just when i thought it was safe to go back in the water...

(This is a post from Michael Spencer on his blog http://www.internetmonk.com/. Michael has a long history with Southern Baptists, and God has used him in many ways in my life. He writes in light of a new proclamation by the SBC - that 2010-2020 will be a 'decade of evangelism'.)




Evangelism Won’t Cure It
September 18th, 2008 by iMonk


It’s a rant. Adjust your volume and thinking accordingly.


My denomination is about to have a ten year emphasis on evangelism. I’ve been a Southern Baptist since birth. As far as I know, my denomination has never had any other emphasis than evangelism. My denomination is more interested in evangelism than any other denomination in existence or Christian history. Its entire apparatus of denominational machinery is devoted to the promotion of evangelism. Its denominational publications and web sites are basically all evangelism, all the time. Oh there’s the occasional break for the culture war and to promote the new Kirk Cameron movie, but no one is missing the SBC’s concern with evangelism.


I’ve lived through more evangelism training programs than I can name.


I’ve been part of more evangelism emphases than I can list.


I’ve seen every kind of evangelism gimmick that the mind can conceive of brought out with a straight face.


I’ve seen the ethics and manners of normal human interaction go out the window in favor of confrontational tactics on beaches, on sidewalks and in public.


I grew up believing the entire Christian life was about soul winning and that if you couldn’t turn any conversation into an evangelistic conversation with closure, then you were a backslider.


I’ve been through evangelistic invitations at church, at youth group, at revivals, at youth revivals, at stadium events, at concerts, at ball games, at Bible studies, at Vacation Bible school, at movies, at meals and everywhere else.


My denomination is always starting a prayer emphasis in the cause of evangelism. We actually have an office of spiritual awakening, if you can believe it. I’m sure there’s a five year plan to move the hand of God somewhere.


I’ve heard thousands and thousands of evangelistic sermons. I’ve heard invitations that made me want to dig a tunnel to China.


I’m been exposed to guilt, manipulation, entertainment, scare tactics, lies, exaggeration, bribery and threats in the name of evangelism.


I’m part of a denomination that regularly baptizes five, six and seven year olds, then has the nerve to point at infant baptizing Christians and criticize them.


I’m part of a denomination that has rebaptized and rebaptized and rebaptized, again and again. And counted each one somewhere.


A few years ago, the baptism numbers started dropping for Southern Baptists. This year was the lowest in recent history. The problem we’re told, of course, is that we’re not evangelistic enough.


I want to put forward another theory. Just call it a hunch.


I think our baptism numbers are dropping because ALL WE ARE IS EVANGELISTIC.


We don’t want to talk about anything else because if we do, we’re going have to admit we’re in very, very bad shape.


We need to have healthy churches. (With all 9 Marks.)


We need to have a clear Gospel message. (What’s being preached in SBC pulpits in many places can hardly be categorized using normal English.)


We need meaningful church membership.


We need pastors who can grow disciples.


We need Christians on mission in the world where God’s placed them.


We need to love people.


We need to live authentically human lives.


We need a missional mindset for going into the world.


We need to see our prevailing sins, like materialism, classism, racism and involvement in the prosperity Gospel.


We need to repent of our pragmatism, because it’s not true that if just one walks forward, everything we did was right.


We’re proud and sometimes we’re almost unteachable.


When a younger leader does something right in our denomination, chances are he’s in trouble.


Thousands of our churches are two generations from closing the doors.


Thousands of our churches need to either stop abusing pastors and their families or shut the doors.


We need to realize God isn’t adding many to us because we’ve got problems.


Every time Southern Baptists see some evidence that the ship is lurching, they go and attempt to get more people to join the cruise.


We’re like a hospital with real problems. Doctor problems. Staff problems. Quality problems. Effectiveness problems. People aren’t getting well. Some are getting a lot worse. Some aren’t making it. And we are concerned……about getting more patients.


Millions of Southern Baptists apparently don’t even exist.


Millions of other Southern Baptists would leave their churches for $5 and couldn’t write a three sentence paragraph on why anyone should join their church.


I love what the SBC does right. I really do. My denomination can be awesome at some things, especially in the area of cooperative missions.


I’m not dogging evangelists. I spend a significant amount of my time in evangelistic ministry. It’s one reason I will remain an evangelical.


