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Archives For November 30, 1999

The Briefing: Reported IMB baptisms lowest since 1969, end of NCAA and Title IX waivers

Lisa Misner —  March 22, 2016

Reported IMB baptisms drop sharply; lowest since 1969
The Louisiana Baptist Message reports overseas baptisms by the International Mission Board 2015 dropped to 54,762 from the 190,957 reported for 2014, according to information submitted by the International Mission Board in response to a request by the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee. Likewise, the number of new churches fell from 13,824 to 3,842 over the same one-year period.

Groups urge NCAA to end ties to Title IX waiver colleges
As March Madness started, a homosexual advocacy group began pressuring the NCAA to exclude from its membership all schools with federal government approval to “discriminate” against transgender individuals on religious grounds. Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. predicted the NCAA eventually will succumb to pressure from activists and grant the request to ban schools with a biblically orthodox view of human sexuality from America’s most prominent college athletics association.

Wheaton names first female provost
For the first time in Wheaton College’s over 150-year history, the Illinois evangelical higher education institution has named a woman to be the school’s provost. Wheaton College President Philip Ryken announced Seattle Pacific University assistant provost and Wheaton alumna Margaret Diddams will take over as provost after current provost Stanton Jones steps down later this year.

Tchividjian fired over prior affair
The grandson of evangelist Billy Graham, Tullian Tchividjian, has been fired by another church after confessing to another affair that he previously had. The news broke when Willow Creek Church in Winter Springs, FL, explained that the 43-year-old pastor admitted he had an affair with another woman, which he had not previously mentioned.

Billboard: Nuns are sticking with St. Louis
Racial tensions and severe floods have rocked St. Louis in recent months. Then, the city’s NFL team announced it’s move to Los Angeles. But the Catholic nuns of the metropolitan area want the city to know that they are sticking around and they have launched a billboard campaign to show their commitment, featuring the message “We have faith in you, St. Louis.”

Sources: Louisiana Baptist Message, Baptist Press, Christian Post, One News Now, Religion News Service

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We’ve got a race! Gaines joins Greear in the bid for SBC president

Lisa Misner —  March 9, 2016
Greear and Gaines

Steve Gaines and JD Greear are candidates for Southern Baptist Convention President in 2016.

As the candidates jostle among themselves in the race for United States president, the race for Southern Baptist Convention president has become a two-man race. Last week, Florida pastor Jimmy Scroggins announced he will nominate J.D. Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., to be the next SBC president. Today, Georgia pastor and past SBC president Johnny Hunt announced he is nominating Steve Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn., to serve in that position.

Greear, 42, is seen by some as part of a new wave of younger SBC leaders. While Gaines, 58, is seen by others as an establishment candidate. With the convention three months away, there is plenty of time for additional candidates to throw their hats in the ring for the office and for other SBC posts as well.

Cooperative Program giving has become an important benchmark for recent SBC presidential candidates and it looks like that will continue. Scroggins said in his press release that Greear’s church, The Summit, “voted last year to give $390,000 to the Cooperative Program in 2016, making it one of the top CP giving churches in the state of North Carolina and the SBC.” A 230% increase in The Summit’s CP giving according to Scroggins.

Baptist Press reported, “Three years ago, the congregation [The Summit] voted to increase its giving through the Cooperative Program over a five-year period to 2.4% of undesignated receipts…The Summit reached its goal two years early.”

Baptist Press also talked with Gaines’ Bellevue and was told the “finance committee is recommending that the congregation give $1 million during its 2016-17 church year through the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists’ unified channel for funding state- and SBC-level missions and ministries. That will total approximately 4.6% of undesignated receipts.” Baptist Press calculated “between 2011 and 2016, the church has increased its CP giving by 278%.”

The SBC is also focusing on increasing baptism numbers in its churches after multiple years of decreases. Annual Church Profiles (ACP) show The Summit’s baptisms have increased from 19 in 2002, when Greear arrived, to 928 in 2014. Gaines has served as Bellevue’s pastor for 11 years. The church, which was previously led by the late Adrian Rogers, has averaged 481 baptisms per year during his tenure according to ACP reports.

Both candidates are married and each have four children (Gaines also has nine grandchildren). And, both hold master of divinity and doctor of philosophy degrees, Greear from Southeastern Seminary and Gaines from Southwestern Seminary.

