How the Cooperative Program Works

The Power of "AND" from Kentucky Baptist Convention on Vimeo.

How the Cooperative Program Works

From the Kentucky Baptist Convention:

On Toilet Paper and Mission Work: Ezell's Report at the SBC

The Southern Baptist Convention met this past week concluding just the other day.  Though I did not attend, I have been trying to stay caught up on what has been going on at the national convention.  One of the parts I was most anticipating was the North American Mission Board report by NAMB President Kevin Ezell.  I anticipated his report because he has said before that he was going to have to level with the convention.  Southern Baptists, as he rightly stated, love numbers and have a history of inflating numbers to make us look bigger, better, and more powerful.  A lot of it is misleading.

I strongly encourage you to watch his report. I can excited for the future and direction of the North American Mission Board and this year our church will focus more on missions, mission giving, the Cooperative Program, etc.  With leadership like Ezell, I am confident that our money will not be wasted.  As Ezell shows, he has cut out a lot of the bureaucracy in order to free up more money and resources to go towards local and foreign missionaries.  That is music to my ears!!

Part 1:





Part 2:





My favorite line (and point) regards his line about Wal-mart toilet paper. If Wal-mart can track when each roll of toilet paper is sold, surely Southern Baptists ought to be able to track where they send missionaries, where churches are planted, etc. Dido Ezell!


For more:
Theology - SBTS: A Conversation With Kevin Ezell   
Theology - 8 Months In: Kevin Ezell Reflects On His Tenure Thus Far  
GBC - Repost - Facing Reality: How to Respond to SBC Decline

This is Who We Are: What a Baptist Is and Believes - Man

For the past several months, the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 has led us to think deeply about the doctrine of God and especially the Divine Trinity – 1 God in 3 Persons unified yet at the same time separate.  Now the BF&M 2000 forces us to now consider the Doctrine of Man known as Anthropology.  The BF&M 2000 states:

Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation. In the beginning man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.

The confession of faith essentially says two things – one theologically the other culturally and morally – that force us to address them theologically and biblically.  First is the creation of man itself.

The first sentence sums up the basic Christian understanding of anthropology: Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image.  Understand the depth of that statement and everything else will make sense.  Man stands as the climax of creation and most closely resembles God (though clearly not God is many and most respects).  Whatever made in the His own image may mean (and theologians disagree), we can at least admit that human life is special, unique, and on a level unmatched by any other creature.

At the same time, and as the BF&M 2000 makes clear, though Man was created in the image of God, that special creation was divided into two genders: male and female.  Both are made in God’s image.  Both are equal and both are the crowning jewels of God’s creation.  However, they are both different in many ways.  It is tempting at this point to erase that last sentence.  In a culture like ours, it is simply unpopular and even offensive to state that men and women are different.  Anyone married for 15 minutes, however, can tell you what we all naturally know: men and women are different.  But, just as both genders are equal in status and both are unique creations of God made in His image, God is most glorified whenever we maximize how He has created us.  Only the Christian faith makes sense of this.  In other words, God is glorified in both masculinity and femininity.  God rejoices at the differences in the two equal genders for He created us as we are.  So instead of turning men into wimps or castigating boys for being boys, let us celebrate each other knowing that though we are different, we are equal & God is glorified for that.

This all leads to why we have such debates in the first place.  Sin has entered our universe and with sin came the Curse.  Man and woman were perfect at one point until we sought to dethrone God.  At that point, the world began to spin out of control.  Death, decay, cancer, factions, selfishness, droughts, and divisions replaced what was once the perfect world we can only dream of today.  Once we thought of ourselves instead of God, we became slaves to sin.  And it continues to this day.

It is at this point that the BF&M 2000 picks up on the second aspect of Anthropology.  The first was more theological, the second – driven out of that theology – more cultural and moral.  Clearly the BF&M 2000 has in mind issues regarding life like abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, murder, and other issues regarding life and the taking of life.  As Christians we would also add rape, violence, injustice, and other social issues such as poverty and crime to the equation as well.

