How are the Northern Baptists, the Western Baptists, and the Eastern Baptists faring?
Don't get sucked in to this tar baby. Mainline protestant churches, which have been declining for a lot longer than the Baptists, have all pounced on this idea, only to come up absolutely empty.
Churches are a cultural phenomenon, accept it. Blacks will go to black churches no matter what you try to do to entice them into yours. Better to form local ecumenical alliances and joint social missions etc.
As long as they don’t propose doing what the methodists, lutherans, and presbyterians have done.
Missions, diversity, more church planting. I though Paul planted, Apollos watered but God gave the growth? Perhaps what is needed is more praying, more repenting and more time in God's word.
Interesting that he emphasizes a need for “diversity.”
In other words, the Southern Baptist Convention is declining as it has embraced political correctness and liberalism. No one has much of an appetite for warmed over Unitarianism.
So, in response to this crisis, the religious establishment has decided that the solution is more liberalism and political correctness, which will only compounds its declining appeal, as we have seen with the Anglicans.
Maybe the solution is to recognize that America has heard the Gospel, and largely rejected it. That we are responsible for telling the truth about the Good News, but NOT responsible for how many convert.
Maybe an expanding denomination in America isn’t likely to happen in post-Christian America, and we need to look to where the harvest is located...
Our responsibility is to focus on Jesus, not diversity. Pandering - as was done with the vote on immigration this year - is NOT the way to spread the Gospel.
Another idea: more church private schools to supplement home schooling.
Two months ago was our last day worshipping in our SBC church because it was becoming more and more liberal. One Sunday morning in June, the teenagers were on the platform doing hip-hop dancing to promote the upcoming VBS. It was the choreography outlined on the CD in the Convention material for 2011 VBS. While the kids were gyrating, the head deacon’s wife was in the choir loft doing a kind of hand jive.
At Christmas, the special music was “The Little Drummer Boy”. When I mentioned it to our pastor, he said, “Well, it does refer to the baby Jesus in a way”; he thought it was absolutely fine.
They’re now using some goofy version of the Bible — Holman, I think. Pastor said they use it ‘cause it’s easier for people to understand. I guess before Holman was published, the Holy Spirit wasn’t powerful enough to convict people via the pesky KJV.
They’ve tossed the traditional hymns and brought in a “hymnal” with the contemporary choruses. I mentioned this to the pastor and he said, “Well, I have to tell you that we’re going to go more in that direction quickly.”
SBC’s platform on amnesty is unacceptable. “It asks government officials to support ‘a just and compassionate path to legal status, with appropriate restitutionary measures, for those undocumented immigrants already living in our country.’ The vision for a path toward legal status mirrors what President Barack Obama has offered as he’s urged support for immigration reform.”
Now we’re attending an independent Baptist church and are happy there.
Yes I agree with the other posters that “embracing diversity” is not the answer.
Better to adhere to your tenets of faith (and culture!) and be smaller than accomodate the world - in which case you’ll end up smaller anyway and will have lost your faith.
I would argue that the decline in influence/numbers of the SBC is more related to the decline of white, middle class Christian culture in society at large. After all, aren’t we taught in school that ghetto culture is just as good, if not superior, to the WMCC that built America into a great nation?
It saddens me, given that I grew up in the SBC. But from what I hear I don’t know that if I randomly wandered into an SBC church I would recognize the services of my youth anyway.
Most of the ones I have seen have become pretty irrelevant.
They are more interested in their useless traditions than in what is really important.
This does not mean that all is well. The world is trying really hard to infiltrate the church. A couple of years ago we had to fight the "purpose driven" fad from staking a claim in our church. And, just earlier today, my son was very upset when he got his new Sunday school book and found quite a bit of politically correct nonsense in it! But we will continue to run the race with endurance, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:1)
A few years ago many SBC churches got into Rick Warren and his ideas (we all had our “40 Days of Purpose” programs). Many of them (such as the one I attend) perceived the devil’s hand in the sock puppet and dropped all associations with Warren. The ones that didn’t are turning squishy.
As long as the leadership lets Jesus lead rather than the Warrens of the world the SBC will prosper. Overall numbers may drop, just due to demographics, but individual churches that obey the Lord will prosper. The goal, afterall, is not to increase the number of butts in the seats - it should be to lead people to salvation and equip them to serve in the Kingdom. SBC churches remain independent so the leadership in each individual church sets the direction for that church.
As for “diversity” initiatives: we reach out to families of all races. If, however, my pastor would come out and make it a goal to increase minority attendance I would find another church. The fact is, and always will be, that people will worship where they are most comfortable, and people by and large are more comfortable with people like themselves.
How about a need for a renewal of the Holy Spirit and a need for the central message of the Gospel to be preached with sincerity from the pulpit? This would take care of the other 4 needs in spades.
Dr. Voddie Baucham addresses these very issues at the Annual Founders’ Breakfast at the 2007 Southern Baptist Convention listing 7 areas of repentance needed for a Church that is lying to the world about who she is.
The text used was:
“To the angel of the church in Sardis write: He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. ‘Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God. ‘So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. ‘But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; and they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.
Revelation 3:1-4
A must hear:
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=51709232753
Your title doesn’t match the title at the source, and it doesn’t say anywhere in the article that membership is the lowest in 60 years, it says baptism are.
Please ask the Admins to correct it.
Of course they’re losing members. “Christians” with itching ears don’t want to hear the truth. They want a open, tolerant church that celebrates diversity and doesn’t condemn people for being who they are. The big church.com out on the new freeway — you know, the one with the bowling alley, the rock and roll praise band, and the puppet service for the kids — that’s the church they want. They want the church that makes them feel good, the one with the Happy Jesus who died so that we could have improved self-esteem, whiter teeth, fresher breath, and of course $uckce$$, not the one with those wheezy old hymns where they talk about hell and stuff all the time.
I salute the SBC. The fact that you are losing members means you’re doing it right. Keep holding the line and do not compromise one inch.
PS - I am Catholic.
This explains a rather bizarre sermon several weeks ago where our pastor pushed the whole multicultural thing. It seemed to come out of nowhere. Now I understand why.
The Southern Baptist Convention is pro-life, Praise God! The future (here on earth) belongs to people that have children. God said,”Be fruitful and multiply...”
The family is God’s smallest church. Larger families worshipping together means larger congregations.
jacknhoo
Have you attended any SBC churches that are pro-abortion?? I haven’t ever. I was raised in SBC churches and we are NOT pro-abortion and we do vote!!! I even try to get my representative to vote pro-life. How can you be so ignorant?
What blessed church are you from? Jesus is the best you all. If we focus on Him and His teachings, we won’t go wrong. This is a article written by a man. A good man, I am sure.