The Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) Task Force doesn’t have anything to do with associations,” International Mission Board (IMB) President Jerry Rankin told Alabama Baptist directors of missions (DOM) Nov. 16.
Speaking in Huntsville during the group’s annual gathering, which takes place alongside the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting, Rankin reminded the DOMs that associations are accountable only to the churches they represent. But he also acknowledged the concerns that exist about what the task force’s upcoming recommendations might mean.
The GCR Task Force was appointed by Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) President Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Ga., in June. The 23-member task force, including Hunt, has been meeting regularly since then and plans to unveil a proposal to update the structure of the SBC at or before the 2010 SBC annual meeting in June in Orlando, Fla. Rumors about what this could mean have been rampant, and deep concerns exist across the SBC.
“Obviously there is going to be some spin off (from the GCR Task Force’s recommendations),” Rankin said. “Will it create a domino effect in which churches try to change state conventions, associations and so forth?
“It all comes back to what is a Great Commission resurgence,” he said. “How we define it makes a big difference. Is it to have more baptisms? Is it to reverse the decline in our membership? Is it to have a spiritual vitality? Or is it about reaching the nations and proclaiming the gospel?”
Rankin said a Great Commission resurgence will not happen because of a restructuring of the SBC, state conventions or associations.
“It’s not going to happen through convention programs and strategies,” he added. “If we have a Great Commission resurgence, it is going to spring up from a grass-roots movement of the people sharing Jesus Christ.”
And DOMs “are at the heart of the matter,” Rankin noted. “No one is in a strategic position as much as directors of missions to serve and facilitate our churches.”
What does a Great Commission resurgence look like?
About 4,000 churches have been started in recent years in East Asia, Rankin said. About 400,000 Muslims have become followers of Christ and have been baptized in South Asia. And 70 percent of the more than 11 million people in Cuba have received a gospel tract, “JESUS” film or face to face witness, he said.
“Folks, I think that is what a Great Commission resurgence looks like,” Rankin said, noting that his perspective on the providence of God has changed. “To think we have some type of patriarchal pride (as Southern Baptists) that because we are the largest denomination, if we don’t do it, the Great Commission won’t happen,” he added. “(But) God’s not waiting on us.”
“I would love to tell you this massive harvest in [Asia] and sweeping across Cuba is because of the IMB,” Rankin said. “Folks, it’s not. It is the power of God moving to fulfill His mission.”
In Romans 11, Paul wrote about Israel being called to declare Him to the nations, Rankin said. “But they became self-centered. They lost their focus on the mission to which God had called them.
“Their hearts were hardened and their eyes became blind.” Explaining the rest of the passage, Rankin said, “The nations, the Gentiles, will be reached. God’s mission will be fulfilled, but Israel will have no part of it.
“I think that may speak an awesome word of admonishment to our people,” he said. “I think it is evident in our research that the healthiest church is the one reproducing and multiplying. We’ve gotten away from understanding the dynamic power of a transformed life.”
Southern Baptists also are misusing the guidance in Acts 1:8, Rankin said. “Too many times, we’ve reversed the Acts 1:8 paradigm — ‘in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’
“Too many of us have an attitude that we meet our Jerusalem first and then Judea and then Samaria and then the ends of the earth,” he said. “But there’s no ‘then’ there. That whole paradigm is our responsibility.
“Jesus didn’t just die for you and me but to give us a message of hope for the nations,” Rankin explained. “Everyone should have opportunity to hear and understand. By what criteria should anyone be deprived of hearing the gospel?”
It is a vision to reach “the ends of the earth” that will revitalize Southern Baptists to reach the lost in their local communities and states, “not in reverse,” he said. “Until that is our vision and commitment — to reach the nations and peoples of the world — we won’t have a Great Commission resurgence.”
Noting there is one Southern Baptist missionary for every 1.6 million people in the world currently, Rankin said, “Look how many directors of missions, pastors, churches and state convention (personnel) there is just for the 4.6 million people in Alabama.
“We’ll never have enough missionaries, but if we could mobilize 42 state conventions, 1,200 associations, 43,000 churches and 16 million Southern Baptists to become strategically involved in fulfilling our Great Commission, the task is doable,” he said. “I believe God has blessed and raised up Southern Baptist numbers and resources, not to take pride but, to be His instrument to reach a lost world and fulfill the Great Commission.
“I believe God would have every association become a franchise of the IMB,” Rankin said. “When your association becomes a part of [the global focus], we’ll see a Great Commission without a task force, restructuring or any other change in our denomination.”
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