How the theology affects our morality should be obvious.  If man is created in the image of God and thus has inherent dignity, then to take innocent life is morally repugnant.  In Genesis 9 God clearly states that any forms of murder is evil because the life of an image bearer of God is being taken.  Being the author and creator of human life, only God reserves the right and authority to determine our days from conception to death.  The BF&M 2000 goes into some detail surveying this issue.  Human life, at its conception, has a level of dignity unmatched by any other creatures and thus ought to have the full rights that any other born human being in a society. Life is precious because it originates with God.  To take the life of an innocent human being, made in the image of God, is an attack on God Himself. 

As a result, the many moral and ethical issues along with the many cultural debates we have in this country aren’t trivial issues, but are theological issues.  They are gospel issues.  Let us not forget that the One who created us didn’t stop at the Curse in Genesis 3, but proceeded to Calvary where He bled and died in our behalf.  If life had no value, then please explain calvary.  Anthropology, then, is a gospel issue and we must, as always, return to the gospel in all that we say, do, believe, and vote.


For more:
This is Who We Are:  What a Baptist Is and Believes - Introduction
This is Who We Are:  What a Baptist Is and Believes - Scripture
This is Who We Are:  What a Baptist Is and Believes - God
This is Who We Are  What a Baptist Is and Believes - God the Father
This is Who We Are:  What a Baptist Is and Believes - God the Son 
This is Who We Are:  What a Baptist Is and Believes - God the Spirit  

This is Who We Are: What a Baptist Is and Believes - God the Father

God is Dad.  Let us not under-emphasize or neglect such an important reality.  If your like me, to say that God is our Father is routine, Christianeze.  We just say it without ever really thinking about what it means.  The next section of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 discusses the foundational doctrine of the Trinity; that is, God is three persons but one nature.  The BF&M 2000 says:

God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.

Gen 1:1; 2:7; Ex 3:14; 6:2-3; 15:11ff.; 20:1ff.; Lev 22:2; Deut. 6:4; 32:6; 1 Chr 29:10; Ps 19:1-3; Is 43:3,15; 64:8; Jer 10:10; 17:13; Matt 6:9ff.; 7:11; 23:9; 28:19; Mk 1:9-11; Jhn 4:24; 5:26; 14:6-13; 17:1-8; Acts 1:7; Rom 8:14-15; 1 Cor 8:6; Gal 4:6; Eph 4:6; Col 1:15; 1 Tim 1:17; Heb 11:6; 12:9; 1 Pet 1:17; 1John 5:7

The first member of the Trinity is God the Father – God our Dad.  The words our and Dad are purposeful.  If God is Dad, then God is personal, relational, and knowable.  Like any dad, God isn’t distant or cold, but near and intimate.  At the birth of America, the rise of Deism was unmistakable in our nation.  Even the author of our Declaration of Independence was written by a Deist.  Deism affirms the existence of God but holds that He is distant and uninvolved.  God is rather cold in Deism.  But though few today refer to themselves as deist, many (including Christians) hold fast to such a belief (intentionally or not).

How many times have you asked, “where was God when tragedy struck?  Does God even hear my prayers?  Why do I feel so alone?  Has God forgotten me?”  If your like me, all the time.  Every hospital is full of rooms of people asking such questions.  Every funeral is populated by mourning loved ones shedding the tears of such questions.  Every church is full of members putting forth the front that all is good, but inside, they’re decaying.  That promising marriage is falling apart – where is God?  That rebellious child has abandoned their parents rock-solid faith – does God not hear the their prayers?  That young couple desiring to have a child can’t and yet the promiscuous girl too immature to be a mother does – what is God up too?

We’ve all been there.  What hope do we have?  For one, God is Dad.  Such a fundamental understanding of God assures us that our prayers don’t fade in the wind, our questions aren’t empty concerns, and though we are alone, we can be comforted, though we are confused, there are present and real answers, and though life is tough, God is in control, aware, and active.