Our denomination has some wonderful churches and some great people.


But let’s just say it: We’re Johnny One Notes on evangelism because we don’t want to admit how flawed, hurting, confused and increasingly dysfunctional we are.


We need evangelism in its place, and that won’t happen till we stop and look at the whole, not just the parts we want to blame.


And 100,000 more baptisms won’t solve those problems.

i miss you and dread you

A few years ago, Christian researcher George Barna published a controversial book entitled Revolution. Drawing on observations from his years as a pollster, Barna described what he believed to be the emergence of a new type of Christian. Calling them “revolutionaries”, he described them as “…devout followers of Jesus Christ who are serious about their faith, who are constantly worshipping and interacting with God, and whose lives are centered on their belief in Christ, [with] complete dedication to being thoroughly Christian by viewing every moment of life through a spiritual lens…making every decision in light of Biblical principles. These are individuals who are determined to glorify God every day through every thought, word, and deed in their lives.”

How is this any different than what a Christian is supposed to be? It’s not…but that wasn’t what made Revolution controversial. Barna observed that this group, numbering in the millions, was leaving the church to preserve their faith. Not rejecting megachurches in favor of organic house church models, not embracing ancient-future emergent conversational churches, not joining new monastic structures, or any of the other trends present in Christianity today. Just leaving.

When I first read this book, I had major problems with Barna’s analysis that this is a positive expression of faith, and that they are simply rejecting archaic and corrupted structure, not Jesus. Sure, I thought, these people may love Jesus and say they are worshipping him, but leaving the church is like having a best friend but walking out of the room the second his wife walks in. It may work once, but if he loves his wife, after awhile he’ll begin to wonder whether the problem is really his wife or if it’s you. Scripture tells us to not forsake the assembly, and that faith is something to be experienced communally (Paul became a church planter, not a self-help guru or a desert hermit). I still hold to that position, I promise. I don’t think you can be a growing Christian if you are not involved in a community of other believers, strengthening each other, holding each other accountable, learning under the authority of Godly elders, sharing communion and baptism, and following a vision for spreading Christ’s name everywhere.

But I can see their point.

Right now, I’m struggling with many aspects of my faith. Most of them can be traced back to my various experiences with the church:

-Churches that grow because they are a mile wide and a quarter of an inch deep
-Praise music that sounds as if it were written by Oprah
-Visions for church growth that involve building enough buildings to earn a separate zip code
-Corporate prayer sessions that become mini-sermon series about everyone else’s problems
-Doing things a certain way because ‘it’s worked in the past’
-Church programming that exhausts its members, muddles the vision of the church, and guilt- trips people into thinking that a GOOD Christian is in church whenever the doors are open, instead of living a life of witness in front of the world
-Church softball
-The lack of quality in everything with Jesus’ name on it
-The belief that such cheap cultural rip-offs will convince teenagers that Christianity is ‘cool’
-Children’s ministry that majors on games, hand-motion led songs, prizes, badges, and musicals instead of the Gospel

This morning I told Krissi I missed church very much…and dreaded it just as much. Coming from someone who has dedicated his life to serving the God of the universe THROUGH that same church, that sucks.

moving in

This week, Krissi and I signed the lease on our first place together. After running around Tallahassee, seeing apartment after apartment, we answered an ad for an old, refurbished 1930’s cottage. Tin roof, hardwood bathroom floor, almost no storage space, the works. Krissi’s smile has practically been glued to her face since our first visit to the property. I liked it, but later I warmed up to it even more. Why? Because it’s located on the edge of ‘Frenchtown’.

The ghetto.

One of my best friends, Ronnie, and I once had a dream together of moving to New Orleans, going to seminary, and living it a poverty-stricken area of town. We were motivated by his desire to be an urban youth pastor and my experiences with ‘inner-city missions’. In those experiences, I realized the inefficiency and somewhat inauthentic nature of people who take time away from their well-to-do jobs to work in places of suffering, only to return to those jobs relatively unaffected by their experience. These mission projects usually had little lasting impact, because the very nature of ministering to people involves entering into a relationship with them, and this cannot be done if life is not somehow shared together. One time I was involved in a week-long project leading up to a block party for a particular complex; God blessed the event in mighty ways but I was somewhat heartbroken as I left, for I knew that if the church we had partnered with for the event did not return and invest in these people, no lasting ministry would flourish.

