comes as no surprise that I perceive the SBC to be regularly marginalizing our missions efforts by prioritizing petty power plays over the smooth implication of our global strategy. Excuse me, our international strategy. We still do not have a unified strategy of reaching the world. Back to the power plays, the censuring of Wade Burleson AFTER he offered to resign and quit blogging right before the Lottie Moon offering is our latest, greatest example.

It does go much deeper than Wade and the IMB, however. The former practice of Inner Circle chosen Presidents running unopposed sends the message loud and clear to young leaders that they are not needed. Now that the practice has been put to an end, is that enough to draw out younger leaders from the next generation?

Unfortunately, it is not the only thing that YSBC (Young SBC) wants or needs from the annual meeting. In terms of missionality, younger leaders want to spend their limited conference time and money on that which will help them accomplish being more missional as well as leading their church to be more missional.(3) At this point, the Pastor’s Conference is anything but useful to that end. Typically, it is the same people encouraging us to do the same things only harder, and I just don’t buy it. I suspect that leaders younger than I buy even less.

All of this begs the question, “Can we fix it?”(4) My answer? I honestly don’t know. At this point, I am rapidly losing my concern with the survival of the SBC and have elevated to top priority the survival of the Gospel in America, western culture and the world.(5) IF the SBC is capable of bringing it’s focus alongside mine and causing the annual meeting to be beneficial to me in pursuing the priorities I have expressed, then it will be worth the time and money to attend. Unless it does, it will not.

I do think I will be at Indy this year, but only because the election of this year’s president will, in my mind, make the difference as to whether or not it is possible to become relevant again. I feel I owe that much. Beyond that, I have no long term plans.

I hope that answers Ed’s question.

*note about comments: At this point, my hosting company seems to be on holiday vacation. The corrupted comment table (thus the ability to comment) may not be up until later in the week.

———–ENDNOTES—————————-

1. It should be noted that I am now 41, and not a Younger Leader by any sense of the word. I am not claiming a voice from their perspective.

2. Please note that I did not use the word “interpretations”. Even now among Southern Baptists, very few interpretations are in dispute. It is the application of the interpretation that now often divides us.

3. They would not mind, I suspect, if people on the podium understood the concept instead of simply parroting it as a new “buzz word” throughout the week.

4. That is to say, if your mind doesn’t jump to the next question, “Should we fix it?”

5. America and western culture because that is where I live and I am called to evangelize wherever I am. The world, because I am also called to evangelize where I am not by going there with the good news.

Still working on the comments, which are still down, but I can still post. I know it’s late on Friday, but here’s a couple of pics of my in-laws house last night after a snow fall. It’s late, so the shutter is open for a while and since I didn’t have a tripod, there is a hair’s worth of blur if you blow it up. Still, it’s not bad, though, given the circumstances.

Hey, something happened to my comments yesterday. The database was corrupted (I think by a spam trackback). I have a physical backup of most of my significant comments from years gone by, but it may be a while before it can be restored. We are awfully busy right now getting ready for Christmas and family.

Back with you soon.

Three Myths about Church Dropouts, by Sam Rainer, gives us quite a bit to think about on the topic of the church’s failure to reach and keep what has become now two American generations in a row.

Brief overview and then a couple of thoughts:

The three myths are that High School Students drop out of church at a rate of about 70% between the ages of 18-22 (for at least one year) BECAUSE… 1) The influence of a secular university has pulled them away, 2) They were already planning to leave as soon as they left home anyway (80% say they had planned to continue in church) and 3) Church Scandals, enhanced by the media, have left them disenchanted.

Most of you know that I was in Youth Ministry for 19 years before becoming Lead Pastor for SDBC a year and a half ago. The fact that I have been pursuing that generation for the length of it’s existence as teenagers is part of what led the committee to settle on me to help lead Skelly Drive to pursue that same generation as adults. Obviously, I processed Sam’s post in light of those years spent with these kids right before they left church. Honestly, at the end of my time in Youth Ministry, my chief frustration was with so many promising kids that had walked away from church after they walked away from High School.

It reminded me of some other statistics from the Barna Group recently referenced by Joe Ball, youth guru (and friend) at the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He posted these on his blog, and you should read them.

