My friend, Joe Ball, is the Youth Strategist for the Kentucky Baptist Convention and he attended the SBC this week. He has a few thoughts about the convention that I considered to be more relevant than most of the stuff on the blogs this week about the Great Commission Resurgence, various and ridiculous motions, resolutions and even convention addresses by the mucky mucks.

Find it at Despising None.

It’s a short read, but far more profitable than most things you might spend your time on elsewhere.

click on logo for IVM page

Subtitled:  Guess that author…

Only an Institutional mind could conceive that the Mission of God would be fulfilled by the work of a denomination.  It can not, therefore it will not.

To the extent that any organization helps its participants, be it the local church facilitating the individual’s missional life or the various levels of denomination facilitating the church facilitating the individual’s missional life, then it is beneficial.

When that organization exists to duplicate the work of the church or, God forbid, that it should deviate so far as to simply seek its own survival, it should be flung as far as possible from the those pursuing the call of God to disciple the nations, for it will only impede their progress.

So, the bottom line from the group with whom I have been meeting is that we are all doing missions.  All of us.  Not one person is not connected to a stretching, servant oriented engagement in a far away place.

And we are already networked.  We all know each other and we are all interested in each other enough to drive to where we are to see each other and talk about it.

And we are all Southern Baptists who talked about trying to leverage the established infrastructure to accomplish what we are trying to accomplish, but found through several experiences that it just won’t happen.  That’s a long story and I’m not interested in rehearsing it or defending the observations of others, so I’ll leave it.

Because it’s not the point.

What is happening is that we are going ourselves, funding our own going and telling others about it in order to invite them along.

And God is doing amazing things.  Our churches are taking a externally focused, servant messenger position and it is changing… us.

I know.  You thought I was going to say it was changing the world.  God is certainly doing that and we are certainly privileged to be a part.

But the biggest change is in us.  We are more captivated and more excited and more engaged locally and more aware of those far from God than ever.

At this point, the only thing that we really lack is a more intentional process of involving others in what God is doing in and through us.

The rest is already done.

So, I’m meeting with some pastors this week and we are discussing how to get the message out to the world in ways that work since the world has changed so greatly since the last paradigms were formed.

Just casual discussions so far, but it is clear that we are all in agreement that churches (we are all Southern Baptists) have generally moved to a default position of paying others to do their missions for them.  This has been fortified by the party line that “by participating in the Cooperative Program, you participate in the spread of the Gospel to the far reaches of the world by providing for x number of Missionaries in y number of countries touching the lives of z number of people groups.”

Which is true.  But.  It’s also misleading.

A little bit makes it there, but mostly our CP dollars go everywhere but the field.  It’s just that missions is the poster board issue that gets churches to give, but they get only a fraction of the money we designate to the CP.  I’m not here to poke at the SBC today (maybe some other time) so take a deep breath fellas.  I’m not coming out of retirement to once again publicly expose the faults of my own convention.

I am here, though, to say that simply giving to the CP (or whatever other fund other denominations have) while sitting on our backsides is a tremendous waste of money and spiritual gifts.

I think the most efficient way to spread the good news of salvation is for churches to actually take the process into their own hands.  They can do more with the money and their own energy than any bureaucracy could alone.

I’ll probably write more on this later, but I’m going to bed now.  I’ll let you know what we come up with, if anything.

Oh.  One more thing.  We are NOT coming up with a competing denomination, so everyone getting ready to pounce and defend the SBC, relax.  I have no inclination to threaten its existence.  I think it is doing a fine job of that on its own.

The answer from William Carey, the “founder” of the modern protestant mission movement (italics are my emphasis):

It has been objected that there are multitudes in our own nation, and within our immediate spheres of action, who are as ignorant as the South-Sea savages, and that therefore we have enough work at home, without going into other countries.  That there are thousands in our own land as far from God as possible, I readily grant, and that this ought to excite us to ten-fold diligence to our work, and in attempts to spread divine knowledge among them is a certain fact; but that it ought to supersede all attempts to spread the gospel in foreign parts seems to want proof.  Our own countrymen have the means of grace, and may attend on the word preached if they choose it.  They have means of knowing the truth, and faithful ministers are placed in every part of the land, whose spheres of action might be much extended if their congregations were but more hearty and active in the cause; but with them the case is widely different, who have no Bible, no written language (which many of them have not), no ministers, no good civil government, nor any of those advantages which we have.  Pity therefore, humanity, and much more Christianity, call loudly for every possible exertion to introduce the gospel amongst them.

