I and the other officers of the California Southern Baptist Convention will be hosting another Open Forum this Thursday, July 22, to discuss the future of our convention. This meeting will be held from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm at First Baptist Church of Beverly Hills, 9025 Cynthia St., West Hollywood, CA 90069.

These forums are very open-ended and seek to address questions such as “How can we get young people more involved?” “How can we cooperate more effectively as local churches?” and “What will the Great Commission Resurgence mean for us?”

This is the third of five forums being hosted across the state this year. I have found them to be a valuable time to network with other pastors and to brainstorm about the future of our state convention. We welcome the input and participation by pastors and SBC leaders in the area. Hope to see you there.

To learn about our past meetings, click the links below:

• Recap of SBC open forum in San Diego

• Recap of SBC open forum in Fresno

The passing of the Great Commission Resurgence Report was undoubtedly the most newsworthy item last week in Orlando. But we can’t overlook another important moment: the election of Bryant Wright as our next SBC president.

Ed Stetzer has written a great article explaining Bryant’s positions and what his leadership might look like in the next year (or two, if re-elected for a second term). Here’s an excerpt.

“Beyond GCR Structural Change / Focused on Spiritual Change” would have been the best way to describe Bryant Wright’s position.  Had he been leading the GCRTF, the changes would have been more radical.  He has called for a dramatic increase in funds going directly to the global field, has led his church to restructure its Cooperative Program funds to contribute directly to IMB projects, and he clearly communicated that the GCRTF report was a start, not the conclusion.

You can read his whole article here. Personally, I am thankful for the diligent labor of Johnny Hunt, and am thrilled to have Bryant as our next president.

Here’s an update from Ronnie Floyd, Chairman of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. It will be very interesting to watch what transpires in the year ahead. Our prayers are no less needed now than they were in the past year.
 
We praise God that the Southern Baptist Convention adopted all seven recommendations of the GCR Task Force in an overwhelming manner.  With a 75-80% vote that affirmed these recommendations, Southern Baptists enter into an aggressive strategy to penetrate the lostness of North America and the world.  The hand of God led us through the challenges of the day that brought us to this defining moment.

God moving in response to the prayers of our faithful prayer partners for the past year is the reason for this incredible response from the Southern Baptist Convention.  The Spirit of God moved greatly among us and He was faithful to lead us through many challenges and over many obstacles.  Without question, the power of God was manifested among us over this past year.  Thanks to each of you for praying for us faithfully.

The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest evangelical denomination in North America and, some say, perhaps the world.  On Tuesday, June 15, this convention of churches experienced a strategic directional turn to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all the nations.  What the 1979 Convention was to the conservative resurgence, the 2010 Convention has the potential to be to this Great Commission Resurgence.

The Southern Baptist Convention has issued the final word – they affirmed the GCR recommendations overwhelmingly.  The SBC entities will now begin to implement the will of the convention.  We must pray for them.  The Convention was clear – let’s make the changes as recommended, and we must present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and make disciples of all the nations.   The Holy Spirit of God is our power to see this vision fulfilled. It is time for us to come together in love for the sake of the Gospel.

Finally, I want to give a shout out to the members of the GCR Task Force who sacrificed so much this past year.  They are a great people of God.  I love them and will miss being in contact with them regularly.  I want to thank Dr. Johnny Hunt for his spiritual and futuristic leadership to our Convention and for appointing us to lead this task.  My deepest gratitude goes to my church and to the churches or ministries our Task Force members serve.  You have given much and we are thankful for you.  To my sweetheart and love, Jeana, who sacrificed so much, and to the other members of my family, thank you for your sacrifice.  I love you so much.

Let’s take the challenges in the report and personalize them into our lives, our families, our churches, our state conventions, and our SBC entities.  It starts with me.  It starts with you.  Show your church the GCR five-minute video on a Sunday morning.  It will challenge them.

Thank you again for your prayer support.  I am highly grateful.  Now is the time to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all the nations.

Yours for a Great Commission Resurgence,
Ronnie W. Floyd

As you’ve probably heard by now, the Southern Baptist Convention passed the Great Commission Resurgence Report late Tuesday afternoon in Orlando, Florida. Tom Ascol has a good summary of yestserday’s dramatic and historic events. Here’s an excerpt:

I am convinced that the kindness and goodwill of Dr. Hunt and others on the platform ultimately won the day for the report. When the final vote was taken, it was an overwhelming majority that voted to adopt the report. I would estimate at least a 70%-30% margin.

