GCR - Part Two

yep...I did what I said I would do. I came back today to give more of my perspective. Is it 100% accurate? I doubt it, but it is what I see. You can read 100 reports, blogs, essays, etc about this Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) and get 100 differing perspectives. While many parts of each will read the same, many of the finer details will differ. That is human nature. I can walk into a room and make a statement and each person will hear something slightly different.

The important thing for us all to keep in mind with the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force (GCRTF) proposal, especially in these days after it has overwhelmingly passed at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) meetings, is that it is not about strategy, but about heart. Retiring Executive Committee President Morris Chapman has hit the nail on the head when he said in a recent Baptist Press article that unless the hearts of Southern Baptists nationwide get on God's agenda and yield themselves fully to God, no strategy, plan, or action will be successful in taking the Gospel to the nations. His end argument was to postpone the proposals of the GCRTF, but his intention was right on. It is a matter of the heart. If we do not resign ourselves to fully supporting the mission of the SBC that we all love, then we will not see mission efforts improve in our Convention. This is why I was speaking of the megachurches yesterday actually giving 10% to the SBC. Is it biblically mandated? Obviously not. But, when the SBC finally elects a president who loves the Cooperative Program (CP) and has faithfully led his church in giving to it, the effect will be great. I have respect for Johnny Hunt, but his stated love for the CP is merely statement. His giving pattern to the CP over the last several, several years has not been a trajectory of improvement. As I stated yesterday, I am encouraged that he has pledged to get his church to the 10% mark over the next few years. This is a HUGE step in the right direction, one that we all must follow.

In the end there are a few things that all of our Southern Baptist churches must do. First, we must ALL lay on our faces before God, asking for forgiveness, an outpouring of His divine mercy upon our Convention, and seeking His plan for our church's cooperation. This is the heart of the message of Morris Chapman. God has promised in 2 Chronicles that if we seek His face and pray that He will hear from heaven and heal our land. This is not a passive action. It requires deep commitment to seeing our lives and hearts transformed by God. The attitude is of full yielding to whatever God shows us. I fear that many in our Convention will take the attitude of "Well, I will pray for it, but..." Anytime we place a but before our prayer, we have nullified the attitude God wants in our prayer. Further, an attitude that promulgates division in our churches first stands against the principles of Christian unity that bleed from the pages of Ephesians, but also promotes selfish pride. An example of this can be found via twitter where a relatively high profile leader at one of our institutions stated: "I do not question Dr. Chapman's sincerity, but I believe that he is sincerely wrong." What is easily missed on things like twitter where only short statements are allowed is what the Dean of Boyce College at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary thinks Dr. Chapman is wrong about. This statement seemingly promotes the ostentatious attitude that strategy trumps heart change, which is contrabiblical and divisive. We must pray about the attitudes of our hearts and confess our obnoxious pride before our God so that He may bless us with a harvest of lost souls nationwide.

Second, we must take the report of the GCR as a gut-check to our personal missiology. Apparently we are not as good as we thought we were. If we were, everything I discussed yesterday about CP giving, Lottie Moon, Annie Armstrong, and pulling missionaries would not be true. We have created a subculture in our churches that believes that missions is a passive effort. We think that we can just throw and extra twenty in the offering plate at Christmas, designate it for Lottie Moon, and think we have done missions. Do not mishear what I am saying. I completely understand that some people can only do that. That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that for us to passively engage missions in such a fashion is sinful. Jesus did not say disengage yourself from personal missions, he said go, teach, and make disciples. If all you are physically or economically able to do is support missions through an offering twice a year, but you have prayed about what God would have you to give, then your heart reflects the Great Commission and your attitude to please God through the carrying of the Gospel to the nations. If you are physically and economically able to go on a mission trip but do not, all you do is throw your twenty in the Lottie Moon box, shame on you. I do not pass judgment on you, but I do exhort you to Great Commission action. Missions is not an offering. Missions is an action and an action in which we ALL must participate. The greatest way that we, as Southern Baptists, ensure that mission efforts are perpetually carried out is through the CP. Once again, if our megachurches alone would embrace the 10% mark of CP giving, that alone would increase the budget of the SBC so that missionaries would not lose their post because of lack of funding, the EC budget losing nearly 1/3 of its money would not matter, and the Southern Baptist Convention would become Hell's most feared entity as we storm its gates with the Gospel.

Third, we MUST rally in support of the GCR. I know there was much debate, many people angered, and possibly a few churches that will leave the SBC over this. First, that shows that they have not sought Christian unity and the face of God. Do I believe that God desired the GCRTF report? Expressly, no. But I do think that the men on the GCRTF searched for a better way to fulfill the will of God. That will is that men be saved. Supporting the GCR ratifies our Convention's 150 year old belief that we must be about evangelizing the lost. Is it the best plan? No. Is it the only plan? No. Is it the plan that we have on the table now around which we must unify ourselves? Yes. Second, no matter which side of the debate you may fall, this is not a first or second order theological issue that would mandate separating fellowship. This is an argument over strategy, but unless we give this strategy our support and allow it to work, it never will. I could write about the upcoming schisms in our Convention that I believe are coming, but failure to rally in support of the GCR (which does FULLY support the CP) will expedite that process. However, if the churches of our convention do support this plan I believe that a few of the other schisms will be avoided. We must not be divisive. We must exhibit Christian unity.

I guess it is time to wrap it up. In short, I do believe that the GCR is a good plan. I believe that in cleaning up the language, it demonstrates a great plan of implementation for our Convention. The plan has my full support. I have been encouraged in email conversations with both Dr. Ronnie Floyd, pastor of FBC Springdale, Ark and chairman of the GCRTF, as well as Dr. Roger Spradlin, pastor of Valley Baptist in Bakersfield, CA and newly elected chair of the Executive Committee, that efforts are in place to preserve ministries such as the Global Evangelical Relations office which was reported to be lost due to lack of funding in the moving of funds from the EC to the IMB. There is much about which to be encouraged in our Convention. The greatest encouragement to be found is in the pages of Scripture and in the hour of prayer as we seek the face of our God in completion of His mission. Please hear the call of unity, the rally of support, and the cries of the lost who need our Convention to put differences aside, support the GCR, unify around CP giving and carry the Gospel to the lost world, whether it is across the street from where you are, across town, across the county, the state, or across the seas. As Carl F. H. Henry said, "The Gospel is only good news if it gets there in time."