Some Reasons Churches Don’t Grow

The following are very rough notes from my message yesterday at Farmdale Baptist  Church.  Audio available here.

I’m excited about what God is doing at Farmdale Baptist Church.  This message is a call to be involved in what God is doing.  It is a call to commitment and repentance.

In talking about why churches don’t grow, we must first address the question of what kind of growth is meaningful?  We are commanded in Matthew 28:19-20 to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations.  The kind of growth that I desire for Farmdale Baptist Church is more than just drawing a crowd.  We can draw a crowd by producing spectacular events, but our calling is to make disciples, not to merely draw a crowd. The most important kind of growth is the spiritual growth of individuals.  But, we can count and we can tell that we aren’t seeing as many people transformed by the gospel as we would like to see.

We’re now in a state of evaluating everything we do at Farmdale Baptist Church to be sure we are being as effective at reaching the lost as we can possibly be, while remaining biblically faithful.  In other words, we don’t want to merely do what we do for tradition’s sake if it is no longer the best means of accomplishing our mission.  We are committed to the message and methodology laid out in Scripture.  Thus, we are committed to the unchanging, objective truth of the gospel.  We also believe that our worship should be regulated by Scripture.  Therefore, we read the Scriptures; preach the Word; sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs; pray; give sacrificially; and observe the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  These are non-negotiable.  Our methodology, or the way we do these things, however, may change.  Issues such as hymnbooks and projection systems, choirs and praise bands, Sunday School and Sunday evening Bible study groups, are not mandated in Scripture.  They are methodologies that can be adapted in different contexts to help us accomplish our purpose as a church.  Our purpose is to glorify God by expositing the Scriptures, exalting the Savior, equipping the Saints, and evangelizing sinners.  What was most effective 50, or even 20 years ago, may not be as effective today.  We need to be willing to change in these areas, without compromising on the essentials.  Unwillingness to change in these areas, could be part of the reason why our church is not reaching as many as we possibly could with the gospel.  However, I don’t believe that any of the changes that we may implement is the magic bullet that will cause Farmdale Baptist Church to explode in growth.  There are far more important issues that need to be addressed if we are going to be the church that God has called us to be.  In this message I will highlight five reasons that I believe cause churches to not grow (both spiritually and numerically).

Our text this morning is Revelation 2:1-7 where the Lord Jesus Christ dictates a letter to the apostle John which is to be sent to the Church of Ephesus.  The Church of Ephesus was commended in a number of ways.  They were faithful in many areas.  They stood for the truth and opposed error.  They had been served by Timothy and the apostle John himself.  Yet, less than fifty years from their founding they were indicted by Christ for abandoning their first love.  And this one thing was enough for Christ to warn that if the church did not repent, He would come and remove their candlestick.  Their identity as a church was at stake!  In this text, we gain an entry into the discussion of why some churches don’t grow.

I.  Unsaved Church Members

First, I must acknowledge that is possible to an active member of a church, without ever having been saved.  The reason why some people are not concerned about the lost is that they themselves are lost.  You can’t abandon your first love, if you never had it in the first place!

II.  Abandoned First Love

If we love the world more than we love the Lord, then we will not be concerned about the lost.   Some of us have allowed love for the world to overtake our love for Christ.  The apostle John warns in 1 John 2:15 to, “Love not the world!”  This is such an important issue that I will spending the next four weeks preaching on the subject.

How do we regain our love for Christ.  The text tells us.  Jesus said:  1. Remember.  2.  Repent.  3.  Return.

III. Lack of Confidence in the Sufficiency of Scripture

2 Timothy 3:16ff

We don’t really believe the Scriptures are sufficient, when we don’t invite people to church because we know that all the preacher is going to do is preach a sermon on a text of Scripture that no one care about.  If that’s your attitude you need to repent.  It reveals that you don’t care about what God has said in His Word.  It also reveals that you don’t believe that there is power in the Word of God to change people’s lives.

IV.  Critical Attitudes

Ephesians 4:29-32

When we criticize the pastor and our church members to our friends and family members, we shouldn’t be surprised when they stop coming or refuse to come.

