Missions Blog

SBC Outpost » Marty Duren and Paige Patterson

This is a good read by Marty Duren over at SBC Outpost. I encourage you to take the time to read it. This is what I took out of it. Even well educated men who love God and have worked tirelessly for the kingdom for years cannot, often times, see past their own culture.

A young pastor is warned that by moving his church to contemporary worship he might end up in an affair. Honestly I consider this equal to saying “if you eat fruit loops you might become a crazed murderer.” In this example, it is possible for one to confuse his worship preferences with what is right and confuse his dislike for another worship style as sin.

The wrong reaction to hearing this is to get angry and bash that individual, but the problem is that we all have or all currently are doing the same thing with another matter in Christianity.

Basically this has inspired me to write a series of posts on Christianity and culture, because I believe it is becoming increasing important for us to understand the difference. So over the next however long I will be writing on the subject. If I can hold it together to actually do a series it will be proof that there is a God .

While I greatly admire much of the work he has done for Christ and was blessed by the one encounter I have had with him, I want to be just a little critical of Dr. Patterson’s line of thinking. My concerns are two fold. One, as a president of a seminary, I don’t want lessons like this taught to our next generation of pastors who in turn might not adapt to our ever changing culture. Secondly, as a person that is trying to set the agenda of the International Mission Board, it scares me that Dr. Patterson is unable to distinguish what is seemingly such a small cultural preference from what is “right and wrong”. Southern Baptist missionaries are having to deal with cultures so radically different from their own, the last thing they need is to worry about their agency and convention ostracizing them from the convention because they departed from western culture to bring people into the Kingdom of God.

Lord Jesus, help us all. May we not fight over foolish arguments and disputes. Reveal to us where we are erring and let us be a united body who displays your glory and love to this fallen world. Amen.

SBC Outpost » Blog Archive » It’s That Time Again

The Soap Opera that is the trustee board these days is meeting again this week. Pray that things move in a better direction.

Check here for all that I’ve written in the past.

A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with a friend of mine, who is employed at a Southern Baptist Church, about the annual convention that was going on. He asked me the one thing that we were both thinking. “Does the enemy even know this is going on?” Or rather, “Does he even care?”

I have written about them, but do the politics of convention just seem like the lamest deal ever? That is all.

friesville::micah fries

Man this is such old news, but it is good news and so I will share it. I wrote a post entitled “To Sad to be Humorous” a while back about a couple that might be thrown out of the IMB for partnering with another group of missionaries that were not with the IMB. The Board reinstated them in May! Boy howdy is that a good thing. I would have been pretty upset if they got thrown out for this. The link above talks about their reinstatement.

TIME.com: The Bloggers’ Favorite Southern Baptist

Even Time Magazine took notice of the dramatic influence that blogs had on this year’s Southern Baptist Conference’s Annual Meeting. Frank Page was considered a “dark horse” candidate for the SBC Presidency before the conference began. He had two competitors for the position, one who was backed by several Seminary Presidents, which is a big deal. In years past, this would typically be enough to get one elected, but not this year! You can read about it here and here. It is believed that the emergence of internet blogs swayed the opinion of so many people that it got Frank Page elected.

So why is this a big deal? Well it means that the old way of doing things in the SBC may be done for. No longer can someone as influential as Paige Patterson, President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and juggernaut in Baptist politics, back a candidate and guarantee his election.

Why do I care? I care because of the issues within the IMB. From what I can gather, the big movers in SBC are scared by the blogging community, possibly because they just don’t understand it, it lessons their influence or , worst yet, it brings greater accountability to their actions. For months the Board of the IMB seemed to run from and hate the fact that their every action was posted on internet blogs for all to see. Nobody’s like me could read about their interpersonal behavior and their policy decisions. We could object publicly for all to read. Their anti-biblical policies about Baptism and Tongues could have giant spot lights put on them. SBC representatives from all over country could show up at the annual meeting informed and do something about it. Frank Page’s election is supposed to signify that.

So what does this mean? I hope that it means the policies will eventually be overturned and that a larger community of people can make decisions for the convention. Good ole boy networks can die. The continual narrowing of what it means to be a “Southern Baptist” can stop.

