the Glocal Trekker Blog

Recently I spoke at one of the many gatherings of the Southern Baptist Convention in San Antonio. It was neat for me, speaking a few blocks from where one of my "potential" ancestors died. We all talk about missional and what that means - I think of the men in the Alamo - when they fought, they fought with complete abandonment. They knew they were dead men - so they hit it with everything they had. The damage a couple of hundred men did to thousands was just incredible. But, when you know you're a dead man anyhow - you take as many with you as you can - that's Texan! The well-trained Mexican soldiers later wrote that they fought like wild men not normal soldiers. No time for them to read manuals, study tactics, the battle was on and their best hope of survival was using what they learned from living out on the front lines of the West.

When I was a little boy, my family always looked forward to the SBC because it's when we got to take our vacation in the station wagon. We went to some of the sessions as kids, but not that many - which was a blessing for everyone else - trust me! Last week, I sat in the big convention floor area and worshipped. I sensed the presence of God, I felt the history of God's people, saw the faces of many of my heroes, remembered chasing down Dr. Criswell as an 8-year-old boy to get him to sign my Bible, and Roy Fish (who would later teach me evangelism but more importantly-- show me how a Christian lives). I just had that Bible rebound! I'm so grateful for so many - when I was a teen-ager I discovered the preaching of Adrian Rogers - wow! I grew up as a little boy with Manley Beasley in and out of our home, and loved him. One of the worst spankings my brother and I got was for playing with John Bisagnio's trumpet, it's an honor for me to sometimes be on the program with him at different places! Jimmy Draper was a massive encouragement to me at different points when I first started NorthWood 22 years ago. I could go on and on, these are my roots and this is my history. We all find ourselves in different narratives, and I am what I am today and frankly do what I do because of their investments in my life - they were men who would do what was right, not popular, not easy. They would also live for the big picture, not the immediate moment - so that changed things as well.

My mother was the WMU who raised a Royal Ambassador, my hero was the missionary my dad went to seminary with. I am what I am because I believed all that stuff I was taught as a little kid in SS, RA's, TU, VBS, and kids camp. I took it literally - and still do. It has lead me into delicate and difficult places in the world where at times literally my life has been on the line. When your life is on the line, you focus real fast on what really matters and what's really real - everything else you chunk.

Our early Baptist ancestors got it. That's why we had a church planting movement in the 1800's - we didn't call it that - we didn't even try to label it - we were just in flow with God. We are what we are today because of spiritual ancestors in the 1800's. We are not 16 million because of us - but because of them.

So as I'm sitting there, at the SBC last week a spiritual child and descendant of all these people, my heart began to break. What are we doing with all we've been given? How are we making the world different? How are we changing with the times so that we will be a convention that one hundred years from now will have more than a hundred million constituents? What would it look like if the SBC one and only mandate was to extend and live out the Kingdom of God in all domains in the entire world mobilizing the entire body of Christ? These are questions I focus our church on and our church planters on and other groups I work with. What if you focused 16 million people on that - but alas - others have tried to do the same thing, and it winds up being programs, and etc. and so on and so on and so on.

What would it look like? OK, just for fun - let's dream . . .

First, we would re-orient the Cooperative Program. The largest amount of money we spend, and the most important budget our 45,000 churches focused on would be every single churches mission budget. If they're going to feel that, they have to develop that. They can't just send in their money and read stories of what other people are doing. Our greatest days that planted the greatest seeds were done without the Cooperative Program - it didn't come on the scene until 1925 - long after our decades long movement had been going. It was a great program - it centralized things and allowed everyone to get to play a role. BUT, the world has changed. Everyone is connected, and everyone wants to play, and theologically as Baptist especially with our belief on world evangelization and congregational life we more than any group on the face of the earth we should do all we can to engage every Baptist to reach the world. The old paradigm of pray, give, and some go must change - and it is changing with new and younger pastors across the country - and as the early 20's come into leadership it will change even more because they are more global and hands on than any generation we've ever seen. This is good not bad for us - it insures we'll have a narrative and leaders - if we allow them to play ball. People want to be a part of an exciting story. It has to be their story - it can't be someone Else's story of someone who lived a hundred years ago, or who is doing it now. They want their hands dirty - they long to be hero's and we should as "religious" leaders use all we can to make them the heroes, not us. But, if they can't because the funding issue prevents them from being involved because they have to give x % to the denomination, or they give the money but their members can't be involved, - what is left for them to give. The CP has become very expensive for local churches wanting to do missional things. It comes to feel like a tax, I don't think we'll ever see a Baptist tea party - I do think young pastors will just quietly ease out in favor of playing ball with other networks and groups that allow and even encourage local churches to engage aggressively. If missions is the most important budget in the church, and God can speak to every single local church, why shouldn't that church develop that 10% plus? At NorthWood, over 25% of our total receipts generally goes to missions - but not the CP in Nashville. However, the majority of that money, accounting for hundreds of thousands of dollars is for SBC church planters, and is tied to many ministries that benefit the SBC locally and globally, and even financially. If churches were given more freedom, I believe the actual income we would receive as a denomination would dwarf what we've seen through the CP. Don't kill the cp, but put clothes on it from 2007, not 1925, rename it, reformat it - car makers do, clothers do, furniture makers do, the Sons of Issachar did. The cooperative program is in not inerrant nor should it be given the same status as the Bible - it's our practical response to engagement. CP giving may be down, but I'm convinced missions giving is up - churches are not giving less, they are directing more, this trend is already in play and will continue. This leads to the second thing . . .

