Category: SBC

17March2009

Baptist Distinctives and Presbyterian Wannabes

Written By robfaircloth

My Presbyterian pastor friend has quipped to me that Baptists make the best Presbyterians. This is possibly because of all the repressed Baptist interest in alcohol and cigars that blossoms in Presbyterian environs. He reminds me of an old joke that illustrates this:

Q: What do you call a Baptist in the liquor store?
A: Nothing, because he wouldn’t acknowledge that you saw him there, anyway.

And yes, it is possible to be an unapologetic Southern Baptist and have Presbyterian friends.

Much proverbial ink has been spilled regarding “Baptist distinctives,” “Baptist Identity,” “Landmarkism,” “Great Commission Resurgence,” and so forth. (I say “proverbial” because I haven’t touched a paper magazine or newspaper in ages, and the phrase “much digitally encoded data has been transmitted through human/digital interface devices” doesn’t quite have quite the same literary ring). It all seems to boil down to what makes Baptists Baptist, rather than Presbyterian, Methodist or traveling snake oil salesmen.

I noticed a good way to address this question when someone asked me why I was attending a Southern Baptist seminary. He was also planning to go to seminary, and was torn between some of the premier Reformed/Presbyterian schools and some of the Reformed-leaning SBC schools. He asked why I wouldn’t feel more at home theologically attending a Reformed/Presbyterian school. After thinking about it for a minute, I answered in a way that clarified and revealed my view on Baptist distinctive, from the perspective of a prospective pastor.

In my understanding of Presbyterian polity and theology, two issues would keep me from preaching in one of their churches. First, I could not in good conscience baptize infants. I believe that Scripture plainly teaches that baptism is for those who have professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, which infants cannot do. Second, as a pastor in a Presbyterian church, I could not opt out of that practice. That is, Presbyterian polity is, well, Presbyterian, in the sense that a group of people outside the local church governs theological definition and practice. The local congregation could not decide to stop baptizing infants and remain a “Presbyterian” church.

On the contrary, even a Reformed/Calvinist pastor trained in Southern Baptist Convention schools might disagree with the predominant view on certain theological issues, but could find an SBC congregation compatible with his views. For instance, a pastor might believe that the altar call – other than following explicitly evangelistic sermons – was inappropriate. He might believe it inappropriate to admit members on a “vote” immediately following their request to join on a Sunday morning. He might believe that God is sovereign over all aspects of salvation, while believers remain responsible to proclaim the gospel (Calvinism). He might believe that the church should have both deacons and elders. He might believe that the church should practice the discipline of members. He might NOT believe in a pre-mil, mid-trib Rapture.

On all those points such a pastor would be marching to the beat of a drummer much different than and rarely heard in the majority of Baptist churches. But the SBC won’t dictate (at least thus far) that he cannot pastor ANY Southern Baptist church that wanted to call him. He might not be invited to all the premier SBC conferences, but he would still be able to shepherd a flock in accord with his calling as a minister of the gospel. This particular distinctive sometimes goes by other names, such as local church autonomy, and is manifested in the recent controversy surrounding the decision of the Georgia SBC church to call a woman as its pastor. (This incident provides an interesting example of how the concept of church discipline and accountability are not simply intra-congregational matters, but also apply in an inter-congregational setting – but that is another post).

So, under this “prospective pastor” analysis, the distinctive Baptist elements come to two: believer’s baptism and congregational authority. But these both presume and flow from something logically prior: the authority of Scripture. One’s standing on the subject of baptism (believers or infants) and the mode of baptism (immersion or sprinkling) should be dictated by what Scripture teaches. Similarly, one’s position regarding the local congregation’s authority should flow Scripture. So the functional authority of Scripture is a foundational distinctive for Baptists not similarly crucial to the faith and practice of other denominations. This leaves us with three Baptist distinctives: authority of Scripture, believer’s baptism, and congregational authority.

