SBC 2009 Annual Meeting = Great Comedy

The SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) is the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.; therefore, it is always the source of much controversy and hillarity. Anytime you get that many people together, there are bound to be a few nuts in the room. From what I have read, the SBC Annual Meeting was encouraging overall; however, this doesn't mean that some ridiculous statements weren't made.

In good news, the Great Commission Resurgence motion passed (this motion should help to refocus the convention on the Gospel). On the crazy side, here is a short list, provided by Alan Cross, of the more bizzare motions:

In the afternoon motions at the SBC, someone made a motion that Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA - that his books be banned from Lifeway stores.

(Update as of 9:15 CST, June 23, 2009 - Thankfully, the more outlandish of the following motions did not make it out of committee. All of the "charges" so to speak against Mark Driscoll, the controversial pastor from Seattle who is gaining influence through his popular Acts29 church planting network, were dropped and the motions against him were denied. He was not banned, per se, but there were motions brought up that would have banned his books from Lifeway, the Southern Baptist bookstore, if they had been accepted. I am thankful. We should focus on more important things.)

• Someone else made a motion that Ed Stetzer of Lifeway Research and Alvin Reid and Danny Akin be investigated because of their relationship with Driscoll and the issue of alcohol. Huh?

• Another motion concerns the fact that Pepsi is advertising for Gay and Lesbian issues and the motion desires to keep them neutral in the culture war - if not, they want to boycott Pepsi.

• Another motion was made to remove books by T.D. Jakes, John Hagee, Catholics, and The Shack from Lifeway.

• Yet another motion was made to adopt the American Christian flag to unite us together as believers and a bunch of other stuff in the longest sentence ever uttered - sorry, I couldn't follow. Wow.

• A lady stated that if anyone drinks alcohol or uses an inappropriate word, they cannot be involved with SBC entities.

• Another motion asked for a clarification by the SBC on a distinction between the use of the alcohol, which is a matter of individual conscience and the practice of getting drunk, which is clearly a sin. The man wanted the SBC to try and settle this issue biblically.

• Another motion on the KJV of the Bible.

• Another motion asking that the SBC refrain from the use of secular music in their promotional materials.

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J. T. Interviews David Dockery Regarding SBC

In a recent interview, Justin Taylor asked David Dockery (President of Union University and SBC leader) some tough questions regarding the Southern Baptist Convention. Here is one of the questions:

I wonder if I can ask about the issue of membership and attendance within the SBC. You refer in the book to “regenerate church membership” as “a historic and foundational Baptist tenet.” Al Mohler refers to it as one of the three principles that constitute “an irreducible minimum of Baptist identity.” He says that when it’s compromised or denied “whatever is left may call itself Baptist only by asserting a lie.” And yet the numbers I have heard suggest that even though the SBC boasts 16.2 million church members in good standing, only 38% of them attend their church’s primary worship service each week. If what you and Dr. Mohler write is true about how essential this principle is for Baptists, does this not point to something of an identity crisis for the SBC?

One of the reasons that Southern Baptists now need to ask the hard questions about a regenerate church membership--a historic and foundational Baptist tenet--is that people have confused the Christian faith for substitutes. The Christian faith is not mere moralism; it is not faith in faith, some subjective amorphous feeling, nor is it some kind of a self-help theory. The Christian faith is the manifestation of God's truth revealed in His Son and made known to us today in His Word.

We must also sadly acknowledge, as you have noted in your question, that over the course of the past six decades or so, Southern Baptists have allowed our priorities to gradually shift from Christian faithfulness and spiritual maturity to numerical growth and programmatic efficiency . . . .

The result is that we developed two categories that are foreign to the New Testament: non-resident members (those who held membership in the church, but have moved away from the meeting place of the church) and inactive members (those who are on the membership rolls who no longer attend the congregation with any sense of regularity).

. . . . I think that Southern Baptists must repent of our lack of concern for biblical faithfulness in our concern and care for church members. We need to repent of the way we often allow people to join local churches without stressing the covenantal aspect of membership. We need to repent of the fact that we have largely neglected any aspect of church discipline that would have helped us begin to address some of these important matters.

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Great Commission Resurgence within the SBC

Following up my last post regarding the current public perception of the Southern Baptist Convention, I want to recommend this recent chapel sermon at SEBTS (Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary). A friend directed me to this sermon that Dr. Aiken preached about a week ago. It was very encouraging. If you don't have the proper plugin to view the video above (it's a strange one), then you can watch the video HERE or read the full manuscript HERE.

If you are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, then you need to watch, listen to, or read this sermon.

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The Southern Baptist Image

Last weekend, Dr. Thom Rainer, President and CEO of LifeWay, conducted an informal survey on Twitter regarding people’s thoughts about and/or reactions to the name “Southern Baptist.” Specifically, Rainer asked,

What do you think when you hear ‘Southern Baptist’?

The responses he received speak loudly and clearly. Below is a Wordle put together by Tony Kummer who added the following commentary:

Why does this matter? Bottom line, Twitter users are influencers. They are tech savvy, well education, and super connected. Social media has great power to reflect and move public opinion. . . . This is a chance to see ourselves through the eyes of others. At least in some measure, we are giving Jesus a bad name. It’s time for some healthy humiliation and repentance.

As someone who grew up attending a Southern Baptist Church and attended a Southern Baptist University, the results were dissapointing, but not surprising. The Southern Baptist Convention has created this image, and now they are having a tough time trying to change it. Personally, I think the appointments of Al Mohler and Danny Aiken as presidents of two of the seminaries is a great step in the right direction.

Here are some further thoughts on the results and the wordle from Timmy Brister:

If you look past legalism, legalistic, don’t, and boycott, you will find Jesus and the gospel in 4 point font. Does it bother anyone else that we are more known for Disney and chicken than Jesus and the gospel?

This is a snapshot of why the SBC vehicle does not need a paint job but to be stripped down and rebuilt, starting with the engine of the Cooperative Program. We cannot keep changing the tires with new evangelism initiatives; we need a new delivery system that delivers what we are for rather than what we are against. The day when Jesus and the gospel are descriptive of Southern Baptists is the day when church doors are opening instead of closing, the day when cooperation wins out of controversy, the day when we blog about brokenness and repentance rather than boycotts and resolutions, and the day when a younger generation embraces the future as Baptists rather than walking away from it.

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