The 2016 Southern Baptist Convention will take place June 14-15 in St. Louis, MO. Current SBC President Ronnie Floyd is finishing his second term in the post. Floyd is pastor of Cross Church, Northwest Arkansas.

Scroggins, pastor of Family Church in West Palm Beach, Fla., nominated Greear March 2, and Hunt, and pastor of First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Ga., nominated Gaines March 9.

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ACP tallies reveal challenge

Lisa Misner —  February 29, 2016

Good attendance tempered by fewer baptisms

For IBSA churches, 2015 was a year of ups and downs: giving and attendance were up, but baptisms were down.

“It seems clear to me that being a Baptist here in Illinois, indeed being a Christian in America, is becoming increasingly counter-cultural,” IBSA executive director Nate Adams said. “We no longer reach people and grow churches simply by opening the doors on Sunday morning.”

A rebounding economy and continued emphasis on missions giving may be behind a 1.53% increase in Cooperative Program giving to $6,230,082 (reported prior to completion of the annual audit) and a 10% hike in the Mission Illinois Offering last year at $403,595, according to the tallies of the Annual Church Profiles submitted by IBSA churches.

Total membership is up by more than 1,000 in IBSA churches (to 193,972), and worship attendance is up by almost 5,000 (7.3%) over the previous year. But baptisms declined by 2.4% to 4,400. That’s down 105 from the previous year, and down from recent averages around 5,000 per year.

On the positive side, the number of churches reporting baptisms was 591, up 29 churches from the previous year; and the number reporting zero baptisms was down by 25 churches to 366.

“The need has never been greater to live out 1 Corinthians 9 and become all things to all people to reach some, while also living out Romans 12 and refusing to be conformed to the culture in which we find ourselves,” Adams said.

Another bright spot in the 2015 ACP report is participation in missions and leadership development: Just under 24,000 volunteers from IBSA churches were mobilized for missions projects in Illinois and worldwide. And IBSA trained 8,932 leaders from 592 churches in a variety of ways, for a total of 20,203 personal training sessions.

And in a new reporting category, IBSA set a goal for 2015 of at least 100 new Bible study groups; churches blew past that goal and started 229 groups.

“One way to summarize those two contrasting pictures of our mission here in Illinois might be to simply say that fewer people are doing more with less,” Adams concluded. “Another way might be to say that some churches are doing well, while others are struggling. My primary concern is that, in total, our churches’ cumulative statewide impact on lostness in Illinois is not growing, at least not numerically.”

And with at least 8 million people in Illinois who do not know Jesus Christ personally, there’s plenty of room for improvement.

IBSA has targeted five areas for kingdom growth in 2016, rolled out at the Annual Meeting in November: evangelistic prayer, witness training, outreach events, expanded VBS, and new groups. A study in the Midwest showed that churches engaging in these activities were more likely to lead people to faith in Christ and to grow disciples. The IBSA Church Resources Team is assisting all churches that want equipping in these areas.

Look for a full report on baptisms and the evangelistic activity of IBSA churches in a future issue of the Illinois Baptist.

– Staff

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The State of the Mission

Lisa Misner —  January 25, 2016

Nate Adams State of the MissionI’m writing this the day after watching President Obama’s final State of the Union Address. After almost an hour of evidence and persuasion, the President neared the end of his address by declaring, “And that’s why I stand here, as confident as I have ever been, that the state of our Union is strong.”

A few minutes later, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley delivered the Republican response, acknowledging that President Obama “spoke eloquently about grand things,” and that “he is at his best when he does that.” Then she quickly added, “Unfortunately, the President’s record has often fallen short of his soaring words.” She went on to describe what she called a weak economy, a crushing national debt, an ineffective healthcare plan, chaotic unrest in many cities, and “the most dangerous terrorist threat our nation has seen since September 11th.”

And so viewers were left to wonder which facts to believe, which leader to trust, and which picture of America is most accurate.

I understand the dilemma, though. Here at IBSA, we are at the time of year when we cumulate and analyze data from almost a thousand churches’ Annual Church Profiles (ACPs).