Although every time I think about the Wade Burleson issue I hope there is a side of the story I am missing, it disturbs me that Trustees tried to silence him when he objected to what was going on inside the IMB Board. The irony of the deal is that his detractors probably gave him a louder voice than he would have had otherwise. Has the Lord again taking something someone meant for evil and used it for good. I will publish more thoughts on this in a little bit.? I will leave with Mr. Burleson’s thoughts here…

When Frank’s election was announced I was walking around the arena and just happened to be stopped by a reporter in the undergound hallway. He wanted my reaction. Soon other reporters stopped and by the time all was said and done probably over 25 media persons from around the nation stood four deep and asked questions for forty minutes. One of the questions that kept being repeated over and over again is whether or not I believed blogs played a role in this election. I said, “Absolutely.” Baptist bloggers in 2006 may well go down in history as the first time bloggers actually determined the outcome of a national religious/political election.

Why? When all three candidates were being nominated my wife leaned over to me and said, “I feel like I know all three men because of the blogs.”

I attended the Press Conference for Frank Page and I am here to tell you he handled himself with class, dignity and grace. Southern Baptists have a right to be proud of this man.

It is brand new day in the SBC.

To say some were shocked by the outcome of the election is the understatement of the year.

What do you think about all this? Am I missing something or being to harsh?

SBC Outpost » Blog Archive » Resolution on Attacking Wade Burleson Alcohol Abuse

Marty Duren of SBCOutpost has an interesting take on the alcohol amendment that was presented at the Southern Baptist Convention today in Greensboro, NC. He believes it is an attack against Wade Burleson, who on his own site said to be careful of making such an accusation. I found this quote by Marty most telling…

What is really, really crazy is that we refused to consider the resolution on Integrity in Church Membership that Tom Ascol tried to submit.

Which, oddly enough, puts us in the position of being on record as against any use of beverage alcohol, but open to the idea of lying about how many people are actual members of our churches.

Wade commented on this post by Marty…

Good observation on the irony of refusing to speak out by resolution on the brilliant resolution offered by Ascol on integrity in reporting by refusing to lie about the numbers of church members.

What compounds our collective moral lapse of judgment in refusing to address this issue in our churches is the fact that every messenger was sober when they voted.

Finally, the most bizarre sentence I have ever heard in 21 years of attending Southern Baptist Conventions was offered by a member of the Resolutions Committee in defending the decision not to allow the Convention to vote on Ascol’s resolution. In essence the member said we could not remove from our church membership rolls those missing members because we would lose the very people we needed to evanglize.

Is there any other Baptist besides me who wants to cry over that statement?

But blog world, don’t despair. The debate on these issues is healthy — and at least there is debate occurring.

Why would people not want to vote on the membership motion? In the words of two other commentors…

If they’re so concerned about losing the very people we need to evangelize, how hard would it be to take them off the membership list and put them on the prayer list or the “holy hit list.”

As best as I can tell, it would be as simple as cut-copy-paste.

I know that cut-copy-paste might be a concept that’s just a little too technical for the crowd that thinks there’s “too much bloggin’ goin’ on out there,” but I’m willing to conduct my three day, Cut-Copy-Paste seminar in every SBC church across the country if it will help. The weekend retreat would look something like this:

Introductory Session: “Optical Mice & Church Discipline - A Match Made in Heaven”

Breakout seminar #1: “Cutting”

Breakout seminar #2: “Copying”

Breakout seminar #3: “Pasting”

Concluding Session: “You Drag, You’re Dropped”

and

“Cut-Copy-Paste” seminars - thats hilarious!

Pre “Cut-Copy-Paste” Seminar SBC Total Membership - 16,000,000

Post “Cut-Copy-Paste” Seminar SBC Total Membership - 9,000,000

I am sure someone is scared that if we had to report the numbers more accurately we would lose political power. In my view that would be okay. The gospel empowered by the Holy Spirit is what can really affect this nation.

Here and Here for information on what I am talking about. Please read them.

In an effort to get an on the field decision overturned, several SBC missionaries appealed to the BoT about church planting problems. After hearing their appeal, rather than helping them, the Board began working on their removal hearings. Their crime? Daring to partner with some great commission christian missionaries, some of whom are from the Christian Missionary Alliance, to reach a previously unreached people group. The CMA is the denominational home of such radical heretics as Ravi Zacharias, Jim Cymbala and A.W. Tozer. I guess when faced with cooperating with another missions agency or allowing people to perish and go to hell, the latter seems to be more acceptable.

[satire]When asked to comment one trustee replied “with all the controversy going on right now, the last thing I’m worried about is missions.” When reminded that he was on the BoT for the IMB he responded “the IMB is a missions agency? What’s that?”[/satire]