Right Answer - Wrong Question!

Life is always challenging us to make the best investment for the greatest return. Recently the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) invested 12-18 months to produce a statement that basically tells constituent members not to 'play nasty' and denigrate one another in BLOG postings etc.

The statement they produced is irenic in tone. Several obeservations.

1.  The SBC is a Convention of Churches voluntarily working together not a denomination. As such no one has virtually any authority to do anything to anyone who may choose to violate the intent of the statement (and I certainly hope they do not).

2.  The SBC like so many other evangelical organizations is loosing ground faster than a land slide in California on a rainy day.

3. The purpose of the church, every church, is to make disciples. The SBC has no exegetical substantive and operative definition of what a disciple is. What you have not defined you cannot measure.

4. The SBC continues to promote an illusion or an outright lie - they claim to have 16 million members. However, on the best Sunday of the year less than 40% of that number attend services.

The following is a reproduction of an AP article on the current statistics from the SBC.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ Membership among Southern Baptists has fallen slightly for the sixth straight year.

¶   The nation's largest Protestant denomination released in-house statistics Wednesday showing that total membership dropped 0.66 percent in 2012. The annual report prepared by the Southern Baptist Convention's Lifeway Christian Resources and reported by the Baptist Press news service says there were 105,000 fewer Baptists in 2012 than the year before.

¶   Baptisms fell by 5.5 percent after a slight increase in 2011. That's considered a particularly important measure of growth for a denomination committed to evangelism.

¶   The Southern Baptist Convention did add some 270 individual churches in 2012. And the Nashville-based denomination still has nearly 16 million members.

¶   Southern Baptists are gathering next week in Houston for their annual meeting.

Here is a graph projecting the membership in the SBC in the next several decades.

A ski slope in Vail is less acute in the angle of decline. This represents a trend and trends are very very difficult to turn around.

Wisdom would dictate that we ask a different question.

What must be done and NOW to see the churches of the SBC become Healthy and Effective, making disciples fully formed in the image of Christ?

I am not suggesting we ignore the text of Scripture that speaks to the governing principles of our speech and our conduct. I am not saying we should be nasty.

I am saying that unless and until there is a courageous and intentional effort put forth to bring correction to the bad theology that has produced this trend line, it will continue and accelerate. Every aspect of the church is theological. Therefore this is a theolgocial problem and it must be solved by applying sound theological paradigms if resolution is to be achieved.

My prayer and my labors are dedicated to seeing this become a reality. I invite others to join this remnant, and like Joshua and Caleb, take the land.