Today was our first SBC regional forum. Walter Price, Bret Capranica, and I piled into a car together and drove down to East Clairmont Baptist Church in San Diego. There we met up with Blake Withers and several Southern California pastors (and one high school student).

There was no real agenda; just a time to chat about the state convention and learn how we can cooperate more effectively. As our state president Walter Price has said many times, “There are some things we can do better together than we can do separately.” In particular, the way we cooperate in missions, education, and compassion (i.e. disaster relief) seem to be worth preserving. But how do we get the next generation on board? What excites them about our convention? What turns them off? These are the kind of questions we’re trying to answer.

Several good thoughts came out of today’s meeting. We definitely need a more robust church planting strategy, including better training, funding, oversight, and support. We also see major room for improvement in communication, social networking, and online resources.

Several like the idea of associations and state conventions serving the local church more as “clearing houses” of information and resources. These entities do not need to be manufacturers as much as conduits that will connect people and resources together.

Clearly, no one in the younger generation is going to “buy in” to a program simply because it’s got the SBC label. The days of brand loyalty are gone. Now, pastors are consumers. SBC programs are like dishes at the buffet table. Each program will be weighed on its own merits. Some are chosen, while others are overlooked.

Our next regional forum will be in Fresno on May 18, followed by meetings in L.A. on July 22, and both Sacramento and San Francisco on September 16.

If you have any interest in the Southern Baptist Convention and would like to join the conversation, please join us for one of these meetings.

Jerry Rankin, retiring president of the International Missions Board, shares some very candid thoughts on the convoluted priorities and cooperation of Southern Baptists.

Many denominational events and programs have grown aimless and ineffective. Cooperation has become an end in itself, rather than a means to some greater, transcendent end. Rankin writes…

Cooperation is about us; it is self-centered, self-promoting and maintaining everything every entity is doing without any concern for priorities or results. The Great Commission is not about us, our programs and sustaining what we have always done; it is about others. It is about a lost world. It is about consolidating our resources and focusing our energies to proclaim the gospel to those who have never heard, to win the lost and see the kingdoms of the world become the kingdom of our Lord.

As I listen to Rankin’s heart, I honestly don’t think he is ranting. I think he is grappling with the reality that we live in a lost world, where three people are dying every second, and most are going straight to hell without Christ. Rankin is genuinely heartbroken over the lost, and putting our petty denominational bickering into perspective.

I wholeheartedly agree that cooperation is not an end in itself. It is a means to promote something of value. Something exhilarating. Something transcendent. Something Christ Himself commanded us to do while on this earth: to fulfill the Great Commission.

As promised, the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force delivered their Progress Report to the SBC Executive Committee last night in Nashville. You can now watch chairman Ronnie Floyd’s report for yourself, or read the transcript here.

Currently, there are six major components to their report to the SBC:

Component #1: We believe in order for us to work together more faithfully and effectively towards the fulfillment of the Great Commission, we will ask Southern Baptists to rally towards a clear and compelling missional vision and begin to conduct ourselves with core values that will create a new and healthy culture within the Southern Baptist Convention.

Component #2: We believe in order for us to work together more faithfully and effectively towards the fulfillment of the Great Commission, that our North American Mission Board needs to be reinvented and released. Therefore, in order to do this, we will ask Southern Baptists that the North American Mission Board prioritize efforts to plant churches in North America and to reach our nation’s cities and clarify its role to lead and accomplish efforts to reach North America with the Gospel

Component #3: We believe in order for us to work together more faithfully and effectively towards the fulfillment of the Great Commission, we will ask Southern Baptists to entrust to the International Mission Board the ministry to reach the unreached and under-served people groups without regard to any geographic limitations.

Component #4: We believe in order for us to work together more faithfully and effectively towards the fulfillment of the Great Commission, we will ask Southern Baptists to move the ministry assignments of Cooperative Program promotion and stewardship education from the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention and return them to being the work of each state convention since they are located closer to our churches. Our call is for the state conventions to reassume their primary role in the promotion of the Cooperative Program and stewardship education, while asking the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention to support these efforts with enthusiasm and a convention-wide perspective

Component #5: We believe in order for us to work together more faithfully and effectively towards the fulfillment of the Great Commission, we will ask Southern Baptists to reaffirm the Cooperative Program as our central means of supporting Great Commission ministries; but in addition, we will ask Southern Baptists to celebrate with our churches in their Great Commission Giving that goes directly through the Cooperative Program, as well as any designated gifts given to the causes of the Southern Baptist Convention, a state  convention or a local association.

Component #6: We believe in order for us to work together more faithfully and effectively towards the  fulfillment of the Great Commission, that a greater percentage of total Cooperative Program funds should be directed to the work of the International Mission Board. Therefore, we will ask Southern Baptists to support  this goal by affirming an intention to raise the International Mission Board allocation for the 2011-2012 budget year to 51%, a move that is both symbolic and substantial. At the same time, we will ask Southern Baptists to reduce the percentage allocated to Facilitating Ministries by 1% as part of our initial effort to send a greater percentage of total Southern Baptist Convention mission funds to the nations.

