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tagged: Church Growth, Dave Samples, Evangelism, God's Plan for Sharing, GPS, Great Commission Resurgence, NAMBGPS = ACTS
Posted by Dave Samples in Baptist Life, Church & Missions
I’m seeing something happen in my state convention that I have never seen before happen within a denominational organization. And let me tell you, I am greatly encouraged.
I was recently invited by Ron Clement, our state convention’s Evangelism Team Leader to participate in an overnight retreat where the participants would be discussing the new North American Mission Board initiative, “GPS” (God’s Plan for Sharing). I’m somewhat of a skeptic when it comes to denominational programs. It’s not that the programs are bad or even that they are not needed. It’s just that, in my experience, one size does not fit all. To be more specific, no one knows better what my church needs than my church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, of course. When the leaders and members of my church are rightly related to God and in intimate fellowship with Him, I believe that we will not only know exactly what we need to do to please God—we will actually want to do it!
I arrived in Divide, Colorado at a camp/retreat center around noon having already invested a three hour drive down the front-range through Denver to Colorado Springs and then back west into the mountains. Following lunch about a dozen of us drove a few miles farther to a spacious and somewhat secluded cabin with beautiful view of Pikes Peak. Included in the group were pastors, area missionaries, state convention staff, and one layman. Ron Clement began our time by sharing that it was not his desire to do anything except to allow an opportunity for us to discuss how GPS might be useful to us in Colorado. In fact he said that we didn’t even need to use the term “GPS” if we just wanted to talk about how we could better reach the lost in Colorado. Now here is the good part–Ron’s only agenda for us was to do two things: #1 Pray and #2 Read through the book of Acts. And that’s exactly what we did. We would pray for a season, read a passage from Acts, discuss it, and then pray some more. It was not until the final hour or two of our two day session that any specific action plans were produced. This was the single best denominational gathering that I have ever been involved in.
This was not an isolated event. A few weeks prior, I participated in a task force at our state convention building tasked with potentially re-visioning and restructuring our state convention in order to more effectively serve our churches in penetrating lostness in Colorado. This four-hour meeting began with an extended time of prayer on our knees asking for God’s guidance and for the salvation of our state. The most recent Executive Board meeting that I attended for our state convention included breaking into small groups and praying for nearly an hour. Something new is happening in Colorado and I like it!
I’ll remind you of the passage that Henry Blackaby emphasizes in Experiencing God–John 5:17-20. “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working….Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel”. Simply put, Jesus did only what He saw his father already doing! We would do well to follow Jesus’ pattern and spend more time seeking God and less time planning what we would like to do for God. Our plans will fail but the Father will always accomplish his purposes.
Interestingly enough, GPS has four Goals, the first of which is prayer. The prayer goal is defined by NAMB as, “Every church praying for every lost person”. While I believe that this is very much something that should happen, let me suggest something else related to prayer that should perhaps happen first. What if every pastor of every church took a day to prayerfully read the book of Acts, while asking the question, “Father, what are you doing and how can I join you?” What if the leaders of our churches did the same thing? What if groups within our churches gathered to pray and read the book of Acts? What if associational and state convention leadership teams did this? What if throughout our denomination individuals and groups simply began to take the time to seek God’s agenda for reaching our world for Christ?
My associate pastor made a great statement the other day as part of our sermon preparation in the book of Acts. He said, “Maybe we don’t need a ‘Great Commission Resurgence’ as much as we need a ‘Holy Spirit Resurgence’. I think that he could very well be correct.
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Dave,
What did the layman contribute and what did he come away with?
I am in complete and total agreement with all you have said. I am encouraged to do it myself now, and will.
I am traveling today and will not have the ability to respond much until later on in the day. Bruce, one of our area missionaries asked the same question. I don’t have time to give the answer at the moment but I’ll post a little later one.
Dave:
Your reports are always encouraging to me because:
(a) they are encouraging and positive
(b) you are sharing them to the larger SBC community here on your blog
As a layman myself Iv’e become aware of more people all over the SBC beginning to come together from various positions as laymen, pastors, church staff, association staff, state convention staff, and/or NAMB staff, etc. to do common things. This is very encouraging to me because my default view, not informed by much more than anicedotal evidence, is that there has been, at least historically, some turf protection going on with people at various layers of SBC life.
