10 June 2009
The Great Commission Resurgence
Posted by Marty Duren under: Church; Georgia; God; Gospel; History; Leadership; Missional; News .
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I regularly blogged about matters relating to the Southern Baptist Convention. After a couple of years of such writing, I retired from it and began to blog about other matters. I’m writing this particular post as a couple of friends, for whom I have great respect, have asked me to weigh in with a few thoughts on the proposed Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) in the Southern Baptist Convention. I’m not returning to the fray.
Though some, perhaps many, will take my writing as negative, it is only how things are viewed from my seat. I hope against hope for nothing but success for all those who are involved in this attempt and would be happy to be proven wrong.
Beginning at least as early as Dr. Jimmy Draper’s Younger Leader Initiative in the SBC, calls for major institutional, structural and Cooperative Program reform have been a part of conversation from the fringes to the center of SBC life and leadership. The Younger Leader discussion board that went online just before Thanksgiving of 2004 (now defunct) was flooded with concerns about the wastefulness of the current denominational structure and suggestions on how to address those issues. Those younger leaders ultimately divided into at least three branches: those who continued their path out of the convention, those who tried a concerted effort (ie, political) to effect change (I was here) and those who more or less eschewed the politics to focus on bringing change via their local churches. This is a simplification, I’m aware, but I think it holds up well enough for this post.
After two years of blogging multiple times a week and gaining insight into the mechanics, politics and personalities of the SBC, I came to the conclusion that attempt at denominational reform were hopeless and efforts to bring it about were futile, bordering on bad time management. (One can read those posts here, here, here and here. Independent of my own writing, Michael Spencer came to very similar conclusions regarding the collapse of evangelicalism Part 1 and Part 2.)
Recently Dr. Danny Akin of Southeastern Seminary issued a call for denominational reform under the name Great Commission Resurgence which term has been credited with coinage by Dr. Thom Rainer, president of Lifeway Christian Resources. This original 13 point message was distilled into ten points and promoted by current SBC president, Dr. Johnny Hunt, who, as I understand it, intends to make it a focus of the 2009 Convention in Louisville. As of this writing, the document boasts 3,346 signatures, which is less than the annual attendance of the SBC and .0002% of the claimed 16M SBC membership, but, to be fair, substantially more than movements of the recent past have garnered (ie, The Memphis Declaration and the Joshua Convergence).
Responses to the GCR document have been, shall we say, wildly varied. Shortly after Danny Akin’s message, Baptist Press published a subtle rebuttel from the normally far afield Dr. Malcolm Yarnell who did not disappoint. Dr. Hunt has taken flack for proposing such a thing as the GCR, accusations about base motives are swimming just under the surface. A document attempting to call the SBC back to a focus on the Great Commission has not been signed by 75% of the Executive Directors of state conventions/fellowships, who, ostensibly, are for the Great Commission, and there is suspicion within the ranks over who would be the president of a potentially combined IMB/NAMB mission agency. With the less than stellar performance of late at NAMB and the perennial candidacy of the SBTC’s Jim Richards, I do not know that much trust would be engendered by a search team, assurances of “God’s will being done” notwithstanding.
My thoughts are few and, sadly, are little changed from the thoughts that led to me abandon any hope of a true change in the SBC from a vestige of a nostalgic past to a rebirth as a missional powerhouse. Nevertheless, here are a few for what they are worth.
1. The SBC has ADHD. EKG, GPS, GCR. The SBC sounds like alphabet soup or the federal government. There is scarcely enough time to promote one program or idea before it makes way for the next one, none of which catch hold. There are programs that emanate from different offices and different entities (The Net and F.A.I.T.H. for example) giving the impression that some entities are actually in competition with each other. This is not even to get into different promotions within given states that alternately duplicate or ignore national movements (Promise Keepers becomes Legacy Builders in the GBC).
2. There is too much turfism. The local association, the state convention and the national convention are often at odds with each other over who is to do what, when and where. State evangelism offices and directors are at odds with NAMB. The entities are concerned about money and who’s getting it. For years at least one of the seminary presidents has been pushing hard for a “seminary offering” to be observed in the convention’s churches, but has been rebuffed. The states balk at the idea of sending a greater percentage of funds to X-Comm, though the IMB is now unable to send M’s who are currently trained and ready. Much of this is related to denominational protectionism or fiefdoms that must be protected at all costs, even kingdom costs.
3. The SBC’s greatest strength, autonomy, has become its greatest weakness. Since each level makes it’s own decisions independently of the other levels (though each claims to be the servant of the churches), there is not enough cooperation and often redundancy. When Dr. Akin mentioned “bloated bureaucracy” he was met with cries of “foul” from other areas. No one thinks that their own area is bloated only that others are. For that reason, as some have noted, passing a resolution on this document means little since the states and not obligated to do anything as a result (Others have noted that restructuring will not bring revival). Even if a study committee returns and makes recommendations for streamlining, each individual state would have to act independently and would be loath to do so for fear of another state keeping or receiving more CP money.
4. There is not enough trust. Everything that I learned in two years keeps me believing that there is ample reason for this, but this is a terrible situation. Adult men and women all of whom are assumed to be maturing Christians, but cannot trust that there are no agendas other than a kingdom agenda. There is not even trust on the upper levels of leadership; how is there going to be trust down the line? Anyone who has read Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team knows that trust is foundational to effectiveness.
5. There are too many viable options for education, fellowship and mission. Southern Baptists no longer need an SBC education. The proliferation of online education has made it possible to have more (and sometimes cheaper) alternatives. Not being forced to move in order to attend seminary may be a bane to the schools, but it is a blessing to the students. Not only that, but currently I’m in a degree program that is not offered by SBC seminaries and is a less expensive option even counting CP subsidies.
Networks such as Acts 29 and Glocal with discussions like ChurchAsMissionary have made it possible to have meaningful partnerships outside rigid SBC structures and, in many cases, individual churches provide more church plant money than all levels of the denomination combined. Fellowship is as readily attained in online communities and impromptu phone calls than at the Monday Morning Pastors Conference at Shoney’s.
6. God does not need the SBC. At least one SBCer, Jedediah Coppenger, has written a lament about the drop in Cooperative Program funds relating to international missions asking if the Great Commission is filing for bankruptcy. While I appreciate the concern, I cannot join the chorus of despair because I do not think that God is dependent on the SBC. Was there no fulfillment of the Great Commission before the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention? If not, how did the gospel get to our ancestors? Was the modern missions movement founded in Nashville? Did Adonirum Judson go through the International Learning Center?
A few years ago I sat in a room with 20 or so other men and ladies and we discussed the future of the SBC. My primary contribution to the conversation was this: “If we are not prepared to admit that God may be envisioning a future without the SBC, then we are not prepared to envision a future with it.” That is, the SBC must be willing to at least seriously and thoughtfully consider that God is done with the SBC before serious thought can be given to a potential future. Otherwise we think and act from a position of triumphalism–that God needs us to fulfill His plans, when, in fact, He does not.
7. There is more concern about job security than about soul salvation. Every time someone mentions b’cracy, downsizing, and streamlining, someone usually brings up the fact that people will lose their jobs. So? And? I see a commission in the Word to take the gospel to all the world, but see nothing about denominational job creation. This particular concern should never enter the discussion. It simply is not relevant to the mission. Glorifying God by getting the gospel to those who have not heard is the mission; everything about the SBC should flow from and into that.
8. There is no compelling vision. Still.
9. We do not need a Great Denominational Resurgence. In case you spend all of your time inside the SBC beltway, the GCR has already been pegged as such by some outside your circles and a few in them. I just don’t know anyone who is crying themselves to sleep at night because of the SBC. Over the condition of our world? Yes. Over the lost? Yes. Over the denomination? No. Pastors are leading churches to be involved in the Great Commission. I know scads of them who have adopted unreached people groups, have partnered with M’s and nationals, have sent countless teams and planted churches all without denominational assistance. Why spend so much time and energy trying to change the saddle on a dying horse? Pastors and churches should recognize the efficiency and effectiveness of channels that exist outside the bureaucratic structures of denominations and exploit them to the fullest.
10. Any study team will likely have the wrong people on it. The order of thinking that could get the SBC out of this mess will of necessity be a different order of thinking than got the SBC into this mess and that “different order” kind of thinking will have to come from different people none of whom will be asked to serve. Why? Because they are on the fringe. The fringe is where creativity happens. Revolutionary thinking scares the status-quo which is why it gets pushed out to the fringe.