Looking at some measurements, the state of our mission here in Illinois appears strong, at least compared to the previous year. The number of new church plants rebounded from 7 in 2014 to 22 in 2015. Cooperative Program missions giving was up 1.5% in 2015, and Mission Illinois Offering giving was up more than 10%. Mission trip participation remained strong at just under 24,000 volunteers.

But other measurements might produce a different picture. Baptisms reported by IBSA churches in 2015 are down from 2013 for the second straight year, and overall worship attendance and Bible study participation were flat to down as well.

My primary concern is that, in total, our churches’ statewide, cumulative impact on lostness in Illinois is not growing, at least not numerically.

President Obama quipped near the beginning of his address that he would try to be brief, because he knew there were several in Congress who were anxious to get back to Iowa (to campaign for the 2016 Presidential election). His joke underscored the reality that, whatever you may think about the current state of things, the more important issue is where we go from here.

To advance our mission here in Illinois, I would challenge us toward two primary imperatives—evangelism and leadership development.

I wrote recently about five actions in churches that, statistically speaking, most often result in people coming to faith in Christ. They are an evangelistic prayer strategy, Vacation Bible School, witness training, outreach events, and starting intentional new groups. If your church could use some help in these areas, our IBSA staff would love to assist.

I would also challenge us all to develop leaders more intentionally in our churches. At this month’s Illinois Leadership Summit, more than 200 church leaders are gathering at the IBSA Building in Springfield to explore what it means to “lead self, lead followers, lead leaders, and lead organizations” more effectively. Even if you miss the Summit, our IBSA staff will welcome the opportunity to help you and your church leaders with an intentional leadership development process.

In many ways, the state of our churches’ mission here in Illinois is still strong. But to keep it that way, and to advance the gospel into the lostness of Illinois, we must recommit to the important work of evangelism and leadership development.

Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association. Respond at IllinoisBaptist@IBSA.org.

 

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7 suggestions for increasing evangelism at your church

Meredith Flynn —  May 4, 2015

Evangelistic_churches_3HEARTLAND | The average Southern Baptist church in the Midwest has 54 people in worship on Sunday mornings, and baptized three last year. But a North American Mission Board study found the top evangelistic churches in the region are charting a different course, said Joel Southerland, NAMB’s executive director of evangelism strategies.

The Midwest’s top evangelistic churches with less than 250 in worship attendance averaged 119 in worship and had 23 baptisms. Churches with more than 250 in worship averaged 71 baptisms.

Southerland shared findings from the NAMB study of the top 20 evangelizing churches in every U.S. state at the Illinois Baptist State Association’s Evangelism Conference in March, and in a breakout session at the Midwest Leadership Summit earlier this year. The study resulted in a list of “7 Secrets of Top Evangelistic Churches in the SBC.”

  1. It has a lot to do with the pastor. NAMB studied the pastors of top evangelistic churches and found that the majority described their leadership style as “charismatic” or “transformational,” outranking innovative, command and control, servant, situational, laissez-faire and pace setter.

The pastors they studied were at the churches 10-plus years on average, Southerland said, and 70% of them preach a sermon series on evangelism every year. More than half (55%) put more emphasis on evangelism than discipleship, and 90% share the gospel outside the church at least once a month.

  1. Top evangelistic churches are really good at the Sunday morning experience. Of the pastors surveyed, 93% described their worship as lively and celebratory, 95% were contemporary or blended in worship style, and 96% said they intentionally cultivate a guest-friendly atmosphere. And 70% give an invitation at the end of the service.

Southerland outlined several worship takeaways: make church exciting, work on the quality, be intentionally evangelistic on Sunday morning, and aim for something better than “friendly.” People aren’t looking for friendly, he said, they’re looking for friends.

  1. These churches are actively engaged and serving the community, no matter the size of the congregation. Of the pastors surveyed, 88% said they were well engaged in the community. Of mid-sized top evangelistic churches, 30% attempt service-based ministry efforts to share the gospel regularly, as do 37% of large churches.

It’s OK to start small with community engagement, Southerland counseled, just start somewhere. And preferably not in a vacuum. Talk to community leaders about the needs are, and how your church can help. Involve non-Christians, using the service as an opportunity to share the gospel with them.