I don’t know why this is, and maybe I just run with the “wrong” people, but I seem to sense a certain “angst” that some have with the GCR task force. I don’t know why they have this view exactly unless they feel that Dr. Hunt’s call for more efficiency is equivalent to cutting out some ministry that they currently do in their association/state.
Dr. Hunt is calling for replacing the “good” with the “best” when it comes to the allocation of CP dollars. I guess that does evoke some serious reflection by people, me included.
Roger K. Simpson
Oklahoma City OK
I am wired up for the next hour or so in the Nashville airport waiting an outbound flight to Tampa. My wife is checking out the shops and my thirteen-year-old is out looking for a snack. That gives me a moment to respond…lol.
The layman among us enjoyed the process as much as the rest of us. I should say that he is the kind of person who is always looking for somone to share his faith with. That is likely why he was invited to the gathering. I have notes at home but I don’t quite remember much of what he said to the question of what he got out of the meeting without the notes. His response was positive whatever the specifics happened to be.
Roger, thank you for your affirmation. I’ll continue to insist that Colorado is unique as a state convention. We are mostly small churches, mostly bivocational, and mostly without denominational political concern.
My only concern with the GCR task force is that many segments of our convention are either not represented or are under-represented at least in comparison to the large representation that Florida seems to have garnered. This is certainly explained by Dr. Hunt choosing only people that he knows personally.
I’m disappointed that the NAMB task force now known as “the NAMB Missiological Task Force” is holding its meetings largely in secret. The Florida Baptist Witness reported this yesterday. It’s my firm conviction that unless you are dealing with issues of security or issues of personnel, then the SBC churches should have the right to look in on the proceedings.
Well, I’ve promised the laptop to my son for a bit–so I’ll check in later.
Dave:
I have to be very careful what I say and how I say it.
I agree with Johnny Hunt’s idea of having a “task force” to look into “being more effective”. Lifting the vail on what Johnny Hunt means is: “being more effective = states don’t keep such a big percentage of CP dollars”.
Johnny does not have a “secret motive” here. He is right out front when he asks, “why do states keep so much $ for themselves when it results in over 50% of CP dollars being spent in the USA which only has 5% of the world’s populations”. [This is a paraphraise from Johnny's latest press release, but is very very close to what he said when he quoted a study made by a seminary student]
The problem is that churches “want” to be able to send their kids to camp [Falls Creek]; they want to be able to support excellent four-year colleges [OBU]; they want to have homes for orphans and widows [Boys Ranch, etc]; and they attend, various conferences [Woman's conference, Men's retreat, youth conferences]; and they believe various ministries [Motorcycle ministry, jail minstry, etc] are “worth it”. So here we are between a rock and a hard place.
As for me, I have a warm spot for the Children’s homes myself. If anyone tries to defund them they are going to have to do so over my dead body. That is one ministry I’ll go to the mat over. I have a daughter myself, age 40, with a mental age of 12. In my daughter’s case, she is in the “good hands” of my and my wife. However, I’ve seen kids — with and without disabilities — who were just ‘dumped’ by their parents/families.
We need to beef up our work to implement the Great Comission. However, we need to do this is a way that doesn’t subordinate the Great Commandment of “Loving God and Loving Others”. Loving God and Loving Others is where the children’s homes, for example, come in.
To be fair, many of these ministries operate with “user fees” and/or capital gifts outside of CP. However, many of them use CP funds for at least some staffing.
My above examples are for my home state, Oklahoma. I think such things as this have to be discussed SOONER rather than later because one implication is that the “guy in the pew”, in addition to offerings to his church (part of which go to the CP), may now have to pay a-la-carte “user fee increases” to send his kids to camp or school, or to go to a conference, etc.
Ground zero for this “battle” (or looming battle) is really the guy in the pew. That’s why it is reprenhensible that these task forces are working in “secret”. Laymen do not necessarily have to be involved in the decisions but they must be present to record
what is going on and PUBLICIZE it. If things are going off track then somebody has to blow the whistle!