Ronnie and I both met girls (whom we plan to marry), which threw a large wrench in our plans (girls do that sometimes, don’t they? Sorry Krissi, I couldn’t resist). But the dream was still there – join a community you could invest in, minister to your neighbors as friends first and statistics never. With our cottage, we’re excited to begin.

People (especially our parents) are concerned about our safety and financial situations, so I’d like to speak to those concerns for a moment:

Are we safe? Yes. Our house is in the interior of a u-shaped ring of similar cottages, meaning we are not easily visible to passer-bys. Our neighbor has a large watch-dog. I am installing extra locks as well to alleviate anyone’s concerns. Honestly though, whenever urban ministry is attempted, it is a risk. You don’t buy tons of electronics, you develop a good relationship with others (who look out for you), and you trust that God has placed you there for a reason.

Financially, the house is both a God-send and a ministry. Rent is less expensive than any of the cookie-cutter blank apartments we’ve viewed, and our lease is month to month, which means that though we have to begin renting this summer (May rather than July or August), we’ll be able to end our lease the moment we move to New Orleans. We’ll be able to save some money, and the rest we’ll turn around and put back into the place. Yes, we’ll only be living there 6 months. Still, we feel very strongly about this being a ministry. Our landlady already knows we’re Christians, our neighbors will, and we want the entire experience of us living in this cottage to reflect Christ’s love. That means leaving the house better than we found it, with no strings attached. Think of it as an investment of a different kind. Plus, I get to be “Extreme Makeover” husband-to-be for a summer.

We’re so excited to have a place to call our own that has culture to it that we can give our own flair to. This cottage will allow us to bring others into the Frenchtown community who would normally avoid the area, both to help us clean and decorate the house, for ministry, and simply to hang out. We’ve already had people requesting “Paint and Pizza” parties (I know who you are and won’t forget!), and moving into a smaller place will force both Krissi and (to a MUCH larger extent) I to downsize our possessions, making us more mobile and able to follow God’s will. I want to make it a point that this is not us “slumming” (a Victorian practice where rich people, for entertainment or to ease their consciences, traveled into London’s poorer districts to see how “the other side” lived). We want to learn here, to love here.

Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible, The Message, sums it up in John 1:14:

“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”

Here’s the deal: this isn’t about trumpeting our praise. It’s about glorifying God for coming through, and it’s a request that you would keep us accountable. If this is God’s will for us, we can’t simply live here…we have to be here.

january update

Thought it best to give an update on all things Steve to my readers (of course, there aren’t that many of you, but you are appreciated!)

God blessed me immensely this week, after a minor “holy-crap-I-feel-like-Job-why-do-you-hate-me-God-I-want-my-momma” breakdown over the weekend. The progression of events:

Saturday – My backpack gets stolen (including my laptop, digital camera, Bible, shoes, notes, textbooks, library books, and my Braveheart DVD!)
Sunday – Attend a “dropping out” party for my friend Caleb, 19, with cancer
Monday – Freak out due to wedding concerns, loss of all my stuff on my laptop, the thought of having to throw my savings out the window to replace everything in that backpack

But God blesses his children, abit in ways we don’t expect. Tuesday morning my backpack was found out behind the BCM; my digital camera and 3 year-old shoes had been stolen, and my stuff gone through – but they didn’t take the laptop. Amazing. Stupid if you’re an aspiring criminal, but a miracle. Tuesday night an awesome speaker at our weekly BCM worship gathering spoke on grace, and I was brought to tears and smiles all at the same time. So often, especially if you’ve lost your innocence at the ways churches work like I have, we forget that church is but a pale reflection of Christ and what He has done. That’s worth remembering. Wednesday night a youth at my church prayed to receive that same grace, and God is allowing my thesis stuff to fall into place smoothly. Krissi’s had a hard week, but God has allowed me to be an encouragement to her just because I’m so happy this week. I’ve been able to pray with godly men over the past few days, and am excited about living for Christ.