My OPINION of all of this, through the filter of personal observation as well as statistics, boils down to this:

Youth ministry is often more like the church ought to be than the rest of the church. Not in the gross games nights (I could tell you some stories…), but in that the Youth Group usually does these things well: They are extremely relational; they encourage personal walks with God that are more successful because they are practically facilitated by the ministry; they don’t assume that the participants understand complex theological nuances - or care that much - so Biblical teaching is broken down in to easy to understand and apply teaching points; and the processes of church are explained - like why we worship the way we do, for example.

Most of that stuff disappears when you leave Youth Ministry, and it becomes much less attractive, I think. I recognize that not all Youth Groups share the above list, but the good ones do. One thing that they all share - no matter what - and the thing I think is the biggest factor in young adults checking out of church: relationality. We crave relationships and the church should always be about good, godly relationships with the ultimate relationship being the example of all others: our relationship with God.

You may remember that our church, Skelly Drive Baptist Church, is planning a trip to Vietnam in 2008. Actually, we hope to possibly send a second group in the Fall.

Anyway, it turns out that one of the major people groups that we will be trying to reach are the Hmong people (the “h” is silent in the pronunciation). It so happens that we host a group of Hmong people, the Tulsa Hmong Alliance, that worship in our facility. They are a kind and humble group of people and in an effort to share their gratitude to us for hosting them in our facility, they took the staff out to eat, early in December.

Just spending time with them caused our hearts to long for them with the heart of Christ. I was so humbled by their generosity. They didn’t have much - the couple we sat across from both worked long hours at factory jobs to put their kids through college - but they were so kind and gracious to us, not wanting us to pay for anything.

Let me give you a few things gleaned from the evening.

There are two main groups of Hmongs and they spread across several borders in Asia. China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos are the ones that spring to mind, but I think there are even more. My wife asked what country the Hmong people were from (our friends are from Laos), but I interjected that they were from several countries, that the Hmong people predate the current political borders and that these borders just lay across the places where this people group have lived for “hundreds and hundreds of years.” I then turned and asked the Chairman of the Board how old the Hmong people were, and he politely said, “Yes, the Hmong people are about 6,000 years old.”

All of my friends - and my wife in particular - looked at me and snickered. “That’s what I said. Hundreds and THOUSANDS of years old!” I exclaimed.

Bob Roberts’ church, Northwood in Keller, is the connection that led us to this trip in the first place. In Bob’s book, Glocalization, Bob talks about God’s heart for cities - that God always sends messengers to the cities (Chapter 3). Now, when I read it, I processed that thought academically. That is to say, I understood what he was saying, but I wasn’t sure how much I believed in that thought.

Sitting across from our friends and talking about the work of God among the Hmong people, they began to say that the Lord was moving and that many of their people were beginning to turn their hearts to the Lord. My wife asked if they had family back in Laos and had they come to know the Lord. The wife of Tulsa Hmong Alliance Treasurer (who works 12 hours/day M-F and 6 hours on Saturday = 60 hrs/week) said that she had an aunt who still lived in Laos, but she did not know the Lord. What she said next hit me like a brick. She said that her aunt did not yet know the Lord because she lived too far away from the city. The people with the message of Christ had not made it to where she lived, yet. They are praying for someone in her village to come to the city and hear the Gospel, so that they can go back with the message. Hopefully, that person will be her aunt, she said.

At that point, Bob’s observation moved from abstract missiological stratagem to real world practicality of the saved and lost around the world.

Anyway, the night was intended to help us feel appreciated. Rather, it sparked in us a greater passion to reach the Hmong people with the Gospel.

I have decried many things in the Southern Baptist Convention over the last couple of years, but I have to say that I have been a long time fan of Baptist Disaster Relief. This ministry is real “put your money where your mouth is” kind of stuff and it is well worth an “attaboy.”

When Bradley Whitford decried American evangelicals’ failure to act in the wake of hurricane Katrina on Bill Maher’s late night tv show, asking, “Where’s the compassion?” I wanted to jump through the TV and say, “Hey! Southern Baptists were there among the first and the longest, voluntarily meeting the needs of those hurting!”

In the last couple of months I had seen a news item referring to Oklahoma Disaster Relief, as if it were a state run entity, only to see our Disaster Relief Logo and yellow attire when they rolled the video footage.

But this post is not to decry the failure of the world to give us our due. They are lost. What more can you expect? As previously discussed on this blog, they have a negative view of us already, and it is going to be a long, hard haul to change that.

