One of the more common subjects of discussions among Southern Baptists today regards those who are leaving, have left, or are considering leaving the SBC. I can sympathize to some extent. As a younger man in seminary in the 1980s, I considered the possibility as well, disillusioned by some things I had seen and heard theologically.  I decided to stay, and have never regretted that.

Some who read this, particularly among my Facebook friends, may wonder what the big deal is, why it would matter whether I am a Southern Baptist, or another form of Baptist, or a Methodist or Charismatic, etc.  After all, Jesus saved me from sin to become part of the Kingdom, not the local Baptist church.  True enough, but while I would not put my being a Baptist on the level of being a Christian, it still matters. We all choose to be a part of this group or that because of some overarching values that guide such decisions. We should give more a little thought to something as vital to our discipleship as the tradition we serve Christ (and raise our children, for that matter).  Be a little more random when it comes to your musical choices or clothing style; be a little more intentional about the church in which you live your life for Christ.

So why have I chosen to be and to remain a Southern Baptist?  In particular, as a minister of the gospel, why do I choose this fellowship to serve God?  Here are a few reasons. You the reader must make up your own mind about your convictions on the issue.

1. I am a Southern Baptist because I value relationships over technology.

We live in a throw away society. I have owned at least 7 laptops and probably more desktops in our family. I have lost count of how many TVs we have had. I have driven several types of automobiles. Sometimes we replace these things because they stop working. More often than not we do so because something better comes along (yes, I have a smartphone but want an iphone).  We recently purchased a sweet 50” flat screen. I love watching sports on it. The other TV was fine. This one is simply better.

We throw away things in our society for better things. But more than a few confuse technology with relationships. In a throw away, consumer driven culture, too many let their attitude toward technology (an item is fine until something better comes along) bleed into other aspects of life that matter more. Today, marriages are thrown away, even in the church.  Too many parents throw away their parental role, too many friends break their friendships far too easily, and too many hop from local church to local church, seeking something new and better. Too many in ministry leave their churches for poor reasons. If I had a dollar for every opportunity to go and do this or that in ministry I could retire early. And some leave the SBC because they simply want to find something better. Or they so undervalue relationships that the next better thing becomes more important than the people with whom you have shared much of life. So, is the SBC your family, or just a convenience for ministry—training, experience, etc—until something better comes along? 

I will not fight for a lot of things. But I will fight for my family. I would die for my wife and kids. And I would kill for them. Really. I would. I would not die or kill for my convention. But I will fight for her. I am a debtor to many who have invested so much in my life financially (the Cooperative Program underwrote much of my educational cost), in discipleship (so many men of God have poured their lives into me), in friendships, in providing places of service. So, if the SBC is your place until something better comes along, why not just go ahead and leave?  You are hardly here anyway. I just hope Jesus is not next (No I am not comparing Jesus to the SBC, don’t miss my point). I do not sit around and whine for months when my laptop is bad. I get a new one. But I am very careful about terminating relationships.  And it would take more than a level of dissatisfaction to make me leave the SBC.

2. I am a Southern Baptist because of theology more than politics.

Some say they want to leave the SBC because it is nothing more than a big political organization. More than one has said, “I was once a Democrat, but the Democratic Party left me. Now, I once was a Southern Baptist, but the SBC has left me.” Maybe it’s just me, but I find it a little ironic to use a political analogy to complain about politics in the SBC J.  Still, I can understand the concern. I once thought the SBC was drifting so leftward theologically that she was about to leave me.  But a conservative resurgence gave me hope. I am a Southern Baptist because of theology. Does the political aspect bother me? Sure. I loathe it when some seem to choose personal loyalty over truth. That is a local church issue also, for we would rather not hurt someone’s feelings than tell them the truth.

A convention as large as ours must have some political aspect. Any entity this large does. But I would rather work in a system like ours to bring about change than complain about it. Someone recently said to me, “If Hillary becomes president I am leaving the US.” Fine. Go live in Somalia a while. Go move your letter to the First Baptist Church of Darfur. You will find the US a little better place to raise a family regardless of who is president (I am not voting for Hillary or Obama, don’t miss my point).

