Updated Monday, June 16, 2008

Observations from SBC meeting

By Norman Jameson

BR Editor

North Carolina Baptists were strongly present at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting. Both the reigning president and the newly elected president are originally from North Carolina and are doing a fine job in the mission fields of South Carolina and Georgia in which they are serving.

Frank Page did an outstanding job of presiding, with just the right amount of efficiency, directness, personality and grace. Two of his three daughters introduced him before the president's sermon, providing an emotional cap to a special moment after he had sung a tribute solo to his friend Forrest Pollock, who nominated him to the presidency in Greensboro in 2006, and who died with his son, Preston, in a plane crash near Asheville May 12.

Newly elected Johnny Hunt, born in Wilmington but now pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Ga., had establishment and popular support and would have been elected in any of the past few years that he chose to run. Still, his first ballot election in a field of six was a surprise.

Al Gilbert, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, preached the annual convention sermon and brought an emotionally piercing message summoned from the depths of his own face off with mortality. His message, in which he echoed Southeastern Seminary President Danny Akin's sentiment that a "bloated" denominational structure is keeping too much money from reaching the mission field, could have special relevance for N.C. Baptists. Look for this issue to be current in the next budget cycle since Gilbert's associate pastor for missions is Steve Hardy, current budget committee chair for the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.

North Carolina Baptists are in the third of four consecutive years of increasing the percentage of Cooperative Program gifts forwarded to the Southern Baptist Convention. Look for further increases to be recommended. Budget planers should stay mindful that if one half the population of North Carolina lives without saving faith in Jesus Christ, that is four million people and comprises a larger population than 27 other states and 75 nations, North Carolina is a mission field, too.

A whole group of North Carolina Baptists from Burnt Swamp Association played a significant role in forming the Fellowship Of Native American Christians (FONAC). They elected their first officers, including Timmy Chavis of Bear Swamp Baptist Church as treasurer.

While I have attended many annual SBC meetings as a working journalist since 1978, I have not done so in several years. Maybe this has been a trend but I saw a distinct increase in the "entertainment" value of the annual meeting. Dramatic videos of ministry enabled by the Cooperative Program, each with the theme "Every number tells a story" were shown frequently.

Vocalists with the Bill Gaither Vocal Band sang, and one of their songs, "Give it away," related directly to supporting missions. A 20-minute "mini-concert" by Charles Billingsley was oddly placed near the end of the final session, right after he led congregational music and sang a solo. In the meantime the International Mission Board (IMB) waited to report on the work many earlier speakers claimed needed more support.

The IMB already is in a tough position to keep missions before the people because so many of our missionaries now live in parts of the world where it is in their best interests not to be publicized. When we can't publish our missionaries' names and pictures at least give us more time to hear from them at the annual meeting. Let's have more missions, fewer concerts.

A flurry of protest just before the annual meeting over two IMB policies concerning baptism and private prayer language was not mentioned from the platform or from messengers' questions in Indianapolis.

The business of the convention is pretty cut and dried, but a couple resolutions became lively with amendments. Resolutions, while bearing no weight of law for Southern Baptists, express the sentiment of messengers at an annual meeting. Resolution Committee Chairman Darrell Orman of Stuart, Fla., said resolutions "speak to the nation."

A resolution on regenerate church membership was twice amended to define the New Testament church and urge churches "to repent of any failure among us to live up to our professed commitment to regenerate church membership and any failure to obey Jesus Christ in lovingly correcting wayward church members."

While Orman said in a press conference later that neither he nor the Resolutions Committee feel "regenerate church membership" is code for advancing goals of the Calvinistic Founders Movement into SBC verbiage, the amendment was offered by Tom Ascol, prominent in the Founders Movement.

"Regenerate church membership" to a Baptist is redundant. In one sense, the resolution and amendments stated the obvious. Membership in a Baptist church is the privilege, benefit and responsibility of persons who have confessed Jesus Savior and have been baptized as a public witness of that confession.

The "regenerate church membership" terminology is being forwarded by some who must believe Baptist churches are filled with persons who sought membership for other reasons and are still lost. Whether or not their fears are founded, when SBC churches claim 16 million members but only 6 million worshippers on a given Sunday and when baptisms, the single most significant measure of evangelistic effort/success/commitment are fewer annually than in 1950, something is not right.

The Resolutions Committee reported nine resolutions for consideration by messengers. The daily bulletin mentioned many that had been submitted to the committee but had died in committee.

Evidently no resolutions were submitted asking Southern Baptists to speak prophetically to our government about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; about AIDS in Africa; about poverty and health care in America. Neither were any offered asking us to consider Christian response to conditions that see 30,000 children die each day from starvation; homelessness and poverty in our nation; corporate greed or sexual predators in churches.