  1. Top evangelistic churches communicate well, internally and externally. The average pastor makes too many assumptions about how much people know, Southerland said. They assume the congregation knows the church’s vision, that members are as passionate about reaching people as the pastor, and that they don’t need constant motivation.

But all of those things—and more—need to be communicated. Luckily, more avenues for communication exist now than ever before. Of the top evangelistic church pastors surveyed, 97% use a church Facebook account regularly, Southerland cited. Half of pastors and staff intentionally “friend” guests on Facebook.

  1. Virtually all top evangelistic churches make a big deal out of baptisms—97%, the NAMB survey reported. And 79% of pastors of churches in the mid-size church category preach a yearly sermon on baptism, as do 74% of large-church pastors.

The takeaways, Southerland said, are to preach at least once on baptism every year, provide a forum for people to give their own, recorded testimonies, help baptismal candidates invite family and friends to the service, and train your church to celebrate new spiritual life.

  1. They treat guests really well. In non-evangelistic churches, Southerland said, the service is for the members and guests just happen to be there. Evangelistic churches are the opposite; of the congregations NAMB surveyed 67% of mid-size churches and 85% of large churches had a person responsible for “first impressions” ministry targeted to visitors.

A large majority (70%) emailed, called and sent written mail to a guest within seven days of their visit.

  1. Top evangelistic churches emphasize inviting and personal evangelism. The pastors of the churches NAMB studied were very busy mobilizing their church members to be a witness in the community; 50% offered evangelism training, and 70% of their guests came to church as a result of a personal invitation from a member. Among mid-sized churches, 62% have visitation or organized outreach at least once a month, and 58% of large churches do the same.

Churches that train members in personal evangelism, Southerland said, baptize two-and-a-half times more people than those that don’t.

The value of a verbal witness cannot be underestimated, he said during a message at the IBSA conference. Especially when most people are broken and looking for a solution to their problems.

“We are far too timid when it comes to sharing the gospel. We are too scared of the culture.” But, “The culture is not near as bad as it could be or will be someday. We’re to take the gospel to the culture and change the culture with Jesus Christ.”

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SBC task force suggests five solutions for baptism decline

Meredith Flynn —  May 13, 2014
Sonja Conrad was baptized during a spring crusade at First Baptist Church, O'Fallon, Ill.

Sonja Conrad was baptized during a spring crusade at First Baptist Church, O’Fallon, Ill.

THE BRIEFING | Meredith Flynn

A task force appointed to study declining baptisms in the Southern Baptist Convention released its report May 12, detailing five problems they believe have contributed to the recent downward trend. The task force, appointed last year by the North American Mission Board and comprised mostly of pastors, also suggested five solutions focused on prayer, evangelism and discipleship.

When it was published in June 2013, the Annual Church Profile (ACP) report showing the previous year’s facts and figures sounded several alarm bells: 25% of Southern Baptist churches reported zero baptisms. And 60% of churches baptized no one in the 12-17 age bracket.

“We have a spiritual problem,” the task force acknowledged in its report. “Many of our SBC pastors and churches are not effectively engaged in sharing the gospel and yet continue business as usual. We need a sense of brokenness and repentance over the spiritual climate of our churches and our nation.”

Churches also need to get back to celebrating baptisms, the group said. “Many of our churches have chosen to celebrate other things as a measure of their success rather than new believers following Christ in baptism. We have drifted into a loss of expectation.”

To address the decline, the task force suggested five focus areas for pastors that correlate to five problem areas (spiritual, leadership, discipleship, next generation, and celebration):

1. Pray for spiritual awakening.

2. Model personal evangelism and provide pathways. (NAMB has introduced a new evangelism tool called “3 Circles: Life Conversation Guide.)

3. Create a disciple-making culture.

4. Serve the next generation.

5. Celebrate evangelism and baptism.

“…We encourage our fellow SBC pastors to join us in owning this problem,” the task force said. “Together, we can seize this opportunity to lead our churches and be part of the solution.”

For more on the task force’s report, evangelism tools, and a new video challenge, go to www.namb.net/baptismtaskforce.