One SWBTS professor wrote that the SBC is led from the center. This might be true when there is consensus, but is decidedly not true about leading a revolution. Revolutions always begin at the fringe because the center is inhabited by the status quo. Imagine a study group filled with fringe dwellers who bring back a bunch of wild ideas about streamlining, combining, restructuring…stuff that will actually work. Then it gets beat half to death by a bunch of turf protectors, before being subjected to everyone in the blogosphere, then it finally limps into the annual meeting only to be suffer 20 lashes and then pass the votes of not one but two consecutive June meetings.
And while all that energy has been expended trying to change a denomination, the fringe dwellers are out changing the world.
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81 Comments so far...
Todd Says:
10 June 2009 at 8:48 am.
Marty,
Once again you have found a way to represent the salient points many of us have long contended be considered by the SBC.
Jeff Wright Says:
10 June 2009 at 9:01 am.
As someone neither in SBC leadership nor the fringe Ive got to ask if your perspective that it is the people on the fringe who are “changing the world” relects the same isolationist arrogance so often ascribed to the SBC leadership? Asked another way, how can you (or we as the readers of whatnyou have set out here) be confident that your perspective on alltje radiacal good done on the fringe doesn’t originate in your own location on the fringe? It all just smacks of “we’re doing it right/best and you are doing it wrong” only this time it comes from the missional frontier instead of Nashville.
art rogers Says:
10 June 2009 at 9:21 am.
Nice.
I don’t know that I can add much other than to say that I feel much the same. Of course, that’s obvious to anyone who knows me.
In particular, I would have to say that the point concerning envisioning a world without the SBC is straight to the heart of the issue.
As you know, I’m leading through change in our church to become more Missional in mindset and structure. It has become plain to me that the fundamental motivation for change has to be a world without SDBC being used by God to change the world. When we are broken hearted by the thought that God might just move along without us, then we are open to doing anything to keep from being left to build our little monument to our own existance.
Suffice it to say, the SBC is not there. To enjoy a major rebirth, I believe (like many aging and bloated churches) we are going to have to observe ourselves from the edge of extinction.
The tragedy is that we don’t realize how close we are already.
Todd Says:
10 June 2009 at 9:43 am.
Jeff,
I’m not Marty but you raise a good question.
Seth Godin points out in Tribes that it is generally those deemed “heretics” that end up leading us to new places. Now, in our context we do not want to push that to the realm of doctrinal aberration clearly known to be historically heterodox. But, when it comes to seeing the forrest for the trees it is more than an anecdotal saying that often those “in” cannot see what someone observes from “out.”
Marty and others have called for a missional turn in general and specifically as a means to bring a revolution to the SBC. It is not Marty’s movement, not his word. But, it is a turn that many have called for and are only on the fringe precisely because those in the center did not need to consider it until now. Until that is the financial constraints limit sending missionaries, until we look up to see the graying of the SBC, until we realize part of our problem is the bloated bureaucracy, then we begin listening to what some have considered the fringe. It in not way means Marty has it all right. But, that the missional turn is the better direction, if not a good prescription for what ails the SBC. The problem is that such an inherent turn requires hard decisions and as of yet they are not welcome solutions.
Reading Marty as offering an arrogant voice from the fringe as if “doing it all right” completely misses the point of the post.
Bart Barber Says:
10 June 2009 at 10:02 am.
In furtherance of the crazy delusion that anyone cares what I think…
1. ADHD: I agree with you entirely.
2. Turfism: I agree that this is a perennial problem with no solution (you’re basically saying that people are naturally selfish and sinful). This is true about our denominational employees, and true of ourselves as well. This is not our only problem, and occasionally there is turf worth protecting. Some may even be protecting the right things out of the wrong motives. IOW, a NAMB employee might be prone to protect NAMB from death-by-consolidation for personal, selfish, turf-protecting reasons, yet for a different set of reasons from an objective point of view, I would think that such a person is leading us to the right outcome.
3. I would rank our non-connectionalism neither as our greatest strength nor as our greatest weakness, but I would agree that it often helps and often hinders. I still would not change our non-connectionalism to any other system. I agree that restructuring will not bring about revival, but I think that Dr. Chapman’s link might more appropriately have belonged under your second point than your third.
4. I both agree that I see the reasons for a lack of trust and agree that there is a lack of trust in the SBC that hinders our effectiveness.
5. I hope that Southern Baptists have never “needed” an SBC education. I believe in the value of education, but I also know that God has, in our past, greatly used faithful pastors who did not even hold high school degrees. I do believe that there are academic accomplishments only attainable by those living in the shadow of a great library in an academic community. Summation: I would be thrilled to call a pastor who had been educated online (or not at all), but I would never hire a professor who had done the whole thing on the Internet.
As for church planting, I have always thought that the SBC as a church planting network is ultimately probably only valuable to those who particularly want to plant Baptist churches.
6. I agree that God does not need the SBC. I don’t think He needs Acts 29 either. I do not believe that Ichabod has been written on the doorposts of the SBC. I do think that the churches think too often of the SBC as the place where everything will be turned around. The opposite, in my opinion, is the truth.
7. I agree entirely. We owe nobody a job.
8. I agree that the SBC still does not provide a “compelling vision” for us. I just don’t happen to want or need to SBC to provide a “compelling vision.” Our church has a “compelling vision” apart from the SBC. I find the SBC valuable for reasons other than “casting vision” for me.
9. I agree.
10. I choose to hope for the best in this regard and make myself vulnerable to disappointment. I also add to your observation about revolution often coming from the fringe this balancing fact: The vast majority of the fringe vanishes into oblivion without accomplishing any sort of revolution whatsoever. The ability to discern which fringe elements hold the revolutionary truth and which fringe elements are just on the fringe because that’s precisely where they belong—that’s a rare gift.
Jeff Wright Says:
10 June 2009 at 10:03 am.
Todd,
Thanks for the reply. I don’t actually want to accuse Marty personally of arrogance but rather point out that saying “those on the fringe” are “changing the world” then set that in contrast to those in SBC leadership as fiddling while Rome burns is subject to the same criticism being leveled @ the SBC cogs.
Your point about those who are in not seeing the same as those who are out is accurate and also works both ways. Is it not equally possible that those in SBC leadership see problems in what is presented by missionals (which missionals dont we as clearly becase they are “in”) and this at least partially explains why they are reluctant to follow the missional proposal?
There is also the possibility that large numbers remain in the SBC not because they can’t see the problems but because they also see problems in the missional movement and have concluded that of the two alternatives the SBC offers the better possibility of moving forward in a healthy and effective way.
Alan Brandt Says:
10 June 2009 at 10:18 am.
Great observations Marty.
What continued to resonate in my mind as I read your post is the same point with which you closed. The very people who need to be heavily involved in bringing REfocus and REorganization to the convention are those who have been vilified in the past as rabble-rousers and noisy fringe-dwellers.
Looking back at the attempts — the YL forum, the great blog resurgence of 2005, Memphis, etc. — it is obvious that the SBC cannot break from the Catholic Church-model of bloated, top-down b’cracy (I can’t spell it either). Statements are made, then everyone else holds their breath and looks to the responses of the powers that be. “Oh, ________ doesn’t endorse it”…so everyone else falls in step. The reason the powers that be never endorsed or came onboard is because the ideas were radical; they were fridge; they were off the reservation. All the pastors who wanted to seen faithful (and maybe curry future favor?) of course remained with status quo.
Now, though, GCR is being orchestrated from the top. Endorsements ring in from convention leadership. Therefore, everyone jumps on board. But has history seen any change that started from the top…other than merely structural and organizational? As you pointed out, the essential principles are the ones that were touted several years ago by you and your band of rabble-rousers, Marty. Reorganization to the bloated mothership needs to happen. But I fear it is too little too late.
I’LL GET TO MY POINT:
I don’t know the mind of Dr. Rainer, but I don’t think I’m too far off course to say that when Dr. Rainer began talking about a Great Commission Resurgence, he had in his mind and a burden in his heart a desire to see the members of the SBC fall on their faces before God and pray to the Lord of the harvest that His hand not be lifted from them. That God would break their hearts for the things that break His; that the SBC would be a people seen and known as devoted servants of the Gospel; that the SBC would proclaim the coming Kingdom to a people desperate to hear; that their devotion and unity would translate into a massive resurgence of people, organizations, churches who stand at the precipice and say “Yes Lord! Whatever You ask! Whatever You need us to do we will do. Wherever we need to go we will go. Whatever it requires, we will give.” Of course, many will read that and say: “But that’s who we are!” Sorry to disappoint, but no, the SBC is not at this place.
