What the SBC needs

What the SBC needs

Thank you so much for your article titled “What Got You to the Top …” in the Jan. 28, 2010, edition of The Alabama Baptist, specifically the section titled “What’s really needed.”

Your comments regarding the renewal needed by Southern Baptists being “a renewal in the value of cooperation (and) the importance of communications … for the good of God’s Kingdom” spoke so loud and clear to the question of “Do we really care about what helps?”

We as Christians and Southern Baptists through prayer, submission and communication need to be mindful about how our service to others is received. It might just be that what we think is helpful is actually of no consequence or, even worse, harmful. To add insult to injury, we might even think or, heaven forbid, say something like “how ungrateful they are” in response to our helpful act not having our intended result.

If we are going to model Christ as servant leaders by serving others, let’s make sure what we are doing is considered helpful to them. We often need to be reminded that “serving” is something we are doing for someone else, not for ourselves.

As your quote of pollster George Barna points out, evangelical Christians in America are seen as “people who try to argue others into the kingdom of God rather than love them into God’s presence, … take pride in our moral supremacy (and) insist on our own correctness.”

As I know you do, I also pray that we, as followers of Christ, will renew our values of cooperation and communication by living as servant leaders just as our Lord Jesus so clearly demonstrated.

Conrad E. Brooks
Maylene, Ala.