In the meantime, let me say that we are grateful to have a many teams on hand in Tulsa, including a team from Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis who are staying with us the week before Christmas, after arriving at the tail end of a light snow storm last night. This team was raring to go and asked if we would object if they took the assessment sheets that had been turned in and started on them first thing this morning. They were very concerned that they would not offend
anyone, which I appreciated.

My response, which I repeated to loud affirmation this morning in the worship service, was that they were here to be a light to the lost and the last time I checked, the lost weren’t in church. They were making the most of the time, for the days are not only evil, but cold and powerless still for many.

I don’t have as many cool pictures as some of my friends who have also been buried in ice this week. I left my camera at the church and didn’t want to get out to go get it - primarily because of the man driving his pick up truck down the ice free street only to have a telephone pole fall directly onto the cab of the truck with live power lines dangling from it. Although he probably died instantly, the rescue workers couldn’t even attempt to save him until PSO turned of the power to those lines. Obviously, it was tragic.

It was also informative, as far as I was concerned. I had power and risking my life for the sake of having a camera nearby just didn’t make sense - so I didn’t do it. Our places looked pretty much like the others you have seen on the net over the last two days.

As debris was cleared from the streets and trees, poles and whatever else quit falling, several church members made their way to the church to open the kitchen and Family Life Center to warm and feed those in need. I am so proud of our church and the deep desire there is to reach out to those in need. We have shifts opening and closing the church and shifts of people feeding those who need a meal. The church next door is a Red Cross Disaster Relief Shelter, and we are the overflow for them.

We just got a phone call from Baptist Disaster Relief and they are sending a chain saw crew to come stay with us. We’ll feed, house and research places for them to get out and clear limbs from peoples’ yards. Baptist Disaster Relief is one of the best things we do as Southern Baptists, and are glad to help these folks do service to our community.

Pray for us. The forecast is for a couple of inches of snow over the weekend and we still have many, many without power in our city and state.

Facing a massive ice storm, trees and telephone poles falling all around us, power lines in the street and many without electricity - the postman is still making his rounds.

How does the old slogan go?

Check out some of my other Phriday fotos or even more on my photoblog.

Tulsa was built on oil. The town just South of Tulsa is named Glenpool after the pool of oil found underneath the surface by a guy named, you guessed it, Glen. Our minor league baseball team is the Drillers and the Hockey team is the Oilers. Others can fill in more, if they choose.

A few months ago, Michael Nunn, a Tulsa native and one of the sons of Skelly Drive Baptist Church, asked for a picture of a little Tulsa flavor: The Tulsa Driller. It was a while before I could work my way over there with my camera and some time, Michael, but here you go…

Think Thom Rainer’s book Simple Church only applies to church? Apparently not.

I’ve been wanting to blog about our upcoming Mission Trip to Vietnam and the Hmong (the “h” is silent) church that we host in our church facility. The Hmong people group is one of the primary people groups among whom we will be ministering in Vietnam and our relationship with them here is just chockerbock full of God stuff.

That will have to wait for several reasons. I want to give it the time it deserves, I want to post a Phriday foto tomorrow and I have to post quickly now.

So why has it waited all this week? What does this have to do with Simple Church?

Well, it seems that I had installed a plugin to my Wordpress powered blog here called, “Bad Behavior.” This plugin helps keep spammers off of your sight by adding them to a blacklist when they try to spam your blog. All of a sudden, this script was running on anyone who tried to login to the administration page - me, the tech support guy at Bluehost (my hosting service) and even David Phillips was stuck. For a half a day, anyway, until he got to a computer and figured out the problem.

What we did was remove the plugin all together and - tada - 12 Witnesses is back in business. Yea.

While I was in Jackson for the Baptist Identity Conference, I had one script go crazy and start running up my load on the server, which caused the server to shut my blog down in order that I might not overload, crash or just not take more than my fair share of, the server resources.

In discussing the issue, I determined that I should go through and clean out a lot of the plugins that I have in my system. I don’t use quite a few of them and even more aren’t necessary.

Bottom line: The more scripts you have running in the background of your blog, the more likely you are to grind to a halt because something goes wrong or your resources become consumed and you are unable to perform the functions for which you were designed. Therefore, over the weekend I will be deleting all but the most necessary plugins that I have.

Simple Church? Simple blog.