Unfortunately, what now dominates the GCR conversation is organizational change. Turfism reigns and has once again hijacked the conversation. Change the org chart all you want, but the SBC will continue its death-spiral into irrelevance. What the SBC needs is a passion for the lost that transcends everything else, not a passion for the org chart.
Thank you for allowing me to ramble on. Carry on, my wayward son. There’ll be peace when you are done.
art rogers Says:
10 June 2009 at 10:31 am.
Jeff,
The difference between those seeing from within and those “on the fringe” who see from without is that the latter has seen the SBC from both perspectives.
The perspectives are, therefore, not equal and opposite as you posit in the second paragraph above.
And I am wide open to hearing what is unhealthy about asking churches and their individual members to exist in furtherance of the spread of the Gospel and God’s pursuit of redemption for the world. I am particularly interested in learning why a denomination that was never ordained by God (in opposition to the individual Christian as disciple and the local church – both ordained by God) is the better alternative to that.
Ron Mackey Says:
10 June 2009 at 10:36 am.
Marty,
Once again, I deeply appreciate your insight into why reformation will never work from the leadership of the convention. I had a conversation with several NAMB missionaries, church planting strategists, etc., about 5 years ago. I asked where they thought the SBC would be in 10 years. Their reply, “Gone or so irrelevant that no one will really care anymore.” I am more and more convinced they were correct.
Paul Says:
10 June 2009 at 11:01 am.
I left the GCR building when the undercurrent theme became “denominational reformation.” By the way, I’m all for the Great Commission and I’d be all for denominational reformation. I’m just not for confusing the two. If we want to have a “Let’s save the SBC because the SBC is worth saving” campaign then let’s just call it that. In the spirit of our love of acronyms we could call it the LSSBCBSBCIWS. But your point is well taken that there seems to be a growing number of people who are simply attempting to rekindle the flames of the Great Commission who don’t particularly tie denominational participation into the top 10 means of how they’ll work to see that done.
Bart Barber Says:
10 June 2009 at 11:22 am.
Art,
Greetings. Long time.
I don’t think that it is accurate to portray the SBC as an “alternative” to “churches and their individual members [existing] in furtherance of the spread of the gospel and God’s pursuit of redemption for the world.” The perspective of a great many people is that the SBC does have or can have value as a tool for that very objective. It is also the perspective of many people that “the fringe” does not have a clear title to the exclusive ownership of the concept of churches and Christians laboring in this manner. Your comment could lead one to conclude that you are equating the two, which would tend to undergird Jeff’s point rather than weaken it.
Marty Duren Says:
10 June 2009 at 11:22 am.
Great comments, all. Thanks for chiming in.
Bart-
With us agreeing on so much, surely redemption draweth nigh. Number 8 would have communicated better as, “There is no compelling vision for ongoing cooperation.” You are right, and I agree, that vision is cast at the local church level.
Jeff @ 2-
If anything written in my original post comes across as arrogant, then it was excruciatingly poorly written. My point on “fringe dwellers” had more to do with revolutionary movements as a whole, not simply the SBC. Todd rightly picked up on this.
In a more corporate example consider Apple. In its early days the computing world ran the DOS style code that required weird command entries or prior to that punch cards. Steve Jobs and Co bought the GUI operating system from Xerox who could not figure out how to use it even though they had developed it. While Microsoft was still DOSing around, the Mac was born and the personal computer was changed forever. The only reason there is a Microsoft today is because they stole appropriated the graphic user interface (read “mouse and pointer”) and put it into Windows. But it was Apple, the fringe dweller that led the revolution.
After a series of boondoggles which led Apple from the fringe to the wasteland, Microsoft ruled the world. But it was not Microsoft alone, it was WinTel, the Microsoft/Intel alliance that allowed Microsoft to become king. However, Microsoft was the “status quo” whose idea of innovation was Windows ME or the latest Office upgrade. Apple was in such critical condition that it had to depend on its arch enemy (MSFT) for aid.
Re-enter Apple. While Microsoft was ruling the world, Apple charged in from the fringe to redirect the digital revolution via the iPod. While Gates was content to rule from the center, Jobs continually goaded everyone from the edge and changed the music world (iPod, iTunes), the cell phone world (iPhone) and reignited the Mac brand as a legitimate contender.
My point was not that fringe dwellers are always right no matter what; some people are on the fringe because they belong there. However, true revolution will not start from the center. It is, as you imply, up to the radical to get it right and not just get it different. I’m convinced that in the SBC case, however, that the fringe was correct.
David Phillips Says:
10 June 2009 at 12:15 pm.
Marty,
Just a thought…Merely a thought but something to consider. The CP arose at time of increasing power and influence from the progressives, and in a time of great financial unrest….Sound familiar?
What it sounds to me like is being said is this: Send us your money, and we will dispense it appropriately. Who the “”We” are is whomever is in power, and where the money goes will depend on the leadership’s pet projects. They won the election, correct? Elections have consequences.
Another question, and one to your point about does God need the SBC…Can we really change how all this works without killing it? In other words, to change the SBC into something that works don’t we really need to shut it down, kill it, blow it up? Only then will real and effective change take place. Or maybe we just need to become the new SBC (a la GM & Chrysler) Oh wait…we did that in 1995, right?
Alan Cross Says:
10 June 2009 at 12:41 pm.
Good thoughts, Marty. I signed the GCR on the basis of what the document said. It said good things. But, the more that I started to see the arguments over Article IX and the handwringing that I saw over the drop in CP funds and how people were crying because the Great Commission was going bankrupt, the more that I realized that what could have been a good conversation about grassroots renewal in the SBC has turned into a desire for more money and power for those who have shown inability to do well with what they have. I wrote a couple of posts on this over at my blog and on SBCImpact because my concern was growing.
God does not need the SBC. Actually, I think that He is doing just fine without us. The GCR document is good and I like Drs. Akin and Rainer, but like so many other things, once a good idea gets inserted into the bureacracy of the SBC, it is morphed into something that a dying system can contol and use for its own ends.
The reason that we are seeing Marty, Art, Todd, Paul, and Bart Barber basically agree on most of what Marty is saying is because they all know what they are talking about when it comes to the SBC – even though they disgree on many things. You don’t study the convention and blog about it for several years without being able to see what the problems are and how the system is going to eat any good solutions that come about in this maner. Change has to be bottom up, encouraged by our leaders as “wise sages” instead of top-down through denominational restructuring and funding reappropriations.
Again, the document says good things. The implementation already seems doomed because of trying to push it from the center.
Just my 2 cents.
Bart Barber Says:
10 June 2009 at 12:55 pm.
Marty,
When Jesus is ready, I am too (for the apokatastasis panton, that is).
art rogers Says:
10 June 2009 at 12:59 pm.
Bart,
Your point is to Jeff, not to me. He is the one who created the dichotomy when he framed this statement:
There is also the possibility that large numbers remain in the SBC not because they can’t see the problems but because they also see problems in the missional movement and have concluded that of the two alternatives the SBC offers the better possibility of moving forward in a healthy and effective way.
I inserted a simple definition of “missional,” asked him why that was unhealthy and asked why “staying in the SBC” was preferable, especially given the demographics and the lack of a Biblical mandate for a denomination vs. the clear mandate to live missionally for every Christian and church.
The division came from him.
But it is one that I think has some degree of validity – at least from his perspective. That the two are able to be divided in his mind reveals the fundamental reason for the SBC’s degeneration.
As for me, you may note that our church and I retain our affiliation with the SBC. Further, in a moment of foolishness, our local association elected me President at our last annual meeting. For those of us with some history here, we might find some humor in the irony that I was nominated from the floor by a man who asked me seconds earlier whether I would serve, and yet I also ran unopposed.
So, you can see that, at least to some degree, I do not see that living/structuring local churches missionally as mutually exclusive to being a cooperating member of the SBC. Insomuch as the SBC efficiently facilitates our desire to participate in God’s plan for redeeming the world, we will continue to cooperate in ways we deem best.
If the SBC were to reflect those values as we see them more, we would cooperate more, but I am under no delusion that my brothers and sisters should or will see it as I do.
Finally, I would say that while I don’t see a missional life and membership in the SBC as exclusive, I do see that the former is absolutely necessary and the latter is not.
Bart Barber Says:
10 June 2009 at 1:02 pm.
And, for future reference, you’ll always win me over by citing Apple against Microsoft.