Some might include other things as distinctive, such as our position on the Lord’s Supper, missions, cooperation with other Baptists, and cultural engagement. But there doesn’t seem to be consensus even among Baptists about what is a proper “Baptist” position on these matters. Instead, if a church rejects the functional authority of Scripture, or rejects believer’s baptism by immersion, or rejects congregational authority in favor of some Episcopal or Presbyterian governmental form, it ceases to be Baptist.

21January2009

We Don’t Care Enough to Witness

Written By robfaircloth

Internet Monk wrote an article recently about the state of evangelism in the church, especially the Southern Baptist Convention. In it he points out that for all our efforts as a denomination, the canned presentations, training programs, “sure-fire” evangelism tools and the rest have been, at best, fruitless, and at worst, less a reflection of biblical disciple-making and more a demonstration of how various methodologies to present the truth can morph into badly designed marketing schemes, product placements, and used car pitches.

In my thirty-three years as a card-carrying member of the local Baptist congregation, and by extenuation, of the Southern Baptist Convention, I haven’t grown enough fingers and toes to count the number of different “solutions” there have been to the problem of personal evangelism (the problem being that persons don’t evangelize). Throw in the “Four Spiritual Laws” and other offerings by denominations and para-church groups other than the SBC, and the number of potential failures becomes exponential.

Not that there is anything wrong with trying. We have at least recognized for years that the average church member does not talk about his faith, at least to those who don’t already have it. All of these plans are attempts to address that issue.

I recall one summer when I learned, among other things, to evangelize “cold turkey”: to simply walk up to a total stranger and share the gospel. No one responded favorably to me, probably because I didn’t really care about anyone I spoke to. All I was concerned about was not getting pummeled with my own gospel tract and telling my disciple leader I had fulfilled my obligation. Don’t judge me just yet…you have likely done the same thing.

So I have been thinking about why these gospel-presentation-programs (“faith-in-a-box”) don’t seem to work, and why they don’t seem to result in lasting converts. It seems to come down to two things: 1) we don’t practice evangelizing our captive audience, and 2) we don’t love people.

Captive Audience. Who is this captive audience for the church? Why, our children and our congregations, that’s who. How many hapless souls have trudged through yet another faith-in-a-box program guaranteed to fire up their evangelistic fervor and to result in hordes of teeming disciples, when they have yet to even share the gospel with their own children? And what does it say to our little darlings that mom and dad are sticking them with a babysitter or in the nursery again to go visit strangers and share the gospel, when they haven’t taken the time to explain it to their own kids?

Believe me, it is tough to explain spiritual truth to the ones who are around you the most, the ones who see you curse when you slam your finger in the door, see you blow your top when you find soggy cereal in your armchair, or see you treat your spouse like a doormat. And it’s even tougher when parents don’t understand spiritual truth themselves. But if parents are able to consistently talk to their kids about spiritual matters, at every age, in every circumstance, day in and day out, then those parents will be able to talk about spiritual matters with anyone they come across.

But why, you say, do we need to evangelize our congregations? Evidence shows that perhaps as much as fifty percent of the average congregation is not saved. (Thom Rainer has several books that treat this subject, which is where this figure comes from. See, e.g., Simple Church and Essential Church; George Barna also has some telling statistics.) Too much of our programming in churches assumes that everyone present is saved, and they just need to be told how to live well. But for one who has not heard the gospel, who does not understand it, or who has not been enlightened by God, ‘living well’ translates to a salvation by works. Besides, even believers who have heard the gospel and who have been converted still need to hear the gospel, which is both the power of salvation and the power of sanctification. Our congregations need evangelizing just as much as the ‘sinners’ do.

Loving People. “Love” has become such a manipulated concept that it is almost meaningless to speak of loving people. Today “love” means you don’t criticize, don’t correct, don’t discipline, that you always say “I’m fine”, always agree, and never remove that creepy smile from your face. But biblical love is something entirely different.

