An amended Great Commission Resurgence report passed easily yesterday at the annual Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, FL. With the passing of this report the SBC begins a season of change and prayerfully progress in strengthening our denomination. The amendment was to article 3, the most controversial article in the report. This is where the giving as accounted to SBC churches was to be changed from Cooperative Program giving to Great Commission giving, giving many concern that designated giving would weaken Cooperative Program giving. The amendment added language to strengthen the position of the Cooperative Program and satisfied many concerns.
So now what. Well, now comes the actual implementation of the report. In other words, now comes the difficult part. The GCR Task Force was challenged with making recommendations to re-focus the convention toward us more effectively fulfilling the Great Commission. This task force, whom I respect for the challenge they undertook, was not tasked with working out the details. That will fall the the Executive Committee, NAMB, IMB and other SBC entities. These folks are now the ones who are faced with the real challenge of seeing this vision work.
Before this meeting I predicted there would be division, and there was. I'd like to commend my brothers and sisters in Orlando on how they handled this division however, as from what I could tell from watching, although passions were great the debate remained very civil. I said that a spirit of compromise would be needed, and we saw that on the amendment of article 3. But the possibility as the reality of this report takes hold for more division is still present. Many still have legitimate concerns on how state and local associations will be affected by a shift in monies away from existing SBC strongholds and to areas of the nation where the SBC is not a real presence through NAMB. Many are concerned about increased bureaucratic redundancy. Many are still concerned about decreased Cooperative Program giving.
But now is the time to give this report, and the people challenged with implementing it a chance. Will there be some glitches, obstacles and unintended consequences, absolutely. But we as a convention need to unite behind this vision and allow the people empowered with implementation to work through these problems sure to arise. To continue to debate and question what is now SBC policy will not be productive.
This does not mean we should shy away from input, and raising questions. They just need to be raised in the right way. This is still a very challenging time for us as Southern Baptists as the hard work has only begun. There will be some fundamental changes in how we approach things from here on out and anytime there is change, frustrations can mount and tempers can flare. The old saying goes, "the devil is in the details." Well, plenty of details now need to be worked out. It could be painful for many, but, this is now our convention, and we now need to work together to make this work.
One thing is for sure: as a denomination, we needed a little shaking up. The way we were doing things was not working as we'd have liked. In my heart I still believe that it is our hearts that need change far more than our organizational structure, but that is up to each of us individually. This report sets an aggressive path to reach people for Jesus. If our hearts are right with God, it will work. If they are not, we'll be back at the drawing table some years down the road, still searching for the answers. As much as we prayed for GCR, we need to double that effort now as the implementation begins. We still have a long way to go, and unity will be a large part in reaching where we all desire to go; reaching the world in a more effective way.
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