SBC overwhelmingly approves GCR task force

Jun 30, 2009
JAMES A SMITH SR.
Executive Editor

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (FBW)—Southern Baptist Convention messengers June 23 overwhelmingly approved a motion authorizing their president, Johnny Hunt, to appoint a task force to study how Southern Baptists can work “more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.”

The motion was the culmination of months of discussion across Southern Baptist life prompted by a 10-point “Great Commission Resurgence” declaration issued April 27 by Hunt and Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, calling Southern Baptists to greater commitment to Jesus’ missionary mandate.

The motion was offered by R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and an early backer of the GCR declaration.

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The opportunities for advancing the Gospel are unprecedented and many Southern Baptists are looking for a visionary missions challenge, Mohler said as he spoke on behalf of his motion.

“We are looking at an unprecedented set of opportunities before us, especially when it comes to reaching the world for the Lord Jesus Christ. We sense from our churches an incredible desire to be even more active in the task of getting the Gospel to the ends of the earth,” Mohler said. “It’s the task of this generation to be responsive both to the opportunities that are before us and to the conviction and commitment of our churches. We need to set that passion loose and in this generation Southern Baptists will either move greatly ahead or we will fall more tragically behind.”

CHALLENGE Bobby Welch, the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee's strategist for Global Evangelical Relations, reports to messengers at the SBC. Welch, pastor emeritus of First Baptist Church in Daytona Beach, and a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, originated the FAITH evangelism strategy. BP photo by Van Payne

Although some had expressed concerns before the annual meeting that the task force proposal was targeted at reorganizing convention structures, Mohler asserted, “This is not an effort to reinvent the Southern Baptist Convention.”

There is “absolutely no reason to fear asking that question [about how to be more effective in obeying the Great Commission],” Mohler said. “We have every reason to feel an excitement and an enthusiasm about asking in every single generation, indeed in every season, is there more we can do and can we do even more if we are more faithful in the task of deploying the conviction and the passion of Southern Baptists in service to the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Noting that the Southern Baptist Convention was organized in 1845 “for the solitary purpose of getting the Gospel to the ends of the earth,” Mohler declared: “There is a generation ready and waiting to be challenged to do something great for the cause of Christ. I say we take this opportunity.”

Jerry Nash, director of missions of Harmony Baptist Association and member of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Fort White, spoke against the motion, asserting the decline in baptisms reported by Southern Baptist churches could be attributed to a rise in Calvinist convictions.

The task force is a “waste of time, funding and other resources,” Nash argued, because it ignores the “obvious” that Southern Baptists are experiencing decline, like the Primitive Baptists before them, because of the growing influence of Calvinism in the SBC.

“Southern Baptists no longer agree on what is the Gospel. Does God love everyone? Did Jesus die for everyone to have an opportunity to be saved? Calvinist and Calvinist-sympathizers are in positions of leadership at every level of our denomination,” he said.

“Calvinism splits families, churches, and associations. And it will either kill or split the Southern Baptist Convention. Thirty years ago we learned that it takes a long time to turn the direction of this denominational ship. We also know that it takes a long time to sink it. But we’re taking on water fast,” Nash said.

“There’s a lot of issues upon which we disagree and still cooperate. But if we cannot agree on God’s plan of salvation, we’ve got real problems. The real question to ask is, how can we expect evangelical, Baptist churches to continue to support and fund a denomination which is distorting God’s plan of salvation? As we become more like the Primitive Baptists, the ultimate question for us is, how can we expect God to continue to bless Southern Baptists if we no longer believe that God does love everyone and that Jesus died so that everyone would have the opportunity to be saved?”

Frank Page, pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., and immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said although “my soteriology [doctrine of salvation] may be closer” to Nash’s than to Mohler’s “this issue … rises above any single theological contentious issue.”

Page has published a book, Trouble With The TULIP, which critiques Calvinism. Mohler affirms a Calvinistic understanding of the doctrine of salvation.

Like the SBC Peace Committee appointed during the height of the “conservative resurgence” to “stand out from and outside the agencies and ask questions to those agencies, that time again is now,” Page said.

Ron Wilson, messenger from First Baptist Church in Thousand Oaks, Calif., offered a substitute motion requesting the North American Mission Board and International Mission Board “investigate how Southern Baptists could more effectively and efficiently carry out the Great Commission” and bring recommendations to the SBC meeting in Orlando next year.

“We have two agencies already with requirements from this denomination. They already have the ability to do this. We don’t need the extra expense and another committee to do this. We can ask them to do it,” Wilson argued.

Mohler argued against the substitute motion because it “is basically asking [NAMB and IMB] to do the job they’re already assigned to do without recognizing the bigger issue is how we’re going to get them what they need to do the job. And I think that’s the responsibility not of the boards but of this convention and it is to this convention that we deliver that challenge.”

James Rodgers, messenger of Popular Spring Baptist Church in Iva, S.C., spoke in favor of the substitute motion, noting Southern Baptists already have the “tool for the Great Commission. It’s called the Bible. Get our people out of the pew. Messengers, pastors that’s what we’re called to do. I don’t think we need any help from a task force, even with great respect to you, Dr. Hunt.”

A motion by Tom Ascol, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, seeking to end debate on the substitute amendment passed overwhelmingly.

Messengers then overwhelmingly rejected the Wilson substitute motion.

Ending the debate on the Mohler motion, Jarrett Stephens, associate pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Tex., urged messengers to support the GCR task force “for the sake of the younger generation and the future of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Great Commission Resurgence.”

Stephens said he and many other younger pastors came to the annual meeting to support the GCR movement.

“We’re here because we were saved in Southern Baptist churches. We were called to preach in Southern Baptist churches. We were trained in our Southern Baptist seminaries and now we are working in Southern Baptist churches. Our heroes are Southern Baptist pastors and missionaries. We love the Southern Baptist Convention,” Stephens said.

Frustrated young pastors, Stephens said, “ultimately and in reality … want more than anything else is to be about something bigger and better and greater than ourselves. And if I can be so honest, something bigger and better and greater than the Southern Baptist Convention. That is, the Great Commission.”

Messengers overwhelmingly approved Mohler’s motion establishing the task force.

Parliamentarian Barry McCarty, overseeing the proceeding from the platform, said “Wow,” when the ballots were raised in support of the motion.

McCarty later told Florida Baptist Witness about his reaction to the vote: “All of us on the platform were amazed at the GCR vote. I can’t remember a contested motion ever passing by a 90-95 percent affirmative vote.”

The motion calls for the task force to study the issues and bring their report, along with any recommendations, to the 2010 SBC annual meeting, June 15-16 in Orlando.

With additional reporting by Baptist Press.

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