Thoughts on the GCR

Wow...two months since the last post. I apologize for that, even though I warned you at the onset of this blog that my posts tended to be few and far between. Much has happened in the last two months. My wife and I bought a house and have done some work on it. My truck died. And we spent a week at the Southern Baptist Convention meetings in Orlando. Those of you who are friends on facebook may or may not have seen my disgruntled posts about the ridiculous lines at Universal Islands of Adventures for the Harry Potter world that opened there. Maybe disgruntled is not the right word...Probably to term it baffled would be better. Anyway, the better part of the week was spent at the SBC meetings, where many great things happened.

If you have followed any of the developments on the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR), then you will understand that it has been greatly controversial in its development. I read the report of the task force assigned to make recommendations to the SBC concerning funding and missions. I read blogs and emails and spoke with several people about the GCRTF report, trying to formulate my best opinion on the issue. I fear that many in our convention listened to what others were saying rather than reading the report and coming up with their own prayerfully considered opinion on the issue. Much like the US Attorney General and the recent Arizona immigration law. I fear that much of the passionate argument on both sides of the debate came from hearsay and pack mentality than it did on its own prayerful merit.

In my estimation before the SBC meetings, I thought that the GCR was a great plan with poor implementation. As Christians (not just Baptists), we must be about sharing the Gospel. I know many of my Reformed bretheren will be inclined to deemphasize true evangelism (this is a theological/philosophical debate I promise to delve into at a later date). But, the mandate is made clear in the Gospels. We know Matthew 28.19-20. If we don't, we need to. It is the command of Christ that we make disciples of ALL nations as we go about our daily business. It is not an option. It is what we are to do if we are truly followers of Christ, regardless of how we are chosen, when we were chosen, or if there is a secret will of God (again, the philosophical debate will come later). All the GCR is trying to do is refocus our efforts as Southern Baptists on this crucial task of the Christian life. It is an attempt to make us better stewards of the resources which God has entrusted us in doing this task. It is not an overhaul of doctrine. It is not an overtaking of the Convention. It is a call to be about the mission Christ set before us in Scripture.

But, as the report on the GCR originally read, it was misunderstood and proposed a poor means of implementation. The language of the report was complex, and, as Dr. Mohler eloquently stated from the podium, was done so intentionally for legal reasons. The problem with getting around the legality dilemma and having Dr. Mohler explain was that the language was not clear in its intention. As it was understood, the GCR would detract from the regular Cooperative Program giving in the SBC. For those who are not Southern Baptist, the Cooperative Program is the way we fund literally everything we do. From the seminaries to international missions to disaster relief to home missions, so on and so forth. The way the report was interpreted by many, including myself, was that we would revert to an associational model of giving, where churches can choose to support individual entities rather than the collective CP. The CP is a centralization of funds for the SBC and has been the best model of uniting church giving in the history of the denominational movement. In all actuality, as I have discovered in the debate over the GCR, what they are proposing is no different than what is in place already in our churches. The system is almost exactly the same, they are just re-terming the way it is all calculated. In effort to add clarity to the issue, the GCRTF adopted new language to their report that overly affirms the CP as the main and best means of funding mission work in the SBC.

Why is this important? Well, while I agree in principle with many young bloods in the Convention that things need to change and progress, there are some things, even wordings, that must remain to unify our Convention of churches. For the last 85 years, the Cooperative Program has been what modeled the unity of our churches, in spite of our geographical and slight doctrinal differences. I have a grandmother who would be reluctant to give her money to the church if it were no longer CP giving. I serve in a church where many of our older members would be in the same boat. In effort to reach our contemporary, younger audiences, we too often sacrifice the older generation, who has preserved the church for us in years gone by. We look at the way they did things and automatically assume that what was good for their generation won't work for ours. I agree to a great extent. I don't know of many, if any, churches that are reaching my generation (18-34) singing Bill and Gloria Gaither songs every Sunday. While that was good 25-30 years ago, my generation wants something real, something deep, something that reflects our doctrine and not something that is geared at emotional excitement. The generation before that was motivated by loyalty and what was expected of them, so a board at the front of the church that showed how many were in attendance and how much was given motivated their participation in the church. This loyalty was also directed to the Cooperative Program because it was what qualified you as a Southern Baptist congregation. It was a pride issue as much as it was an identity. But, this was not an evil pride. This was a pride in doing God's work.

For many of us, especially in the age of the megachurch, loyalty to the CP is seen as a thing of old. My father-in-law's pastor was quoted in the Baptist Courier (state Baptist paper for South Carolina) as saying that the 10% mark of CP giving was a thing of the past and churches will not return to that benchmark. I disagree. That attitude and perspective is exactly why we need a GCR. If churches across the Convention would return to that loyalty to the CP, especially our megachurches, to whom us little guys look, we would not be pulling missionaries off the field, we would not need a second giving for the Lottie Moon Christmas offering, we would have already surpassed the $200 mil mark for that offering, the $100 mil mark for the Annie Armstrong, and we would have a global strategy. Every year for at least the last 6, CP giving has been down. To present a plan that would seemingly further detract from the CP is poor implementation. Fortunately, the language was clarified and there was a new rush of support for CP giving. The CP is the main way we give. The GCR did not change that.

I am out of time...I promise to get more tomorrow.