;-)
Bart Barber Says:
10 June 2009 at 1:20 pm.
Art,
I don’t want to put words into Jeff’s mouth. Watching your conversation from the outside, it seemed to me that Jeff was presuming the “missional movement” to involve something more than the “simple definition of ‘missional’” that you offered (viz. “asking churches and their individual members to exist in furtherance of the spread of the Gospel and God’s pursuit of redemption for the world”). But, Jeff can speak for himself.
Congratulations on your associational work. Best wishes.
art rogers Says:
10 June 2009 at 2:22 pm.
Bart,
I didn’t want to put words in his mouth either, which is why i quoted him directly.
Ed Stetzer says that “missional” gets used as a junk drawer for all sorts of things, from seeker sensitive to emergent and emerging, and I think he’s right.
My definition was to correct that assumption.
I am quite sure that congratulations are inappropriate concerning my associational work. Condolences are more in order, though they might better be offered to the member churches than to me.
I reference that just to point out that I have not divided the SBC from living missionally as you asserted, either in my comment or in my life and service.
Jeff Wright Says:
10 June 2009 at 2:54 pm.
Art, actually, the dichotomy originates (at least in this thread) in Marty’s post. The division is the fundamental assumption behind his contrast of those on the fringe with those who aren’t.
Also – your appropriation of the local church for the missional group is at least disingenuous. Nothing in your “simple definition”‘of missional can’t just asmaccurately said about the SBC. So does God need the missional umbrella in a way He doesn’t the SBC?
As Bart noted, your equation of the local chuch’s ministry with being missional is exactly the “we do it right/best, you do it wrong” mentality that the SBC leadersip gets accused of.
Jeff Wright Says:
10 June 2009 at 3:05 pm.
What I should havenwrote is Bart noted that your equation of the local church with missional illustrates my point about the missional camp being guilty of what the SBC is accused of.
art rogers Says:
10 June 2009 at 3:45 pm.
Jeff,
It would seem you failed to read what I wrote at all, but stubbornly stick to your split natured view of us vs. them. I would encourage you to go back and read my comment #16 where I describe the way those things go hand in hand in my world.
In Marty’s original post, while people may be “on the fringe” or in the center, they are yet under the same umbrella.
I find it interesting that you say I come across as arrogant when I say,
If the SBC were to reflect those values as we see them more, we would cooperate more, but I am under no delusion that my brothers and sisters should or will see it as I do.
Honestly, it would seem that your evaluation of Marty and myself comes off pretty condescending, rather than a honestly humble evaluation.
And I did not appropriate the local church as a missional group. God has sent us on mission. He has sent us individually and he has sent the church.
I am sorry if this offends you, but your continued response seems to indicate that are still buying in to the “junk drawer” definitions of missional. Again, it would seem you failed to read all that I wrote concerning the word and its uses:
Ed Stetzer says that “missional” gets used as a junk drawer for all sorts of things, from seeker sensitive to emergent and emerging, and I think he’s right.
My definition was to correct that assumption.
My simple definition is not disingenuous at all, and it is certainly not so because it doesn’t line up with your presuppositions of a worldview you don’t embrace.
Bart Barber Says:
10 June 2009 at 4:12 pm.
Art,
My congratulations and best wishes were genuine. I did not take you to be tooting your own horn. I understood why you mentioned those things. It just seemed a nice way to end the conversation.
Aaron Robb Says:
10 June 2009 at 4:13 pm.
Alan,
You are so right when you say the change must come from the bottom-up. The discouraging side of that is that if bottom up change from local churches and younger pastors is to truly come, the result will be so radically different from the current SBC structure, mindset, and bureaucracy that I fear it will never be allowed to happen. The kind of change that will be sought will be, at it’s heart, networking with non SBC churches and movements for the purpose of advancing the Kingdom rather than the denomination. This change, by definition, is the death of denominational-ism–or at least the radical simplifying and refocusing of them. The reason that this push will never continue from within the denomination is that it means, by definition, the losing of positions, prestige, and power by those ingrained in that center. This is all secondary, of course, to the greatest need, which is genuine revival in the American church and a renewed passion for the lost.
Marty Duren Says:
10 June 2009 at 4:42 pm.
Jeff-
Could you please explain the definition of missional to which you subscribe? As I read through your comments here I’m reminded of a line from Inigo Montonya in The Princess Bride, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Jeff Wright Says:
10 June 2009 at 5:01 pm.
So Art, would it be productive for me to write that “you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the split view coming from Marty’s original post?” That would be the equivalent from my end of what you wrote.
And I don’t see what “those things” going hand in hand in your world has to do with the price of chicken in china. What happens in your life is irrelevant to what we are discussion. In response to what I wrote re: SBC/Missional you set “asking churches and their individual members to exist in furtherance of the spread of the Gospel and God’s pursuit of redemption for the world” in contrast to “a denomination that was never ordained by God” – as a matter of fact you identified that non-God ordained denomination as an “alternative to that”, “that” being what you wrote about the local church. There’s no way around it; you appropriate the church for whatever isn’t the SBC (the categories that arise from Marty’s post and that I was dealing with in what you responded to).
Your statement “Honestly, it would seem that your evaluation of Marty and myself comes off pretty condescending, rather than a honestly humble evaluation” is purely a product of your perspective so I really can’t do anything with that other than hope your perception changes.
Now – in regards to missional – I’ve not actually used it with a definition in mind. I took it from the title of this blog as the best summary term to capture Marty’s position in contrast to the SBC. If another term would work better as a summary of those who Marty lauds as “changing the world” “on the fringe” I’d happily swap it out.
The interesting thing here, at least to me, is that while I’ve not defined missional as anything other than “not SBC leadership” you, Art, have indeed defined it – as “asking churches and their individual members to exist in furtherance of the spread of the Gospel and God’s pursuit of redemption for the world.” Is that junk drawer? I can’t tell.
Jeff Wright Says:
10 June 2009 at 5:05 pm.
Oops…should read “what we are discussing” in the second paragraph. My apologies.
David Phillips Says:
10 June 2009 at 5:18 pm.
Marty,
Why are we not discussing how to bless our culture, incarnate our Jesus, serve the world?…You know, salvation in the NT means healing, not get out of hell and into heaven…It’s the restoration of all the earth, not just the individual. I think it was God that told Abraham that he was to be a blessing to the whole world. The first Christians didn’t go from basically 0% of the Roman Empire to 56% of the Roman Empire in 250 years (100 ad – 350 ad) by giving the Romans Road or FAITH or The Way of the Master (or their 1st century equivalents). They did it by serving others, blessing others, loving others, and living life in community. They shared life together and with the world. I know, that’s a weird concept.
Yes, I’m one of those fringe guys…but as Seth Godin says in Tribes, it’s the heretics that bring true reformation and who are embraced today more than the real “players”. Heretics being defined basically as those who don’t go along with the status quo for those of you in Rio Linda.
So what do we do…we need to be willing to tear it all down and rebuild it from the ground up. Apart from that, all we are doing is shuffling the legos of our denom. What if instead of legos we should use moldable plastic? Would we be willing?
Sadly, I don’t think we would…
With That, I am not, but I know I am…
Marty Duren Says:
10 June 2009 at 5:44 pm.
Jeff-
Here is the difficulty I’m having with your comments. You accused me of setting up a missional vs SBC leadership dichotomy (@20), which I did not do. I merely stated that I wanted the SBC to be a “missional powerhouse” which, by most any accepted definition of the term, it is not. That use is the only use of the word in my post. The other illustration I used was the “fringe” vs “the status quo.” Your conflating of the two and inability to see it is only exacerbating the problem in this discussion. @26 you say that you took the word “missional” from the title of this blog, but that fails to make a point. If I were writing about the Magic winning the NBA championship, would that imply that I am setting “missional” against the Lakers? I think not.
You write:
Now – in regards to missional – I’ve not actually used it with a definition in mind. I took it from the title of this blog as the best summary term to capture Marty’s position in contrast to the SBC. If another term would work better as a summary of those who Marty lauds as “changing the world” “on the fringe” I’d happily swap it out.
Herein is the problem. You decided to use a word that you cannot define based on the way that you thought that Art and I were using it. It’s as if I were to say, “You must be a racist since you live in White County, TN,” then when you rightly tell me that I am mistaken, I say, “Uh, uh, ’cause it’s WHITE County.” You cannot take a word with an accepted definition and decide what you want it to mean based on an argument you want to make.
In case you are unaware, there are scads of people who think the SBC needs drastic change who do not use the word missional, do not consider themselves to be missional and like you, cannot define it. There are traditionalists and staunch SBC supporters who think things need to change. Perhaps you just don’t know any.
I have now addressed your comments twice, but you have failed even to acknowledge mine toward you. Before you address Art again, please give me your definition of missional.