V.  Inconsistent Christian Lives

Matthew 5:16

1 Timothy 4:16

When we live wickedly in front of our co-workers, friends, and family, we will either be too ashamed to invite others to church or they will have no desire to come if we do.

How should we respond to these things?  Again, I believe our model is in Jesus’ words to the Church of Ephesus:  1.  Remember.  2.  Repent.  3.  Return.

I recently read a book on church ministry that has been very helpful to me.  Let me read to you a section on the purpose of Christian ministry.

The aim of Christian ministry is not to build attendance on Sunday, bolster the membership role, get more people into small groups, or expand the budget (as important and valuable as all of these things are!).  The fundamental goal is to make disciples who make other disciples, to the glory of God.  We want to see people converted from being dead in their transgressions to being alive in Christ; and, once converted, to be followed up and established as mature disciples of Jesus; and, as they become established, to be trained in knowledge, godliness and skills so that they will in turn make disciples of others.

This is the Great Commission – the making of disciples.  The touchstone of a thriving church is that it is making genuine disciple-making disciples of Jesus Christ.

The Trellis and the Vine, 152.

I’m asking everyone of you to join me in remembering, repenting, and returning, and I’m asking you to join me in this gospel work of making disciples among all nations beginning here at Farmdale!

An 18th Century Great Commission Resurgence

Dr. Michael Haykin is currently writing a series of articles for the state paper of Oklahoma Baptists on the 18th Century Great Commission Resurgence which launched the modern Baptist missionary movement.  The Baptist Messenger is edited by the very capable Douglas E. Baker.  The first two in the series are now online and others will be posted in the weeks ahead.

The first article looks at the conditions among 18th-century Baptists which made a Great Commission Resurgence necessary.  The second article focuses on the the Prayer Call of 1784 which preceded the move of God which we know as the dawn of the modern missionary movement.  It is hoped that these articles and the ones which follow might provide a historical perspective on a contemporary phenomenon, the Great Commission Resurgence of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Do You Lie to Your Children?

Well, do you? One of the areas of mass deception in our society today is in regard to the existence and identity of Santa Claus. This is one area in which it is not only culturally acceptable but also commonly expected that you lie to your children. In fact the deception is so complete that it made news a few years ago when a 1st grade music teacher told his students that there is no Santa Claus. If you don’t believe me, read the following:

Texas Teacher Tells First-Graders There Is No Santa

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

RICHARDSON, Texas — Guess what, kids? There’s no such thing as Santa Claus!

That’s what a suburban Dallas music teacher told first-graders on Monday — and the school’s been hearing from parents ever since.

The angry phone calls prompted the Richardson school district to issue a pro-Santa statement.

The district announced that the offending teacher had heard from Santa Claus himself — who assurred the teacher that “the spirit of the holidays is alive and well.” And Santa asked the teacher to pass that message along to students.

A district spokesman says the teacher won’t face any disciplinary action.
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,178708,00.html

News flash (Spoiler Warning): Santa Claus is not real! I’m at least glad that the teacher wasn’t disciplined for telling the truth!

The Santa Claus legend has roots in history. Dr. James Parker (Professor of Christian Philosophy at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) has done a good job of uncovering some of those historical roots in an article playfully titled: “Remythologizing St. Nick: The Search for the Historical Santa“. In this article he shows that jolly ole St. Nicholas was in fact a Bishop of Myra in Lycia (Turkey) who lived from A.D. 280 to A.D. 350. This year, how about giving your children the truth for Christmas? Then maybe they’ll believe you when you insist that Jesus Christ is really the Son of God!

Other resources:

Noel Piper’s explanation of why she and John didn’t emphasize Santa Claus to their children.

John MacArthur contrasts the message of Santa (“Be Good!”) with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Hercules Collins on Sermon Preparation and Dependence Upon God

We may say in this case, as we use to speak about Salvation, that we ought to live so holily as if we were to be sav’d by our living, and yet when we have done all, to rely upon Christ and his Righteousness; so we should labour in Study, as if we should have no immediate Assistance in the Pulpit, and yet when we have done all, to go about our Work depending upon God for further Assistance.

Hercules Collins, The Temple Repair’d, 36-37.