I’ve learned more about God in the past 22 months than I had the previous 24 years of my life.  Though where I fail as a father, God triumphs as our Dad.  I lock the door at night concerned for the safety of my family, because as dad its my primary responsibility.  I learned to pour formula in a bottle because my son needed me.  I wear a seatbelt because I have a family.  I wrestle with a toddler because I enjoy Elijah’s smile.  I am awake when he is, I run when he is in danger, and of course, I discipline when he is in the wrong.

God is Dad and thankfully He’s better at it than me.

But this language of God as Father, especially in the BF&M 2000, means more than just God’s closeness to His creation.  It also means that God is the source of everything and in “providential care over” everything. To no one’s surprise, Elijah was not dropped off by a stork.  He is the offspring of Amanda and I.  Without our union, Elijah would not exist.  Elijah is here because we are.  Likewise, we are here because God exists.  This means that as Elijah has value to us, so too we are valuable to God.  Issues over life and the protection of life are fundamental because life is a God issue.

God’s providence reminds us that just as creation was purposeful, so is everything else.  Every disaster and every celebration is well within God’s good purpose.  So even when we suffer, we can celebrate knowing that all is not lost, all has a purpose, and God will triumph in the end.  If God is Dad, then God is provident and in control and for that we rejoice.

God the Father is an important doctrine that we dare not take for granted.  If God was not Dad then we are a people without hope.  Let us live in comfort and peace knowing that He who created the world is not a distant, cold God, but an intimate Father that planned my existence and has me in His arms.


For more:
This is Who We Are:  What a Baptist Is and Believes - Introduction
This is Who We Are:  What a Baptist Is and Believes - Scripture  
This is Who WE Are:  What a Baptist Is and Believes - God  

Treasures in Heaven and the Great Commission: An Important and Timely Sermon

Throughout the week I listen to countless sermons and lectures on whatever text we study on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Sunday School, or Wednesday night.  I am now sitting in my office studying for Sunday morning and find myself listening to an important sermon by Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Dr. Al Jackson on Matthew 6:19-24.

What makes this sermon important isn't just the great exposition of the text but also with how it applies to the Great Commission Resurgence.  The GCR is an Southern Baptist movement to take the gospel to the nations.  The title of the sermon is The American Dream as an Obstacle for a Great Commission Resurgence.  So if you have an extra 40 minutes I encourage you to listen to this sermon and think seriously about the text and how it applies to our giving to the Cooperative Program and missions.  Will we store up for ourselves treasure and earth which are temporal or treasures in heaven (and sow the gospel among the nations) which are eternal?



Al Jackson - The American Dream, an Obstacle for a Great Commission Resurgence from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.

This is Who We Are: What a Baptist Is and Believes - God

Amanda and I disagree regarding food.  I like my bacon to still have meat and fat on it.  Amanda, on the other hand, likes for her bacon to be so burnt it could hold up a bridge.  I like my steak to be medium-rare while she likes hers to be like charcoal.  We also disagree with buffets.  I love them and always try to get my money’s worth by stuffing my face.  Amanda, however, isn’t so fond of them.  Why is one of the many mysteries of marriage.

Buffets are great because one can easily pick and choose what they want.  I like steak, but I don’t like broccoli, so I’ll take the steak and leave the broccoli.  I especially like fixing my own desert: a chocolate chip brownie covered in Hersey’s chocolate syrup with chocolate ice cream on top covered again with more Hersey’s chocolate syrup.  Is your mouth watering yet? – mine is.

Buffets are great when it comes to food, but not so great when it comes to theology.  In our postmodern, relativistic, tolerant society, we have turned our understanding of God into a buffet of beliefs.  We want a God of love, but don’t want the wrath and judgment part.  In goes God’s love, out goes His righteousness. We want a God who is personal yet distant enough to not hold us accountable.  In goes God’s as personal, out goes His Omnipresence.  We want a God who is like us and our culture and so we reject His Immutability.  In other words, though God created us in His image, we have to return the favor.