One thing we frequently miss when we, as Christians, speak of “loving people,” is that to do so we must, first, SEE people. For most of us, customarily our day is filled with nameless others constantly making life difficult. Other motorists cut us off and make us late. Cashiers are slow and give the wrong change. Pedestrians smell and take up the whole sidewalk. Even other believers get our parking spot, sit in our pew, and threaten our standing in the church.

It is an amazing phenomenon that when you go through your day with your head down, avoiding glances, only looking up and around long enough to swipe your credit card at the gas pump or the checkout lane, no one speaks to you. In fact, you don’t even ‘see’ other people, but only impediments to your speedy return home to watch American Idol. Yet when we actually consider the people we encounter as people, look them in the eye, and have a genuine interest in them, even if only for the brief minutes that we are putting our groceries on the conveyor belt, people will tell you all manner of things about themselves. It is these things that people will tell you about themselves that give us opportunity to be interested in them, to speak truth into their situation, and, if appropriate, to share the gospel to that one in whom we have only just recently developed genuine interest.

Where to start? How about our neighbors. They are not simply the ones on the other side of your privacy fence, whose guests block your driveway, whose dog goes in your yard, whose teenager blasts music and plays basketball in the driveway too late, or who you hope doesn’t discover that it was you that took his newspaper that time. Our neighbors are the ones who see us leave for church every Sunday – and possibly on Wednesday – and who wonder why we have never invited them, or even introduced ourselves, or discussed important matters of the world over – or through – that privacy fence. Our neighbors wonder why we are so willing to discuss our golf handicap, stock tips, gas prices, parenting problems, and football scores but never mention what should be the most important aspect of our lives.

So, ‘cold turkey’ evangelism and canned presentations of the gospel can be beneficial, sometimes. But the primary reason that they usually are not is that the recipients know that the one peddling the gospel product to them is only interested in the sale. Instead, when we actually ‘see’ people around us, and are genuinely interested in them, we might actually love them in the way that recognizes their spiritual plight and prompts us to share with them the truth of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ.

12December2008

Will the real Southern Baptist/un-Baptist/Calvinist/Anti-Calvinist Please Stand Up

Written By robfaircloth

Well, alrighty then.

I’ve dusted off the keys, and though still a little bleary-eyed and a bit more near-sighted than before, am none the worse for Hebrew wear. Since I last blogged:

— Church History 1, Systematic Theology 3, and Introduction to Biblical Counseling are finished, and Hebrew, mercifully, is done (though I could say that I am ‘done’ with Hebrew — or Hebrew is done with me, which would not be entirely true, because there remains the little issue of required Hebrew syntax, which, if Elementary Hebrew were likened to jabbing vowel points under the fingernails, syntax is the waterboarding of the language gestapo).

— Metz turned 1 and Brooks turned 9 (see the family blog link to the right). This is not to say that this was the only offspring activity, since the two middle children — Eli, 6 and Audrey, 4 — while not advancing in age, did advance my blood pressure and begin 1st grade and kindergarten, respectively.

— The house is on the market. Buy it. Now. Please. Hurry. Bless you.

— Hades has broken out in the SBC blogging and conference world. Well, maybe not Hades, per se, but a suburb thereof, perhaps less like eternal perdition than a really bad beach vacation with a looming hurricane, jellyfish swarms and sand fleas in the Bermuda shorts. Ok, Hades, it is.

It is no mere curiosity of timing that all the brouhaha over Jerry Vines’ John 3:16 Conference, which was somewhat reactionary to the Building Bridges Conference, together with anti-Calvinists who prefer the nomenclature “pro-non-Calvinist” throwing stones at “anti-missions-hyper-Calvinists” who actually were evangelizing Muslims at the time, and 7-point Southern Baptists alleging that 5-point Calvinists were a greater threat to the denomination than churches who can’t find half their members, baptize nobody, enroll everybody, and divorce like rabbits multiply but who don’t drink, play cards or go with girls who do, ALL HAPPENED WHEN I WAS NOT BLOGGING.