Message from Franklin Baptist Association (10/26/2009)

“I Am Not Ashamed”: Having Boldness in a Day of Tolerance

2 Timothy 1:8-14

It is a privilege to preach in this 195th meeting of the Franklin Baptist Association.   This association has a rich history of standing for the truth.  Just recently I visited Frankfort Cemetery and just across from Daniel Boone’s grave I found the grave of Silas Mercer Noel who served as moderator of this association during the Campbellite controversy of the 1830s and 1840s. He was valiant for the truth in a day of trouble. The circular letters which he wrote still survive and are a testimony to his faithfulness.  Many other courageous pastors and church members have stood for the truth in this community of churches.  Today it is more important than ever to stand for the truths which our forefathers in this association believed.

We now live in a postmodern age, where we are told, there is no such thing as absolute truth. In fact that is the one absolute truth of our day: absolutely no absolutes.  The last outpost of those who believe in absolute truth are the members of the church of the living God. Those who stand up for absolute truth in our day will be branded as fundamentalists, troublemakers, or worse.  In our day, tolerance (which says everyone’s belief system is equally true) is the ultimate virtue.   As G. K. Chesterton once said, “Tolerance is a virtue of a man without convictions.” That is where we are today as a nation.  The only thing which is not tolerated is intolerance.  In fact, one school administrator has said, “It is the mission of public schools not to tolerate intolerances.”

This new found tolerance of postmodernism causes many contradictions in our culture.  For example, a few years ago in San Jose, California the city paid to erect a $500,000 statue of an Aztec god, while at the same time less than a hundred miles away, a 103-foot cross in a San Francisco park was determined to be unconstitutional and was slated for destruction.  What was the difference that allowed for this apparent inconsistency?  The Aztec god represents just one religion among many, while the cross represents the exclusive claims of Jesus and is therefore a symbol of intolerance. (Josh McDowell, The New Tolerance, 45)

How are we to survive as Christians who believe in absolute truth in this atmosphere of tolerance?  We need courage.  We need boldness. In 2 Timothy 1:8-14 there is a clear emphasis on having boldness.  Paul tells Timothy that “God has not given us a spirit of fear.”  He tells him “Don’t be ashamed.”  and he declares “I am not ashamed.”

In our text Paul gives three reasons for his boldness, which he believed would cause Timothy to have boldness.  These same three reasons can produce boldness in each of us in a day of tolerance.

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God,  (9)  who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,  (10)  and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,  (11)  for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher,  (12)  which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me.  (13)  Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.  (14)  By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.  2 Timothy 1:8-14

I.  The Content of the Gospel which We Must Declare,  vv. 8-11.

Paul begins verse 8 by challenging Timothy not to be ashamed of either the gospel or of Paul, but to share in the “afflictions of the gospel.”  For the Apostle Paul to proclaim the gospel was synonymous for suffering.  And yet Paul says “Don’t be ashamed.”

Paul’s challenge to boldness is based on the content of the gospel which he declared. There is an objective content to the gospel. We must never forget this. Paul summarizes this glorious gospel as having begun in eternity past and having been manifested or revealed in human history.

1.  Planned by God.

2.  Therefore, all of grace.

3.  Revealed in Christ.

4.  Christ’s victory over death, hell and the grave.

This Gospel was Planned by the Father in Eternity Past, Accomplished by the Son in Human history.

By contrast, theological liberalism, as described by Richard Niebuhr, speaks of:  “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”  This is not the gospel.  There is an objective content to the gospel which is absolutely true!  There are some non-negotiables.

• Inspiration and Authority of Scripture

• Substitutionary Atonement

• Literal, Bodily Resurrection of Christ

• Personal Return of Christ to Judge the Living and the Dead.

We are united as Baptists because of what we believe, not in spite of it.

II.  The Christ of the Gospel in whom We Must Believe,  v. 12.

There are many who accuse those who believe in the importance of Biblical doctrine of worshiping creeds and confessions, rather than Christ.  In our text Paul’s emphasis on doctrine has not caused him to be confused about the proper locus of his faith. There is no access into heaven except through Jesus Christ.  This Jesus who said in John 14:6 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  This Jesus of whom Peter could say in Acts 4:12, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

I believe the apostle Paul could sing with the most zealous of us tonight:

My hope is built on nothing less / Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;  

I dare not trust the sweetest frame, / But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; / All other ground is sinking sand,

All other ground is sinking sand.

