The Open Door

The 2010 Southern Baptist Convention is in the history books. Among the very important matters addressed at this convention were the passing of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force Report and the election of Bryant Wright as president of the SBC.

Bryant is a Georgia Baptist pastor, and we need to be faithful to lift him up in our prayers daily. Pray that God will give Bryant wisdom and great energy for all the additional responsibilities he will shoulder in the days ahead. Johnson Ferry Baptist Church is one of our finest churches, and we need to keep them in prayer during these days as their pastor assumes his responsibilities.

The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force Report passed by a strong margin as Southern Baptists stated a desire to focus with greater clarity upon the Great Commission. I do not think there is any question that many Southern Baptists have let their commitment to the Great Commission slide in recent years. Nothing more clearly declares that fact than the continuous decline in commitment to the Cooperative Program.

Some have simply ceased supporting missions as they once did while others have withdrawn support of the Cooperative Program in order to designate their mission gifts to particular mission causes. At the convention, our own Dr. John Waters rose to amend the Task Force Report by adding strong statements in support of the Cooperative Program. John’s amendments were well received, and it was felt unanimously by the task force that the amendments strengthened Recommendation #3 of the report.

The amendments made it crystal clear that designated mission gifts can in no way replace the value of the Cooperative Program. I agree 100 percent!

If Southern Baptists are to remain the missionary force in the world that we have become by the grace of God, then we will do it through cooperating with each other to get the job done. If my church does missions independently, then we will accomplish only what we can do. On the other hand, if we join with thousands of other Southern Baptist churches to multiply our effectiveness, we can support 11,000 missionary families, and more, serving across the world.

I must confess that as a life-long Southern Baptist supporter of missions, it seems to me that our system of cooperation has proven effectiveness that cannot be matched by independent mission giving regardless of the size of the church or the size of its mission support.

While some decry the Cooperative Program funds that remain in the state convention, preferring to see everything go to international missions, I simply point to the words of Christ in Acts 1:8. We are a people of the book, or we are not.

Jesus lined out the mission field from your next-door neighbor, to your fellow Georgian, to your fellow American and to the peoples of the earth, wherever they may live, in the teaming metropolises or the thatched hut villages. The total mission field is our calling, and we are not to de-emphasize or eliminate any portion of the Lord’s command.

The extension of our reach will be shortened if we become weaker at home. This seems to me to be so basic that it should not be missed. The argument is that we are evangelized in the United States; we have access to the Gospel, while many in the world have yet to hear.

That is true, but in Georgia, we are still at least 70 percent unchurched and in some places, such as inside the I-285 perimeter of Atlanta, we are approximately 90 percent unchurched, and we must assume, lost!

The beauty of the Cooperative Program is that it provides for all four mission fields delineated by Christ. The reality is that we should not have to eliminate any part of the Great Commission. We should give greater support to missions through the Cooperative Program.

This begins with every church member being taught and becoming committed to obedience to God’s Word regarding God’s command to give a tithe of all we receive to Him. When we cease giving only 2.5 percent of our income to the Lord and obediently give 10 percent through our church, the mission fields of our world will explode with the preaching and teaching of the Gospel of Christ through the rapid expansion of the numbers of missionaries, we can send to the field.

Obedience is the key. It always has been. What needs to happen? I believe we all need to pray with earnest and broken hearts, “Lord, send a revival, and let it begin in me.”