WRAP-UP: SBC green-lights Great Commission Task Force

Van Payne/BP

More than 8,700 messengers attended the 152nd session of the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting June 23-24 at the Kentucky Exhibition Center in Louisville, Ky. At the meeting messengers voted overwhelmingly to support the Great Commission Resurgence document. For the next year 18 Southern Baptists, including Georgia Baptist Convention Executive Director J. Robert White, will serve on the GCT Task Force in studying how Southern Baptists can work “more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) — With the goal of finding ways Southern Baptists “can work more faithfully and effectively” together in fulfilling the Great Commission, messengers to the convention’s annual meeting June 23-24 gave the green light to a task force to examine the denomination for one year and report back to the 2010 meeting in Orlando Fla.

Debate over the proposed Great Commission Task Force and an Internet document dubbed the “Great Commission Resurgence Declaration” had dominated pre-convention talk, with some Southern Baptist leaders backing it and others expressing concern. In the end, though, the 8,700-plus

messengers at the annual meeting overwhelmingly supported the task force via a motion that gave Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt authority to appoint the panel – something he did on the meeting’s final day, naming 18 members. The actual GCR document that had sparked the discussion never was proposed, much less came to a vote.

In other top annual meeting news, messengers:

· received an update about the GPS (God’s Plan for Sharing) evangelism initiative, which aims to see every SBC church planting other churches by 2020.

· passed a resolution that calls the election of President Obama a step toward nationwide racial reconciliation but that heavily criticizes him for some of his policies.

· passed a resolution encouraging Southern Baptist families to prayerfully consider adopting or fostering children.

· approved an Executive Committee recommendation to cease the “cooperative relationship” with Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, over the issue of homosexuality.

· re-elected First Baptist Woodstock Pastor Johnny Hunt to a second one-year term as president.

But the Great Commission Task Force was the leading issue, not only in the minds of messengers but also for several of the meeting’s preachers. Evangelist Billy Graham, 90 years old, even sent a personal greeting to messengers in which he said he had read about the “call to a Great Commission resurgence” with much interest.

The task force had the backing of Hunt, who named Arkansas pastor Ronnie Floyd chairman.

“I feel like the Southern Baptist Convention is in what we call a defining moment,” Hunt said at a press conference following his re-election. “We are defining our priorities and ... we’re saying to our 43,000 churches: The Great Commission needs a resurgence. We need to fund our missionaries. We need to have more money for church planting. We need to be more intentional with the GPS.”

Hunt said he has “no desire whatsoever to touch the structure” of the convention. He also said he hopes to see – through the study and the possible implementation of a proposed report – Cooperative Program giving increase and what he called “overlap” within the denomination lessen.

“Sometimes, the overlap has proved to be very healthy,” he said. “But other times, the overlap is maybe taking some dollars that could be placed somewhere else to cause us to go further in piercing the darkness with the Good News.”

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Seminary, made the task force motion from the floor while speaking as a messenger from Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky. Frank Page, pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., spoke for and supported the motion.

“This is not an effort to reinvent the Southern Baptist Convention,” Mohler said, adding, “There is a generation ready and waiting to be challenged to do something great for the cause of Christ. I say we take this opportunity.”

Baptist Press

Left to right, Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research; R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Seminary; Mark Dever, senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.; and David Platt, senior pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., answer questions during a panel discussion June 23 at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, Ky. Participants sent text messages to the event’s facilitator, posing questions about the Southern Baptist Convention for the panel to discuss.

Resolutions

The Obama resolution – which passed nearly unanimously – says messengers “share our nation’s pride in our continuing progress toward racial reconciliation signaled” by the president’s election. But the resolution says messengers “decry” Obama’s assistance to “pro-abortion” groups. It also expresses “strong opposition” to Obama declaring June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Month. The resolution also calls on Southern Baptists to pray for Obama – something they did immediately after its passage, with Hunt leading the prayer.

The pro-adoption resolution notes that the world has upwards of 150 million orphans and it calls “on each Southern Baptist family to pray for guidance as to whether God is calling them to adopt or foster a child or children.” It also encourages “pastors and church leaders to preach and teach on God’s concern for orphans.”

Southern Baptists ceased their relationship with Broadway Baptist Church following a year-long study by the Executive Committee that began with a motion from the floor at last year’s meeting. The congregation has at least two same-sex couples in the church and was embroiled in a controversy in early 2008 as to whether the couples should be pictured in a church directory. Supporters of the Executive Committee recommendation said that while the convention fully supports ministering to the homosexual community, the church – by its actions – was in violation of Article III of the SBC Constitution, which states that churches “which act to affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior” are not in friendly cooperation.

In other convention news:

· Geoff Hammond, president of the North American Mission Board, told messengers that the SBC’s associations and 42 state conventions “have signed up” for the GPS challenge.

· Thanks to a gift from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and an offering from the SBC Pastors’ Conference, the IMB received more than $100,000 to help fill the gap from its Lottie Moon Christmas Offering shortfall. The Lottie Moon offering fell $29 million short of its goal and $9 million short of its previous year’s total.

· Executive Committee President Morris H. Chapman told messengers that a fervor for missions trumps doctrinal divides and that Southern Baptists will unite for the sake of lost souls.

Chapman also mentioned some of the issues that have been debated in recent days, noting first that the convention must “maintain a careful balance between cultural adaptation and gospel proclamation.”

“Some of the church growth methodologies that masquerade under the guise of Bible exposition are increasingly known for the crude themes and the vulgar language of their strongest advocates. The sacred desk is no place for the carnal, the sensual and the sensational,” he said.

· LifeWay Christian Resources presented the inaugural HCSB Award posthumously to Fred Winters, the pastor of First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill., who was shot and killed while preaching. Winters’ widow, Cindy, appeared on stage and received the award. Their two daughters also were present. The award will honor individuals who have shown a high commitment to the preaching or teaching of the God’s Word.

· The SBC Pastors’ Conference heard from Charles Colson, Mike Huckabee, and David Platt, a 30-year-old pastor who previously was unknown to many attendees but whose passionate sermons were well-received. Platt, lead pastor of the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., also delivered a theme interpretation during the annual meeting.

Next year’s annual meeting will take place June 15-16 in Orlando, Fla.