Now, as my college statistics professor said, “correlation does not necessarily mean causation” (he also said my fraternity brothers were a “cesspool of ignorance,” but that is a different story), but the evidence speaks for itself.

21July2008

Granting Letters or Buying Vowels?

Written By robfaircloth

Every month, Southern Baptist churches engage in an odd ritual. Given our propensity for oddness, perhaps I should say “engage in a particular odd ritual.” Many congregations, in their monthly business meetings, take a vote on whether to “grant letters” to someone seeking to join a different Baptist congregation.

Having participated in many of these, I fear that not everyone truly knows what’s going on. I secretly wish that one day, to stir things up, the process would go like this:

Moderator: All in favor of granting letters for John and Jane Doe to the First
Baptist Church, Everywhereville, USA, signify by saying “Aye.”

Congregation: “Aye” (anemically, full of fried chicken and very sweet tea).

Moderator: All opposed, by like sign.

Lonely voice: Pat, I’d like to buy a vowel.

What gives with “granting letters”? Are we solving puzzles? Completing crosswords? Playing Scrabble?

Some Baptists might recall that this arcane practice hearkens back to the days when we also knew what “good standing” was, and “granting letters” meant that we were assuring the new church that its prospective member was not subject to discipline at the time he sought to join another church, that he was thus in “good standing,” and that the old church would write a letter to the new church confirming such. Hence, “letters of good standing,” or simply, “letters.”

In light of today’s technological and informational revolution, perhaps the process should be characterized as “sending IM.” (For those who need help here, “IM” is instant messaging, an Internet tool available to those for whom email is not quite fast enough.)

Is there still a place for granting letters/”sending IM”? Absolutely. In an age of “church hopping”, many churches even in the same town or association have no real knowledge of prospective members’ reasons for leaving their former congregation. Many times, members “hop” to another local church simply because they were offended by someone, and declined to address the matter biblically (see Matthew 18), or wronged someone without attempting reconciliation. Perhaps they “skip” to another congregation when it appears they might be “found out,” for who knows what. Or they might “jump” over to a congregation that does not require anything of them. Granting letters would notify the new church of illegitimate reasons for leaving the old one.

Furthermore, in an age when the convention needs to pass resolutions regarding regenerate membership and church discipline, we tend to accept members to our congregations with little or no knowledge of their profession of faith. One walks down the aisle Sunday morning, claims to have “professed faith” in Eastaboga or Timbuktu, and wants to join by “transfer of letter.” A call for vote and hearty “Amen” later, this unknown quantity is a member, no doubt shortly to be installed as a Sunday school teacher. But what if the “letters” demonstrated that he had never joined the previous church? Had never professed faith? Had actually taught heresy or caused a schism or been run out of town on a rail? Proper use of the “letters” would prevent membership before those issues could be resolved.

Proper use of granting letters presupposes, of course, that we retain proper notions of “good standing.” This has, unfortunately, not been the case of late for Southern Baptist churches, which gave rise to the convention’s membership resolutions. Our churches would do well, in keeping with those resolutions, to recover the practice and thus help to ensure the health and faithfulness of our congregations.

23June2008

DEATH BY COMMITTEE

Written By robfaircloth

Q: How many church members does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: We all know Catholics use candles, not light bulbs. Presbyterians wouldn’t care, because it is obviously predestined that the light would go out. And Baptists would need 16 people: 2 to pass the collection plate for the new bulb; 2 to organize the pot luck supper to celebrate installation of the new bulb; and 12 to staff the new committee to explore conversion to incandescent bulbs.