I am a Southern Baptist by conviction. Jesus got me first, but the Baptists were not far behind. I am not a Calvinist. I do not affirm a limited atonement (or particular redemption, choose your term). But I believe in the sovereignty of God, and some of my greatest heroes historically were. I know enough history to know lots of Calvinists were used of God in great awakenings. So I think there is plenty of room on the theological plateau that is the SBC for Reformed SBC people who love the Great Commission and for those who are not who also love the Great Commission.  I will not let the cocky Calvinist (yes there are some) or the utilitarian pragmatist (who too easily water down the gospel for the sake of numbers) push me out. If you truly are a classical Pentecostal on the one hand or a Presbyterian on the other, you likely will never be happy as a Southern Baptist (I have plenty of friends who are Pentecostal and Presbyterian, by the way.  Do not miss my point J). But at our best we are a theologically robust people, and there is room on the plateau for people with whom I disagree. Truth matters, and the BFM2000 forms a confession of faith I can follow, for example.

I presented a paper a few years back at New Orleans Seminary on Congregational Polity and the Great Commission. I tried to argue that for congregational polity to keep us focused on the Great Commission we must have two things: first, a core conviction about the truth of the gospel (theology).  Second, a strong leader to keep us on said focus (leadership).  Unfortunately a “good old boy” system can overtake bold, courageous leadership, pushing for conformity over creativity and for control over respect. I do not care if you are a liberal or a conservative, a good old boy system can warp your view of reality.  Theology must drive our politics, not vice versa.

Some of you are tired of the sectarianism you see. I agree. I wonder if some have forgotten that the most famous sectarians in the New Testament were the Pharisees, whom Jesus did not really compliment (unless you think being called a white washed tomb is some new street term for cool). But I am secure enough in my convictions to work with those who embrace our fundamental beliefs, even if we disagree over other issues.

3. I am a Southern Baptist because of the God-given passion in my soul to be part of something that matters. Yes, a convention as big as ours sometimes fails to be the stewards we should. You and I can complain about the bureaucracy, the repetitive, duplicating ministry at the national, state, association, or even local church levels. It is frustrating. You want to plant a church and discover there are four or five different groups, all of whom are trying to do the same thing, and all of them turn you down. That can hardly be encouraging. I too am weary of the waste, the fat budgets and the number of people who spend as much time in ministry defending the reason for their position than actually ministering.  Part of me almost wants an economic downturn to force us to refocus our priorities. But leave the SBC for that? Seriously?

I guess I could leave over that if I never found myself being wasteful. You have probably never bought a candy bar you never needed or got a credit card statement you regretted. Well, I have.  I have been guilty of bad financial decisions. But I am not going to close my bank account and sell my house. I am going to try to keep learning better how to be a steward. And I will keep pushing the SBC to do the same.

Some younger ministers who want to or are leaving are GenXers. Not to be a big proponent of generational studies, but if you are not careful you will prove the pundits right. After all they call those in your generation slackers, complainers, uncooperative, cynical, relativistic, things like that. Prove the pundits wrong. Go against your generation. Have some conviction, trust some people, and work for change. Hang in there and do something that matters with others who seek to be about the same. Be part of the solution not a statistic. (I am thinking that I just made a lot of people mad. But don’t miss my point J).

It is ironic that we complain about money spent in the SBC when our church and personal budgets rarely reflect the kind of mission commitment we expect of the convention. But when we take a moment to see the good–the disaster relief after Katrina, the growing numbers of converts overseas, the rise in urban church planters, and so on, perhaps we can see that despite her imperfections and no small amount of waste, the SBC still makes a great deal of difference globally. Every time I walk into a classroom at Southeastern I am reminded that I am part of something that matters.

4. I am a Southern Baptist because of a sense of call to change the world, not because I am an opportunist.  I know the game. I know how to shake the right hands and make the right people happy.  I know the temptation to be in the “in” crowd in a community or in a convention. I get along with most folks pretty well, but I have ruffled a few feathers in my day. God did not call me to kiss the ring of any person, but to serve the Most High God.  I have found I can do that just fine here. If you are a reader who is unhappy with the SBC, is your dissatisfaction over the state of the SBC because your opportunity to climb is diminished? I doubt this reason would describe many. But, the “I am going to take my ball and go home” mentality has been evident more than once to me.  I am in the SBC in part because I am part of a movement that is literally touching the world. I want to change the whole world. I want to be part of that which can.