Concerning those who are content simply to pray for the lost without going:

Many can do nothing but pray, and prayer is perhaps the only thing in which Christians of all denominations can cordially, and unreservedly unite; but in this we may all be one, and in this the strictest unanimity ought to prevail.

We must not be contented however with praying, without exerting ourselves in the use of means for the obtaining of those things we pray for.  Were the children of light but as wise in their generation as the children of this world they would stretch every nerve to gain so glorious a prize, nor ever imagine that it was to be obtained in any other way.

From his seminal work, An Enquiry into the Obligation of Christians to use means for the Conversion of the Heathens, 1792.

Now let me ask this:  Do you think Carey would agree that contributing to a denominational structure that parses out pennies on the contributed dollar to the actual “Mission Field” is the same as a church taking the responsibility itself to go where the doors are open?  Even if it is far?  Even if the economy is dire?  Even if the cost prohibits some from making the journey?

So we made it back from camp Saturday.  We had a stomach bug throughout the latter part of the week which kept us on our toes… and knees… and…erm… seats.  Well, we’re back and we took a victory lap last night during the evening service.  Way beyond surviving the bug, we had a couple of salvations, several re-dedications and even a handful of students who have surrendered to ministry and missions.  On top of all of that, our missions fire has been kindled in our Youth Ministry and they are asking for opportunities to go and tell.

Yes!  Really good stuff.

Tomorrow is the Founder’s Conference in Owasso, just north of Tulsa, and I am going, if the Lord wills.  My laptop is acting like the motherboard is about to abandon all hope.  Thankfully, it booted this afternoon and I ran to the store and bought myself an external hard drive to back up all my stuff.  All of that is to say that I may or may not live blog all or part of the conference.

Nothing like a firm commitment, huh?

Ed Stetzer and Voddie Baucham are among the speakers at a conference about church planting and church reformation.  I’m looking forward to it.

Having sufficiently avoided the SBC as a regular topic of my blog for the last year, I think it is relatively safe to give you a few thoughts on the Presidential election happening about 2:45 pm today in Indianapolis.  That’s Central Time, if you didn’t know.

It fascinates me that there are six known candidates and more possibly on the way.  After the last two years, who knows?  We could end up with a baker’s dozen after it is done.

Not knowing the total nominees, I would have no real idea how to predict the vote fallout.  Even if I did, predicting these things has become somewhat less certain than it once was, which is a good thing.

Therefore, I will simply give a couple of thoughts about the overall situation and very weak predictions.

I suspect that Frank Cox or Johnny Hunt will win in a runoff.  They represent the status quo crowd and they are more the “typical” nominee:  Mega Church, the SBC is greater than ever and let’s get out there and win them lost folks by working harder at the same things we’ve been doing.  Curious to me is the fact that Johnny Hunt is running at all.

Johnny has been buffaloed out twice:  once by Bobby Welch and the other by the SBC blogosphere questioning his church’s Cooperative Program giving.  It seemed to most, and certainly to me, that he didn’t want to divide the convention and wanted no part of a “fight” for the presidency.  Now, however, with Cox apparently anointed by the status quo crowd, Hunt jumps in to give those voters a couple of options.

This was somewhat precarious two years ago, with that group of voters divided, allowing Frank Page to win on the first ballot.  I pointed out, at the time, that Page received more votes than both men combined (hence the first ballot win), it showed a vulnerability when running multiple candidates.

I wonder, with them both being from Georgia, how well they know each other and if there is a degree to which Johnny thinks that he’s better for the job.  Who knows?  Not I.

Nevertheless, odd as it may be, they are still both better known than almost everyone else combined.  I suppose that you could lump the other four known candidates into the “reformer” category, though their respective ideas of reform are not all the same.

I’ll not try to give a synopsis for each one, but suffice it to say that Wiley Drake’s ideas of reform are surely different than all the rest.