Boko Haram offer to release kidnapped girls may be ploy, Nigerian Southern Baptist says
Terrorist group Boko Haram released a video Monday offering to release about 100 of the Christian girls they’ve kidnapped, in exchange for the release of Boko Haram prisoners in Nigeria. But the offer could be a tactic to buy time to strategize, Adeniyi Ojutiku told Baptist Press. Ojutiku is a Southern Baptist and co-founder of Lift Up Now, a Christian-based grassroots organization addressing political, economic and social challenges in his homeland Nigeria.

“They have wiped out families. They have killed generations of people, even infants,” Ojutiku said of Boko Haram. “They have maimed people for life. They have killed hundreds and thousands of people. And then to conceive that you would negotiate with such very, very despicable … people who commit such heinous crimes, it is unthinkable to me.

“These people must be prosecuted,” he said. “There cannot be sustainable peace without justice.” Read the full story at BPNews.net.

Arkansas becomes first southern state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples
County clerks in Arkansas were thrown into a state of confusion by Judge Chris Piazza’s decision to overturn the state’s ban on same-sex marriage on Friday, May 8. By Monday, clerks in some counties were issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, while others had decided not to. Attorney General Dustin McDaniel filed paperwork to temporarily extend the ban Monday, the Associated Press reported, but clerks can continue to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples until the state’s Supreme Court processes documents from both sides on Tuesday.

Translators work to get Bible into dangerous territory
Ten million landmines may still be buried in Angola, left over from a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002. But Wycliffe Associates, known for their efforts to translate the Bible into every language, is working to take God’s Word to the southern African nation, The Christian Post reports. “These people have been ravaged by brutality and poverty,” said Bruce Smith, president and CEO of Wycliffe Associates. “They live in daily danger of stumbling onto hidden land mines. But worst of all, many have never even heard a word of scripture in their own language.” Read more about Wycliffe’s Angola project at ChristianPost.com.

HGTV stops production on show starring Christian brothers
A reality show in the works about two house-flipping brothers was shelved after the group Right Wing Watch posted about David and Jason Benham’s beliefs about marriage, homosexuality and abortion. “Flip it Forward” would have followed the Benham brothers as they helped six families renovate homes, reports ChristianityToday.com. “We promised we would give Jesus glory whether in victory or defeat,” David Benham said after the show’s cancelation. “Sure seems like we’ve been defeated lately. But you know what? God is bigger than all of this.”

 

 

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Bucking the trend and bearing fruit

Meredith Flynn —  February 10, 2014

Nate_Adams_blog_callout_2HEARTLAND | Nate Adams

Last month Directors of Missions and other associational leaders from around the state gathered at the IBSA Building for a time of leadership development, fellowship, and strategic thinking about how best to assist churches. Dr. Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, was invited to speak to us on “Fostering a Positive Baptism Trend in an Association.”

To set the stage, Dr. Kelley reminded us that the number of baptisms in SBC churches overall has been on a 50-year plateau, and has now actually declined six of the past eight years. Nationwide data for 2013 is not yet available, but in 2012 baptisms declined 5.5% from 2011, to only 314,956. That’s the lowest level since 1948, when SBC churches reported only 6 million members rather than the current 16 million. In fact, to give those numbers some further context, baptisms totaled 445,725 in 1972, and 429,063 in 1959.

Here among IBSA churches, baptisms were actually up 3.1% in 2013 to 5,063, building on the previous year’s 2.6% increase. Still, 2013 is our churches’ first year above 5,000 baptisms since 2009. And in 2005, IBSA churches reported 6,499 baptisms.

While all of us were eager to hear what Dr. Kelley would suggest, none of us were really surprised when he said there are no easy answers to reversing the current baptism trend. I was personally grateful to hear him underscore that we shouldn’t seek to affix blame or pass the buck. Instead, we all need to focus passionately and sacrificially on the urgent need to reach people with the Gospel in an increasingly challenging environment.

While I don’t have space here to recap everything Dr. Kelley shared with us, I can share his alliterated outline. He said we need to Focus on Filling (of the Spirit, or revival), on Fruitfulness (intentional evangelism), on Faithfulness (a return to true discipleship), and even on Fighting (embracing the inevitable conflict that comes when change is needed, yet with Christ-like attitudes and righteousness).

All of these points hit home deeply with me, and couldn’t have come at a better time. Not only are we beginning a new year of ministry here at IBSA, and in all our churches, but we are also beginning our planning and budgeting for 2015. We can’t keep doing ministry as usual and expect a much different result.

