Emerging leadership

It is with great interest that I read Jimmy Draper's comments about emerging leadership, The Index follow up article, and now Ed Stetzer's column "What Will It Take To Bring Young Leaders Back?". Everyone has an answer to the most difficult crisis that our convention will face in the near future - how do we relate to what Robert Webber calls the "younger evangelicals."

A couple of observations: First, this has nothing to do with age. I am 40 and do not particularly consider myself to be a "young" pastor in the GBC. One of my closest ministry friends is over 50 but he would be considered a "young pastor" as the issues are defined. This is a philosophy of ministry issue, not an age issue.

Across our convention now we are seeing played out the result of the winning of the war (the conservative resurgence) but not knowing how to administrate the peace (our current dilemma). Men who spilled their denominational blood to preserve the SBC now must create wars to fight, because there is too much fear of new directions with new leadership.

We have "saved" the Bible, but now we are saving our positions and power. Thus, you have worship wars, neck tie wars, Willow Creek wars, Bible version wars, pulpit or chair wars, etc. Remember, at the close of WWII, Winston Churchill could not administrate the peace and did not remain as Prime Minister of England.

Second, this has nothing to do with denominationalism per se. It has to do with how effectively the components of our denomination (associations, states, and national) are being run and can be run by their very nature.

They want to know why, if missions is so important, are we spending so much money building and maintaining buildings instead of feeding the poor; why do conservatives think they are always right even when they are or were patently wrong (see the Civil Rights movement); why do we keep so many overlapping bureaucratic levels within the denomination instead of streamlining it?

Two recent decisions by SBC leadership only go to underscore the differences: the emphasis of our Sunday School literature on evangelism (the problem is that no lost people are in attendance, not that the lessons aren't evangelistic enough) and the 50 state bus tour of Bobby Welch (the Southern Baptist answer to Road Rules?) These decisions reflect decades-removed thinking in a culture that is blistering ahead.

The advent of the internet and the ability it gives to speak to people of all races, backgrounds and frames of reference has clearly demonstrated to those leaders of all ages that many people of many denominations love and serve Christ. Web sites like christiancounterculture.com, theooze.com, and relevantmagazine.com are allowing truth to be viewed and opinions to be challenged.

I have had the great joy of spending several weeks of the past two years in conferences hosted by various different denominational stripes. The attendees are from many different denominations from Baptist to Brethren. As we sing, pray, study and learn, I am enriched by the differences between us.

Then I return to a national or state meeting of my own denomination and, though I am a biblical inerrantist, and a missions promoting, Jesus-loving pastor, I feel like a stranger in a strange land. And though I know it must change to reach generations to come, fewer and fewer younger evangelical type leaders have any confidence that it will.