April 25, 2024
DULUTH, Ga. – All three announced candidates for president of the Southern Baptist Convention want to see the nation’s largest protestant denomination return to its soul-winning roots.
In a Q&A with The Christian Index, they spoke of the need for Southern Baptists to resolve scandals that serve as distractions, to return to a healthy fear of God, and to “do something concrete and demonstrative to promote evangelism.”
“The president of the SBC can, with God’s help, steer us away from creating new divisive controversies and toward resolution of old scandals,” said Bart Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church in Farmersville, Texas. “By doing so, he can eliminate distractions and obstacles that compete with revival for our prayers and affections. That’s my hope, should Southern Baptists elect me — to be the minesweeper clearing the way ahead of the ship of revival.”
Barber said Satan uses distractions and controversies to cause Christians to lose sight of the importance of making new disciples.
“Doesn’t it hit us in the gut when Satan uses some scandal to take our eyes off of what God is doing to build the Kingdom?” he asked. “In any year at our Annual Meeting, we run the risk of doing or saying something that takes our focus off the Great Commission. In any year at our Annual Meeting, we face the opportunity to resolve issues, like sex abuse in the convention, that can be the stumbling blocks that trip us up as we pray for revival and work for revival. When the people calling for revival are hiding depraved sin in their own hearts, our hopes for revival are going to be dashed against the rocks of our rebelliousness.”
Tom Ascol, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Fla., and president of Founders Ministries, said, if elected, he would call on fellow pastors to lead SBC churches back “to a profound fear of God.”
“So many of the problems that we have can be traced to a lack of the fear of God,” he said. “If we are going to fulfill the commission that Jesus has given us we must heed this overlooked command in Luke 12:4–5, ‘I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!’
“As God’s people return to a profound fear of Him, it will lead to deep repentance over our sin and fresh dependence on and love for Jesus Christ who alone saves and cleanses us from sin. It is then that we will be empowered by His Spirit for the work of making disciples.”
Robin Hadaway, a former pastor and International Mission Board missionary to Africa and South America who went on to serve as a professor and administrator at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said he wants to do something demonstrative to put the focus back on evangelism.
“When Bobby Welch was SBC president, he launched a 50-state bus tour to promote evangelism with a goal of 1 million baptisms for the SBC,” Hadaway said. “Decades earlier, my nominator for the SBC presidency, Wade Akins, carried a cross across America. I’ve not decided what I would do, but I would like to do something concrete and demonstrative to promote evangelism and missions across the SBC. I would do this, however, with the advice and consent of the state convention presidents and executive directors.”
The Christian Index did an email Q&A with the candidates on a variety of topics and will do a series of stories over the next few days based on that Q&A. What follows is the question about evangelism posed by the newspaper and the candidates’ unedited responses in their entirety.
Index: In Georgia, we’ve been seeing larger than usual numbers of salvation decisions this year. Revival seems to be breaking out in communities across the state. We’d like to hear what you would do as SBC president to fan the flames of revival across the SBC?
Barber: First, do no harm.
What an item for rejoicing to see God at work among Georgia Baptists! The local church is the headquarters of the Southern Baptist Convention. The closer a ministry lies to the local church, the more impact it has upon the health of our local churches. In the PhD work I did with Dr. Roy Fish, I read the first-person accounts and studied the histories of spiritual awakenings that took place over the past several centuries. Not a single narrative featured the impact of any remote denominational leader or structure. It pleases God to birth revival and spiritual awakening out of the ministries of the local churches that He has formed or out of the work of itinerant evangelists, and not so much out of the persona of any denominational grandee.
One does, however, read in the pages of our history ways that denominational leaders contributed to distractions from revival or organized to oppose what God was doing (I’m thinking about the “Old Light” Congregationalists during the First Great Awakening). Doesn’t it hit us in the gut when Satan uses some scandal to take our eyes off of what God is doing to build the Kingdom!? In any year at our Annual Meeting we run the risk of doing or saying something that takes our focus off the Great Commission. In any year at our Annual Meeting we face the opportunity to resolve issues (like sex abuse in the convention) that can be the stumbling blocks that trip us up as we pray for revival and work for revival. When the people calling for revival are hiding depraved sin in their own hearts, our hopes for revival are going to be dashed against the rocks of our rebelliousness.
So, the president of the SBC can, with God’s help, steer us away from creating new divisive controversies and toward resolution of old scandals. By doing so, he can eliminate distractions and obstacles that compete with revival for our prayers and affections. That’s my hope, should Southern Baptists elect me—to be the minesweeper clearing the way ahead of the ship of revival.
Ascol: I will call on my fellow pastors to lead our churches to return to a profound fear of God. That is the beginning of wisdom and all who practice it have a good understanding (Psalm 111:10) and we are in desperate need of wisdom and understanding in these challenging days. So many of the problems that we have can be traced to a lack of the fear of God. If we are going to fulfill the commission that Jesus has given us we must heed this overlooked command in Luke 12:4–5, “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!”
As God’s people return to a profound fear of Him it will lead to deep repentance over our sin and fresh dependence on and love for Jesus Christ who alone saves and cleanses us from sin. It is then that we will be empowered by His Spirit for the work of making disciples.
Hadaway: I grew up in Tallahassee, FL, not far from Thomasville, GA. That’s a great part of the country and I miss it. I’m thrilled to hear of the response to the Gospel in Georgia. When Bobby Welch was SBC President, he launched a 50 state bus tour to promote evangelism with a goal of 1 million baptisms for the SBC. Decades earlier, my nominator for the SBC presidency, Wade Akins, carried a cross across America. I’ve not decided what I would do, but I would like to do something concrete and demonstrative to promote evangelism and missions across the SBC. I would do this, however, with the advice and consent of the state convention presidents and executive directors.