Guard is a legal term connoting something one places in trust to another’s keeping.  It is the idea of money which is entrusted to a bank.  Our salvation is safely deposited with the Father and the Son.   Jesus said in John 10:27-30:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  (28)  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  (29)  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.  (30)  I and the Father are one.

He is guarding that which we’ve entrusted to him, namely our eternal destinies.

III.  The Command of the Gospel which We Must Obey,  vv. 13-14.

Here there is a contrast between what God is committed to keeping and what we are commanded to keep.  It is an interesting play on words.  But first, what is Timothy told to guard?

The word pattern means an “architect’s sketch.” It was an outline sketch of the doctrines which were believed. There was a definite outline of doctrine in the early church, a standard by which teaching was tested.  An early example of this survives in the Apostle’s Creed which says:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen

It’s not enough to just say you believe the Bible.  Every heretic has his or her verse.  The vital question is “What do you believe the Bible teaches?” That’s why confessions of faith are indispensable for the health of the church.  It was the Campbellites who cried out “No creed but the Bible,” but it was not the Baptist, and more importantly, as we see here, it is not biblical! Instead of being divisive as some charge, confessions of faith actually demonstrate where true unity exists. In 1826 Silas M. Noel wrote in his “Circular Letter” to the churches of this association on the importance of confessions of faith.  He asked a series of rhetorical questions to demonstrate the necessity of a confession of faith to “preserve the unity”:

Are we to admit members into the church and into office, are we to license and ordain preachers without enquiring for their creed? Shall we ask them no question in regard to principles or doctrines? Shall we receive license and ordain candidates, upon a general profession of faith in Christ requiring of them this only, that they agree to take the Bible for their guide? Can we do this and still expect to preserve the unity, purity and peace of the church?

The obvious answer to Noel’s questions is “No!”  Confessions of faith are necessary to “preserve the unity, purity and peace of the church.”

Paul here urges Timothy to “guard the deposit” (see also 1 Timothy 6:20).  Again the idea is that of money deposited in a bank.  It’s as if Paul is saying to Timothy:  ”I know that God is going to be faithful with what I have committed to Him (namely my faith), but will you, Timothy, keep that which I’ve committed to you?”

Paul was faithful (see 2 Timothy 4:7), Timothy was faithful.  The question is will you and I be faithful?  The history of the Christianity can be described as a long line of men and women who were faithful to the truth.

Polycarp (155)  -  The proconsul who presided at his trial tried to persuade him, urging him to think about his advanced age and worship the emperor. When Polycarp responded by pointing at the crowd around him and saying: “Yes. Out with the atheists!” Again the judge insisted, promising that if he would swear by the emperor an curse Christ he would be free to go.  But Polycarp replied: “For eighty-six years I have served him, and he has done me no evil. How could I curse my king, who saved me?”  (Justo Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1, 45)

Polycarp was faithful.  Nearly 1,500 years later Martin Luther was called before an imperial council and asked to recant his writings against the Roman Catholic system of indulgences.  Note Luther’s heroic response:

Martin Luther (1521) – “Since then Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth.  Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason . . . my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me.  Amen.  Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.” (Roland Bainton, Here I Stand, 185)

Fox’s Book of Martyrs tells story after story of Christians who were willing to lay down their lives for the truth of the gospel.  As Charles Haddon Spurgeon declared about the debt which we owe to those who have gone before us in a sermon preached in 1888:

Note what we owe them, and let us pay to our sons the debt we owe our fathers.  It is today as it was in the Reformers’ days.  Decision is needed.  Here is the day for the man, where is the man for the day?  We who have had the gospel passed to us by martyr hands dare not trifle with it, nor sit by and hear it denied by traitors, who pretend to love it, but inwardly abhor every line of it. (C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 34, 83)

We have received the gospel passed to us through prison bars, and from out of the flames of martyrs.  The Greeks had a race in their Olympic games that was unique. The winner was not the runner who finished first. It was the runner who finished with his torch still lit. I want to run all the way with the flame of my torch still lit for the truth of Jesus Christ.