A few initial thoughts:

• I commend the task force for their integrity and trust throughout this whole process. By not leaking any of this information ahead of time, they have exemplified the very kind of unity they are urging the convention to embrace.
• I am grateful for their call to repentance over pride, self-reliance, and inefficiency. The Great Commission Resurgence is not merely a pragmatic movement — another clever program to rally behind. It is a spiritual movement that must begin with prayer, a return to the centrality of the Word, and heartfelt repentance of sin.
• I am optimistic about their six recommendations. At this stage, the task force has chosen to focus on general principles rather than specifics. They have upheld the autonomy of each SBC entity and state convention, while giving a new overarching vision and direction to the convention. Have they been bold enough and gone far enough? If these components are passed, it will be interesting to see what changes are made over the next few years, or if people will simply nod their heads in agreement and then carry on with business as usual. It will be important for local churches to keep leaders accountable to the recommendations the GCR Task Force has made.
• I’m very pleased with the idea of releasing the IMB on US soil to engage unreached people groups. This makes very good sense from a missiological standpoint and is good evidence that the GCR Task Force is truly thinking outside the box.
• Perhaps the most immediate and radical change would be the reassignment of CP promotion and stewardship education back to state conventions, and the resulting transfer of 1% CP funds from the Executive Committee to the IMB. This may cause quite a stir amongst some Southern Baptists, but I believe it does set an important precedent. Realigning ourselves around Christ’s Great Commission is going to require us to keep asking the hard questions and cutting funding to areas of overlap and inefficiency. 

As Ronnie Floyd said toward the end, we really have only two choices: “Die a painful death, or live a painful change . . . What our convention chooses to do will determine what God does with this denomination . . . Wilderness wanderings or Canaan conquests.” May God help all of us embrace these changes, and may these be the first-fruits of more improvements in the years to come.

On June 24, 2009, the Southern Baptist Convention voted overwhelmingly to form a Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. Their job: to evaluate the state and structure of our convention, and to find ways we can more effectively cooperate around the gospel. (Here’s a picture I took of the historic vote on my camera phone while in Louisville).

Tonight, we will find out the first details of the Task Force’s report to the convention. Chairman Ronnie Floyd made this announcement late last week.

I am most thankful for the ever growing number of you who are joining us as GCR Prayer Partners. I do not know of any time in our process where we need prayer any more than for our presentation on Monday night in Nashville, Tennessee. Please encourage others to join us as Prayer Partners at www.pray4gcr.com. Again, we need prayer support. On Monday night, I will be giving a Progress Report to the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, as well as to the representative leadership gathered from around the Southern Baptist Convention.

As I deliver this Progress Report, I need your prayers. Many hours of preparation have been spent on writing this report. Preceding this point, our entire GCR Task Force has spent countless hours in meetings, on phone calls, doing research, responding to correspondence, and having personal dialogue with many individuals and groups. The price has been paid to get us to this point of sharing some of our initial vision with you. As we unfold a substantial part of our vision, we ask you to join us with excitement over what God is doing.

We realize that many of you have an interest in hearing the Progress Report. Therefore, if you will visit our website at www.pray4gcr.com on Monday night at approximately 9:30 p.m. CST, we will have the report on video for you. I am going into the studio sometime before Monday so I can share with all Southern Baptists what God has put on our hearts. Once I sit down from making this presentation on Monday night, the video will be online at www.pray4gcr.com. Please share with others that they can view it online.

Finally, more important than anything, let’s pray for God to move mightily on Monday night in Nashville. Gather people to pray for this important night. I humbly appeal to you, please pray for me.

1,000 Thank Yous …

As several have said, all eyes are on Nashville for tonight’s report.

Related posts:

• Charting a course for the SBC
• Jerry Rankin on a Great Commission Resurgence

Today, tomorrow, and Thursday may be three of the most important days in the history of the Southern Baptist Convention. Our Great Commission Resurgence Task force is finalizing their proposals for the Executive Committee. The results of this meeting will without a doubt shape the future of our convention and its support for global evangelism.

Here’s an update from chairman Ronnie Floyd in how we can be praying…

Your Great Commission Task Force has listened to Southern Baptists, gathered as much information as possible, asked the tough questions, gone through volumes of information, and has really sought to hear what Southern Baptists desire to do to advance the Great Commission in our generation. Equally, we have been before God to seek His will. Now we enter the season and the crucible of decision-making. The pressure is on and the test is real. For the past three months, these decisions have been in process, and in our next meeting we will finalize and make many difficult decisions. This is why we need you.

On Tuesday through Thursday, January 26-28, our Great Commission Resurgence Task Force will be meeting for our our most significant moment in this journey. As our process goes forward, we will be presenting our report to the upcoming meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee on February 22-23. While additions or revisions to this report are probable before the final report is made in June at the Orlando Southern Baptist Convention, the release of it in February will give Southern Baptists four months to gain clarity and have their questions addressed.

Therefore, I am asking you to give some concentrated prayer time for this upcoming meeting. Please ask your prayer ministries to pray for us. Our need for prayer has never been greater. Please consider even praying for us during the various segments of our meeting. Our meeting begins on Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. and concludes on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. We will meet in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings of each day. We would appreciate various groups within your church having continual prayer for our GCR Team during these hours.

How can you pray? We need God’s leadership and will to be manifested. We need the wisdom of God regarding every situation. We need complete clarity on presenting our convention of churches a compelling vision for the future. We need to abound in spiritual unity as we move through this significant meeting. We need courage to make the decisions that will truly advance the Great Commission through the ministries of Southern Baptists. We need God’s protection upon our own lives, our families, and the ministries we are a part of, because dealing with major Great Commission issues brings strong spiritual warfare.

Please continue to enlist people to be a part of our http://www.pray4gcr.com prayer team. We have just under 6,000 people who are prayer partners with us daily. We would love to see hundreds more join us in this daily commitment to pray for a Great Commission Resurgence to occur in and through the Southern Baptist Convention.

Additionally, please share with your congregation that Dr. Johnny Hunt, the President of our Convention, has issued a “Call to Prayer” for Sunday, January 31. He is appealing to every Southern Baptist Christ-follower and church to pray for the future of our convention of churches on this day.

May God bless you wonderfully for being our partners in prayer.

Dr. Ronnie Floyd
Chairman, Great Commission Resurgence Task Force