A quick update on the 2008 Goals for Steve project:

1. 5k – I ran my first mile a few weeks ago. I’m getting new shoes tonight (see above), and hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll be adding laps; I want to run a 1.5 mile by the end of February consistently.
2. Bible – Currently a little behind, I’m on Exodus 25. Hope to be through with the Pentateuch by Spring Break.
3. Thesis – 4 pages in, but a good structure and direction. I’m trying to knock off a whole chapter this weekend. Also, I have a date for my defense: April 9, 2008 at 2:30 PM.
4. Marriage/Honeymoon – I love Krissi (did I mention she’s beautiful?); I’m almost halfway there as far as saving for the honeymoon. Plans are coming together.
5. Photography – Well, my camera was stolen, so part of me wants to use that as justification to buy a camera. But I’m still in the research phase, asking around, looking stuff up, etc.
6. Ocoee – This has to wait until summer before it tightens up.
7. Bench Press – I’m still at 105. I need to figure out a way to be more productive; maybe pushups on my off days.
8. Memorize – A few tries, but this one hasn’t gotten off the ground yet.
9. Mission Trip – Man, we both really want to go. Talking with that international student yesterday made it hurt.
10. Journal – This one has fallen by the wayside – I need to pick it back up.

Well, that’s my life. Pray that God continues to teach me things, and that I will keep my ears open.

it comes for us all

Every once in a while, you begin to ponder things much bigger than yourself. I hope that you do this weekly (it’s called ‘worship’). But I take that for granted as much as the next guy. This month, I’ve had to ponder something related that has hit me much harder than I first realized.

When you’re young, you are indestructible. You live forever. You have no concept of life being finite, even as you profess belief in afterlife or have family or friends pass away. I don’t know, something about preparing to get married and enter ‘the real world’…but those feelings are leaving me.

A close friend of my family, Tim Stevens, died earlier this month. I saw him for the first and last time since he had gotten sick on Christmas Eve. Tim was a strong, hearty man, and I was blown away by how withered he was when I saw him. Last Tuesday, Heath Ledger, a popular actor, died of an apparent drug interaction. He was only 7 years older than I. And the guy in the photo is my friend Caleb.

Caleb found out on Friday that he’s got lymphoma. Cancer.

He’s 19.

Suddenly death becomes all too real, and its ‘unknown’ quality becomes VERY present. No matter what you believe about where you go when you die, there is a hint of fear, a hint of darkness, of finality, about death. No one in modern times has ever come back.

I know I’m a Christian; I believe Christ died to cover my sins and to reconcile me before God, and I will exist after this life in a life fuller than I can ever imagine. But I wish that faith was stronger, that it could drive out the slight chill you feel when you realize you might have said goodbye to a friend last night…and that the goodbye you said might just very well be that – goodbye.

Pray for Caleb, and I’ll be updating this again soon. Pray for me, too – my prayer is as the dead girl’s father, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

like a fried egg

This morning my head exploded.

Seriously. If you were one of the unfortunate souls to have read this blog this morning, you might have thought I was ready to become Buddhist and hope my next life was that of a cockroach, because it would have at least been one step above this one.

(since I’m typing this I’m sure you’ve figured out that I happen to be addicted to hyperbole – don’t worry; I’m on the patch)

Krissi and I went on a cruise a week ago, and it was wonderful. I got the sleep I have needed for some time. Going back to work on Tuesday was a different matter. The combination of 10 days of peace followed by homework, my job, and the other stresses of life hit me like a sledgehammer. Do you know what happens to an ice cube when it’s put in a glass of hot liquid?

It cracks.

And Krissi is even worse. Her large class load has made getting together for anything other than damage control (one/both of us venting/crying/collapsing/yelling). These have been some hard, hard days for our relationship, and our lives in general. This morning, except for the knowledge that God’s grace is sufficient to cover even my stupidity, I would have questioned the whole enchilada.

Thankfully, I know God works in seasons. However, much in me wants to adopt an old jock mentality (keep your head down and run until your legs fall off, play hurt) instead of throwing myself before God’s mercy. Why? It sounds harder, but actually, it’s easier. Because I don’t just sit at God’s feet and wait for Him to say, “Mercy has been granted! You may now resume your less-stressful life!” I have to keep moving.

