Missional and the SBC

February 20, 2007 | Filed Under church, ecclesiology, missional |

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Dr. Ed Stetzer, Missiologist and Research Team Director at the North American Mission Board gave a presentation at the Baptist Identity Conference last week titled “Toward a Missional Convention.” Here is the pdf file of the paper that he presented and a link to the audio.

Stetzer tells it like it is in Southern Baptist life, I just hope people will really listen to what he has to say. Here is just a taste of what he shared:

We can no longer continue trying to reach North America with “one-size fits all” methods and an inward denominational focus. The shift toward a missional SBC will consequently necessitate a change from the way many churches are doing ministry.

Baptist have a choice -  we can argue about whether we’ll use the noun “missionary” or the adjective “missional,” - or we can recognize that a lost world needs us to stop arguing about nomenclature and obey Christ’s commands. Simply put, it does not matter what you call it, it matters that you do it. And we are not doing it.

Furthermore, many young leaders, who have been alienated and marginalized, are not pining away hoping that the SBC will welcome them back. Many of them have moved on to networks and other partnerships where they can get on mission instead of getting into an argument. The result of this phenomenon has become the “elephant in the room” for Southern Baptists.

There is a reason so many churches are forming networks - they are doing so because they do not see ours as their best investment of time and energy. If our seminaries do not teach cultural engagement, our agencies primarily espouses strategies from a past era, and our associations reject anything that does not look like a tent revival, it will be little surprise that our young leaders consider us out of touch.

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