I encourage you to read the whole thing here. And if you’re still trying to figure out what the GCR report is all about, go check it out at Pray4GCR.com 

Tomorrow, I’m going to the HolyLand Experience theme park with my host family. Should be a relaxing day after the past week’s very demanding schedule. I’m bracing myself for the TBN influence. And having spent a semester in Israel, I know a theme park can’t begin to compete. But I expect it will still be a pleasant and hopefully edifying experience.

Related posts:

• What the GCR means for California
• Initial thoughts on the GCR progress report

On May 18, the officers of the California Southern Baptist Convention hosted our second open forum. It’s taken me a while to get around to this, but I still wanted to give a recap and reflection before the big National Convention in Orlando next week.

The purpose of these open forums is to continue the discussion Walter Price initiated last fall in his thought-provoking president’s address. There is no real agenda. We’re just trying to learn why many young people are tuning out from the SBC. We are reevaluating our goals and methods of cooperating. And we are simply trying as officers to put a finger on the pulse of our state and ascertain people’s perceptions of the status quo.

Our second meeting in Fresno was very well attended, due in part to the many state staff who were present. But I was also pleased to see a number of central valley pastors and associational staff there. Walter Price, Blake Withers, and myself facilitated the meeting as officers. Perhaps the most positive comment of the day was from Howard Everett, a pastor who traveled all the way from San Diego to attend. As our meeting closed, he remarked, “This was the most encouraging conversation I’ve had in 17 years.”

While our first open forum in San Diego centered on the need to update communication methods and  decentralize church planting operations, this meeting focused on mentoring, missions, and denominational involvement.

• Mentoring. For quite a while, we discussed the need for a better mentoring process in our convention. Some encouraged the younger pastors to seek out an older pastor. Others urged the older pastors to make themselves more available to the younger. One participant said “any DOM would be thrilled to have a younger pastor approach them to be mentored.” I believe that mentorships, both formal and informal, are critical for healthy churches and the future of our convention. But this is not something that can be manufactured from the top down. Every one of us needs to have a Paul (who is mentoring us) and a Timothy (who we are mentoring). I would urge a young pastor to seek out and put himself under other leaders he respects and has a theological affinity with. And I would urge him to waste no time in finding youth, college students, and young adults who he can invest in and disciple.

• Missions. Matt Spradlin made an interesting point that there has been a shift theologically and missionally, so that young people are now much more existential. They do not merely want to hear about missions or send a gift off to some vague offering fund like Lottie Moon or Annie Armstrong. They want to experience it firsthand. They want to see it, smell it, and get their hands dirty in the process. I see two dangers with this. (1) It could easily lead to a form of narcissism where we only want to serve on our terms and be single-handedly responsible for changing the world. Or (2) it could quickly degenerate into a new social gospel movement. But there is also something to be celebrated about young people rolling up their sleeves and getting involved in the grunt work of missions, relief, and church planting. What we need to do is harness this energy and encourage these young people to be involved, not so we can feel better about ourselves, but so that the name of Jesus Christ can be heard and cherished by every tribe and tongue and nation
   
•  Denominational Involvement. Some young pastors said the reason they’re not more involved is because they really don’t know what’s expected of them. There really doesn’t seem to be a need for them. Ben Holland noted there’s no clear pipeline of how they can get more involved. There are no exciting openings for them to jump in and help out. Thus, they remain on the fringes. I think that many state associations could do a much better job of identifying and encouraging young leaders to serve in their association. Give them a job and let them loose! I personally have been blessed to help our Inland Empire Association in many ways, such as helping in their Summer Missionary orientation program, hosting a regional Sunday School training workshop, and teaching a seminar at the Equipped for Excellence conference. But I get the impression most other associations are not this proactive. I also think the state convention as a whole needs to find more opportunities for young leaders to be involved: helping plan  regional programs, assisting with our annual On Target and Tsunami conferences, serving on our boards and as officers, and assisting at the annual meeting. Walter has already begun to strongly emphasize this, and I hope our next state convention president will do much the same. Meanwhile, the younger pastors need to attend denominational events enough to build quality relationships and make themselves available for use.

Our next open forum will be at First Baptist Church of Beverly Hills at 11 am on July 22. Hope to see you there!