Thankfully, God isn’t limited to our wants and needs.  God is not clay that we can mold and shape.  The motivation behind such theology is to turn us into gods where we determine truth, morality, and righteousness.

God is greater than our imagination.  The Baptist Faith & Message 2000 writes concerning God (before venturing into discussing the Trinity):

There is one & only one living & true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, & personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, & Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness & all other perfections. God is all powerful & all knowing; & His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present & future including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, & obedience. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

If I can sum up this description of God is would be: God is beyond human language and description.  By my count, the BF&M 2000, in this one paragraph, uses approximately twenty different adjectives to describe God.  The statement of faith says that He is one, personal, the Creator, the Redeemer, infinite, holy, perfect, Omnipotent, Omniscient, triune, and eternal just to name a few.

This is an important reality when we speak about God: our human language is limited and cannot adequately describe God.  This is why so many confessions of faith and theologies utilize multiple and countless adjectives to describe God.  He is greater than our human language.

But there is a serious danger at this point.  Though we can never fully describe or grasp God, that does not mean that we ought not seek to understand and study His character.  Many in modern evangelicalism that simply ceases to try to explain or understand God.  This is a convenient way of excusing licentiousness and bad theology.  After all, how can you say that your theology is right when theology (the science and study of God) is impossible since God is beyond human description?

At this point we must admit that though God is beyond complete understanding, He has clearly revealed Himself to us.  Our responsibility is to take what He has revealed about Himself and affirm, believe, and apply those truths.  We know God is holy because the angels in heaven sings such wonder (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8).  We know that God is immutable because Scripture clearly says that He does not change (Malachi 3:6-7a; Romans 11:28-36; Hebrews 13:8; James 1:17).  We know that God is love because it has been revealed to us (John 3:16; 1 John 4:8, 16).  We could do this all day.  Christian theology is not the art of guessing about God.  Yes, God is beyond words, but that does not mean that God cannot be known at all.  In His grace, God has not only revealed Himself in the creation and in our conscience, but also through the canon of Scripture.

This means that we have a responsibility in understanding, studying, and applying what God has revealed.  Scripture, at its center, is direct revelation from God about God.  Apart from the Bible we would know very little and what could be known would be speculative.  If God can be known (though not exhaustively), are we taking advantage of it or are we simply leaving our Bible’s on the shelf until next Sunday?  We say much about God, but because of our infrequent study of Him, we know very little about Him.  We struggle and want to know where God is and yet are unwilling to understand His nature.  All theology is practical and the study of God is no different.  If God is Omnipresent (everywhere) then I am not alone.  If God is immutable (unchanging) then my salvation is secure.  If God is holy then injustice and evil will be judged and I need not retaliate.  If God is forgiving, then I know how to forgive.  If God is love, then I know how to love.  If God is Sovereign then I need not fear.  If God is provident, then I need not worry about tomorrow.  If God is creator then I know that I am not an accident and God has a purpose for me.  Will I fulfill and do His will?  Though I struggle, I know God.  Though I mourn, I know God.  Though I am worried and anxious, I know God. 

There is a God and He has made Himself known to us and what we know is far beyond our comprehension.  So though we cannot pull God down, let us instead lift Him up and praise Him name as he truly is.  Thanks be to God that we are not in the dark but can enjoy the light of truly knowing who God is.  To study and encounter God is to be overwhelmed.  Are you overwhelmed?



For more:
This is Who We Are:  What a Baptist Is and Believes - Introduction 
This is Who We Are:  What a Baptist Is and Believes - Scripture  

This is Who We Are: What a Baptist Is and Believes - The Scriptures

The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 begins with an article on Scripture.  Any discussion on theology and any survey on what any denomination, faith, or person believes must begin with what they believe about God’s Word.  Our understanding of the Bible determines everything else.  

