Bloggers on The Tennessean on SBC Decline

http://jacobswelloncampus.com/Blog/?p=130

People need to make a big deal of the decline.

Ed,

I read the links, and I am concerned that some leaders in the SBC still see large, blanket outreach programs as a solution rather than grass-root approaches that contextualize the gospel for individual communities.

If the innovative churches who are contextualizing are the ones that are growing and the old battleships have run aground then it stands to reason which programs should be fed. Well-equipped local leadership stands the best chance of getting the ball rolling again.

Thanks!

The article raises some valid questions. Will we have the guts to make the needed course correction?

Ed:

I think one of the major problems of the SBC is an image problem. We have made ourselves become more and more irrelevant by the things the SBC does:
1. Fighting over the Bible
2. Attacking each others as "Liberals or "Fundamentalists."
3. Revising the BF&M in what some would consider a radical way.
4. Not allowing dissent.
5. Only male leaders.

People are not going to choose to join us and I do not blame them.

Sadly, I think the leaders of the SBC will continue the status quo.

I am not the first to say it, but if many Baptist Churches do not change in the next few years their doors will close forever.

It is that bad, but some will say smaller will just be better.

We've come a long way since Bold Mission Thrust was the focus of our denomination and most of it has been the wrong way.

I think people in the SBC want to speak up but they are afraid.

Hi Ed

Find all your writings very stimulating.

Re. SBC decline, they are not the only mainline denominations in such straights. Mine is, too, in the western world.Three such denominations in the UK have predicted their death by the mid to late twenties if they change nothing and carry on with "business as usual."

Since the church is in fact its members, looking at past membership trends and projecting them to where they will - if nothing changes - intersect the horizontal line of time at zero tells the story.

I illustrate this by relating it to the visitations of Scrooge by the three ghosts. The Ghost of Christmas Past who looks back and tells Scrooge, "that's reality"; the Ghost of Christmas Present who tells Scrooge, "That's what is going to happen if you don't change your ways!" And the Ghost of Christmas Future who says, "But it doesn't have to be that way! You have a choice."

Question is, What kind of legacy do leaders of today want to leave?

As the largest Protestant denomination, the SBC is very representative of all. There are two cancerous conditions that have decimated the American Church:
1. The number of unregenerate members (estimated at about half),
and
2. The fact that something like 97% of Christians exit this life, having never once shared the gospel with a lost person.
These circumstances are systemic...in large and small churches alike. Large churches are simply those adept at swapping sheep...for that is what we have been doing for the last two generations.
We have defined a relevant church as one that is appealing to the general community where that church is located. True relevance is the degree to which a church influences the surrounding community; in comparison to how much it is being influenced by that community. We are to be in, not of the world. Leadership is not the ability to attract large groups of people....it is the ability to focus the attention and the efforts of a group united around a common cause. There is a tremendous difference between drawing a crowd and actually leading/equipping a church.
Just before leaving the office of President of the SBC, Frank Page made a startling prediction. He expects that by 2030 (just two short decades) the number of SBC churches will dwindle from 44 thousand to about 20 thousand. In light of an exploding population, he expects more than half the SBC churches to die out.
If we were half as dedicated to the kingdom of God as we are to our occupations, our recreations, and our possessions, the gospel could encircle the globe in months, instead of millennia.
We are in serious need of some actual leadership. One thing is certain: if we keep doing what we've been doing, we will keep getting what we've been getting. In fact, Einstein once said that to continue the same effort while expecting a different outcome was the very definition of insanity.