One can easily become discouraged with the programmatic ministry, the confusion between truth and style (yes, some really do think changing the worship service from a piano, organ and robed choir to a praise team is the work of the devil), and the institutionalism that often thwarts the movement of God in our time.  My call to ministry was not a call to the path of least resistance or to mark time until He returns. My call is to be a part of changing the whole world with the amazing gospel. And I have found no better place to do that than as a Southern Baptist.

5. Finally, I am a Southern Baptist because I love a challenge, and these are challenging times. A close friend of mine said something in our seminary days I have never forgotten. It was the height of the conservative resurgence, when so many like us longed to see our leaders, our schools, and our agencies unapologetically affirm the Scriptures.  “Alvin,” he said, “I want to tell my grandchildren that when it came time to take a stand for truth, I did so.”  I agreed.  And I agree.

At many levels the Southern Baptist Convention is sick. And even worse, in many circles leaders are in denial.  We are in decline. We have been pathetic at evangelism in the US for a long time, not just recently. We have too often confused preference for truth in embarrassing ways. Imagine that, we are at the place where we have no hope but to trust in God to move us forward. I like that challenge. I am giving my life to the next generation, in particular those under 25.  I still believe God is at work and we can turn this big old aircraft carrier toward a new horizon.  I want my children and grandchildren to see the SBC as a movement of God capable of touching the globe.  It is so easy simply to pack and go, to leave a church, a community, even a family.  But there is so much more joy in hanging in there, watching God work, fighting for change, and knowing you were a part of that.  I want to be a part of that. By no means do I think that Southern Baptists are the only Christians on the earth doing that.  In fact, I have met more than a few in the SBC whose salvation I would question! But I have a sense of call, and passion, and urgency to be a part of God’s great work in this world. And I do so as a Southern Baptist.

I hope you will as well.

First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Florida, would rank as one of the greatest, most historic churches in the SBC. I had the great joy of making my first visit to FBC this past weekend, and what a treat it was! First Jax has one of the most impressive sites you could imagine, from the preschool building to the college ministry to the numerous parking garages and mammoth auditorium replete with HD flatscreens.  There were more people in one service than live in a typical North Carolina country town.  I had the joy not only of speaking there, but to be with several of our great SEBTS students—Jim Smyrl, whom I taught both in the MDiv and PhD programs, Marcus Allen, Chris Eppling, and Rush Witt.

I was asked to speak at a series called “August Nights Are for Apologetics.” My topic was “Reaching the Next Generation,” but since I was going to be there anyway they let me have even more fun, speaking three times to three diverse groups.

Sunday morning I spoke to the college and career class and met a great group of young. I challenged them to live boldly in the culture, to be missionaries in the place God put them, and they received it enthusiastically. I then enjoyed a wonderful time of worship and a great message by Dr. Mac Brunson. I have no doubt Mac is the perfect man for FBC now, and so enjoyed hearing him preach about the amazing work of Christ from Romans 3. Jim Smyrl and his wonderful family treated me to a great lunch. In over twenty years of itinerant ministry I have never been treated so graciously, from my airport pickup by David Key to his dropping me back there Monday morning, as I got from the great folks at First Jax.

At 5:00 PM I spoke to the parents of middle school and high school students–hundreds of them. I spoke from my book Raising the Bar, challenging them to treat young people as young adults, not 3d graders. I reminded them that if they bought a book I wrote it would help underprivileged children—mine J.  I tend to get after parents, as I am one myself and tend to get after myself with frequency. They seemed to take my abuse well.

Then I spoke in the evening service to a great crowd on Reaching the Next Generation. What a wonderful service—a huge, passionate youth choir, and such a receptive audience. I felt as if I had been there many times.  Here is a little summary of my message (I will add the podcast soon). I crammed as much as I could from my books Radically Unchurched and Join the Movement into the presentation (I do not know much more than what I have already written):

–I described our changing world, flattened and shrunken by the internet and other factors, and then the changing cultural forces shaped by postmodernism, and had a little fun with the different generations there. I also touched on the unchurched, dechurched, and churched youth population and how really pathetic we are at reaching young adults in the US.