Mike Day Says:
10 June 2009 at 6:18 pm.
Marty-
It appears you still know how to “stir people up.” I’ve always liked that about you. I reluctantly confess that I think your observations are painfully on target, but I continue to hold onto hope that there is such a thing as denominational reformation. (Probably a hope that I will take with me to a DOM’s grave.) I guess I would say we do need a “Great Commission Resurgence” in the churches that forces great denominational correction at all levels of denominational life (including the one in which I am employed.)
Holding on!
Mike
Marty Duren Says:
10 June 2009 at 6:28 pm.
Mike-
As you have probably surmised, you are one of the two friends that I greatly respect to which I referred in my post. Your acronym, “Better Listen to the Outpost Guys,” stirred many of my friends and compadres during days that now seem so long ago. If everyone involved in this new effort was more like you, I feel that my hope would not be against hope, but with it. For your sake, I hope you are able to see with your eyes what you now hope for by faith.
Thanks for your friendship and continued encouragement.
art rogers Says:
10 June 2009 at 6:35 pm.
Jeff,
What happens in my world is particularly relevant to our discussion as it illustrates my viewpoint: that the SBC and a missional world view are not in exclusive opposition. That you can’t understand how that relates and how I have not said what you repeatedly claim I have said brings me to the brink of ignoring you.
Meanwhile, your ability to hold to your preconceived ideas while defending a vacillating definition of a word you seem to eschew is monumental.
As for what I said about the church and the denomination, you need to re-read what I wrote. It seems you are just looking to argue. All I said was that one is essential and the other is not. I did not, by any reasonable understanding, create a situation where missional is anything not SBC. That’s just silly. It’s ludicrous to say there is no way around that being what I said.
I can’t force you to read what I actually wrote, but I would encourage you, for the last time, to do so carefully. Your failure in this speaks to your credibility.
As to my perception of you as coming off as condescending, to put it all of on me is a fantastic exercise in self exoneration. There are two sides to communication and both are responsible. Further, there are a great many things you could do to clarify how you actually feel. Your response, or lack thereof, leads me to believe I had it right the first time.
This is particularly reflected in the final paragraph of your last comment (26) where you snidely ask if I had dumped a definition of missional in a junk drawer – while unwittingly answering Marty’s question by admitting you have no definition of the word beyond wrongly assuming what you think it is not.
I’m sure Ed Stetzer (SBC leadership) will be interested to know that he is not Missional.
I’ll leave you to answer Marty’s question more directly now.
Jedidiah Says:
10 June 2009 at 9:05 pm.
Marty,
Just to clarify, I’m aware that God doesn’t “need” the SBC to fulfill the Great Commission. This doesn’t change the fact that it is heartbreaking that the IMB is having to turn people away because of a lack of money (whether that comes from a lack of giving or the wrong percentage structure or whatever). My article is simply calling for greater faithfulness to the Great Commission in our use of the CP (of course we’ll all pursue other means as well).
Thanks,
Jedidiah
Jeff Wright Says:
10 June 2009 at 9:09 pm.
Marty: I answered your question about my use of the word missional. How is that not a direct response?
To clarify again: I never once used the term missional in any way in this thread other than as the opposite of the SBC/its leadership. I chose the term as a way to quickly refer to your position in the article, which is in opposition to the SBC/Leadership. I did so because the title of this blog has the word missional it and seemed a reasonable way to refer to its author’s position.
My point all along is that you are a pot calling a kettle black. I realize that my term for the pot (missional) has caused great confusion and I regret that. Feel free, as I mentioned above, to insert any other title you want for the group you reference as “on the fringe” “changing the world.”
(In regards to my understanding of missional: I’m sure I don’t understand it as well as you or Art but here’s my weak little attempt. Being missional is intentionally living as a missionary in the context you find yourself. This involves understanding the people group you live amongst, the relevant demographics, and cultural environments of your context and from that understanding developing a strategy which will incarnationally expose and confront that people group with the Gospel. If you and Art would like to further examine my ability to use the term missionally, you can read my review of Breaking the Missional Code here – http://is.gd/Yrjw. Be sure and check the date lest you suspect I spent my recent hours feverishly trying to understand the great mystery that is missionality. Hopefully some day I will receive the fullness of the gnosis which will allow me to be truly missional. ;D)
Oh, and Art: look man – just repeating that I haven’t read what you’ve written doesn’t actually make that so. I obviously have. See above where I quoted you and painstakingly explained to you what you meant. I realize you might want to back off of your comments. That’s cool. But you can’t get away from it with this attempt to convince yourself that I haven’t read your comments.
You say no reasonable understanding would come to my conclusion; that is odd, considering that Bart immediately understood it well enough to point out that what you wrote actually worked to illustrate the point I was making. I don’t know man, he strikes me as having a reasonable understanding.
Oh, sorry to burst your bubble about me not knowing what missional means too.
Marty Duren Says:
10 June 2009 at 9:09 pm.
Jedidiah-
And I apologize for misspelling your name.
Jeff Wright Says:
10 June 2009 at 9:15 pm.
I’ve got an idea:
For the sake of discussion I’m going to say that you are completely right. I have no understanding of missional(ity?), haven’t addressed or read anything in this thread, and have generally failed as a human being.
Can you please read this as my first comment on the thread:
Marty, is it possible that your perspective that it is the people on the fringe who are “changing the world” reflects the same isolationist arrogance so often ascribed to the SBC leadership? Asked another way, how can you (or we as the readers of what you have set out here) be confident that your perspective on all radical good done on the fringe isn’t more of a product of your being on the fringe than anything else?
What you wrote – to my reading – smacks of “we’re doing it right/best and you are doing it wrong” only this time it comes from the your camp instead of Nashville.
Marty Duren Says:
10 June 2009 at 9:29 pm.
Jeff-
Thanks for finally providing a definition; at least you can define it even if you choose to use it wrongly. Makes no sense to me, but if it floats your boat.
You wrote:
To clarify again: I never once used the term missional in any way in this thread other than as the opposite of the SBC/its leadership. I chose the term as a way to quickly refer to your position in the article, which is in opposition to the SBC/Leadership. I did so because the title of this blog has the word missional it and seemed a reasonable way to refer to its author’s position.
Which means you now admit you used the term wrongly knowing that you were using it wrongly. That just makes no sense at all to me and, no, it isn’t a “reasonable way” to determine a position.
What Todd tried to say to you way back up in the beginning of this thread is that the fringe dweller to whom I referred attempted to work from the “accepted channels” but were forced to the fringe because they did not see or do things in the way that the status quo preferred. Finding yourself forced to the outside does not make one arrogant. Again, you seem to be reading from your own frame of reference so deeply that you cannot see what I’ve written. It seems that no one else on this thread has had this problem. Mike Day is a DOM in Memphis and he didn’t have any trouble figuring things out and is in agreement.
Thanks for your comments. Sorry that I can’t be clear enough, but this has now become pointless.
Marty Duren Says:
10 June 2009 at 9:31 pm.
Oh, and I don’t know you well enough to know if you are a general failure as a human being. I’ll just have to take your word for it.
Ok, that was a joke. Have a good evening.
Jeff Wright Says:
10 June 2009 at 9:34 pm.
So no go on my reset question? Any reason for not answering?
art rogers Says:
10 June 2009 at 10:29 pm.
Jeff,
That is so funny that you accuse Marty and I of arrogance and then you pop off with this:
See above where I quoted you and painstakingly explained to you what you meant. I realize you might want to back off of your comments. That’s cool. But you can’t get away from it with this attempt to convince yourself that I haven’t read your comments.
Wow. That’s real humility for you.
And yet you are constantly trying to form the position that Marty is being hypocritical.
I haven’t backed off of anything I’ve said. If you’ve actually read what I’ve written, then you’ve intentionally ignored the whole of what I’ve said and cherry picked phrases for your own convenience… or you are not bright enough to understand it all. I’m confident you aren’t ignorant, so whichever other reason it is, you decide for yourself.
As for you understanding what missional is, I freely confess that you define it well when pressed, but use it poorly and define it poorly when you simply say that it is the opposite of SBC and its Leadership. Do you realize that you have, in so doing, positioned yourself to be the one who is splitting the SBC away from Missional, while I have repeated argued the opposite?
You’ve read “missional” out of the title of the blog – not the post – and into the phrase of “near the fringe” in the post. You have mishandled what Marty wrote. You have mishandled what I wrote.
And you’ve done so with a rank condescension while claiming that it’s just me thinking you are disdainful.
