A State Convention for the 21st Century
By Charlie McLaughlin,
Associate Coordinator

This month I visited Calvary Baptist Church in Abilene for worship and was impressed that they were making a change in their weekly worship pattern. They are beginning a Saturday night worship service.

Like many of our Texas Baptist churches, they recognize the cultural changes occurring in our society and are responding by making changes to further reach and teach people.

To reach out, some churches experiment with methods and varieties of styles of worship, while others choose the way of Long Range Planning to determine needs and responsive programs. Churches are dealing with change.

All organizations require evaluation followed by appropriate changes to enhance their efforts. TQM stands for Total Quality Management in the business world. It is a process through which a business evaluates itself for the purpose of improvement. The results should render options for change to make the business more efficient and profitable.

The idea of study, evaluation, and implementation of change should be commonplace by now. Businesses are dealing with change.

The Bible deals with the seasons of change in Ecclesiastes, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven... A time to plant and a time to pluck up, A time to break down and a time to build up...”

If you are a pastor, staff, or layperson of a church making changes to enhance your outreach efforts, then doesn’t it make sense that our cooperative efforts must also continuously make changes to increase the effectiveness of our evangelism, mission, education and human service efforts? Just as a local church needs to make changes, so does the BGCT.

Bill Leonard wrote an insightful article about what kind of churches will survive and prosper in the 21st century (see pg. 5). I appreciate the fact that he did more than just profile the local church but also included trends that affect denominations. He examined three categories that will influence decisions going into the 21st century: constituency, community and theology/spirituality.

CONSTITUENCY

Leonard states, “Churches must take seriously a growing and much overlooked subgroup in the south, the unchurched.” This should not be news to Texas Baptists. The consistent population growth in Texas has resulted in having more unchurched people in Texas than the entire population of 42 of the 50 states in the USA.

While most of our southern 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 why it was so important that we made budget changes in 1995 to reduce the amount of Cooperative Program funds forwarded to the SBC to provide funding for starting more churches in Texas.

Texas Baptists must continue to ask what other changes our state convention needs to make in order to be more effective in reaching the unchurched.

COMMUNITY Leonard identifies the decline of denominational loyalties, the influence of megachurches, and religious consumerism as characteristics which will create a challenge for community in the local church and a challenge for cooperative ventures for denominations.

Leonard states, “Indeed, Southern churches may give less attention to denominational structure than to regional and local configurations…

“Missionary and benevolent organizations must learn to make their national or global case more directly to local and national religious groups rather than depending on national agencies or bureaucracies for their support.

“Denominations will be forced to reform and re-order their structures, identities and activities at every level.”

Texas Baptist churches and the BGCT are learning the value of less connectionalism with the SBC, replaced
instead with the value of selective networking.

Two experiences are teaching us the importance of making this type of change.

One experience is the change made three years ago in the definition of the Cooperative Program to expand gifts to previously excluded agencies such as Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, George W. Truett Seminary, Criswell College and Logsdon School of Theology. Some were afraid of this change. For example, Toby Druin, editor of The Baptist Standard, stated in the April 2 issue, “In spite of the changes, which I once feared would wreak havoc with the system, or maybe because of them, the Cooperative Program has thrived.”

It is understandable to have reservations when attempting to change a process that has been successful in the past to a process which may be more successful in the future. Druin correctly concludes, “Apparently individual Baptists like choices as to how their money is distributed, and given the choice they give the money.”

This is precisely what happened in a second experience with change at the BGCT level. In 1996 the method of distributing funds for World Hunger was changed by the Christian Life Commission. Funds were distributed on a project-specific basis.

Giving to World Hunger increased by seventeen percent which halted a five year pattern of declining gifts. The process made more Texas Baptists aware of how these funds are used and will create better opportunities for volunteer involvement.

This cooperative networking process could well be the best method to enhance other ministry endeavors of our state convention. It provides a fair and equitable form of distribution and involvement for the diversity represented in the BGCT. Changes in other areas of the BGCT budget could benefit from this type of consideration. Change can and must continue to be skillfully implemented at the BGCT level.

THEOLOGY/SPIRITUALITY

Leonard explains that both theological liberals and conservatives “have lost or are losing their ability to address and provide meaningful response to the spiritual concerns of our time.” Both groups have argued theology from a cognitive rationale giving a scholastic taste to seekers in search of experiential truth, i.e., spirituality. Consider the following insights:

“Both (liberal and conservative) have stressed the cognitive at the expense of the experiential, the rational at expense of the spiritual.

“Toward the next century Southern churches may be forced to choose between scholasticism and spirituality.

“Theological debates are important, but not always pertinent, particularly when they distract the churches from the spirit and their mission in the world.”

The spiritual seekers who have not found their way to Christ are not interested in our theological debates. The sheer numerical size of our churches, conventions, missionaries, or contributions do not power people into the kingdom.

Texas Baptists know that patiently walking alongside of another to offer a personal invitation to spiritually experience God through His Son, Jesus Christ, is what makes a difference. Leonard concludes, “In a sense, Southern religionists may be best-suited for this quest since theirs is a legacy of personal religious experience.”

Baptists have historically allowed theological diversity. Local church autonomy, priesthood of the believer, separation of church and state are principles which protect diversity. We have been a people of the Bible, not written creeds. We network and cooperate with other evangelical groups for Billy Graham crusades, Promise Keepers and Habitat for Humanity. As Baptists, theology has shaped us but it is our common experience in Christ which provides the foundation for cooperation.

CONCLUSION

Texas Baptists must continue to keep focused on missions and evangelism. The culture has changed, churches are changing, so denominations must make changes to be even more effective in accomplishing their mission. Just like Calvary in Abilene and many other Texas Baptists churches who changed their patterns to be more effective in reaching others, so must a state convention be willing to change patterns. Some will be resistant to change just as there will be in any church. However, the BGCT has skillfully made changes that have enhanced our efforts. I hope and pray we will continue this pattern to prepare ourselves for the 21st century.

April 1997