CO-CHAIR THOUGHTS FROM DEAN DICKENS
Texas Needs The Gospel

You never met Oly Rolvaag. Well, perhaps you met him if you have traveled to Molde, Norway. If you had met him, you likely would not forget him. You see, the interesting thing about Oly Rolvaag is that he forgets. He seems to forget everything and everybody.

For instance, Oly has forgotten his correct house address and actually slept in the wrong house. He has even reported to work at the wrong job. Once, he told a perfect stranger (whom he thought was his wife) that he did not like her hairdo and wished she had left it the way it used to be. Now there is a man who has troubles because of his short memory.

Texas Baptists are moving toward San Antonio having awakened and remembered some serious and critical facts that not only relate to how we do convention business but how we do Kingdom business.

I’m sure you have noted the recent proposals from the BGCT Administrative Committee to alter our financial percentage proposals in order to do what we must do to play “catch up” and begin some 1,400 new churches needed in Texas. Many of us know the pain in this agonizing decision necessary to reach Texas—and ultimately, we hope, provide the future base to do even more for world wide mission causes.

But the decision is a wise one. We have forgotten the critical fact that while Texas is the largest Baptist State convention, our Texas unchurched population is greater than the combined population of 40 states! That is a compelling fact that must not be forgotten.

In the face of a dramatically increasing immigration into Florida that necessitates greater SBC dollars for reaching people there, Texans seemed to have forgotten that for years, we have been falling further and further behind in reaching the massive numbers of unreached immigrants pouring into our own state. Everyone else seems to be aware of this need. Just last week, I was called by a major state newspaper wanting to know what our Baptist churches were doing to assist in this massive problem that must not be forgotten by Texans.

Continuing urban growth underscores a contemporary imperative need that Texas Baptists seem to have forgotten. While we may be the second most populated state in the nation, are you aware that, while most states average 50 churches per 100,000 people, heavily populated Texas has fallen to less than half that amount: only 24 churches per 100,000 people. That is a Texas statistic that must no longer be forgotten.

Because of these pressing needs, it isn’t just the Alamo that Texas Baptists need to wake up and remember. Being led in this direction of greater attention to mission causes around us may have been a painful decision for the Administrative Committee and for SBC mission leaders, but it is a necessary wake up call.

We may well have forgotten our own location in the great commission. We well may have forgotten our own need to personally see and deal with fields for harvest at our own doorstep.

We must not only support the convention leadership proposal for Financial reality, we must strongly support our Mary Hill Davis State Mission offering. We might even lead our churches to wake up and remember that we are responsible for reaching our Texas part of the world.

Otherwise, it won’t just be Oly Rolvaag who has a real memory problem.

Think about it!

August/September 1995