I know I’ll get through this. We will get through this. But I never want to live this way again.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

questions for myself

I'm currently thinking of my goals for 2008 (as if writing my thesis, graduating, and getting married weren't enough!) One that sticks out in my brain is to honestly answer these questions every day:

1. Have I treasured Christ above all today?
2. Have I treasured Krissi above all but Christ?

I'm realizing that I can really hurt Krissi if I'm not careful, even with little things like my reactions to comments or my attitudes when I talk to her. Then, it's so easy to project the eventual annoyance I feel at her reactions onto her and think/act even worse towards her. This is crap; I'm supposed to treasure her and treat her as Christ did me - sacrificing for me, loving me unconditionally, protecting me, providing for me, all while being real yet strong. I want to always be able to answer these questions positively and authentically.

when does family stop becoming family?

One of the things I have fought for since being called to vocational ministry has been my continual allegiance to my denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Regardless of my changing theological and methodological views, I steadfastly believe in the principles and values of the SBC. Why?

• The SBC has the Cooperative Fund, arguably one of the best missions-funding programs in existence
• The SBC has a great seminary system
• The SBC is amazing at providing children and students with missions education and opportunities
• The SBC values the local, autonomous church

Again, though some of my beilefs have changed over the years, I love these qualities of my denomination. Secondly, I love the people. I believe there is a vast group of people within the SBC who could blow the top off this world for the gospel if the Spirit moved among them...besides, these are the same people who raised me, who love me, who still go to the churches I have come to know and love. They are my family, my friends...I want them to have the passion for God's glory that I feel.

Yesterday was the first time I have truly questioned my calling to stay within the SBC. On Tuesday, the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) passed a resolution effective January 1st, 2008, ceasing Cooperative Program funding to all church plants affiliated with the Acts29 church planting network. Let me explain the circumstances surrounding this, and why I am shaken.

• The Journey is a church plant pastored by Darrin Patrick. Beginning in the early 2000s, the Journey grew from 30 to over 1200. The Journey is part of the Acts29 church Planting Network (of which Patrick is heavily involved in leadership).
• Acts29 is a trans-denominational church plant networking system that helps to direct funding for chruch plants from other local churches. They provide assesment services and training. They are Reformed in theology.
• The Journey recieved a $200,000 loan from the MBC to help fund their church plant.

Now the issue:

• The Journey began a program called Theology at the Bottleworks, which is exactly as it sounds: a theological discussion over drinks.
• MBC objected to this, to the point of calling for professor Mark DeVine of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to do a profile of the emrging church movement, of which they find Acts29 to be a member
• DeVine's paper can be found online, and his conclusions found Acts29 to be on the conservative side of the emerging church movement
• MBC then passed resolutions which obviously ignored DeVine's findings, associating Acts29 with streams within the emerging church movement which deny the substitutionary atonement of Christ
• This path has now led to the MBC denying funding to all Acts29-associated churches beginning January 1, 2008

Why do I have some issues with this? Shouldn't the MBC be able to decide to whom they give thier funding to?

The answer is yes. It's not that I have a problem with people choosing where to send funding. It is the why they make their choices that troubles me. DeVine's paper is spot on. I can do(and have done) the research myself the know that his conclusions are valid. And I cannot see within his paper how someone can make such resolutions. This makes me wonder: what is the real issue? Alcohol? I still don't agree with the decision, but why punish all the churches in the MBC for The Journey's choices (as Acts29's president has stated)? Is it about theological differences? If so, why the political war?

It is the ignorance that scares me. I hesitate to write this, because I am only 21, and arrogance and judgement can easily slip in here (though I pray this comes out of my passion for the SBC, and not to cause devision). But if a 21 year old can do the research necessary to see that churches affiliated with Acts29 are not a hinderance to but rather an asset to the SBC, I question why such decisions are upheld. I have not even mentioned the fact that Acts29 has a 99% success rate for planting churches (higher than NAMB's 70% rate), or that Dr. Ed Stetzer, Lifeway's chief missiologist, is on Acts29's board of directors.

At what point will the SBC stop being inclusive? When will we see the Word of God as our final standard, and the fruit of discipleship-making, new-believer baptizing, church-planting churches as our litmus test? I fear that someday the SBC may have no place for those who wish to engage our culture for the gospel. Including me.