SBC Pastors Conference - A Fresh Wind Blowing!!

Yesterday was the second day of the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors conference. I went into it with modest expectations.  I am here in Louisville with my Director of Missions and friend, Ken Mostella (who is a hole lotta fun to travel with!!!). We both thought it could be good, but it ended great!

I know many of you don’t know the guys I am about to talk about or care all that much about this topic. But I think this is important, and today we have seen the first glimmer of hope for our denomination in quite some time. Here’s what is going on.

The SBC is in decline. Baptisms are down. Membership is down. Giving is down. For more than two years now. If 3 consecutive quarters of negative financial growth means a recession for our economy. Then these two years in the SBC means we have passed plateau and are now in decline. It is time we are honest as a denomination and admit it. 

There are many potential reasons for this. And I really don’t want to start naming names because ALL Southern baptists are at fault, so I would have to list all of us… although that would not take as long as would have two years ago! Anyway, many of our current leaders think that the problem is that we are not as committed to evangelism and missions as we have been in the past. That is a very possible cause for our situation and certainly deserves our attention. In fact, we probably are less committed to evangelism. But the deeper and more important question is WHY????

I think that today’s pastors conference (SBCPC) may shed some light on the answer for us. 

The SBCPC is designed to encourage our pastors with speakers from our convention (mostly other pastors). There were a total of TEN sermons preached over the last two days. The theme this year was on unity of mind, love, spirit, and purpose. The lineup of speakers was varied and quite good. 

But here is the thing. It is usually only attended by a bunch of old guys who have been coming to this thing for 50 years, and the attendance has been dropping over the years because young guys were bored or in some ways ostracized because of their youth. 

The pastors conference this year was VERY well attended. In fact, I saw more young guys like myself today, than I have in previous years. I don’t know that there were more of us , but it seemed like it. It seems to be a fresh wind blowing in the makeup of the convention. 

This is so important because the leadership of the SBC is really ancient. From the perspective of many of the younger generation, myself included, it seems to just be a network of the good ol’ boys who still insist on doing things the way they have always been done. 

And now… we’re declining. All things must change. A question was posed today by Ed Stetzer, “When will the pain of staying the same over come the pain of change so that we will act?”

Ouch! We have been doing the same thing since 1954… “A million more in ’54!” was our battle cry in order to increase Sunday school enrollment. Well, guess what? We now have 16 million members, but we can’t find 10 million of them on Sundays. So, we accomplished our goal, but we didn’t do anything with it. 

Here’s where the preaching yesterday was so telling. 

The day concluded with David Platt, pastor of Brook Hills here in Birmingham, and Johnny Hunt, SBC president and pastor of Woodstock Baptist in GA. 

David went first. His sermon was… AMAZING!!! If I had to grade it I would give it a 99.5% with a slight deduction because I know he is not perfect, so there must have been something wrong with it!!! He walked to the pulpit in a suit, which I have never seen him in btw. Without any fanfare and with all humility he quotes about 4 psalms… not 4 verses; 4 whole psalms!!! I recognized 149 and 150 for sure, but there could have been even more. The point though was that we are to praise the LORD!!! Wave after wave of powerful Scripture washed over us beating our hearts into submission before God’s glory… then as we have been simultaneously humbled and exalted up into the glory of Christ, he starts his sermon. He is SO humble! You can truly feel the Spirit of God working and moving. 

The psalms are not even his text! He reads Hebrews 13:11-14. I will spare you the play by play recap of the whole thing, but the question he asked us was “Do want to die in your religion or die in your devotion?” He used Numbers 13 to illustrate. This is the story of the spies going into the promised land and how Israel responded. 

His point was that Israel retreated from their mission… and they died wandering in the desert. So, are we going to retreat from our mission? Or are we going to repent, and risk everything to die taking the gospel to the nations?

He went on about how DESPERATE the world is for the Good News of Jesus! 

Even before he finished, we are all so humiliated over how easily our selfish materialism has reigned in our hearts and prevented us from finishing our mission. 

His application was simple… Are we going to repent and be faithful to that which God called us? 

Most of us were too stunned to respond as he walked off the stage, staggered by the conviction of the Spirit.

We sang a song that I can’t even remember, then Johnny Hunt took the stage.

What Dr. Hunt said was true enough, but you could immediately sense that something was different.  There was not the same gravitas or weightiness that David’s sermon had. I don’t like speculating about a preacher’s heart or holiness, but it certainly seems that David was “anointed with the Spirit” while Dr. Hunt’s sermon seemed very… ordinary. Every time he tried to wow the crowd with some cliched line, it fell flat. Oh, there were a couple of half-hearted “amens” sprinkled throughout, but it just did not have the same impact. And when it came time to conclude, he went round and round having some trouble landing. At least three times he said, “Now this is my final point” and when the crowd would not get all emotionally moved by his “final” point, he would just try another one. He eventually concluded after there were some sniffles over the story of his brother’s conversion. 

I am not trying to criticize Dr. Hunt. He has a great ministry and has been a good president. But he and his friends have had their time leading the convention. It is time for some new faces, especially ones that preach the Word in spirit and power. 

This is what I THINK we have been missing. Not to question anyone’s love of God, but it seems that we have been a convention of bureaucrats and politicians more than a gathering of passionate worshipers of Jesus Christ. I want to follow men who are burning white hot for GOD, not burning hot for the COOPERATIVE PROGRAM. And yes, there is a BIG difference. 

There was definitely a passing of the baton last night. David Platt and others like him are the future of our denomination. I hope the guys handing it off will let go so they can run with it.