Will we be faithful?  Will we guard the good deposit that has been entrusted to us?  We will stand firm for the truth of the gospel?

May God grant it to be so.  Amen.

Jonathan Edwards on “Useful Men”

Useful men are some of the greatest blessings of a people. To have many such is more for a people’s happiness than almost anything, unless it be God’s own gracious, spiritual presence amongst them: they are precious gifts of heaven….  Particularly, I would beseech and exhort those aged ones that yet remain, while they do live with us, to let us have much of their prayers, that when they leave the younger generations, they may leave God with them.

Jonathan Edwards, “The Death of Faithful Ministers a Sign of God’s Displeasure,” in The Salvation of Souls, 34, 39.

Which Early Church Father Are You?

I recently completed this quiz and discovered that I am actually Justin Martyr.  Complete the quiz to see which Early Church Father you are.  Post your result in the comment session.

You’re St. Justin Martyr! You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word” in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

Reflections on Southern Baptists, Evangelicals, and the Future of Denominationalism”

Union University has earned a reputation of providing the venue for important conversations in Southern Baptist life.  Previous conferences have focused on important issues of Southern Baptist identity and this year’s conference on Southern Baptist, Evangelicals, and the Future of Denominationalism may well prove to be another significant marker in the current developments in the Southern Baptist Convention.

There was a diversity of speakers from a various backgrounds speaking on different topics, but I believe a unified message emerged from this important gathering.  Southern Baptists and Evangelicals share common beliefs and characteristics, but they have a distinct identity.  We must be willing to collaborate with Evangelicals in those areas in which we agree, while maintaining our Baptist distinctives.  The future of the Southern Baptist Convention depends on maintaining a balance between confessional uniformity on one hand, and methodological diversity on the other.  The speakers were not optimistic based on the current state of things, but were hopeful based upon the goodness of God.  The future of the Southern Baptist Convention will be determined by this next generation who must become committed to their local churches and must believe that the Convention is the best means of fulfilling the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you can’t listen to all of the presentations and if you’re interested in this topic, listen to the following five presentations:  Ed Stetzer, Danny Akin, David Dockery, Nathan Finn, and Albert Mohler.  These lectures provide helpful perspective and suggestions for the current opportunity in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Other excellent presentations were those by Timothy George (on “The Faith, My Faith, and the Church’s Faith”) and Ray Van Neste (on “The Oversight of Souls: Pastoral Ministry in Southern Baptist and Evangelical Life”).  The other lectures were also helpful in their place, but these were the highlights for me personally.

Some of the best application of the themes sounded in this conference were made appropriately on the last day of the conference by Nathan Finn (see my summary of Finn’s presentation here) and Albert Mohler.  They issued independent, but eerily similar calls for the rising generation of Southern Baptists.  Finn argued that Southern Baptists must pass on the faith through catechesis (teaching the doctrines) and through telling the story of our Baptist heroes.  Mohler gave an impassioned plea to the conference attendees, but especially to the young university audience to rise up and take the responsibility for the future of the Southern Baptist Convention.  If Southern Baptists hear and heed these calls the future for the Southern Baptist Convention may be bright indeed.  As David Dockery concluded his presentation, “Let us begin moving from handwringing to hopefulness. Let’s work together to advance the gospel, to trust God to bring forth fruit from our labors resulting in renewal to the churches, enabling new partnerships with networks and structures, creating a faithfulness to our denominations, our denominational heritage, and our denominational entities, all for the good of the churches, the extension of God’s kingdom on earth, and for the eternal glory of our great God.”

Resources

Conference Audio

Trevin Wax’s Summaries

Doug Baker of the Oklahoma Baptist Messenger on “Stetzer’s Warrior Children”

Jim Smith of the Florida Baptist Witness on Danny Akin’s Presentation

Tim Ellsworth’s Article on David Dockery’s Address

Nathan Finn: Southern Baptists and Evangelicals – Passing on the Faith to the Next Generation

Dr. Nathan Finn begins the last day of the conference with an address on “Southern Baptists and Evangelicals: Passing on the Faith to the Next Generation”.   Finn serves as Assistant Professor of Church History and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Finn is the co-editor of Domestic Slavery Considered as a Scriptural Institution (Mercer, 2008) and has contributed to Calvinism: A Southern Baptist Dialog (B&H, 2008) and Southern Baptist Identity: An Evangelical Denomination Faces the Future (Crossway, 2009). He also serves as associate editor of The Journal for Baptist Studies.