Second, we would begin to work collaboratively - which we don't do a lot of now. The place in the convention where they do try this more than anywhere is the IMB - some churches are acting as strategy coordinators for countries - but what if every church was trained, mobilized and engaged in a city or people group around the world? This is the goal - no one would disagree on that. In the new book Wikinomics, Don Tapscott describes in brilliant form how the world is going to communicate and network in the future. Can you imagine what would happen if we had networks of doctors, educators, plumbers, electricians, janitors, and politicians who were using their jobs in every single local church to engage cities and they were networking - the smartest urban thinkers in the world around domains to engage it. This is going to happen, it is happening - why not the SBC? Can you imagine with our receipts of probably more than a billion dollars how we could change the world it that was put full force? Can you imagine large groups of laymen being the spearheads of solving many of our global concerns versus a small group of elite that hold the reigns to everything?

Third, we would we become an international movement - not a convention - not an American denomination. Why not be the first denomination to do this - let's get out front and beat the rest! The Anglican church worldwide is making herself known - the American Episcopalian church has realized she can't force her agenda of homosexuality on the rest of the Anglican world. The center of Christianity has shifted - we need the rest of the world more than the rest of the world needs us. We have much to learn. I heard yesterday we are the 3rd largest unreached nation in the world behind India and China. I don't know if that's true, but it wouldn't shock me at all. We are a mission field, and yet we are operating as if we are the ultimate sending place. Twenty years from now, I have no doubt the mandate of the IMB will not be to just be a "sending agency" for SBC missionaries, but a "receiving hub" of other missionaries wanting to come to America - as well as a mobilization hub to connect every single Baptist with every domain on all of society in the world. We will work collaboratively networking together Baptist(and probably other denominations and networks as well) worldwide to interactive, viral, decentralized movements.

Fourth, our leadership would be global. Yesterday I sat and listened to a significant international pastor meeting with a group of Dallas pastors, sharing how God has called his church from another country to reach out to America. He's already starting churches here (a black African training white young men to plant churches in America!) and was challenging us and telling us where we were wrong. Wow, the tables have turned! His grandfather accepted Christ through American missionaries and he said he couldn't stand seeing the American church continue in it's current direction - that he was going to do something about it. He was in your face and at one point I didn't know how to take him. Then, I began to think, how does an Eastern pastor feel when we show up and in our "American Bravado" we do the same thing. I though, I need to not be defensive, but listen to this guy - and wow, it was good.
I've met Koreans, Indonesians, Egyptians, Jews, and other people from other nations who are coming here to plant churches - and not for ethnic people - but white people!

Fifth, our approach would of necessity have to be decentralized. This strikes fear in the hearts of institutional leaders - but I believe it's because we misunderstand decentralization. It isn't leaderless, someone at Google, Ebay, Wikipedia, Facebook, and Myspace is making money and driving stuff. It is speaking more of operational and engagement philosophy. This does not mean the institution dies - it can't - that would be bad. I used to think institutions were bad - they're not. As I began to work around the world I realized the importance of the institution of health, economics, governance, communications, etc. Faith needs her institutions as well. What does an institution do? It holds the narrative and the values of a movement. This is what I got from being a Southern Baptist - it lead to all that my church and I are involved in. Where institutions miss it, is when they confuse the methods with the values and stifle the move of the people with bureaucracies and power politics - then we have a large institution that ultimately will decline - because those who would continue the story go elsewhere where they can be a part of an on-going narrative.

Sixth, it would require a different kind of pastor and church leadership. We would move from great pulpiteers to great mobilizers, from studies to ditches, from committees of the elect to relationships of the hopeless and most needy, from reading the hottest religious books to reading God's word along with history and sociology and current events so we can be as the sons of Issachar, from meeting to prioritize opportunities to everyone grabbing what God is sticking in front of their face. It is an utterly fantastic time to be alive and to be in the ministry. The opportunities and world that we live in today is like no other time save the days of the early church. I'm having a blast and I'm seeing all these young pastors having a blast - it's because of the shoulders of ancestors long before us. We're standing on their shoulders, they've hoisted us up, as they were in their day - so we must have in our day, young prophetic voices and old godly men who will let those young men stand up on their shoulders and drive the future.

Often I've been told when I challenged people, "we're already doing this" but when a leader of an institution has to tell a constituent that - it ain't happen' a whole lot! These things will happen, we all know it, the only question is why and when will they happen? Will they happen because our convention has been driven into the ground because we don't want to change and wind up loosing exceptional young pastors, churches, people, and money? Or will it happen because as in the early 1800's as Baptist we felt the shifting of the wind on our face and jumped out in front.

Why am I writing this? I never speak, talk, write on denominational things - that's not where I live and I probably won't ever again - I just felt my history and my ancestors rise up within me, so out of respect for them. God bless the Southern Baptist Convention, her leaders, and her missionaries - every single follower of Jesus.

Father, we are who we are in you because you reached out to us from the cross to Paul, to Patrick, to Luther & Calvin, to Wesley & Whitfield & Edwards, to Carey & Moon, to Graham and now us. May our love of you lead to legacies beyond ourselves so in this link since Adam, another generation may stand on our shoulders.