Would you vote against motherhood and apple pie? Of course not. There are some things all of us support or at least say we do. The recently released “Toward a Great Commission Resurgence” declaration is like motherhood and apple pie. All of us support practically every word in the document. We support a commitment to Christ’s lordship, to gospel centeredness for our personal lives as well as the lives of our churches and denominational ministries. We support a commitment to the great commandments to love God and to love others.
Southern Baptists are united around the firm conviction in the full truthfulness and complete sufficiency of Christian Scripture in all matters of faith and practice. We believe the Baptist Faith and Message is a sufficient guide for building a theological consensus for partnership in the gospel. We believe in biblically healthy churches, in sound biblical preaching and in methodological diversity that is biblically informed. And certainly we believe in distinctively Christian families.
It does not take a special Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) task force to examine these nine commitments. Baptists are already united around them. It is the 10th commitment in this declaration — a commitment to a more effective convention structure — that causes some SBC leaders to see the need for a new task force. SBC president Johnny Hunt has taken the lead in rolling out the “Toward a Great Commission Resurgence” declaration and calling for Southern Baptists across the nation to sign on. However, the document is the acknowledged brainchild of Southeastern Seminary president Danny Akin who shared the original version of the commitments document with Hunt. Southern Seminary president Al Mohler and LifeWay Christian Resources president Thom Rainer also had input to the document in its current form.
These and other SBC leaders are concerned that SBC statistics continue to drift downward — baptisms, membership, Sunday School attendance, even percentage of giving to the Cooperative Program (CP). A reason for this downward slide, the document says, is that the denomination has failed “to understand how mid-20th century methods and strategies are not working in the 21st century.”
Surprisingly the resurgence declaration makes no mention of the Covenant for a New Century adopted by Southern Baptists in 1995. That action restructured the national convention in order to avoid the plight now described in the new document. The new structure was to prepare Southern Baptists for the new century, not perpetuate the past century.
All of us lament the statistical declines, but are they the result of denominational structure? No. People are led to faith in Christ through the work of local churches, not denominational structure. Believers join churches, not a denomination. Missions are done by churches. The International Mission Board has repeatedly emphasized that mission boards do not do missions “for the churches.” Rather, boards “enable the churches to do missions.”
It must never be forgotten that in Baptist life it is the church that is supreme, not the denomination.
The “Toward a Great Commission Resurgence” declaration has been called “a work in progress.” That is a good thing. The first draft referred to state conventions as “bloated and inefficient bureaucracies with red tape a mile long.” Now the document says “denominational structures at all levels need to be streamlined for more faithful stewardship of the funds entrusted to them.” The change in tone is welcomed. In Alabama, for example, the size of the state staff has decreased by 20 percent in the last 10 years. And Alabama Baptists do their work in the sunlight of open meetings and full reporting by the state Baptist paper. It is messengers from cooperating churches who ultimately make convention decisions. Ours is not a “bloated and ineffective bureaucracy.”
State conventions are directly tied to churches in ways no SBC entity is. State conventions work with churches to raise CP dollars. State conventions are the first to feel the pulse of the churches and first to respond to the desires of churches.
In its original draft and in its current draft, the document urges that more and more CP dollars be channeled to SBC causes. Perhaps that is not surprising since the document was prepared by SBC leaders. Not mentioned is the fact that many state Baptist conventions have increased percentage giving to the SBC over the last five years and in no case did that action result in greater CP giving by the churches. Whatever the cause of our giving trends, juggling percentages is not a magic cure.
Still every part of SBC life should be willing to examine itself from time to time. As Akin said, churches, associations, state conventions and national entities should be “self-critical in asking the question: Are we maximizing the resources entrusted to us by Southern Baptists for the fulfilling of the Great Commission?”
There is a difference between being “self-critical” and someone else being critical of you. Those entrusted with the welfare of the various ministries — the elected trustees, directors and senior managers — deserve the opportunity to examine themselves again in light of convention concern. They are the ones most familiar with the ministry needs and opportunities.
To have some kind of SBC task force examine an entity or program before trustees have opportunity to address the issue may even violate SBC Bylaw 26, which specifies that motions dealing with the workings of an entity must first be referred to that entity before being considered by the convention. For example, consideration of how Southern Baptists should do missions in North America deals with the ministry assigned to the North American Mission Board. The SBC already has in place a mechanism for dealing with needed changes that such a study might discover. It is through the various entity program statements that are channeled through the SBC Executive Committee.
The Executive Committee also has the responsibility to work with the entities “to study and make recommendations to entities concerning adjustments required by ministry statements or by established Convention policies and practices” (SBC Bylaw 18, section E, No. 9).
Centralizing power in the hands of a few has never served Southern Baptists well. Neither has ignoring existing structures to work through issues in a careful and judicious manner according to Baptist polity.
If study and changes are necessary to achieve a Great Commission Resurgence, then it should be done through existing channels involving those already charged with the ministries and not through some hand-picked special task force.
But the real issue may not be denominational structure at all. The real issue may be in committing to live out the nine commitments of the Great Commission Resurgence declaration Baptists support rather than just saying we support them.
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