As Dr. Kelley urged, we must persistently ask God to fill us afresh with His Spirit, and bring revival to our churches and spiritual awakening to our land. We must focus much more intentionally on fruitfulness, starting new Bible studies and Sunday School classes and evangelistic ministries, and equipping believers to courageously share the Gospel. We must more carefully embrace true discipleship, investing God’s Word deeply in those who will be faithful to live the Gospel and pay it forward into the lives of others. And yes, we must be so committed to a different level of fruitfulness that we are
even willing to engage the conflict that often seems to come with change, even in churches.

Those of us leading and serving churches today have lived most of our adult lives on the downwardly sloping plateau of this baptism trend. In many ways we have been maintaining our processes and doing church in comfortable ways, and if we simply continue our current patterns in the face of a changing culture, we will soon see the downward slope of the current trend steepen dramatically.

So as we prepare to plot one more year of baptisms on the chart of history, it is this urgency of reaching spiritually lost people with the Gospel that must compel us, and our churches. Baptisms may not be the only measure of fruitfulness, but they are a measure that we cannot be content to see in even gradual decline.

Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association.

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Turning the tide on baptisms

Meredith Flynn —  February 6, 2014
CONVERSIONS COUNT – “We have to help our churches focus on bearing fruit, and to keep up with that as a measure of how they’re doing,” NOBTS President Chuck Kelley told associational leaders in Illinois. “Fruitlessness is becoming endemic in Southern Baptist Life.”

CONVERSIONS COUNT – “We have to help our churches focus on bearing fruit, and to keep up with that as a measure of how they’re doing,” NOBTS President Chuck Kelley told associational leaders in Illinois. “Fruitlessness is becoming endemic in Southern Baptist Life.”

The SBC’s declining numbers are real. But there are solutions, says seminary president Chuck Kelley.

NEWS | Eric Reed

Since he began studying and teaching evangelism more than 30 years ago, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary President Dr. Chuck Kelley, told associational leaders in Illinois in January, we’ve been quoting the same statistic: 30% of our churches are growing, and 70% of all Southern Baptist churches are plateaued or declining. “The difference today is the 70% aren’t so much ‘plateauted;’ our churches are declining. We are a convention at a crossroads.”

Kelley is one voice in a chorus of national leaders calling on Southern Baptists to end the decline in baptisms and missions giving in our churches that threatens fulfillment of our kingdom work and the future of the denomination itself.

The head of the convention’s executive committee, Dr. Frank Page, also delivered a stark address in January. “…You say, ‘What is our future?’ I do not know. I’m asked that every week by someone, and I say, ‘I cannot answer.’ If things do not change, I can tell you in 20 years we will be happy to have 27,000, not 47,000 churches,” Page said.

In a “State of the SBC” address at Midwestern Seminary, Page cited “fault lines” in the denomination, where pressure has built and the fabric of the organization is threatened. Among them are the arguments over the nature and authority of Scripture in the 1980s, and more recently the debate over Reformed theology, methods of funding missions, and democratic-based church governance.

The effect of these “fault lines” is seen in declining baptisms and a 20-year downward trend in missions funding through the Cooperative Program. “We have argued over issues that have taken away our evangelistic fervor to the point that now our baptismal rates have reached a low not seen since 1948,” Page said. “God help us.”

Southern Baptists baptized 314,956 people in 2012, the most recent tally available. That was a decline of 5.5%. The figure compares to the post-war baptismal rate, when Southern Baptists numbered 6 million, in contrast to today’s 16 million. A decade-long focus on evangelism after World War II produced the denomination’s greatest surge of conversions, peaking at 445,725 baptisms in 1972, and the steam to power the next six decades downhill from there.

Leaders are hopeful that a final tally on 2013 baptisms and Cooperative Program giving, due soon, will show a slight uptick, and perhaps end the slippery slope. And in Illinois, baptisms and giving are up for 2013.

Still, national leaders are now talking publicly and regularly about the SBC as a denomination that is plateaued and declining, mostly declining.

Page’s speech, now being viewed widely on the internet, comes on the heels of “an open letter” from LifeWay President Thom Rainer calling on members of what is still the largest Protestant denomination in the United States to recapture their zeal for evangelism.