We would know very little (and even it would be speculative) about God, the meaning of life, salvation, creation, morality, and the afterlife if it were not for special revelation.  God has revealed Himself in three ways: Creation, Conscience, and Canon (the Bible).  Creation and Conscience represent “General Revelation” (meaning that God has revealed Himself “generally” to mankind.  Canon (Scripture) is God’s special revelation in which He gave direct revelation to us.  Without such special, divine revelation, we would be short on answers. 

This means that what we believe about Scripture determines our understanding of God, sin, mankind, creation, salvation, Jesus Christ, righteousness, morality, and truth.  The BF&M 2000 reads:

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man.  It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction.  It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without mixture of error, for its matter.  Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.  It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried.  All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus on divine revelation.

This is a well-written summation of what we believe Scripture to be.  God is its author, salvation is its thesis, and truth is what it dispenses.  If God is perfect and without blemish or error, then so must be His declarations.  Scripture is perfect, without error, and timeless.  The God of the Bible is still the God of today and what He has revealed still stands.

Scripture is the primary and ultimate source for truth.  It trumps philosophy and sitting in your basement with legs crossed humming.  Humans cannot fully understand God apart from His direct revelation and with His revelation we can better understand, worship, obey, and submit to our creator.  A world without revelation is a world of walking in dense fog. 

We believe in what the Reformers called Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone).  This means that only Scripture is inspired and only Scripture is authoritative as God’s Word.  We reject tradition and experience as inspired.  This doesn’t  mean that learning from past theologians and Christians or from personal experience isn’t insightful, but they are not inspired.  Men err.  God doesn’t.

Secondly, Scripture is closed & is only the 66 books of the Bible.  We reject the Apocrypha (commonly used in the Catholic Church) and any writings after Revelation.  All false Gospels are rejected as uninspired and we believe that God will not give any new revelation.  Anyone who claims to have “a word from the Lord,” must be evaluated in light of revealed Scripture.  In other words, no one can say “God told me,” or “thus says the Lord,” and it truly be from God unless it agrees with what God has already revealed in His Word.  God has spoken and instead of wanting new revelation, we have enough and all that we need in the Old and New Testament.

The doctrine of Scripture is central to Christian and Baptist beliefs.  Unless we have a sound understanding of what the Bible is and what it reveals, everything else will be an educated guess.  We can know very little about God or life apart from His divine revelation.  Let us be thankful that God has willed it to reveal Himself though He was never obligated to.  Let us treasure Scripture everyday and seek to know more about the God who revealed it.


For more:
This is Who We Are:  What a Baptist Is and Believes - Introduction 

Repost - Facing Reality: How to Respond to SBC Decline

Ed Stetzer has written a well documented piece at the Between the Times blog regarding the steady decline of the Southern Baptist Convention.  To those who have kept up with the convention in recent years, it will come to no surprise to you that the convention continues to decline in membership.  However, according to recent reports, the number of baptisms increased from last year while the membership declined.  What are we to make of this?

Certainly any increase in baptisms is reason to celebrate.  Dr. Thom Rainer, President and CEO of Lifeway, rightly said:


Every baptism is a celebration of another person finding new life in Jesus Christ . . . The fact that more people were baptized this year than last year gives us a reason to hope we’re on the right path. At the same time, we as Southern Baptists continue to show signs of drifting from our historic commitment to evangelism, as reflected in the fact that it still takes 46 Southern Baptists to lead one person to faith in Christ.

We should celebrate any baptism the Lord gives us, but at the same time, the increase of baptism should not be received with the false idea that things are on the uptick.  Last year was the lowest in baptisms in the SBC in some time so the fact that the number increased (ever so slighly) doesn't mean things have changed, but that the number of just barely over last years poor numbers.

At the same time, our membership continues to decline likely due to deaths of older members and similar factors.  Southern Baptists must face these facts.  And if we are really honest with ourselves, most churches have a much higher membership numbers than they do of people who actually show up on Sunday morning (not to mention Sunday Nights and Wednesday Nights).

