CO-CHAIR THOUGHTS FROM BILL BRIAN

E/E Committee Report
Texas Baptists as Future Oriented—Trend Setting

Laymen and laywomen across Texas can take encouragement that a bright future lies ahead for our BGCT as carefully outlined in the Report of the Effectiveness/Efficiency Committee.

I am grateful to fellow West Texan Charles Davenport of Tulia for bringing to the 1995 BGCT meeting the motion which messengers adopted and which formed the beginning point for a thorough-going examination of where we are as a state convention and what measures we should adopt to remain oriented toward the future.

Trend setters among Baptists—that’s where I want to be—not for our sakes but for the thousands of Texans who do not know the love of Christ in the mission fields right in our own Texas communities. Trend setters— through partnerships to share Christ across America and to the peoples of the world—for whom the story of Jesus is completely unknown.

I am grateful, too, for the hard work and commitment of Committee members including Chairman Darold Morgan, Vice-Chairman Leroy Fenton, and the twenty-five other committee members who bring to us the Report and Recommendations, vital tools that can springboard us to action.

What is most positive about the Report and the Recommendations?

First, it affirms our BGCT and its leadership. We are blessed with the best at our Baptist building in Dallas. A friend of mine, also a member of First Baptist Church, Amarillo, recently told me that he would trust the executive staff of our BGCT with his life.

Second, it affirms a “church-first” strategy. That might sound selfish at first glance, but indeed, it is a recognition that the local church is the key to reaching the lost. I am thrilled at the prospect of increased assistance, encouragement, and challenge to local churches of all sizes to customize a vision and methodology uniquely suited to their communities.

Third, the affirmation of the autonomy of local churches and of our state convention is Baptist to the core. It embraces and nourishes the notion of voluntary cooperation to accomplish greater things. That’s the kind of partnering that will prepare us to meet the challenges of vastly changing demographics and diverse cultures that were unknown in Texas 20 years ago.

Fourth, and perhaps most critical to the development of capable clergy and lay leaders, the Report challenges Texas Baptists to insist that seminary and Bible college experiences in Texas teach historic Baptist principles of Scripture authority, regenerate faith, soul freedom, church/state separation, honoring the call of all persons to ministry, and local church autonomy under the lordship of Christ Jesus. Some of those principles are lately demeaned in Southern Baptist seminaries across America.

How should we laypeople respond to the Report of the E/E Committee? Study the Report printed in full in the Baptist Standard and available from the BGCT office in Dallas. Be prepared to listen to debate and to vote to approve the Recommendations of the E/E Committee. (The Report itself will not be voted on.) Encourage your church to elect a full complement of messengers to the BGCT in Austin. Continue to pray daily as the 100 days of prayer for the Convention draw to a close.

I’ll see you in Austin

October 1997