“Where is the passion in most of our churches to reach the lost?” Rainer asked. “I thank God for our affirmation of the total truthfulness of Scripture. I thank God for orthodoxy. But I pray that it is not becoming a dead orthodoxy – an orthodoxy that has lost its first love.”

“I have no proposal,” Rainer summarized. “I have no new programs for now. I simply have a burden.”

Kelley’s proposal

The history of every church and denomination is growth, plateau, and decline, Kelley told associational leaders meeting at the Illinois Baptist State Association building January 27-28. Pointing to Methodists, Presbyterians, and other mainline

denominations, Southern Baptists for many years expressed thanks we weren’t following their decline. Now we are. “We are seeing a growing gap in the rhetoric about Southern Baptists and the reality of where we are,” he said.

And the declines are in all parts of the U.S. “We’re losing the South,” Kelley said. “You need to be aware that the South is becoming more like Illinois; large blocks of unreached people, and churches that are smaller.”

And a new generation that is not following their parents’ lead by staying in church after they reach adulthood.

Kelley likened the denomination’s downward turn to an airplane in a tailspin: beyond a certain point, the pilot can’t pull the nose upward and right the plane. “We’re nearing that point,” Kelley said.

He identified four factors in this precipitous decline, problem areas that also point to possible solutions:

Elephant 1: Awakening

“We have a power problem,” Kelley said. “We have gotten so used to working without the filling of the Spirit of God, we don’t know it’s not normal. Kelley called for church leaders to encourage prayer for spiritual awakening: “This is like stacking the firewood for God to light the fire.

“We need to have solemn assemblies, for our people to seek a move of God… If God isn’t moving, there is an issue within us,” he said, pointing to the need for repentance.

Elephant 2: Conversions

As the numbers have dropped, Southern Baptists have moved away from publically counting baptisms as a measure of our fruitfulness. While Kelley acknowledged there have been misuses of the system in the past, he said our churches must return to a focus on fruitfulness. Specifically, we need to see conversions as a measure of “what God is doing in our churches.”

“Many of our churches have the Sunday school attendance posted somewhere, and last week’s offering,” Kelley said, “but I have been in very few churches that have in a public place how many people they have baptized – and even fewer that have a public goal of how many they want to baptize.”

He offered three measures of fruitfulness: beyond conversions, churches should measure ministry to the community. “Most churches do not have a muscle set for ministry to the community,” he pointed out, but it is community ministry that opens doors for evangelism.

And churches should measure church planting, their own participation in the reproductive process that brings healthy new congregations into existence, with members fueled by the salvations of their lost family and friends.

Elephant 3: Discipleship

While the rhetoric in our high-point decades was about evangelism (“A million more in ’54!”), the real genius of the period, Kelley contends, was in our dis

ciple-making mechanisms: Sunday school and training union. These methods focused on making new believers into disciples, who then led more people to Christ.

But, he said following extensive study, “Every methodology has a shelf life, and as the methodology wore out its shelf life, we did not replace it…. Our discipleship processes have been dismantled, not intentionally, but by attrition. Our discipleship has become a patchwork that is reinvented every year. It’s a series of things, not a cohesive strategy.”

In the last 20 years, Kelley said there has been a “megashift” in SBC life from the priority of discipleship to the priority of worship. One result is under-educated people who call themselves Christian, but whose lifestyles are little different from unbelievers.

“When I grew up, we still had a sense of being a stranger is a strange land. We were counter-culture…. I’m not calling for a return to the sixties. I am saying we have to find for today what a distinctly Christian lifestyle looks like and teach our people what living distinctly Christian lives is, so that we have evangelism that will impact our society.”

One of our needed conversations is how we will lead our congregations to spiritual maturity in this new era.

Elephant 4: Fighting

Finally, Kelley pointed to a significant shift he has witnessed from the seminary campus: “Today’s seminary students are not interested in going into existing churches, because they are scared. They have seen the results and heard the horror stories of church fights,” Kelley said.

Yet, that’s where the need is, in existing churches that are plateaued or declining. “If a pastor comes to bring growth, there will be conflict. We need to have conversations about how to have conflict.”