So what's next?  How are we to respond to these discouraging numbers?  Stetzer offers five options:

Option #1: Act as if nothing negative is really happening, proverbially fiddling while Rome burns.
Option #2: Acknowledge that the decline is real but blame some “other” segment of the convention for the decline. “It’s those contemporary pastors who have colluded with worldliness.” Or “It’s those old dusty pastors who have confused tradition with the power of the gospel.”
Option #3: Blame lost people for being lost. Perhaps complaining about the state of the country will make lost people want to be saved. Unlikely.
Option #4: Wish for something else. We can dream of a different future or pine away for a preferred past but without action in the present context of our churches, nothing with change.

The 5th and final option, and really the only option for us to really impact the world, is a serious self-examination as to whether how we make disciples is rooted in Scripture and delivering the gospel effectively to our mission field. We can scarcely hope to impact the world if we do not approach the gospel and kingdom of God in the same way that Christ did.

I agree with Stetzer that our response is limited.  We must face the facts and deal with them, but how? It is tempting to changing out old programs for new one's or even to be more user-friendly with our ministry, but these things never work.  More programs isn't the answer.  Bigger churches isn't the answer.  Doing away with hymns or older pastors isn't the answer.  Just planting new churches isn't the answer.  Being more socially minded isn't the answer.  A new Public Relations strategy isn't the answer.  Focusing on young people isn't the answer.  So what is?

The answer must always be a transcendent, vibrant gospel.  It is no surprise that the world is in tatters and our culture is among the worst in the world.  People are hungry for spiritual truth, but due to the boring and mundane appearance of the SBC and similar churches and congregations, the church looks dead.  Most of our churches care more about the dress of the pastor and the style of worship than we do about personal evangelism, real surrender to the gospel, practical discipleship, and to gospel ministry itself.

There is a cancer in our churches and it isn't necessarily a false gospel, but a boring gospel.  We have gotten used to and assumed the gospel to a point that we don't let us shake us.  We fear change, we fear action, and we fear something that the hospitality committee can't deal with.  When 20% of our people are giving 80% of the offering and doing 80% of the work, we have problems.  Where is the call to surrender, to pick up our cross and follow Christ, to make disciples, and to reach the lost?  When was the last time we discussed these things at business meeting?  When was the last time our worship didn't look like a business meeting?

Until Baptists wake up from our slumber and take the gospel (the whole gospel and all its implications) seriously, we will continue to decline.  Do we really expect God to honor gospel laziness?  The pastor should not be the only an person reaching the lost or praying for the church.

Will we take the gospel seriously without confusing it with other false gospels?  Or will we continue to point fingers at someone else, wishing they would do something different, all the while content with our mundane gospel?  I am praying for the former.  What about you?


Lifeway - Southern Baptists report slight increase in baptisms, decline in membership
Ed Stetzer - Will Southern Baptist Ignore the Ongoing Decline? 


This article originally appeared at the SBC blog. 

This is Who We Are: What a Baptist is and Believes? - Introduction

Each month in our newsletter, we will be walking through a section of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (BF&M 2000).  As I write these for the newsletter, I will post them online.  The purpose for this venture is to help our members understand what a Baptist is.  Not just our distinctives (like regenerate church membership, etc.) but also the things that unite us with many other Christians (such as our understanding of Scripture and the gospel).

To begin we must ask the question, what is a Baptist?  Certainly there are stereotypes of Baptists – backrow sitters, many committees, loves chicken, and always the first to arrive at the local buffet after church.  But this is not what a Baptist really is; these are only characteristics.  There are multiple answers people oftentimes give to this question:  cooperation, missions, doctrine, or something similar.  I want to argue that none of these are correct.

