The Future of the BGCT, and I Endorse Joy Fenner for President

The following is a modified version of a "talk" I gave in a gathering of BGCT pastors at the Baptist Building in Dallas. The purpose of the meeting was for pastors from the churches contributing the most money to the BGCT Cooperative Program to share dreams and ideas about the future of the BGCT with the executive director, Baptist Building staff, executive director search committee and elected convention officers. Since I am a pastor, I wrote and delivered the following sermon with all the aforementioned in attendance.

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A Vision for the Future of Texas Baptists: A Pastor’s Perspective
Andy Pittman, Pastor of Lufkin’s First Baptist Church

In the presidential campaign of 1980, California governor Ronald Reagan debated President Jimmy Carter in a televised Presidential debate. Governor Reagan asked President Cater a memorable question: “Are you better off today than you were before 1979?”[*]

I suggest that we ask the same question to Texas Baptists: “Are we better off today than we were before 1979?”

In 1979, I was eight years old and an active member of Sunday School and R.A.’s at the West Jackson Street Baptist Church in Tupelo, Mississippi. Despite my young age in 1979, I still have vivid memories that every Wednesday night in R.A.’s I heard about Bold Mission Thrust. I can remember my Sunday School teachers talking about Bold Mission Thrust and my pastor preaching sermons about Bold Mission Thrust. Bold Mission Thrust was the title of the Southern Baptist plan to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with every man and woman on the face of the earth by the year 2000.

I have no doubt that in 1979, there was no Christian organization better equipped than the Southern Baptist Convention to accomplish Bold Mission Thrust. However, I have not seen the same kind of passion for evangelism in any Baptist organization since 1979.

Whatever happened to our passion for evangelism? It does not seem to be a priority of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Fundamentalist leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have been more concerned with building walls to identify cooperating churches and to exclude others. The Moderate leaders of the Baptist General Convention of Texas have been more concerned with maintaining control of the convention and the Texas Baptist institutions.

The future of Texas Baptists depends on our willingness to define clearly the identity of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and Texas Baptists Committed. The BGCT needs to renew the commitment to evangelism which was lost in the Baptist Battles of the twentieth century. The BGCT is very good at describing and maintaining the historic Baptist traditions that were lost in the Fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. However, it is time for the BGCT to champion the Kingdom of God through evangelism and world wide mission. Our current concern for describing Baptist traditions and maintaining Baptist institutions is a myopic vision for our future, at best. At worst, it is symptomatic of the decline and eventual death of our denominational structure.

Therefore, I propose a future Texas Baptist identity which must include the following:

1. A vision for the future that is more Christ focused than the anti-Fundamentalist identity we now have. Most Baptists in Texas know that the BGCT leadership is not Fundamentalist. Most Baptists in Texas know that the BGCT will not be a Fundamentalist convention five years from now. However, the terms Fundamentalist and Moderate have more to do with being Baptist than they do with being Christian. I do not believe the future of the BGCT should be tied to the direction of any national Baptist organization. If we are truly living in a “post denominational age,” then we need to define our future identity in terms of the Kingdom of God and not a denominational structure. Our future does not depend on our relationship with either the Southern Baptist Convention or the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Our future depends on our relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ.

2. A vision for the future that takes seriously the call to evangelize the lost population of Texas and the world beyond Texas. Evangelism has been the greatest casualty of the battles within the Southern Baptist Convention. The new leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have spent nearly thirty years defining their boundaries. The Moderates who were excluded from the Southern Baptist Convention have failed to engage in authentic evangelism. We have been very successful in social ministry, but we must tell Texas and the world about Jesus. If our future depends on our relationship to our Lord Jesus Christ, then our future also depends on our obedience to his command to “make disciples of all nations.” We cannot be content with maintaining the Baptist distinctives among the Baptist Christians in Texas. We must develop a passion for reaching the non-Christians of Texas and the world in order to lead them to saving faith in Jesus.

3. A vision for the future that sends missionaries and missions money from Texas to all nations. If the future of the BGCT does not depend on our relationship to the Southern Baptist Convention or the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, then we must discover ways to engage Texas churches in worldwide missions. This plan should include men and women from Texas churches responding to God’s call to full time missions work as well as church support through short term mission work. The role of the career missionary is changing from the arrogant and “colonial” approach that seems to suggest American Christians have all the answers into a servant role of equipping indigenous Christians to reach their own people. However, the BGCT must become involved in the sending process. This does not mean that Texas needs our own missions sending agency. It could be accomplished through formal or informal networks of Texas churches cooperating to engage in missions. If this is the role or the intended function of Worldconnex, then this needs to be promoted in ways that Texas churches can participate. As it is now, most of our pastors and churches do not understand what role Worldconnex is intended to fulfill.

4. A vision for the future that identifies and trains ministers to serve in Texas churches. I moved from Mississippi to Texas in 1994 to attend Truett Seminary at Baylor University. I am a pastor in Texas today, because of my desire to be a part of the BGCT. I have tremendous confidence in both Truett Seminary and the BGCT. However, if we do not have intentional plans for the future of our state, then we will face a shortage of ministers in the near future. Even in 2007, there seems to be a shortage of trained ministers of music—or worship leaders—in our state. We need to develop strategies for our churches to identify young men and women who feel called by God to serve in our churches in the future. Without intentional strategies to direct our young men and women toward ministry, we could begin to face shortages among all ministry callings, including pastors.

5. A vision for the future that engenders trust among Texas Baptists. The church starting scandal in the Texas Valley was not the beginning of our mistrust. However, it did cause our mistrust to surface in a public forum. Pastors and churches within our convention feel isolated from the “Baptist Building,” and the restructuring has created confusion. In addition, the “single candidate” approach to elect convention officers feels like our leaders have been predetermined in a “smoke-filled room” or at the Moderate equivalent of the Café Du Monde. If we truly value the Baptist distinctives of the Priesthood of All Believers and congregational polity, then we will demonstrate that through our convention processes. I am grateful for the effort to represent ethnic and gender diversity in our recent convention officers, and I encourage the BGCT to elect Joy Fenner as our next president. However, I believe it is a good thing for David Lowrie to be nominated as a candidate for BGCT president. It is time to return leadership decisions to the grassroots of our convention.

6. A vision for the future that includes a new role for Texas Baptists Committed. Thanks to the work of Texas Baptists Committed, the BGCT has maintained our Baptist identity free from Fundamentalist control. The creation of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention has provided the Texas Fundamentalists a convention home of their own and has led to the decline of Fundamentalist participation in the BGCT annual meetings. This leads me to dream about a future Texas Baptists Committed organization which is more educational and less political—yet able to rally politically to combat a future, hypothetical Fundamentalist threat. Texas Baptists Committed could educate through mentoring relationships for younger pastors; regional networks of churches; and high quality, church-friendly materials to educate future generations about Baptist history and distinctives. These educational materials could be financed through contributions made by charitable foundations, or they could be published on the internet. The educational process could be accomplished through networks of regional “teaching churches” across Texas.

The future of Texas Baptists depends on our willingness to navigate a transition in generational leadership. This is the same challenge facing most of our established churches. Our churches are being led by a generation of respected, long-term leaders who are often willing to allow a new generation of leaders to step forward and lead. However, this transition in leadership is only possible if the current leaders believe the new leaders understand and appreciate the heritage and tradition of the church. The future of Texas Baptists depends on a new generation of leaders who understand Baptist distinctives and are willing to apply those distinctives to fulfill our missional calling to reach Texas and the world.

[*] Fisher Humphreys, The Way We Were: How Southern Baptist Theology Has Changed and What It Means to Us All. (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing Incorporated, 2002), p. 143.