Kelley said leaders need to help their churches process conflict in ways that bring positive change and do not harm the Body of Christ. “Not all church fights are the result of failure on the part of the pastor, or of having ungodly people in the pews. It is the result of change. Leading change creates conflict,” Kelley said.

It also turns declining churches – and denominations.

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SBC’s GuideStone sues government over abortion mandate

Meredith Flynn —  October 22, 2013

THE BRIEFING | Meredith Flynn

GuideStone Financial Resources has joined a long list of organizations suing the federal government over the abortion/contraceptive mandate within President Obama’s healthcare reform package.

GuideStone, the Southern Baptist Convention’s health and benefits entity, filed suit Oct. 11 along with two other organizations – Oklahoma-based Reaching Souls International, and Truett-McConnell College in Cleveland, Ga. Baptist Press reports:

The suit contends the religious liberty of the entities and other non-church-related organizations covered by GuideStone’s health plan, is violated by a rule issued by the Department of Health and Human Services to implement the 2010 health-care law. The HHS regulation requires employers to pay for coverage of workers’ contraceptives, including drugs that can cause abortions, but does not provide an exemption for entities like those that filed suit.

“GuideStone plans do not cover drugs or devices that can or do cause abortions,” GuideStone President O.S. Hawkins said in a written release from the entity Monday (Oct. 14).

“We reluctantly take this step because we are committed to protecting the unborn and preserving the religious freedom that is guaranteed under the laws of this nation,” he said. “This mandate runs rough-shod over these foundational principles.”

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is representing in GuideStone in the suit, which is the 74th such complaint filed against the mandate. Read more at BPNews.net.

Opposing voices in Illinois marriage debate head to the Capitol
People for and against same-sex marriage will rally in Springfield this week in hopes of swaying the votes of lawmakers back in town for the fall veto session. It’s not clear whether sponsors of the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act have the votes needed to pass the measure (it stalled in the House last May), but same-sex marriage supporters are planning a rally and march around the Capitol today, October 22. On Wednesday the 23rd, the Illinois Family Institute will host a prayer rally and “Lobby Day” at the Capitol.

Southern Baptist task force addresses baptism decline
A group of leaders assembled by the North American Mission Board will meet over the next few months to discuss the decline in baptisms across the Southern Baptist Convention. “Our baptismal trends are all headed in the wrong direction,” NAMB’s vice president for evangelism, Al Gilbert, told Baptist Press. “With a burden to penetrate lostness in North America, we must pray and think through what we can and should do to turn around this decline.”

According to the 2012 Annual Church Profile, Southern Baptist churches baptized fewer than 315,000 people last year, the first time baptisms dropped below that number since 1948. The 2012 total was 5.5% less than the previous year.

Gilbert and Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, will facilitate meetings for the group, which consists of 15 pastors and leaders from Southern Baptist entities. Baptist Press reports the task force hopes to conclude their work in May 2014. Read more at BPNews.net.

Graham’s ‘My Hope’ event set for Nov. 7-10
Billy Graham’s next evangelistic event could be his largest crusade ever. More than 25,000 churches have signed up to take part in My Hope America, which asks Christians to invite non-believers into their homes and churches to watch Graham preach on the power of the cross. His message will be broadcast Nov. 7-10 on various outlets; go to myhopewithbillygraham.org for a full list and schedule.

Spokesperson Brent Rinehart told The Christian Post, “Woven within Graham’s message are the faith stories of two popular musicians: rapper LeCrae who overcame addiction and the pull of the gang lifestyle to see his life changed by an encounter with Jesus; and former Flyleaf lead singer Lacey Sturm who fought depression, hopelessness and suicidal thoughts only to be rescued by the love of a Heavenly Father and the hope that comes through a relationship with His Son.”

The event’s website also includes additional evangelistic videos and online training materials for those who sign up for the outreach.

From alien to understood
Brant Hansen writes about growing up in church with Apserger’s syndrome on CNN’s Belief blog. The Christian radio host’s experience is specific to his circumstances, but probably will encourage anyone who’s ever felt like an outsider. Hansen writes of his earlier church experiences: “I wondered if I was so broken, such a misfit that God simply took a look at me and decided to move on.” But “…Jesus himself finally reached me.” Read more at CNN”s Belief blog.

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