I offered four fundamental points of change to reaching what is the largest group of young adults in US history:

1. Share unchanging truth…but differently. Young adults crave truth, but they resent our tendency to talk down to them as if they were children.  Give them a Great Idea about the truth of the gospel, more than the simple points, but the great drama of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation. They can handle the truth, especially when they sense you care!

2. Focus less on Christianity as modifying one’s behavior and more on the concept of wonder—young people crave for real spirituality, not the auto-pilot, rote church grind we often present to them. Great awakenings often saw youth as catalysts, due to their hunger for spiritual reality.

3. Focus less on rules and more on relationships. Rules matter (God gives commands, not suggestions), but young adults today come from wrecked homes and have confused standards. They need someone to give a flying rip about who they are and where they are in life. This is a fatherless generation, and I speak to youth as much from the perspective of a father as a preacher.

4. Focus less on Christianity as an institution and more as a movement.  Young adults hunger to be part of something bigger than they are.  Millennials want their lives to matter, but they need a cause. What greater cause is there than the gospel?

I closed with the story of Renee I just blogged about last post.  As soon as the service was over a beautiful young adult lady came to me along with her husband, who was beaming (she was quite pregnant). She showed me her arm, exposing scars from a past of cutting herself. She told me how Christ has changed her, how she believed all I said was true, and how encouraged she was.

I already added more than a few on Facebook from the youth and college groups there. Here are a couple of the comments I received:

“I was seriously surprised at the insight you had on us youth! It was an awesome fresh breath of air to hear that there are older adults who do not immediately judge us. Thank you soooo much for coming to our church.” College student at UF

Thank you again for coming to FBC! It was definitely a cool reminder that we’re NOT out there alone,… and that there are adults out there who care about helping us to be all God wants us to be!                     High school student

  This weekend encouraged me greatly. I am already excited about going back! Dinner at P.F. Changs with the Education Staff 

–A Barbie doll from Hannah, slipped in my suitcase one day years ago with a note asking me not to forget her on my travels (yes, I cried);

–A small hand made picture from a Ukrainian pastor. I gave him what was a large sum of money in his land my last day there, but he would not take it. Instead he bought a piece of local art. I treasure it;

–Pictures of my family and students.

You have these also. But I doubt you have a razor blade. But for a man named Jamie, a razor blade became a precious gift, and has ignited a movement that has touched the hearts of a generation. You may be unaware of this movement (many in the Christian subculture are), but in high schools across America it spreads…and it can teach us a lot about a Great Commission Resurgence in our time.

Much has been said and written in recent days about the idea of a Great Commission Resurgence. Far wiser men than I have given sage counsel about both the need and foundations for such a movement in our day. But I live in a world with a lot of teenagers and so many in the next generation who are interested less in a slogan and statements, profound and necessary as they may be. I spend time with young believers who want not only to believe well, but live well, as all of us do. So let me tell you Jamie’s story, which ironically is not his story, and you will see what I mean..

Jamie and a friend traveled to Los Angeles to watch the filming of a music video by MTV (okay I just lost some of you who are my age by saying MTV. but please keep reading). The director of the video was Joaquin Pheonix, the guy who played Johnny Cash in Walk the Line—a movie in no small part about addictions and overcoming them. What struck Jamie about Phoenix went beyond his zealous emotion. He noticed how Phoenix recorded notes: he wrote things on his arm. He had neither a legal pad nor an assistant. When an idea came, he took a sharpie and wrote it on his arm. This struck Jamie: “This isn’t normal stuff. If you’re going to write things on your arms, people are going to see. They’re going to see what’s on your mind and they’re going to think you’re weird. I liked the possibility that he didn’t care what people thought. I thought it would be cool to live like that, to be about things and to be bold about them.”

A couple of weeks later Jamie met a fan of Walk the Line dealing with her own demons of addiction. And that is where a sharpie and a razor blade converge. Her name is Renee. Here is her story in part from Jamie’s words.

“Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn’t slept in 36 hours and she won’t for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she’ll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn’t ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her. She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds.”

Renee is rejected from a treatment center, considering her too great a risk. Too great a risk? Can those of us who have experienced the reality of the gospel find ourselves saying wise things while rarely taking risks for those who need the same gospel?

Jamie decides he and his friends and family will become Renee’s treatment center for the next five days until she enters a center that will accept her. “For the next five days,” Jamie says, “She is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.”

