QUOTES FROM CHARLES WADE’S PRESIDENTIAL SERMON

“I have appealed to Southern Baptist leaders not to chide Texas Baptists for our determination to give our churches and their leaders freedom to make the decisions they believe are best for them in reaching out to do mission work in the world.

“Southern Baptist leaders will have our support if they will focus on missions and evangelism… but they will drive more and more Texas Baptists away if they focus on requiring conformity as a condition of cooperation. Texas Baptists do not like to read about faithful, Bible believing pastors who have served Southern Baptists and the cause of Christ, being removed as adjunct professors because their churches allowed their members to choose to support missions through CBF as well as the SBC.

“Texas Baptists have a difficult time understanding how the cause of evangelism and missions will be served if a five-point hyper-Calvinism gains ascendency in our seminaries. It troubles me when women who feel God has called them to be ministers of God’s gospel are told they must be mistaken… they and their churches are not free to interpret and acknowledge God’s call in their life… and no Southern Baptist leader steps forward to defend their freedom in Christ to respond to God’s calling.

“Most of us want to find ways to work together to reach out to a world in desperate need. We want to share the gospel in as many ways, in as many places, as we possibly can. We are thrilled by the reports that are coming in from around the world of the growth of churches, the coming of the peoples of the earth to Jesus. The time is now for us to be about cooperating with Great Commission Christians, including all Baptists, in vigorously taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.”

Another Quote FROM CHARLES WADE’S PRESIDENTIAL SERMON

“I am confident that when God’s people gather to discuss the business of the Kingdom of God and how Texas Baptists should respond to the needs of 10 million unchurched Texans, and 3 billion unreached people around the world...we are doing God’s business.

“When Baptist people decide they do not want to go through the struggle to study the issues, pray carefully about what is the right thing to do, and make the effort to come together to vote what they believe is the will of Christ for our work together, they lose something valuable and distinctive for Baptist people.

“The way Baptists find the will of God is not to park our brains at the door when we go to church nor put our hearts in cold storage and ask the pastor, or the deacons or the committees to make all the decisions for us.”

December 1997