This week, Pastor J.D. begins a two-part series leading up to Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting. The first question he answers is, “What gives you hope about the direction of the SBC?”

Show Notes:

• The latest ACP report has some negatives, but also some big positives.
  • In some areas, attendance is up – across the board attendance at SBC’s are up, which demonstrates a rebound after Covid. People are returning. 
  • Church attendance is up. Many are saying that Gen Z as a culture are the most spiritually open generation that what we have seen in last several generations.
  • In North Carolina, all of our three major gatherings in the past year were as high as they have been in 10 years. People want to be a part of something that is moving.
  • Baptisms are up. This is huge and something we should celebrate.
  • Small group/Sunday school attendance up. Remember for like 20 years this was something pastors were lamenting? It’s a big deal when this starts occurring.
• SEND Network and SEND Relief
  • Renewed emphasis on leadership development within our convention. We are seeing churches starting residencies/internships to make future leaders. This was missing in past (which, downstream, led to our current crisis of pulpit-less churches).
• A new culture toward abuse.
  • We have to stay the course on this. I know that there has been a lot of public conflict about this lately. I trust Marshall Blalock and the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, and in the most recent issue with Guidepost I think they demonstrated their willingness to listen to people in the interest of developing a tool that churches will use. They still have a long way to go. 
  • But at the grassroots level everything I am hearing indicates an increase in churches who are proactively seeking to do this right. The state task forces are seeing tremendous movement on this where they are, and I am incredibly encouraged by that. That was the ultimate goal of everything we have been doing—that the churches would stop assuming “that will never happen here” and would do everything in their power to keep people safe. Yes, reform is hard, but we cannot let this unravel, we cannot go backwards. 
• There is a desire in so many to truly be Great Commission Baptists. 
  • Again, sometimes it feels like there are two SBC’s: the kind committed to making us bigger and the kind focused on making us smaller.

The shrinking ACP numbers… everybody wants to use them as if they’re a club to insist on what they want. They are in large part because of the death of cultural Christianity. I’m not trying to put a happy face on a drop in numbers; I lament them. But, I do think we need to rejoice where we need to rejoice (like the increase in engagement), while asking God to turn around the overall numbers trending downwards, with people that really are following Jesus. 

Preparing for New Orleans:

I hope we see continued resolve to have a culture that is committed to protecting our children and members from abuse, and to caring well for those who come forward. 

I hope we can stand together and refuse to give in to the temptation to fight instead of being about the Great Commission.

What can we do in this room do to help move the mission of the convention forward?

Don’t be part of escalating the division. Remember the mission. Remember we are about cooperation. 

We do not have a doctrinal problem. We do not have a missional problem. We have a cultural problem. We are too shaped by the godless ideology of division rather than our unity in Christ. We should be celebrating what’s working well and not allowing the loud vocal few set the direction. We need folks stepping up and leading.

Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question.

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