When persons mention that Baptists cooperate primarily in the form of missions what they mean is that Baptist around American and around the world have joined together, shared with one another their resources and funds in order to support local and international missions.  Certainly this is true.  Baptist are notorious for this.  Every year we take up a number of offerings (like the Anne Armstrong Offering and the Lottie Moon Offering just to name a few) which go to support specific missionaries and mission agencies (like the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board).  Very early on in our history, Baptist understood that many churches cannot support large mission ventures, but by cooperating together, we can accomplish more in the mission field.

Others argue that a Baptist is one that affirms particular Baptist beliefs.  Not only do Baptist emphasize orthodox doctrines (like the inspiration of the Bible, salvation through the cross and resurrection of Christ, the Trinity, etc.) but also historical Baptist distinctives.  Some of the distinctives include regenerate church membership (only those saved are members of the local church), believers baptism (we don't baptize babies), the autonomy of the local church (we are in charge of our own church, which is why we have business meetings), the separation of State and Church (we Baptist played a major role in the First Amendment), and others.

But to affirm just one of these and say that this is what makes a Baptist a Baptist is false.  Historically, those who have said that a Baptist is one that cooperates and supports missions usually do so as a way to undermine doctrine.  In other words, when we say that Baptists only support missions is to allow destructive doctrines in the church.  At the same time, those who only care about the doctrine forget the passion Baptist have for missions and its necessity.

So what is a Baptist?  A Baptist is one that affirms both orthodoxy and Baptist distinctives and at the same time has a passion to see the world reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We embrace our identity and at the same time seek the world for Christ.  We cooperate in order to see the lost know Christ.

The union of both doctrine and cooperation is imperative.  Without right doctrine our evangelistic agenda is empty.  How can we reach people with Christ if we have wrong beliefs about Christ?  There are many religious and non-religious organizations dedicated to cooperation but do so to their own peril by being founded on compromising doctrine.  The National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches are two examples.  By making unity their foundation they have undermined divisive doctrines that define our faith.  Such organizations deny gospel doctrines like Christ’s deity, the Bible’s inspiration, and salvation through Christ alone.  As a result, their cooperation is nothing more than a social club most known for their humanitarian aide.  Baptists must avoid such a popular tendency in a culture that unashamedly rejects the divisive doctrines of the faith.

We must not fall for this trap of cooperation at the cost of doctrine.  Cooperation is essential to Baptist identity but cooperation apart from orthodox doctrine is empty.  At the same time, we must not forget that our study of Scripture and sound theology must motivate us and drive us to the spreading of the gospel.  Baptists are known for their cold approach to personal evangelism.  People know that we affirm the full inspiration of Scripture, but oftentimes see us as hypocrites and ignorant of our own faith.  We must not forget that God is most glorified when souls are saved and He has declared that sinners will not be redeemed apart from the preaching of the gospel (Romans 10:14).

So what is a Baptist?  A more thorough definition could be offered, but at its core we must admit that Baptists are orthodox believers who affirm historical Baptist  distinctives united to the spreading of the gospel around the world for the glory of God.  To lose this core message is to cease to be Baptist.

Repost: "The Great Regression: A Shocking Reality About Recent Giving Trends"

I recently wrote an article regarding the giving trends in the SBC from the Great Depression to today. Even though times are tough economically now, things have not gotten as bad as they have been in the past. It is a sad testimony that the generation that experienced the Great Depression gave more to missions than the present generation. I am as guilty of this as anyone.

The real issue here isn't our financial giving, but what this says about our attitudes regarding the lost. If we truly wanted to see God's glory in the salvation of souls, then Southern Baptists, and Christians in general would be giving more to missions, not less. Yet the more we prosper, the less we give. May God open our eyes and break our hearts!

Here is the article:
"The Great Regression: A Shocking Reality About Recent Giving Trends"

Re: Mohler on the Future of SBC

The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. has recently done a lecture at the seminary on the future of the SBC. For those interested, I recommend you give his lecture a good listening too. I have written on the lecture elsewhere. To read it, click here.

2009 Southern Baptist Convention Program Available Online

This year's convention will be held in Louisville, KY. You can view the schedule by clicking here.