Les Puryear is to be nominated by the very passionate and well spoken Dwight McKissic.  Let us not forget that Forrest Pollock did more to win Frank Page the election 2 years ago than anyone else, so don’t underplay the nominator.  Let us also not forget that Junior Hill will also be on the stage.  He’s good, and people know him better, which gives Cox an edge.

Les is a small church pastor and has been celebrated this year with the small church conference created by him and hosted at his church with many of the luminaries from the SBC as well as partnerships from Lifeway and the IMB.  That’s tall cotton.  For a small church pastor.

Unfortunately, Johnny Hunt preaches to thousands of SBC pastors every year in various venues and was in his traditional post at the Pastor’s conference this year.  It is a machine, of sorts, and hard to conquer.

Les does have the fact that he represents the average voter in the hall this afternoon.  Going against Les is the reality that most of those guys don’t celebrate the small church the way Les does.  They really want to be Johnny Hunt.  Or Frank Cox.  Or any Mega Church pastor.  Or even a larger than their church pastor.

Which brings us, finally, to the Missionaries.  Bill Wagner seems like a nice enough guy, but he is not well known.  Those that know him are not all convinced, either, so I doubt that he will pull many votes int he first round.  I do admire the straightforward attitude he brought to the campaign, though.  There was no dream/vision, etc.  He simply thought he would be good for the SBC.  I like it.

Avery Willis, though, is the only reformer that I think stands a chance.  Primarily because people know him better than the others and if reformers show up, they will likely do so on behalf of the IMB and its ongoing struggles with the “guidelines” restricting missionary candidates.  I recently read in the Florida Baptist Witness (online) that the “guidelines” were a settled issue and that they weren’t going to be dealt with by the BOT anytime in the near future.  It may well be that the power structure of the BOT considers them settled, but it is clear that the SBC does not.

If enough of those SBC pastors show up at convention, Avery stands a chance, albeit a slim one.

If you are looking for info on the SBC this week, I am sorry that I will not providing the blow by blow for you as I have the last two years.

On the other hand, if you want some long term thinking about the SBC, I can’t recommend any higher to you this post by my friend, Marty Duren:

ie:missional » Dallas Morning News on Denominational Decline

We’re having VBS this week, and we’re off to Falls Creek for camp next week.  Yea!

Bell Shoals Baptist Church – Pastor’s Page

On the Bell Shoals website today is the notice that Forrest Pollock and his 13 year old son have passed from this world. They were on a trip in the family owned aircraft, piloted by the pastor.

This event has shaken me more than I could have realized. It is tragic, to be sure, but Forrest is etched in my memory as dynamic and alive, swaying the crowd in Greensboro. Many of us … many who frequently received and still receive credit for the election of Frank Page … immediately attributed the election to the nomination speech of Forrest Pollock. I did and still do.

I say that not to tap into the political realm of the SBC, but to capture the magnitude of a young, vibrant man who stood to the microphone and held the SBC in his sway, if but for a moment, at a crucial point in our history.

On my heart more than that moment is the loss of his 13 year old son. Having a 13 year old son myself, I am caught by the overwhelming drive to keep him from harm and I sensed that particular loss of the Pollock family, immediately in my mind.

My heart and prayers are with the Pollocks and with Bell Shoals. I encourage you to pray for them as well.

Something crossed my mind the other day and I just couldn’t let it go. In a discussion over a year ago on Missional Cooperation, a Seminary Student included this thought in a comment left on my blog:

“by giving to the cp, they are already giving to ‘their mission dollars to missions they themselves are doing.’”

Apr 10th, 2007 at 8:03 am

I really could not forget that statement and the mindset it represents. Finally, I would just like to put it to be by saying a hearty:

“NUH UHHHH!”

Participation in the Cooperative Program is not doing missions. It is paying someone else to do missions. I’m not saying supporting missionaries that live in a context of lost people is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, I think we should be giving much more to the field.

However, sending money is not the same as personal engagement. We need to be a church that is engaging people in Tulsa, North America and around the world, as described in Acts 1:8. Us. Our church.

The CP has done amazing things, but one of the negative consequences is that our people have become convinced that they do not need to actually get up and do something but by sending some money to the CP, they’ve done missions. and. that. is. a. lie.