I might want to back off my comments? Dude. I have no problem letting my comments stand for themselves alongside yours. Read them through whatever filters allow you to maintain this attitude you project if you wish.
I am with Marty. This has become pointless.
Alan Cross Says:
10 June 2009 at 11:18 pm.
Wow. This reminds me of SBC Outpost days when a substantive post would be put up and the comment stream would be hijacked by several critics who nitpicked one point to death while completely missing the overall point. Several people would come on and try to set the nit-pickers straight, but to no avail. That type of exchange eventually pushed quite a few thoughtful people out of SBC blogging because they saw it all as pointless. Again, I am reminded of that reading this.
Marty,
To further engage with your overall point, I wonder how much real cooperation actually goes on in the SBC on any level? I’m not talking about people sending in money to a collective pool, but real relational cooperation? Our local association is drying up funding-wise while local churches send more to the CP. You cannot even get local pastors to meet together for prayer or lunch or anything because they are too “busy” which is just not true. We do what we want to do and even older established pastors don’t really care about true cooperation or fellowship where we are involved in one anothers lives. Sure, we enjoy politics and power, but servanthood and cooperation seem to be things that we have no time for.
At least that is what I often see on local levels. Of course, my evidence is from my own personal observation, nothing more.
Todd Says:
11 June 2009 at 12:49 am.
Jeff,
Been out of the loop til now sitting in the ER waiting room finding your engagement worthy of triage.
Read your history of the SBC. Thirty years ago those now weilding influence hailed from a group self-described as on the fringe. Choosing the Bible as the battering ram they stormed the castle and wrested control of the kingdom.It was an easy victory for who would dare speak against Holy Writ.
Today’s fringe dwellers to which Marty referred are not in that space as oppositional but having attempted to reconcile a deep affection for the Triune God in light of systemic ills folks like you would argue as you have to ignore the obvious. All is not well in the new kingdom and some have chosen to remain tangentially connected for whatever reason and attempt to live out the very ideals once dear to the SBC. Some embrace missioanal, some emerging, some reformed, some – you hopefully get the idea.
Marty’s post intended to point out the very ways that languae does not a shift or revolution make. And at you youthful age, you think all is well, I suggest you get yourself nominated somewhere in the belly of the structural beast and it will not belong before you join those on the fringe or drink the Kool-Aid “peace, peace.”
I care not to argue what history hath clearly demonstrated. That, as Marty noted, is what seems to make this exchange pointless.
Jeff Wright Says:
11 June 2009 at 2:01 am.
Art man, I just don’t get it. Actually, I’m suspicious that you and I aren’t actually reading the same thread.
Can you please cite where I called Marty arrogant? Or you? Go ahead, I’ll wait.
While you are at it, please show me where I called you hypocritical.
In terms of what you’ve written – again – I’ve used it accurately. I don’t know why you can’t/won’t deal with that in our conversation but the point remains that I have.
Now, in regards to ignoring what someone has written, I explained to you (and Marty) that it isn’t that I used missional in a wrong way. Rather, I used it to reference Marty’s position of not-SBC/on the fringe/changing the world. While I didn’t give any definition of the word you guys got confused and read into my usage all kinds of things that I didn’t intend. After trying to clarify I asked for a reset by giving my original question without the term missional so that we could move along but as of yet it hasn’t been addressed. I don’t know why that is. Perhaps arguing about the definition of missional is more important (or easier) than responding to what I would really like to know. Either way, it’s gone no where.
Let me liberate you: my question was originally to Marty and to be honest, I really only care here what he has to say, considering he has the SBC street cred from the Outpost days as well as being the author of the piece I responded to. So I’m going to try to again hit the reset button and post my original question. Feel free to not respond as it will be directed to Marty and – while he isn’t obligated to answer – he’s the only one whose answer really has any significance.
Not Jeff Wright Says:
11 June 2009 at 2:03 am.
Marty, is it possible that your perspective that it is the people on the fringe who are “changing the world” reflects the same isolationist arrogance so often ascribed to the SBC leadership? Asked another way, how can you (or we as the readers of what you have set out here) be confident that your perspective on all radical good done on the fringe isn’t more of a product of your being on the fringe than anything else?
What you wrote – to my reading – smacks of “we’re doing it right/best and you are doing it wrong” only this time it comes from the your camp instead of Nashville.
Jeff Wright Says:
11 June 2009 at 2:04 am.
There. Re-asked minus any m-word and even distanced from my username. A totally fresh start.
Marty Duren Says:
11 June 2009 at 5:57 am.
Jeff and Art-
I think you guys need to seek counseling from Bowden McElroy. He can help with your communication skills.
Jeff-
Anyone who intentionally misuses a word for an entire day and blames other people for not being able to understand is insincere, obstinate or crazy. You can choose your own descriptor. Perhaps you can carry on this conversation with those commenting on your own blog.
Answers to your questions: 1. No 2. You apparently can’t, but plenty of others can
Alan-
I guess I would have to answer the question with a question: Is “cooperation” necessary between pastors who have completely different philosophies of ministry or completely different goals for ministry? Is a reason beyond busy? I’m sure there is, but what is it? Do some pastors refuse cooperation because of worship styles or personality conflicts or jealousy? I’m sure they do and there is little that can change it.
In my first church I faithfully attended the Monday morning pastors’ deal. Although it was small, I made no close friends and we never discussed any kind of cooperating outside the normal associational stuff like “M Night” or the annual meeting. The rest of the time we just talked or talked about what was happening in our churches. I’m not saying that there was never encouragement, but it was the same stuff that I did all the time with pastors who were my friends apart from the association. I also noticed that the pastors who were aggressively trying to grow their churches or tended to be outside the box a little, didn’t care for those meetings. Now I constantly try to build relationships with other pastors, none of whom see any benefit to the associational model.
As you know, networking is possible without the artificial geographic restrictions we so often have to contend with.
art rogers Says:
11 June 2009 at 6:26 am.
Since you asked, I’ll answer and then I’m off.
re: calling Marty and myself arrogant:
“What you wrote – to my reading – smacks of “we’re doing it right/best and you are doing it wrong”
You’ve applied that phrasing to both of us.
re: you calling me a hypocrite:
I never said you were calling me a hypocrite.
If you could cite where I made that claim? No?
No.
Again. Not reading what I actually wrote.
If only I had “street cred” concerning things SBC. Maybe then you’d respect what I had to say. But then you say Marty has it, and your whole involvement here seems to be about discrediting his point of view.
Oh, well. I’ll have to live with the realization that I couldn’t convince you of a perspective other than the one you brought.
art rogers Says:
11 June 2009 at 6:47 am.
Alan (Cross),
I think that cooperation, as you said, happens when it is what you want to have happen. Our association, now Tulsa Metro Baptist Network, has a congenial and cooperative spirit, but I recognize we are not the norm across the country.
Still, I think it is a culture that is cultivated. Even in our group, the vast majority of churches and their pastors/staff don’t participate beyond the annual Christmas luncheon. In fact, I would hazard a guess that even that enormous group lacks a significant number of those who could attend.
The bottom line is that while a denominational connection might prove to be a link that facilitates cooperation, only people who want to work together will do so and they will do it through means that are available or they will create their own.
I return to your question, “How much cooperation really goes on…”
The point you are really making (I believe) is that cooperation that consists of sending in a check to a monolithic entity is not on par with riding on a plane with brothers and sisters who are not part of your local church, going to the other side of the world and sweating together to advance the Gospel.
You might spend the same amount of money on both enterprises, but which is really cooperation?
If that’s your point, it’s a really good one.
Jeff Wright Says:
11 June 2009 at 6:53 am.
Art: no, I never applied that to you. Nor Marty. I said what he wrote “smacks” of an arrogant position which is another way of saying “sounds like.”
About the hypocritical stuff: I was wrong, you didn’t say that. My bad.
Marty: thanks for the answer. I took the time to spell out my missional definition for you. You can’t do something similar? Oh, and again, I never used missional in a way other than a shorthand reference to your position which, based on the title of your blog seems a fair choice. My mistake was in using a word that carried a huge cache for you that brought confusion.
Art: it isn’t about respect for you or not, it is about speaking with the guy who originated the post.
One more thing Art: I’ve obviously been annoyed with you in our back-and-forth. I realized last night that I let that annoyance be the biggest determining factor in our conversation and respond to you with snark. I’ve realized that the factor I should have in mind when “speaking’ with you is that you are a fellow believer. I want to apologize for reacting to you on annoyance rather than Christian fellowship. I still think you are dead wrong obviously but I should have done a better job of disagreeing agreeably. Again, I’m sorry.