Finn begins by stating that, as a seminary professor, he is self-consciously trying to pass on the faith to the next generation of ministers and missionaries.

First, we need to once again revisit the relationship between Southern Baptists and evangelicals. And second, we need to consider what it means to pass on the Southern Baptist and/or evangelical faith to the next generation.

Southern Baptists and Evangelicals

Evangelicals Defining Evangelicalism

• Some describe evangelical Christianity using primarily theological categories (Bebbington and Rosell).
• Some underscore evangelicalism’s diversity by emphasizing activism (Wallis, Sider, Perkins, and Dobson).
• Some understand evangelicalism as some sort of common affinity (Marsden and Carpenter).
• Some focus on evangelicalism as a common piety (Grenz, Olson, and Franke).

The one thing all of these approaches have in common is that they focus predominantly on white, or at least western, believers. This is important because there are strong indications that the ethnic ethos of American evangelicalism is changing (see the works of Philip Jenkins).

Southern Baptists Defining Evangelicalism

The same definitional ambiguities that characterize the aforementioned scholars also plague Southern Baptists who have addressed this issue.

I prefer to make a distinction between the terms evangelical and evangelicalism.  I agree with Bebbington and Rosell that an evangelical affirms a high view of Scripture, a conversionist piety, the centrality of the cross in human salvation, and a gospel-inspired activism, especially (though not exclusively) evangelism and missions. Any piety that might be common to evangelicals is necessarily shaped by these core convictions and priorities.

Thus, not all evangelicals are participants in evangelicalism, which I would argue is more a movement than a set of beliefs and priorities.

Southern Baptists and Evangelicals Revisited

• Southern Baptists as Evangelicals
  Most Southern Baptists would have no trouble affirming a list of basic evangelical convictions about the Bible, conversion, and the cross, though we might nuance those categories in ways that differ from some other types of evangelicals. The same goes for activism; from its inception the SBC has been a body that draws together autonomous churches for the purpose of gospel endeavors, especially missions and evangelism.
• Southern Baptists Must (sometimes) Be Against Evangelicals
  Southern Baptists are denominational evangelicals who are at odds with those card-carrying evangelicals who find their primary identity in parachurch evangelicalism.  Most Southern Baptists remain a people committed to the primacy of the local church. As long as evangelicalism remains a parachurch-driven coalition, Southern Baptists will remain nervous about certain types of cooperation with the broader evangelical movement.
• Southern Baptists Among Evangelicals
  Despite the above concerns, I’m in favor of continued Southern Baptist engagement with other evangelicals, even within segments of movement evangelicalism.  Southern Baptists have been involved since the 1940s in engaging evangelicals.  I agree with Albert Mohler that a healthy future for the SBC “lies in the rediscovery and reclamation of an authentic and distinctive Southern Baptist evangelicalism—genuinely Baptist, and genuinely evangelical.”

  Southern Baptists must recognize that we are ourselves evangelicals who must at times swim against some evangelical currents, nevertheless always seeking to remain in the evangelical river itself. Balancing our respective identities as Southern Baptists, evangelicals, and Southern Baptist evangelicals is crucial to passing on our faith to the next generation.