Another aspect of this looming problem is that many state execs are evidently laying low. Dr. Hunt is out there every “five minutes” with interviews, podcasts, and press releases. He is taking the oxygen out of the air. I think the state execs need to be more proactive in getting out a different side of this issue. Why is 90% of the “air time” only coming from one side of this debate? [To be fair, some state execs are beginning to respond.]
The best “systems solution” may be that state conventions should cut back on payroll — I don’t know. But the deliberations leading up to this have to be under the full light of day.
Roger K. Simpson
Oklahoma City OK
Dave:
Take a look at the Baptist Press website. There is breaking news there regarding a special meeting which may be called by the BoT of the NAMB. As an incoming member of the BoT this will likely be of interest to you.
Roger
Roger,
I read the story in BP and I have to tell you that I know nothing about it. Of course, I’m a rookie and have yet to attend my first meeting. As it happens, I am scheduled to be in Alpharetta August 11-13 for new trustee orientation. Other than that I am completely unaware of whatever is going on.
Our state convention is a receiving convention which means that we recieve more from the SBC than we send to the SBC. That makes things a little bit different here than it is in bigger states like Oklahoma.
–Dave
I was notified on Saturday that the entire trustee board will be meeting on August 11th.
Sounds like you picked a great time to get elected to the board. A baptism by fire, perhaps.
Roger,
One of the problems some of us see is that Johnny Hunt’s definition of good and best may not be the same as ours. An example of this is the task force he has chosen. Many don’t think his picks are the best people to determine what will bring about a true GCR. I am not sure Johnny Hunt is qualified to determnine how well the state conventions are spendng their money or if they are sending the right amount on to the SBC. In fact, I am not sure anyone is since each state convention is different. He needs to stick with looking at problems at the SBC level and let the state conventions determine how they can support the SBC. After all aren’t they supposed to be autonomous. The churches send messengers to the state conventions and they can decide those questions better than the GCR.
Ron:
You are right about the state conventions being different.
Just to name one example: Here in Oklahoma most churches send their kids to Falls Creek (run by the BGCO) to youth camp. In Texas quite a few churches go to Glorieta (run by Lifeway) for youth camps.
I agree that “one size doesn’t fit all” in terms of the financial model of what the state conventions need to run their operations. From one state to another, more or less “equivalent” ministries are either being done by the state convention or an SBC-wide agency depending upon historical precident in terms of the ministires that the given state convention is running.
Roger
I just became aware of the GCR Task Force website. The URL of the site is pray4gcr.com. I think it went up on Aug 1.
Regarding my comments about layman on the task force: I have just learned from looking at the website that there is one layman on the task force. I overlooked this before when reading the BP press release which named the people on the task force.
This task force has excellent people on it. Given the broad representation on the task force: seminary presidents, pastors, state execs, and associational execs, one could get the impression that the task force will be looking at various aspects of SBC life to increase Great Comission effectiveness; including at the local church, association, state convention and SBC-wide levels.
The charter of the task force is:
“how Southern Baptists can work more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.” This is a pretty broad charter.
The question that many have is, will the task force recommendations:
(a) be focused upon the work of the SBC agencies
and/or
(b) be targeted at the state conventions, associations, and local churches
To the extent that (b) is involved, then I guess they will be of an “advisory” nature given the atonomous nature of those organizational units.
I think that one of the biggest needs regarding the operation of the task force meetings is that they need to be public. I believe vistors should be allowed in the meetings. Also, there should be streaming video and podcasts. A possible model for this is Congressional committee meetings on Capital Hill which are covered by CSPAN. It is my understanding that there will be recordings taken but they will be only for ‘historical’ purposes — to be looked at some number of years or decades from now. Finally, I think reporters, such as from the BP and the state papers, should be allowed in the meetings.
The task force is going to be more representative of a consensus view on any given issue if everyone knows what issues are on the table and is able to weigh in on them. I think it is comtemplated that the task force members will be getting feedback from people all across SBC life. I don’t know exactly how this is going to work unless people know what is happening. People need to know what the task force is looking at in order to respond in a way that engages things that are being considered. For example, the potentially supercharged issue of the allocation of CP funds at the state level doesn’t need to be in the mix if it becomes evident from what is transpiring in the meetings that the task force is not even addressing this issue.
I’m also in Colorado. How can I find out about things like this going on in the state in the future?