- Courageous’ ‘Snake King’ challenges men at Brooksville church
- Straight talk with Pastor Michael Catt about the movie ‘Courageous’
- Q&A with Robert Amaya, AKA Javier Martinez, the ‘Snake King’
- Hialeah couple featured in week of prayer for North America
- 2012 AAEO Prayer Guide
- Gifts to Annie
- First Baptist Plant City to host State Evangelism Conference
- ‘Iron Sharpens Iron’ men’s rally designed to draw non-believers
- Florida Focus
- House leader says casino bill ‘dead for this year’
- Latest Stories...
RSS News Feed (What is it?)
By JAMES A. SMITH SR.
Executive Editor
NORTH PORT (FBW)—Florida Baptists will be asked at their state convention annual meeting in Pensacola Nov. 9-10 to authorize an “imagine if dream team” to study how to do the Great Commission more effectively in the Sunshine State, according to Florida Baptist State Convention President John Cross.
In an Oct. 21 interview with Florida Baptist Witness, Cross said like the Southern Baptist Convention authorized in June a Great Commission Resurgence Task Force (GCRTF) to study how the national denomination can be more effective in fulfilling Jesus’ missionary mandate, Florida Baptists need to engage in a similar effort.
SBC President Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Ga., appointed a 23-member GCRTF that met for the third time Oct. 26-27 in Dallas.
In the telephone interview, Cross also confirmed his intention to seek re-election as FBSC president next month in Pensacola.
A motion authorizing a GCR-type task force to be appointed by the FBSC president will be offered by David Uth, pastor of First Baptist Church in Orlando, Cross said.
 |
Cross’s announcement of the prospective motion at the FBSC comes a week before a scheduled Oct. 29-30 meeting in Tampa of Cross and former FBSC presidents created by the State Board of Missions in May to study the Florida Baptist Convention.
The study committee was recommended by John Sullivan, executive director-treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention, in response to the April release of a “Great Commission Resurgence Declaration,” which became the basis for the SBC action in June.
The SBOM-authorized study is to “review every facet of the convention and bring recommendations back to the State Board of Missions for further discussion and recommendation to the Florida Baptist State Convention,” Sullivan explained in suggesting the review.
Both Cross and Sullivan told the Witness the scope of the FBSC presidents’ study and a prospective GCR-type study are different.
“The former presidents is a one time meeting,” Sullivan said in e-mail comments provided by the Convention’s Public Relations Division director Don Hepburn. “The Task Force will look at ways to improve doing the Great Commission in Florida.”
Hepburn told the Witness nine former presidents and Cross have confirmed their intention to participate in the Tampa meeting.
Sullivan said a report of the FBSC presidents’ meeting will be made to the Nov. 9 SBOM meeting and to the FBSC annual meeting as part of the SBOM’s report.
Sullivan declined to offer an opinion about the merits of a Florida GCR-type task force.
Cross expressed frustration that the group of presidents has not met, although authorized in May, in contrast to the SBC GCR Task Force authorized in June which has met twice, with the third meeting this week.
“I think there’s an urgency on the national level. And I believe there’s an urgency on the state level from the grassroots that we need to do something,” he said.
Cross, pastor of South Biscayne Church in North Port, said a “number of leading pastors” and “pastors in general” have told him they are “very much in favor of the idea, very supported of the idea, excited about the idea” of a Florida GCR study.
Even with the FBSC presidents’ study, which is “coordinated through the Florida Baptist Convention staff offices,” Cross said a GCR-type study is needed because it will be led by the “body of Florida Baptists” rather than “those employed by the denomination.”
Although he does not yet know who he would ask to chair the prospective task force, Cross said he expects to serve on panel, as Hunt does on the SBC GCRTF.
Cross said the task force will likely be composed of 18-20 persons, a “broad representation of Florida Baptists” in terms of age, ethnicity, gender and style of churches.
So that “there’s not any type of drain on the Florida Baptist Convention budget,” those who agree to serve on the task force will be asked to pay for their own expenses, he said.
“The main thing is about the Great Commission. How can we better be missional here in Florida and also get the name of Jesus to the unreached people groups of the planet,” Cross said.
The prospective task force, Cross said, needs to ask three questions of Florida Baptists’ Great Commission efforts:
What is successfully fulfilling the Great Commission? Those things should be sustained.
What is being done that may be good but is not missional? Those things should be stopped.
What is not being done that needs be to fulfill the Great Commission? Those should be started.
“Just like we’re studying on the national level those types of issues as a denomination, I believe here in Florida we need to ask those same questions,” Cross said.
Cross said the idea for a study of Florida Baptists’ Great Commission effectiveness is a “vision that God birthed in my heart actually before” the emergence of the SBC GCR movement.
At least one other state Baptist convention is considering a similar study, according to Cross. The president of the Georgia Baptist Convention, Bucky Kennedy, will seek the creation of a GCR-type task force at its annual meeting, Nov. 8-10, he said.
Cross also confirmed that he will seek re-election as FBSC president, although he did not yet know who would nominate him for a second term. The Witness is unaware of any other potential candidates.
A story about Cross’s expected nomination will appear in the Nov. 5 issue of the Witness.
You must be login before you can leave a comment. Click here to Register if you are a new user.