Not Freaking-Out

I heard that the Southern Baptist Convention is declining. Overall membership in SBC churches are significantly less and continuing to drop and the number of baptisms are down. The solution from the Southern Baptist Convention Pastor's Conference is to emphasize evangelism again! Really? Is the current state of the Southern Baptist Convention not a product of a false understanding of evangelism? And we want to emphasize that more?

Look at what the tactics of the 1950's and 1960's revivalism-era produced. Yes, we have church rolls filled with names of people, many of which have not been back to a church building since the 1950's and 1960's. Expectations were lowered. Tactics that aren't found in scripture were used and still linger today. These tactics include the Invitation/Altar Call (which isn't bad in itself only that it isn't mandated in scripture and has been used to play on people's emotions and provide a false sense of salvation in many cases), using sales pitches to sell the gospel to someone with words and phrases that aren't found in scripture, and having the church and pastor vote someone into fellowship and approve his or her baptism without even trying to find out where the person really is with God. These are methods that I've seen all my life having grown up in Southern Baptist churches. I want no part of these methods. Isn't it interesting that Billy Graham himself has said that if he had to do it over again, he would have done it differently. He said he would have discipled the 12. He said that because he believes that 12 men properly discipled could do more for God's kingdom than the thousands and thousands who came forward during his crusades over the years. He and his organization tried to do a lot as far as discipling those who came forward following his preaching, but he admits that he is certain that a good number of them weren't sincere commitments.

So when I hear this same convention getting nervous because they are baptizing less people and calling for putting evangelism back at the forefront, I wonder if they even know what they are saying. When Paul gave the instruction to "do the work on an evangelist," I'm certain he meant more than just telling people about Christ and he certainly didn't mean many of the methods that have become popular among evangelics over the past century.

Yes, the Southern Baptist Convention as a whole is in decline as far as numbers. And now we're supposed to ask our people to start evangelizing. People who likely don't understand what evangelism really is because they aren't discipled. Again, they are a product of years and years of a false sense of evangelism.

As a pastor of a Southern Baptist Church, I am not freaking-out at all about these recent statistics. Instead, I'm called to prayer as I seek how to be more concerned about having quality baptisms over quantity of baptisms.

So yes, let's get back to the way we used to do evangelism. Let's get back to the first-century method of evangelism that we find in the scriptures. Let's put the tactics of the 1950's and 1960's revivalistic era in the archives and get to doing it the way it should be done. Doing so may result in even significantly less baptisms over the next several years, but may produce something greater later.

Uncharted Waters

It looks like the government will shut down....again! I remember when this happened in the mid-1990's and not at all surprised that this is happening again. In the 1990's, Bill Clinton played a smooth game of turning the tables when he was down. In 1994, it looked as if Clinton was down for the count. Republicans swept the House and Senate and were trying to stand on what they felt they were elected to do. Clinton played a savvy game of shutting down the government and blaming Republicans for it. The reality is that both sides were to blame for that, but unfortunately it's all about who wins the perception war instead of exposing reality. Clinton's savvy in addition to Dole's dullness made for an easy 1996 re-election.

I just assumed the same thing was going to happen when Obama was elected in 2008. Yes, he would quickly become unpopular (all Presidents do). Most newly elected Presidents find that ideology and reality are harder to reconcile than they wanted to admit so they abandon many of the things they ran their elections on. Obama definitely did this and became unpopular with many within his base. This economy will recover, but it isn't going anywhere fast and it doesn't take long for the new guy to receive the blame. So it was pretty much a given that Republicans would make some gains in 2010. And when that happened, recent history tells us that there will be gridlock then a standstill and a lot of finger-pointing from both sides. I just assumed that Obama would win this public relations war (he can work his mojo) and go on to an easy re-election in 2012.

But I'm not so sure now. This is going to get interesting because there are a couple of major factors at play that we didn't have in the mid-1990's. First, there is Fox News. Yes, they lean toward the conservative side of things. Let's just admit it. The other news networks lean toward the liberal side of things. Let's not act like it doesn't happen. In the mid-1990's, Bill Clinton didn't have to fight the public relations war. He had the entire news media on his side. Obama has a giant and influential news network thorn in his side that Clinton didn't have. Second, Republicans don't have majority of both houses on Congress. It's not Clinton vs. Dole/Gingrich this round, but Obama vs. Boehner vs. Reid vs. Obama vs....Confused.

So, it's going to be interesting to see who wins this PR war. I'm also interested in knowing who will come to an agreement first; the Federal government or the NFL players and owners. I am certainly cynical about one thing; both cases will yield to a lose-lose situation.

Rob Bell Outwitted Everyone

It looks like Rob Bell accomplished his purpose. He got us talking. The last 2-3 weeks have been a lot of back-and-forth over "he said/no he didn't's" and "what is he really saying?". Along the way there have been ugly accusations, name-calling, attempted exiles, and attempted apostasy over a book that was just released two days ago (as of this writing) and mostly by people who haven't even read it!

I've never read a Rob Bell book (I've only seen some of the NOOMA videos), but I'm going to read this one. I'm going to form my own opinion ONLY AFTER I have ACTUALLY READ THE BOOK! Had it not been for the controversy, I don't know if I would have considered reading this book. So now Bell is going to make some money off me. He's going to make a lot of money because this book is obviously going to sell a lot of copies. But I know that isn't Bell's purpose for writing this book. If the introductory video is any indicator of what is contained in the book, he is asking questions that's getting us talking. It's shaking us up. It's not wrong to ask the tough questions that go to the core of our beliefs. Don't we need to ask them to gain a firmer understanding of why we believe the things we believe?

So my hat's off to Bell. He got us talking. If we put the name calling and accusations aside, perhaps this discussion will further enrich our understanding of the scriptures concerning the atonement, heaven, hell, and all the other things that have been brought to the table in this book. If worst case scenario, Bell ends us being a universalist and a heretic, then what does that have to do with any of us besides Rob Bell? He's responsible for him, none of us are responsible for him. If that worst case scenario happens, then we will politely point out what the scripture says as opposed to what he says (again I'm speaking hypothetically) to those within our spheres of influence and pray for him (with sincerity, not in the sarcastic or passing judgment sense that we tend to do in church).

What is sad is that along the way over the past two weeks, Bell has inadverdently exposed some in the Evangelical world. The vehement accusations, tweets, and name-calling aimed at Bell (again, over something they haven't read...yet) has caused me to lose respect for a few people that I once thought highly of.

So that's all there is to be said until we actually read the book.