http://lesliepuryear.blogspot.com/2009/07/where-are-all-small-churches-on-sbc.html

Rob

I gave him the freedom to disagee with me, via passionatly with such comments as “high minded” – “Come back to earth man, reality is waiting for you ” “At some point it starts getting silly..” – as if my ideas of expansion of the task force are silly indeed. So I disagreed right back – and was careful not to call him or his ideas “silly” – consider what I said an appeal to his better nature, and an attempt to dredge him out of his curent reality (ever so mildly of course)

Rob

You said to me–”I’m not in “attack mode” Tom – this venue does little in sharing true dispositions – however I am “passionate” – as you are.

I am not ignoring you Tom – thank you for your agreement and affirmation. I just do not agree with everything your selling, but that is okay. Okay?

Rob”

I do not write very well–my question about “attack mode” is directed towards comment #20.

It looks to me like you are smacking Brent Hobbs down because he disagrees with you.

I am not ignoring you Tom – thank you for your agreement and affirmation. I just do not agree with everything your selling, but that is okay. Okay?

Rob

I’m glad you chose to be nice to Brent Hobbs. Why must you get into attack mode when people do not see things from your perspective?

Brent if you are not careful, Rob might just ignore you.

I will be nice. You are wrong. Very wrong.

1) I already said what a true population of the task force would mean – that would be “three hundred people” not 50 or 60 if I had my way. So read a little more precisely next time.

2)Generalizations will get you no where with me. If I have to throw the myriad of specifics of how the greatness and wisdom of some of our large church pastors have discredited the Body of Christ in the last five years, then I would really not be playing nice. That is not to say that small church pastors are any more saintly. I despise hero worship, however, for we all are “saved by grace through faith” and put our pants on like everybody else. And really, your argument here is way beyond the point.

The point here Brent is that Severn Baptist Church is a part of the cooperative of churches known as Southern Baptist. This church has a unique heritage, voice, and outlook as you well know. Besides identity and agreement on most specifics of the faith, in what way does Severn Baptist Church have any commonality with FBC Woodstock? And will those differences have any impact upon a task force that claims to be a groundswell that will change the direction of the SBC for the next generation? I say they will. And without the diversity of the small church represented on that task force, we will more than likely hear how the SBC will move forward in the image of our more larger kin. I’m sorry, Jesus died and rose again for the folks in my church as he did in yours as well as those in Woodstock.

Cooperatives, Brent, require “participation.” It is far time that our small churches get beyond the apathy of “woe is me” and start being joyful participants in our common work. It is time that if we are concerned about the entities of the SBC and their work toward the churches, that we lend a voice and a helping hand in that work – either we put up or shut up. It is time for our more affluent churches to stop placing roadblocks up in allowing more folks to participate. Meetings do not require us any longer to jet across the country at great expense. Conference calls, as well as Net meetings are available – this is the 21st Century, right? Position papers, discussions, debates, and the like can be held from points across the country, with possibly only one meeting required to be made in person. With some in our convention willing to put up money for $70,000 oil paintings, I don’t think that it would be asking too much for our Convention to see to it that all the participants could come and be a part of a task force meeting, don’t you?

3)Why are the larger churches and pastors more “visible” than others? This is a discussion point – I would like to see what you think and why you think it.

4)Ninety-five percent of the Convention messengers trusted that he would make appropriate and diverse choices. After the dissemination of his list, there are many who have questioned the efficacy of basically appointing his friends from the annual super secret mega-church conference. He has already felt some heat and appointed a few more to the task force. In my opinion,he has not gone far enough. If you believe that the small church does not deserve a voice, then you are entitled to your own opinion. But I pray to the Lord that your opinion is a very small minority.

5)These guys have thrust themselves into leadership of the Convention, and have said they want to represent all the churches. What that means is, they better start doing some research and finding out about the churches they represent. They jet all over the country, speaking in places and telling folks how to do their business. They maintain conferences in their churches and invite speakers and participants charging exorbitant fees for weekend “leadership conferences.” And in all that they do not know of any leaders from small churches who could help in the work of the task force? “To much is given, much is required.” Now Brent, THAT is reality, for “…man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

You are probably a good guy Brent – someone I would not mind having a Diet Pepsi with (you drink of choice – I despise coffee and will not drink it.) Participants in a deliberative body must be willing to sacrifice in order for that body to function well. When the body is lead by a minority faction, then that body is dysfunctional, for it is being lead by human beings who even in the best of days are looking out for themselves. Now that is reality Brent. Your people and mine deserve better if we want to continue to cooperate with our family of Southern Baptists.