Southern Baptists receive the brunt of committee-related jokes, and
deservedly so, since we paint a bright red joke target on our collective head called “Committee on Committees.” All humor aside, the use of committees in a church can have a dramatic and undesired effect upon that church’s ability to fulfill its mission. Many committees are service-based and organize volunteers for needed work in the church (even so, do we truly need a committee to “count”?). The problem arises in the number of committees given leadership responsibilities and their relationships to each other. Because Baptist churches are traditionally ‘congregational’ in government (which requires regenerate membership), authority and clearly defined leadership quickly become diluted in the average committee-dominated structure.

A contemporary phenomena in the U.S. Congress, which is apparently afraid to tackle serious issues, is the creation of special “Blue Ribbon Commissions” to decide the thorny issues so that each congressman’s position on the issue won’t create a threat to his re-election chances. Taking a cue from politics, in the typical church every idea, crisis or opportunity is met with the formation of a new committee. As a result, the deacons defer most questions and act as a board to manage the property and money, and are rarely, as a group, involved in the actual leadership of the church. The church committees are not restricted to deacons, or other appointed leaders, but are open to involvement by non-leader members.

Our committee-based church structures thus come to resemble our buildings: a hodgepodge of mismatched styles pieced together in a labyrinth of misdirection and circuitous routes, which no member could truly describe accurately and which leaves the uninitiated wanting to drop the proverbial trail of bread crumbs in order not get lost and meet an untimely demise in the redwood committee forest.

For churches that require their elected (or selected) leaders to meet the biblical requirements for deacons and elders, this presents a difficult and thorny issue. If the church is congregational in its polity – meaning that the church membership as a whole makes the ultimate, final decisions on all issues – the deacons or other leadership body makes recommendations on church life to the church. However, those “recommendations” are almost always accepted by the congregation, without much discussion as to their merits, due to the deference paid to the deacon body. Committees come to have almost the same deference and in their recommendations are rarely opposed. And thus committees, which include non-deacons, come to have almost as much authority, responsibility and leadership function as the deacons, yet are not required or expected to meet the qualifications for leaders.

Common committee structures thus pose two primary problems for the activity of church congregations: 1) the sheer volume of the committee bureaucracy burdens the church’s ability to conduct ministry and is extremely inefficient; 2) the delegation of biblical leader responsibility to committees is contrary to stated polity and permits immature and sometimes ungodly people to exert leadership responsibility.

On one occasion a local church, the deacons wanted to appoint someone to manage a Family Ministries program, which was established in the church’s by-laws but had not been created or operated. Once the deacons decided on the man they wanted, discussion turned to how to get him appointed. Pursuant to rule, either the Steering Committee or the Committee on Committees or the Nominating Committee had to recommend the appointment to the church, after which the church had to approve the appointment. The deacons decided to inform the Committee on Committees who it should select. The Committee agreed and presented the nomination, which the church approved.

This is, to be kind, schizophrenic and dishonest. In this situation no one really knew the proper procedure because so many committees, as well as the deacons, had stated responsibility in the matter. Furthermore, the committees served merely to rubber stamp the deacons’ recommendations. The whole matter was presented to the church as if it had come from the committee raising the motion. The much simpler process would have been the one that makes the most sense: let the deacons present their recommendations for the Ministry leader to the church. Or, better yet, let the deacons make the appointment without church “approval.” Discussion, much less opposition, to standing deacon or committee recommendations is so rare that the facade of congregational involvement should be discarded.

On another occasion, a Sunday school Leadership Team had a vacancy in a Bible study teacher position. Because it had conducted teacher training and had firsthand knowledge of the Bible study program, it had a teacher in mind to fill the vacancy. However, because of rules it had to submit its recommendation to the Nominating Committee, which had to approve the recommendation and obtain approval from the church as a whole, a process which would take several weeks, at best. The much simpler process would be to permit the Sunday school Leadership Team to fill the vacancy, without having to obtain approval from any other committee or even the church.

When so many layers of bureaucracy and redundant “approval” exist, it hardly makes common sense to give deacons or Sunday School Teams any authority at all. The reality is that so much approval is not necessary, and serves only to impede the ministry of the church. And, at least in the occasions cited here, congregational “approval” is merely lip-service to democratic processes in the church. Those groups or committees with better knowledge of the needs should be freed to make decisions quickly and efficiently.