Passing on the Faith

• Catechesis: Passing on Our Convictions
  By catechesis, I mean that Southern Baptists and evangelicals must pass on our convictions in our preaching, discipleship programs, life-on-life mentoring, theological education, and parenting.
  1. We must seek to inculcate a Christian way of reading Christian Scripture.
  2. We must seek to pass on a robust view of the gospel.
  3.  We must pass on what I call a “gospel instinct,” which I believe will help us to be very hesitant about aberrant doctrines that seem to undermine faithful gospel proclamation (Ex.inclusivism, universalism, annihilationism, and hyper-Calvinism).
  4. We must pass on a balanced commitment to activism, including cultural engagement, evangelism, and missions.  . But I don’t want to see the next generation engage culture at the expense of personal evangelism and church planting, both in North America and to the uttermost parts of the earth.  I believe Jesus would have us weep for the lost and the hungry, to share the gospel and clothe the poor, to speak out against all manners of injustice and speak out about our personal testimonies.
• We must make sure that the faith we pass on is a distinctively Trinitarian faith.
• We must pass on the distinctives that are uniquely emphasized by our tradition.
  I argue in my classes that Baptist principles are simply the consistent application of the gospel to ecclesiological matters. We must pass on our belief that local churches, as communities of the gospel, ought to be comprised of individuals who give evidence of regeneration. We must pass on our conviction that believer’s baptism by immersion identifies a believer with the gospel and marks him out for the community created by the gospel. We must pass on our conviction that we live out the gospel personally by embracing the principle of individual liberty of conscience, under the lordship of Christ, and in submission to Christian Scripture. We must pass on a healthy understanding of congregational polity that enables us to practice the gospel in community with one another. We must preserve the freedom of each gospel community to pursue its own gospel agenda by passing on our belief in local church autonomy. We must defend the preservation of gospel freedom by passing on the firm conviction that a free church best flourishes in a free state where religious liberty for all is a basic civil right.

But there are some tendencies that both evangelicals and Southern Baptists must not pass on to the next generation.

• Southern Baptists must not pass on a cultural captivity that too often has confused southern culture with biblical Christianity.
• We must not hand down an ethnocentrism that is still present, albeit often subconsciously, in many quarters of our Convention.
• We must not pass on a denominational arrogance that has often assumed that we are the greatest group of Christians in history just because we are the largest Protestant denomination in America.
• We must not pass on our sometimes sectarian and/or overconfident tendency to withdraw from other believers and go at it alone, though we should be prepared to face some considerable resistance on this point.
• We must not impart an atheological pragmatism that continues to influence not a few of our churches and denominational ministries.
• We must not pass on our penchant for confusing bricks, budgets, baptisms, and bottoms with the blessing of the Almighty.

Narrative: Passing on Our Stories

We Southern Baptists have our own stories we need to pass on to the next generation. We are part of a tradition that advocated for full freedom of religion long before Jefferson’s and Madison’s grandparents were born. Our denomination has a unique ethos that is shaped by a number of traditions identified with locations like Charleston, Sandy Creek, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas. Our missionaries have been leaders in taking the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth and virtually every corner of North America.  We have undergone a Conservative Resurgence that has returned our Convention to its theological roots and likely prevented a theological downgrade similar to those that have infected so many of the mainline denominations. These stories must be told.

We have our own heroes. We must tell the next generation about figures like Mercer, Boyce, Rogers, McCall, and Pressler. We must also pass on the stories of other Baptist heroes like Thomas Helwys, John Bunyan, Thomas Grantham, William Carey, Andrew Fuller, Daniel Taylor, Isaac Backus, John Leland, Gerhard Oncken, Adoniram Judson and his three remarkable wives, Charles Spurgeon, Nannie Burroughs, W. B. Riley, and Martin Luther King Jr.

We should also note that Southern Baptists and movement evangelicals share some common stories and heroes.  All of their stories must be passed on too.

Billy Graham’s torch has apparently been passed on to the next generation. It is my sincere hope that Southern Baptists, evangelicals, and Southern Baptist evangelicals will be able to likewise pass on our faith to the next generation. After all, as Graham himself has reminded us on so many occasions, God has no grandchildren.

Panel Discussion

Thursday night closes with a panel discussion featuring  participants Greg Thornbury, dean of the School of Christian Studies at Union University; Buddy Gray, pastor of Hunter Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.; Charles Fowler, senior vice president for university relations at Union; Danny Sinquefield, pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Bartlett, Tenn.; Roland Porter, associate professor of business at Union; George Guthrie, the Benjamin W. Perry Professor of Bible at Union; and Doug Baker, editor of the Baptist Messenger of Oklahoma.

The panel took questions from the attendees.  See Trevin Wax for a summary.