Marty Duren Says:
11 June 2009 at 9:04 am.
If you are picking up near the bottom, please revisit #44, Todd Littleton. His comment was sent to the holding tank for some reason and I just saw it.
Bart Barber Says:
11 June 2009 at 10:37 am.
In response to Todd’s assertion at #44 (thanks Marty) that anyone with the true gnosis about the SBC must necessarily join “the fringe” or “drink the Kool-Aid” (and certain of the category to which I will eventually be remanded in the thread):
Todd, I believe that you present a false dichotomy. Alan has noted that some agreement exists between Marty and myself on this thread. I think he is right; I think that we do see some of the same problems with the SBC. Not all, but some. Many of the same problems, perhaps. This fact, one would think from your comment, would make me a likely pilgrim to “the fringe.”
However, and here is the missing element, I think that much of what I have experienced of “the fringe” would eventually create structures with either the same problems or with worse problems. It is one thing to agree about the problems; it is another thing for me to think that you have the solutions.
And this little comment of mine has the great winsomeness of leading us back to the actual point of the OP: the Great Commission Resurgence. Specifically, with regard to Article IX, I see structural problems in the SBC. I have no real desire to protect the status quo. But color me very dubious with regard to the likely effectiveness of any of the solutions that I have examined (Akin’s, Hunt’s, Chapman’s, Duren’s, Littletons’).
Collective and cooperative work among sinful people can only rise so high this side of heaven. Sooner or later, we’re going to have to concede the fact that we will never perfect the structure, and we’re going to have to focus upon doing the best that we can with what we have. I remain convinced that our cooperative work through fallen imperfect structures is superior to what we would accomplish alone.
Bart Barber Says:
11 June 2009 at 10:38 am.
As a final corollary: Since it is the sinful condition of the people involved that inhibits our cooperative work, spiritual renewal in our local churches is likely to do more for our cooperative work than is any rejiggering of the organizational chart.
Grady Bauer Says:
11 June 2009 at 10:40 am.
Marty,
I think you’ve nailed it about the GCR. I personally see the GCR as simply a way in which SBC leadership can ease their minds. With it comes no new vision, no real changes…just words. It’s typical SBC….the IMB just pulled the same stuff. New strategy that only consists of new titles, yet no real changes and no new vision.
We’re just like GM and other companies…concerned with ourselves….without a vision….and without compelling leadership. In regards to the recent IMB decision to cut field staff….where is the sacrifice among leadership. We’re told “it’s time to take off the gloves and support the IMB.” Ok, what does that mean? Are guys in SBC leadership (most of which are very well off financially) offering to go without salaries until this is resolved? Are guys in SBC leadership offering to send the next few weeks of their churches offering to the IMB to make up the difference? Are guys in IMB leadership offering to go without pay? No…instead we create a few sound bytes, sign a document that has no action plan attached and move on with our lives.
With that, I am not Jeff Wright.
Grady
Will Bilyeu Says:
11 June 2009 at 10:41 am.
Not a member of the SDC. This blog was forwarded to me, and I found it to be quite interesting. Then I read through the comments as they devolved into the exact kind of squabbling referenced in the original article.
It’s almost as if Jeff Wright is trying to passively aggressively prove all of Marty’s points.
Very fun to read. Keep it up you crazy kids.
p.s. Marty, I don’t know you, but I found it helpful to picture you writing this on an old typewriter, world weary (is that the appropriate type of weariness when you are actually weary/wary of the SBC) and in a smokey room with a glass of Scotch. I suspect that none of this happened except for the weariness, but it does make it more fun to read.
Alan Cross Says:
11 June 2009 at 11:15 am.
Yes, Art, that was my point. It is silly to say that the SBC is about cooperation and fellowship when the truth is that we do little of either in biblical ways, even on a local level. I consistently look for real cooperation opportunities, but they are seldom found. Every level of the SBC just wants my churches money (and sometimes volunteers, but usually money) so that they can run their programs. When I show up with ideas or interest or a desire to participate in something worthwhile, people get “busy” and not much actually happens.
Personally, I think that we are a bunch of talk as a Convention of churches. But again, that’s just me. Like Art, I don’t have much SBC street cred. Sorry, Art. You’re just a novice. :)
Marty Duren Says:
11 June 2009 at 11:17 am.
Bart-
Thanks for your interaction and of course you’re a “Kool-aid drinker.” Just thought I’d would go ahead and fulfill expectations ;^)
You wrote @ 54
However, and here is the missing element, I think that much of what I have experienced of “the fringe” would eventually create structures with either the same problems or with worse problems. It is one thing to agree about the problems; it is another thing for me to think that you have the solutions.
Way up near the top, Todd correctly noted that those that are currently on the fringe (which is where I was, I’m not even on the field now) were forced there after attempts to participate in “normalcy” were either rebuffed, ridiculed or ignored. There is manifold evidence for this (some I saw firsthand and some happened to me). For you to even remotely consider yourself on the fringe is humorous to the point of laughable to me.
Remember that the YLI Dr. Draper started was a result of a conversation with a younger pastor who said, “I don’t even feel at home in the SBC any more.” When Draper started the conversation there were thousands of people who responded (ultimately) at some level about the level of disconnectedness, but here’s the kicker: they were all ages, not just younger leaders. Surely you have heard the refrain, “All they [denominational leaders] want is for us to keep sending the money.” When months of proposed solutions were finally accumulated in the YLI what was the response? Draper was attacked by some of his own brethren for even trying (personal conversation) and half of those who participated were branded as liberals. Cooperation indeed. This is old news.
While I’d agree that human structures are necessarily fallen, it does not mean that they should not be changed. The SBC is practically using telegraph (compared to the possibilities) with a process that dates (seemingly) to the industrial revolution and is ill suited to a digital age. While I agree that changing a flow chart will not bring revival, it might give a few people hope enough to pray for it. Until then, disconnectedness will continue as will attrition.
Also, don’t forget Patterson’s plan. His has just never been made public.
Bart, my family prayed for yours during your recent crisis. I hope that the mental and emotional anguish has subsided and that God’s peace and grace has been continually a part of your life.
Will-
Thanks for stopping by! All your observations are spot on. Well, it was more sleepiness and a cup of coffee than weariness and Scotch, but if the mental picture helps…
Grady-
Which is why I remain on the outside.
Todd Says:
11 June 2009 at 11:31 am.
Bart,
Surely the end is near. We agree. There is very little we discuss that does not at some point turn into a false dichotomy. We may hope for a dialectical turn where we may move beyond both limiting extremes. I have no great plan for the SBC – i.e. the Littleton’s plan. Revival, revolution, whatever comes to the SBC as you well note will move from the local church level. I will caution that at some point if the larger, more well-positioned refuse following what the rest of us experience as the move of the Triune God then it may mean departure rather than pointless head banging. That simply represents reality not any kind of implicit threat. We will at some point move to self-preservation and opt for the sense of contribution to the Kingdom work even if it means leaving some former connections behind.
I returned to the top of the page to be sure my old memory had not failed and saw my name; the first to applaud this post. With every comment I have hoped to help along what I see favorable in Marty’s critical (in a healthy way imo) post. The comment to which you object was a playful attempt to remind at least one young man we are replaying our own history, as you could ably demonstrate. We do not do well with spectrums – give me one choice or the other and so I did. Surely you think me a little smarter than to think the lines are so easily drawn.
The idea of the “fringe” is not a negative by those who wish to dwell there and should not strike fear in those who don’t. Fringe still implies being a part it is simply a matter of degrees. You choose to see the level of cooperation from one vantage point, I may choose another. But, we are still part of the whole until either you redraw the lines or I choose to opt out. We may need to agree that these two things have been happening along the spectrum rather than in extremes.
art rogers Says:
11 June 2009 at 11:54 am.
Yes, Alan. Clearly I am an amateur. ;) Your point re: cooperation is well made, in my naive opinion.
Well, for my part I apologize as well for devolving this thread.
Jeff, thanks for the apology. I hope you receive mine. And like your perspective, I think I’m right and you’re wrong, but that’s pretty much the way it works.
I’ll let Bart, Marty and Todd play longer if they choose, though they seem to do it so much nicer….
Bart Barber Says:
11 June 2009 at 12:33 pm.
Marty,
I have erred greatly somewhere in my typing. I never meant to communicate myself as any portion of “the fringe.” Truly, as you note so well, that would be a laughable statement. That’s why I didn’t mean to make it.
I would be glad to clarify my words, but I’m not sure by precisely which words I misled you.
