On the SBC

Small church evangelist Les Puryear has had my admiration for a while now. In a church culture that seems at times to shout "Go big or go home!", Les shouts back "House church? I'm up for that!" :) Les is seriously into championing the smaller - ok - the average sized church in the SBC. He's even set up a conference in March to help small church pastors grow. (Les, I'm trying to work it out to get there.)

Recently he wrote a post on SBC Impact that listed some things he'd like to see in the SBC.

I'll list them here, but go read the whole post and the comments.

Things I would like to see implemented in the SBC in no particular order:

* More small church emphasis at all SBC entities and agencies.
* A worship film-making division that would produce worship videos.
* A small church pastor (less than 200 in average Sunday morning worship attendance) be elected as president of the SBC.
* More teaching of practical ministry techniques in seminary, i.e., how to baptize, how to conduct the Lord’s Supper, how to handle conflict in the church, etc.
* Broadman & Holman print a series of books about small church leadership.
* Passing of a Regenerate Membership resolution.
* Revise the method of electing trustees so that rather than voting “yes” or “no” on a nominating committee’s entire list, change it so anyone who wishes to run for the office of a trustee can do so by filing for election similar to the method currently used to elect Town Council representatives. Then the convention messengers can vote for trustees by marking their ballots for each name and the ones with the most votes win. This seems to me to be more democratic than the nominating committee process.
* Spiritual awakening.
* Less storytelling in sermons and more biblical exposition.
* True desire for holiness.
* Love for brothers and sisters in Christ who do not agree with each other on non-essential doctrines.
* More cooperation among local churches rather than being in competition with each other.
* 8,000 IMB missionaries on the field by 2012.
* Pastors live what they preach.
* Explosion of house church planting in the USA.
* Every church member regularly tithing.
* Reaching the lost who are within sight of our church steeples and then reaching the lost beyond that.
* Greater penetration of evangelicalism in the northeast and western parts of the USA.
* The WMU not moving away from the SBC and toward the CBF.

You know, I don't agree with everything Les wrote, but I can sure work with a guy who loves what I love - smaller churches. And rather than hash out the differences, I'm going to make a list of what I'd love to see in the SBC from my context.

* Revamping of the seminaries to make them more pastor - in particular small church pastor friendly. The 30 hour on campus requirement is onerous and nigh onto ridiculous in today's interactive age. It is preventing many people like me from courses and degrees that would help our ministry effectiveness. Train pastors first, not professors.
*Revamp the association and bring back associational missionaries who are church planters and catalysts for action not deck chair rearrangers. In our association we are taking a year to study the need for change when we should be changing now! The DOM being tied to big church money isn't working well for smaller churches.
*Stay out of the newspapers unless you are helping someone. The Richard Land crowd makes me flinch everytime I see their names in print because I know we're about to be outed as "agin'ers". We've stopped being known for what we are for, just what we are against.
*Put some energy, effort, and money into RA's and men's ministries. We are hemorrhaging men. We get programs like men's fraternity that are so expensive and so big church oriented that our guys get tired of trying. Give us a break guys.
*Break the stupid convention into regions. If you want us to actually go, quit tossing darts at a map, look at the cost and timing. Oh and quit deciding ahead of time what we should do when we are there.
*Help us facilitate networks of like-minded churches along missional lines not geographic ones. My church has precious little in common with the FBC down the street but might have a lot with another church 50 miles away. Get Stetzer on it.:)
*Help us train for today's challenges, not yesterday's. We need help with outreach, media, worship, marketing, site selection and maximization. We need training on relational evangelism, or incarnational ministry, not more door hangers and Evangecubes.

I got more, but that's enough for now. I have been an SBC guy my whole Christian life and fought to stay on course when others called. I love the Cooperative Program and our doctrinal distinctives. But we have to keep those while constantly evaluating our methods for effectiveness.