PHOENIX — If Southern Baptists are going to fulfill their
God-given mission in a lost world, they must deal with fragmentation and
self-centeredness and recommit themselves to gratitude, trust, unified ministry
and honesty, messengers were told during the opening session of the Southern
Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting June 14.
“We have been headed in the wrong direction, in several ways,” said Frank Page,
SBC Executive Committee (EC) president, during the EC’s report to the
convention. “Our convention is fracturing into various groups, some
theological, most methodological. Sometimes there is an honest difference of
opinion, but often there is self-centeredness that frequently mirrors our own
culture.
“Christ-like selflessness is our only hope.”
Photo by Van Payne Frank Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee, gives the Executive Committee report during the morning session June 14 of the two-day Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Ariz. |
While many have lamented a decline in giving through the SBC’s Cooperative
Program missions channel, Page cited statistics that showed total mission
expenditures in Southern Baptist churches also have declined over the past 20
years. In 1989, Southern Baptist congregations allocated 16.5 percent of their
total receipts to missions, but by 2009 that had declined to 12.32 percent.
“Our cooperating churches have not just shifted their Cooperative Program
dollars away from the Cooperative Program to other missions…,” Page said. “What
this means is that we have been keeping more of our dollars at home. While the
Cooperative Program certainly has taken its hit, it is our total mission giving
that is the real victim.”
As CEO of the Executive Committee, Page said he is working to rebuild trust by
reducing bureaucracy. EC staff has been reduced by 19 percent and the budget
has been cut 13.58 percent, Page said. The budget being presented to messengers
during the annual meeting allocates 95 percent of Cooperative Program dollars
to international missions, North American church planting and evangelism and
seminary education, Page said.
As a show of unity and support for cooperative missions, Page called to the
platform a large group of people — the 12 heads of Southern Baptist national
entities, executives of Baptist state conventions and a number of ethnic
fellowship presidents who had signed a document titled “Affirmation of Unity
and Cooperation.”
That document includes five core pledges:
- “We pledge to maintain a relationship of mutual trust, behaving ourselves
trustworthily before one another and trusting one another as brothers and
sisters indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. (Ephesians 4:20- 32; Philippians
4:8; 2 Peter 1:3-8)
- “We pledge to attribute the highest motives to those engaged in local church
ministries and those engaged in denominational service in any level of
Convention life — motives that originate within hearts truly desiring to serve
the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we also serve. (1 Samuel 2:3; Matthew 7:1-5; 1
Corinthians 4:1-5)
- “We pledge to affirm the value of cooperative ministry as the most effective
and efficient means of reaching a lost world with the message of the Gospel.
(Acts 9:31; 1 Corinthians 16:1-23; Psalm 68:11; Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)
- “We pledge to embrace our brothers and sisters of every ethnicity, race, and
language as equal partners in our collective ministries to engage all people
groups with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. (Matthew 28:18-20; Romans 16:25-27;
Revelation 7:9)
- “We pledge to continue to honor and affirm proportional giving through the
Cooperative Program as the most effective means of mobilizing our churches and
extending our outreach as Southern Baptists, enabling us to work together to
evangelize the lost people of our world locally, regionally, nationally, and
internationally. (Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 1:8, 20:20-21; Romans 10:14-17; 2
Corinthians 8:1-13; 9:1-15)”
For Southern Baptists to be an effective mission force in a lost world,
however, grassroots leadership and rank-and-file church members also must renew
their commitments to unity and cooperation, Page said.
“As these SBC leaders stand with me, I want you the messengers to understand
these affirmations are not only for those standing with me,” Page said. “You
are the foundational base of any mission enterprise. Our unified ministry is
effective because you make it so — or you don’t. Through the Cooperative
Program, we can accomplish more than we could ever do alone.”
Referring to the account of four men who brought a hurting friend to Jesus for
healing in Mark 2, Page challenged Southern Baptists to commit themselves to
working together to help a hurting people at home and abroad.
“Let’s covenant together to reverse the declines in baptisms and mission giving
and Cooperative Program support for the sake of carrying the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ,” Page declared. “Let’s bring that hurting one to the One who can
minister to the physical but, most of all, the spiritual needs.”
The real problem in Southern Baptist life is spiritual, not logistical, Page
added.
“We spent a great deal of time and energy in the last two years dealing with
issues from the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force,” Page said. “I was a
member of that task force. My fear from the beginning was that if we were not
careful, we would spend a great deal of time with logistical issues, when the
bottom-line problem before us is not logistical as much as it is spiritual.
“Our great need is a heaven-sent revival that begins in our own hearts,” Page
said. “Unless and until that happens, there will be no increase in baptisms and
missions support. So, in all honesty, I stand before you today and tell you
that what we need is a Holy Ghost revival. God, may it be so.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Kelly is senior writer and assistant editor for Baptist Press.)