The best candidate that I can find is where I hypothetically identified myself as a likely “pilgrim” toward the fringe. My point was simply that I have been where Todd indicated. I have taken a careful look at the SBC, and from a position close enough to see it truly, at least in part (we’re all feeling our way around the elephant somewhat, aren’t we?). My point was that I understood Todd to be saying that these are the people who inexorably either go to the fringe or deny the existence of the problems (my understanding of the Kool-Aid in question). It was by having met what I understood to be Todd’s qualifications that I posited myself as the “pilgrim.”
Of course, I’m not on the fringe. And that was the point that I obviously failed in making…that I perceive myself to have seen what Todd suggested that I should see, nevertheless I perceive myself neither to have become “the fringe” nor to have a conspicuous mustache of Red Dye #2.
Bart Barber Says:
11 June 2009 at 12:34 pm.
Todd,
I’ll have my lawyer send you papers by which we stipulate to one another’s intelligence.
;-)
Yes, all of us think things more complex than we can type them. If, by our interaction, we get the more of it out there, so much the better.
Alan Cross Says:
11 June 2009 at 12:44 pm.
Todd,
Good thoughts on the spectrum and how those on the fringe are still a part of the whole. That is where I find myself. It is interesting because I agree so strongly with conservative Baptist theology, inerrancy, et al. I just disagree with a few things and some methodology in the Convention and that pushes you, me, Marty, Art, Paul, David P., and others in this thread to the fringe. What happens when there are more on the fringe than at the center? Are we already seeing that? Is it 2-3 years off if the GCR fails? Just think how much has changed since Greensboro only THREE years ago!
The GCR will be effective only if local churches come alive and engage the mission. Since that is what we are all engaged in trying to do (Bart included), then technically the seeds of SBC renewal are already growing at a grassroots level all over the convention. We would do much better if the leadership would highlight what God IS doing through Southern Baptists instead of trying to funnel everything through the same basic structure develpoped in 1925.
Todd Says:
11 June 2009 at 1:18 pm.
Alan,
Without getting too far afield, I would suggest that base to Marty’s post is the inherent understanding ascent to certain positions invariably result in myopia. This is not a denigration of person but a reference to the corrupting nature of power. We are all susceptible. It may be why Marty has eschewed any attempt to draft him for leadership position. He knows what we all know and is willing to lead from the perimeter held accountable to a vision rather than a bequeathed position.
I would nuance further than words carry a bit of their own code so that often people sound the same but have entirely different visions. Read back through this thread and see how the word missional was/not used. Widen the birth and it will soon become apparent that missional, like emerging and even reformed, do not come with a unifying brand identity but share more of a similarity to language dialects. These dialects arise from colloquial locations and communal experiences. And, we cannot forget our individual wiring. Combine these things and it is easy to see how out of sorts we get when we lay claim to what is Baptist, much less what comprises the “whole Gospel” or the “whole counsel of God.”
The overlooked piece in Marty’s assertion is that neither has the Great Commission failed nor its success been dependent on the SBC. Such insidiously arrogant temperament keeps us far afield of anything close to cooperation. Albeit sacrilege to admit, it is an overstatement that the CP is the greatest invention of cooperation. Making such a point centers our agreements on money and not the Gospel. The greatest invention for cooperation is John 17 – love for one another that overrules your view and mine of God as “the” view. We still may make assertions but in the end they fail to apprehend the ineffable. Further it is idolatrous to say we can.
Who cares if the GCR fails? Can anyone really defend the CR as successful? We are as divided, if not more than we have been. Most of it on the backs of shallow, egotistical preacher types like us who think for some reason we have a cornered the market on God. Faithfulness will not be measured by the success or failure of some acronym. Obedience will be the mark. Chasing anything else gives us an overinflated opinion of ourselves that Holy Writ notes precedes great falls. Marty’s other recent post serves a healthy reminder.
Enough ranting from Littleton
Marty Duren Says:
11 June 2009 at 2:07 pm.
Ah, trips to Myopia and not even needing a passport.
cb scott Says:
11 June 2009 at 2:48 pm.
Man, I wish Ben was here. It would almost be a class reunion.
Also, it is funny that things a few talked about in Memphis just a short time ago are now the talk of the whole SBC. Did not someone once say; “Bloggers have no influence”?:-)
cb
Marty Duren Says:
11 June 2009 at 2:51 pm.
CB, my brutha!
Indeed they did. Indeed they did. Something about “graffiti” too, as I recall.
Paul Says:
11 June 2009 at 2:54 pm.
Just so you know, Marty, I’m mad at your blog for eating my comment just now. It’s only because Todd is making me retype it that I’m having another go here.
In the spirit of cooperation I hereby nominate Bart as Executive Director and Jeff Wright as Grand Poobah for the LSSBCBSBCIWS.
But seriously, I believe that the SBC will change. Will reform. Yes, the cynic has officially died. Services tomorrow at 10. Now, I don’t think that reform will happen because those who are now at the center either see a problem or agree to a way forward. I don’t think it will happen because 90% of convention pastors and leaders sign a GCR Declaration either with or without caveats. I don’t think it will come as a result of a program emanating from the EC, a seminary or any other agency be it local, state or national. I believe it will come by virtue of necessity.
I’m confident that leaders see some of the problems that exist, even if they want to crucify Ed Stetzer for making them public thorough his nifty little statistical surveys. But eventually circumstances are going to catch up. CP trends are going to catch up with us. The scaling back of missions will catch up with us. The declining enrollments at traditional venues of theological education will catch up with us. The declining budgets at those institutions will catch up with us. We will no longer be able to bleed the turnip. Despite our best efforts to encourage churches to give greater and greater percentages to the CP we will eventually hit the point of critical mass and there will simply be no more to give – or too many will conclude that that sort of giving isn’t the best stewardship of their resources.
As fewer pastors support the traditional associational model for finding encouragement, support and cooperation and as more and more find those things elsewhere there will be little choice left but to change. As Southern Baptist church planters abandon NAMB as a church planting support and either go with an Acts 29, a Tim Keller or their own local church the denomination will (reluctantly, I’m sure) begin to abandon the things the local church is abandoning.
So renew your hope, my friends. Just do what you do as God leads you to do it in the ways he leads you to do it. In this day and age you will likely discover that there are many friends ready to do similar things with you (cooperation?). And if you still find yourself all alone, just legally change your name to Amos, or Joel, or Habakkuk, or some such. But whether the local church intends to reform the denomination or not, it will, simply by virtue of what it does and doesn’t support and do.
Paul Says:
11 June 2009 at 2:58 pm.
CB Scott, you old dog. I was half convince you’d dropped off the earth or that someone somewhere from your past finally found your hidey hole.
cb scott Says:
11 June 2009 at 3:14 pm.
Paul,
Every time I try to drop off the earth, stinkin’ gravity grabs me and breaks my face on the pavement.
As far as the guys from my past; I am the only one left outside of a couple living in an assisted living facility in South America.
cb
Marty Duren Says:
11 June 2009 at 3:16 pm.
CB-
Until the Massad finds them…
Paul-
Apparently that has something to do with the high value of the comment being made.
Paul Says:
11 June 2009 at 3:22 pm.
[Just another high value comment that somehow slipped past the filters.]
Todd Says:
11 June 2009 at 3:23 pm.
CB would be glad I held a gun to Paul’s head to get him to give the comment another go. :)
CB, you are not behind the gun giveaway at churches are you? :D
Glad to see your handle here.
cb scott Says:
11 June 2009 at 4:04 pm.
Here is one just for old times sake boys:
All the Blogtown locals were sitting around in Local Cafe drinking High Test and eating ham and onion sandwiches.
Villa Rica said; “Can you guys believe that Ben Cole is now in Washington D.C. helping make policy for the United States of America?”
A long silence took over the room. Duren and Rogers rose up first and left the building. Slowly the cafe emptied.
The road out of Blogtown was suddenly packed with trucks and cars headed for the Canadian border.
After a while, Merle padlocked the Local Cafe, got on his Harley and left. The sign on the door read:
“ITS BEEN FUN, BUT I AM HEADED TO MEXICO
LOVE, MERLE”
Mike Day Says:
18 June 2009 at 2:15 pm.
Hey Marty-
Just returned to this to see if there were fresh comments and saw the end of your comment 38 for the first time. That really hurt ;>)
Marty Duren Says:
19 June 2009 at 6:17 am.
Oh, no, MIke. You should be feeling the love.
Ken Says:
19 June 2009 at 8:28 am.
Marty , Been away a long time and a friend told me to read this. Bingo, I agree with all you said. I believe you pegged it !