For the next five days they love Renee like she has never known. The night before her time of treatment Jamie recalled:”Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We’re talking to God but I think as much, we’re talking to her, telling her she’s loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she’s inspired. After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff. She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She’s had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn’t have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.” 

But this is not the end. After the treatment, Jamie could observe the change Christ makes in a life like Renee’s, as he watched life come back to her again. But here is where Renee’s story says much about how the church can live out a Great Commission Resurgence in our world, away from the cloisters of our church buildings, among people for whom Christ died:

“We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love.” 

Then he gives a formula that is so simple, so like Jesus, that we may miss it completely. Here is a formula for a Great Commission Resurgence. Here it is:

Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess.

Tell her something true when all she’s known are lies.

Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom.

Tell he God loves her.

Then Jamie adds: “We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don’t get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won’t solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we’re called home. I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.” 

There are young people who will read this who know nothing about a “Great Commission Resurgence.” But they have a yearning to live large for God in lives that matter. There are adults who will read this who yearn for a renewed focus on the gospel, but are far from ready to stop a busy life to love a broken girl. But that is not really the point. The point is that all of us can act, we can connect our faith to our feet, or, as my president Danny Akin says, our heads, our hearts, and our hands. From the razor blade gashes on her arms to the sharpie notes on Phoenix’s a movement has begun to call attention to young people who cut themselves (they are everywhere, I meet them all the time). The twin slogans of “love is the movement,” and “to write love on her arms” have spread across the youth culture in America. This spring our daughter Hannah, a freshman in high school at the time, asked us if she could write ‘LOVE” on her arm for a week at school. Why, we asked. She explained it was to show love to young people who cut themselves, and I was introduced to the movement. We of course said yes.

Movements change the world. This movement has brought love to many depressed and troubled youth. Christianity is a movement, and the Great Commission is our theme as much as “love is the movement” is theirs. But we must act, not just talk, and sometimes it involves simple things:

–By taking time to give gifts to neighbors who do not know Christ’s love as my wife does each Christmas

–By going to places where people hurt, like the House of Hope in Raleigh where Hannah goes with our youth

–By taking time to notice the outcasts kids at events, like our son often does

–By having students invite unsaved friends over for a meal, as a class assignment by my colleagues David Nelson and Bruce Ashford does

–By spending a little less time at the church building and a little more time in the culture, as friends at North Wake Church in Wake Forest do (spending Sunday evenings in the spring mingling at a community event called “Six Sundays in Spring”)

–By taking in a homeless man until he meets Christ and gets a job and back on his feet, as my friends Jason and Rachel Kimak did

The examples are many, but they remain too rare. If we will see God move in our time, it will take more than words (see I Thessalonians 1:5). It will take us becoming a little more like Jesus and a little less like each other.It will take something like a razor blade and scars and turning it into a message of hope written on the arms of those whose lives have been changed by the One who had nails put in His for us.

the Convergent church

Missional Worshipers in an Emerging Culture

Mark Liederbach &

Alvin L. Reid

5

Contents

Foreword, by Ed Stetzer . 7

Preface: Meeting the Authors . 9

Introduction: What Is the “Convergent Church”? . . . . 17

Part 1: Where We Are and How We Got Here

1. The Way We Were: Worldviews and Modernity 31

2. Where We Are: A Primer on Postmodernity . 49

3. The Christian Church in the New Postmodern Context:

Understanding the Emerging Church Movement 74

4. The Contours of the Christian Church in the New Postmodern

Context: Evaluating the Emerging Church Movement . 99

Part 2: Converging on Missional Worship

5. Converging on Worship: Life as Worship . 117

6. Converging on Mission: Join the Movement 138

7. Converging on Doctrine: Unchanging Truth

in a Turbulent World . 157

Part 3: Living Out Missional Worship

8. Converging on Ethics, Part 1: The Right and the Good 185

9. Converging on Ethics, Part 2: Who’s Afraid of the

Social Gospel? . . . . . . . . . . 204

10. Converging on Evangelism: Advance a Movement! 226

11. Converging on Discipleship: Living What We Say 250

12. Converging on Culture: Acts Revisited . 274

 We look forward to interacting with churches and other ministries in the days to come!