Rob

Rob,
We don’t need to expand the task force any more. Sure there are groups lacking proportional representation. I could name a few ways I wish the task force were more diverse. But at some point it starts getting silly. He’s already added several people. It sounds like we’d end up with a 50 or 60 member task force if you had you way!

Small church people were not named for some very simple and common-sense reasons. You can get as high-minded as you want about there being no church more ‘strategic’ than another, but you’re just flat out wrong and disconnected from reality.

Pastors and leaders of large churches have (as a generalization) proven track records of effectiveness, wisdom, good decision-making that are visible in ways no small church leader is going to have. Are there some great small church leaders out there somewhere? I’m sure there are. Whose research team is going to go out and find them? You want FBC Woodstock to fund the task force to find small church pastors with the kind of discernment, wisdom, and time to devote to something like this?

Maybe there’s a list somewhere none of us seem to know about…

As another practical matter, as a small church pastor, I don’t have time to do something like this! Give me a few secretaries, other pastors on staff, and sure, I’ll fly across the country several times over the next year to some (albeit important) meetings.

Come back to earth man. Reality is waiting for you.

I ask the following about this Blog Topic–”An Open Letter to Johnny Hunt: The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force”

Why do you think so few have responded to this topic?

Please note what I said to you–”I agree with you that pastors from small churches should be on this committee and in a large number.”

I think this whole arena of CP giving opens up several potential cleavage points in SBC life:

(a) As we both acknowledge, some larger churches don’t give much of a percentage of the offerings they receive from their congregation to the CP. I am NOT taking sides on this one way or another because many of those larger churches finance and support, by way of direct ministry involvement and staffing, very significant church planting efforts “on their own” — independent of CP giving. The problem (if it is a problem) it that this leads to the slow death of the CP if this trend continues. Whether the “slow death” — if in fact this is in the cards — of the SBC happens may or may not be good, I don’t know. To the extent that the SBC and its agencies are “bloated bureaucracies” then maybe some of the SBC apparatus should fade into the sunset to be replaced by evangelistic efforts whose control is more “grass roots” and localized. Maybe we will see over time a new cooperative model develop — especially in regard to what was part of the province of the NAMB. For example, maybe there will be more of an ad-hoc approach where one or more churches form “cooperative ventures” (not involving the CP) to start up some type of work in a “pioneer area” such as a large urban area where a Christian witness is needed. I think “ground zero” for such an effort would be, for example, in California in such places as San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and LA. If ten large megachurches would hone in on starting something cooperatively in selected LA zip codes it could be awsome! They could organically start churches there and setup house churches which might grow to churches with buildings etc. They might be able to replicate something like Saddleback did without taking advantage of the implicit Saddleback pre-requisite of requiring an area to launch the work with a very very high income demographic. It should be noted that many of the areas screaming for attention have demographic, cultural, and racial profiles radically “out of sync” with typical SBC congregations.

(b) The “diversion” of CP giving to state conventions is going to be a huge issue. I personally can’t “let go” of the need to finance such things as Children’s Homes and support other “social ministries” which the state conventions do. I’ve heard pastors say, “I’m not going to support all that state convention overhead because I believe our mandate is to plant chruches and we can do this better on our own”. In my opinion this view is giving short shrift to the other Biblical mandates beesides evangelism and church planting such as the mandate to “care for widows and orphans” [James 1:27 et. al.]

I believe issues surrounding my points (a) and (b) are likely to be two huge parameters which guide whatever the task force comes up with. I realize that (b) is, strictly speaking, a state convention issue, and that the task force is only able to directly influence SBC agencies. However, I still think that there is a much “tighter linkage” between the state conventions and the SBC than most want to acknowledge because of the way that all [or at least most] CP funds received by the executive committee filters through the states. Bottom line: whatever the task force does, or doesn’t do, is going to have a HUGE effect of all of the SBC, including the state conventions. This task force is going to determine the destiny of the state conventions whether the state conventions like it or not or realize it or not. That’s because, just to name one thing, the task force has some key levers at its disposal — such as how the NAMB interfaces with individual churches — which could short-circuit the state conventions.

Roger K. Simpson
Oklahoma City OK