I personally believe that the best form of church polity, and the one most resembling the biblical example, is a congregational system in which elders manage spiritual concerns (Acts 6 – the ministry of the word and prayer) and deacons manage temporal concerns (Acts 6 – distributing resources to the needy members and other temporal needs). In such a system elders are recognized as godly leaders and are entrusted with general decision-making authority, while the congregation retains ultimate authority with its ability to choose and remove elders.

However, the most common form of protestant church government is likely the deacon-led scenario. In it deacons play a hybrid role of elder and deacon, shepherding and service. In fact, even among churches that vigorously disavow the elder form, elders are a de facto system. Responsibility for deciding spiritual matters, normally reserved for the elders, is given to various committees and church leaders, who might not be ordained members of the deacon board or elders, but who nevertheless fill the role of elders.

Some might be thinking at this point whether it makes any difference. Scripture tells us that the spiritual leaders (elders) and recognized servant leaders (deacons) must meet certain qualifications (1 Timothy 3:1-13). Instead, we select the members of leadership committees on the basis of “fair cross-sections”, egalitarianism, proportional representation, secular criteria such as business success, or – probably the worst – that inclusion on the committee might make invisible and uncommitted members more interested in church. We can select our leaders – regardless of whether they are called deacons, elders, or committee members – based upon biblical commands, or based upon our own limited, shortsighted and sinful notions of fairness. There is certainly a difference.

Churches can recover from the slow death and unbiblical leadership from which they now suffer. They can be like another church which had sixty committees for its 1200 members and which was slowly but surely dying a painful death of attrition. That church recognized the problem posed by its committees and completely changed its structure, abolished the stifling volume of committees, and adopted a board of elders and three standing committees. As a result, ministry flourished and the church came back to life.

Not every problem is caused by too many committees, and not every problem would be solved by streamlining a church’s governing structure. Ultimately it is God who grants the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). Yet it is our responsibility to be orderly and efficient, and to remove any impediments to that order and efficiency. If we don’t, we will not be like the church that recovers and flourishes again, but we will be like the church that succumbed to the inefficiency and ministry-stifling agglomeration of committees:

F.B.C. R.I.P.

Here lies the putrid, festering remains of First Baptist Church, Everywhereville, which was condemned to a slow, agonizing, but altogether ignored death by the accretion of legions of blood-sucking and vitality draining vermin known as nefarious committius, which suffocated the congregation in bureaucracy and prevented life-sustaining ministry and biblical leadership.

In Loving Memory
1886-2006

22June2008

REGENERATE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

Written By robfaircloth

I once recommended to someone on the church’s ‘Membership Committee’ that we begin to visit all of the people who were still listed among the church’s members, but who had not attended any service of the church in as long as 15 years, and encourage them to attend faithfully or remove them from church rolls. The suggestion got around to others, and the responses ranged from typical resistance to change to disturbing ignorance of biblical teaching: ‘we just don’t do that here’, ‘people don’t want to be told what to do,’ ‘who are we to take people off God’s roll?’

That was years ago, and nothing has changed. Only thirty to forty percent of the church’s ‘membership’ attends on any give Sunday, and no one seems to care.

Fortunately, the Southern Baptist Convention, the denomination to which I and my church belong, has taken steps to address the regenerate membership issue by passing resolutions encouraging churches to admit only those who exhibit signs of regeneration and to return to the practice of church discipline, in which the church actually demonstrates concern for the ability of its members to live a Christian life.

With the types of resistance that are entrenched in most SBC churches, one wonders how long it will take for the Convention’s non-binding resolutions to have any effect upon local congregations. George Barna and other researchers of Christian culture have found that so-called Christians behave no differently than those claiming no religious faith at all: trickle-down cannot occur soon enough, it would seem.