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"Helping Louisiana Baptists Impact the World For Christ"

Chuck Kelley on the state of the SBC (Pastors’ Task Force)

By Dr. Chuck Kelley In 2013, only three years after the GCR proposals were adopted, Al Gilbert, NAMB Vice President for Evangelism, convened a task force of twelve pastors and five denominational workers to take yet another look at the issue of steadily declining baptisms. The group sought to examine carefully the state of evangelism in Southern Baptist churches, to identify whatever problems might be at play, and to ask how those problems could be addressed. Pastors’ Task Force on SBC Evangelistic Impact and Declining Baptisms (2014) The group assessed key Great Commission statistics, sharing honestly the evidence indicating the regression of evangelism in the SBC. They found clear indications that SBC churches were experiencing a crisis in making an evangelistic impact on their communities. The task force did not refer to the GCR proposals, the God’s Plan for Sharing initiative, or any other previous approach to SBC decline in their report. Without elaborative details, the Task Force concluded that five problems were driving decline in the Southern Baptist Convention: Southern Baptists had a spiritual problem (need for revival), a leadership problem (need to model evangelism), a discipleship problem (lack of intentionality), … [Read more...]

Chuck Kelley on the state of the SBC (Great Commission Resurgence)

By Dr. Chuck Kelley In 2009, SBC President Johnny Hunt appointed a task force, chaired by Ronnie Floyd, to consider how to generate a Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) in the Southern Baptist Convention. As noted last week, the term “Great Commission Resurgence” was first used at the SBC by NAMB President Geoffrey Hammond in his report to the 2008 Convention as he announced the launch of the National Evangelism Initiative that became God’s Plan for Sharing. There was no connection between that usage of the term and what Dr. Hunt proposed. The GCR name was intended to evoke images of the movement known as the Conservative Resurgence, which produced the most profound changes in SBC history, transforming the theological direction of the SBC and its entities. The Great Commission Resurgence, dealing with SBC decline, bears no resemblance to the Conservative Resurgence in either method or outcome. The Great Commission Resurgence (2010) The Great Commission Resurgence proposal received far more time and attention in Southern Baptist life, both before and during the 2010 Convention meetings, than any of the other approaches to the evangelism crisis, more than all the others combined. There is one simple reason for the dramatic … [Read more...]

Chuck Kelley on the state of the SBC (Evangelism)

By Dr. Chuck Kelley In 1906, the SBC voted to create a Department of Evangelism to be placed under the umbrella of the Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board). Its purpose was to provide encouragement, strategies, and resources for evangelism to Southern Baptist pastors and churches. From that day until this, the Convention has expected the North American Mission Board to take the point in promoting evangelism in Southern Baptist life. In the face of growing decline and perhaps in part as a result of the enormous attention to evangelism created by SBC President Bobby Welch, NAMB prepared what was intended to be a massive evangelism initiative involving every level of the SBC. In the words of NAMB president Geoffrey Hammond to the 2008 SBC meeting: “This National Evangelism Initiative is a huge task, and we are praying that this will be a part of a Great Commission resurgence” (Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention, 2008, p.184). God’s Plan for Sharing (2008) Through the years, the Board perfected ways to mobilize SBC churches for national evangelism campaigns with significant success. All those lessons learned were incorporated into an effort to create the largest and most comprehensive evangelism initiative … [Read more...]

Chuck Kelley on the state of the SBC (Bully Pulpit)

By Dr. Chuck Kelley With the dawning awareness of the decline creeping into Southern Baptist churches came a slowly growing determination to turn things around. Over the next two decades, five distinctive approaches to ending the decline were undertaken. Each approach was unrelated to the others, a factor which may have affected their effectiveness. These approaches were: the SBC president’s use of his position as a bully pulpit to emphasize evangelism (2004-06); a National Evangelism Initiative (2008); the Great Commission Resurgence (2010); the Pastor’s Task Force on Evangelistic Impact and Declining Baptisms (2014); and the Evangelism Task Force (2018). What follows in this and future blogs is a brief description and assessment of each approach in an effort to discover what we can learn about how to help the diverse and loosely organized churches of the SBC find ways to reach their communities for Christ and begin to grow again. The Bully Pulpit (2004-2006) The instinctive response of Southern Baptists to major issues and challenges has always been to address them through preaching. The President of the Southern Baptist Convention traditionally preaches more widely and more often to a greater number of Southern Baptists each … [Read more...]

Chuck Kelley on the state of the SBC (Origins)

By Dr. Chuck Kelley The Southern Baptist story to date can be summarized in three words: growth, plateau, and decline. In 1845 in Augusta, GA, individual Baptist churches from across the South came together to form a Convention of churches that would hold two conflicting realities in permanent tension: true congregational autonomy for every church and deep missional cooperation to prepare ministers and fulfill the Great Commission. After the ravages of the Civil War, Southern Baptists grew steadily until World War II. After World War II, the growth became explosive, driven by aggressive evangelism and even more aggressive discipleship, making Southern Baptists the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. The growth began slowing in the sixties, although baptism numbers did not peak until the Jesus Movement in the early seventies. In spite of the Jesus Movement spike, the period of plateau had begun for Southern Baptists, and from that point the statistics began to flatten out. The numbers moved up and down, but the peaks were lower and the valleys more frequent. The days of steady, continual growth were over. I suggest the turning point from plateau to decline can be traced to the year 2000, when records indicate a … [Read more...]