Will It Git’r Done?
by Steve Scudder, Director of Missions

On June 15, messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Orlando, Florida, took a historic vote in an attempt to change the way we “do” missions. In 2009, Southern Baptists gave Convention President Johnny Hunt permission to appoint a 23-member Great Commission Task Force. The task force was formed in response to downward trends including reduced baptism statistics, declining revenue and differing ministry philosophies among Southern Baptists. The task force was to find ways for Southern Baptists to “work more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.”

The recommendations put forward in the report were designed to realign Baptist resources and efforts to be more effective in impacting lostness throughout our world (click here to read the full report of the Great Commission Task Force).  The report was presented and amended before being approved by an estimated 75% of the messengers present and voting.

But the question remains: Will the approved proposal make an impact on our efforts to fulfill the mission of Christ (Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:46-48, John 20:21, and Acts 1:8)?

The report was not without controversy. While it gave honor to the Cooperative Program, it created a new giving category called Great Commission Giving. This category seeks to celebrate other areas of giving to Great Commission causes other than the Cooperative Program (specifically the annual mission offerings for NAMB and IMB, giving to state conventions, and giving to Baptist associations); the elimination of Cooperative Agreements between Baptist state conventions and the North American Mission Board (covenants that establish the amount of CP that stays in that state and how state conventions and NAMB will work together in missions within each state); call for NAMB to focus on church planting, developing evangelism strategies, and commit more resources to larger, unreached urban areas; and allow International Mission Board missionaries specializing in certain people groups to minister to members of those groups living in North America as well as those overseas.

Most of the controversy around the GCR Report centered on what some perceived as an attack upon the Cooperative Program. Many felt that honoring designated giving, transferring CP promotion from the Executive Committee to state conventions, and reducing the amount of CP gifts retained by state conventions would combine to decrease focus upon and the significance of the CP. It was feared that the consequence of these changes would be a step back to societal missions giving. This was the approach to missions fund raising prior to the establishment of the CP in 1925. In this approach, missionaries would leave the field once or twice each year to personally fund raise.

An amendment from the floor, however, reasserted the importance of the CP and alleviated most fears. The amendment stated that Southern Baptists "continue to honor and affirm the Cooperative Program as the most effective means of mobilizing our churches and extending our outreach" and that "We affirm that designated giving to special causes is to be given as a supplement to the Cooperative Program and not as a substitute for Cooperative Program giving."

Having been approved in Orlando, the GCR recommendations go to the appropriate SBC boards and committees to determine how they will be implemented.

Will implementation of the Great Commission Resurgence accomplish its intended goal of decreasing lostness in the world, unite a philosophically-fractured SBC, and increase financial resources to areas of our country and world where there is little or no Gospel presence?

Outgoing SBC Executive Committee President Morris Chapman likened the GCR task force’s report to “moving the chairs on the deck of the Titanic while the ship goes down into an icy, watery grave” in his final Executive Committee report prior to the presentation and discussion of the GCR Report. To some extent, I agree with him.

I embrace the GCR’s call to get more funding to areas where there is little or no presence of the Gospel. I agree with the task force’s assessment that NAMB needs an overhaul and that we need to empower the interaction between missionaries who serve an unreached people group outside the US and those reaching the same group within the US. We must see a church-planting movement that arises out of the harvest of new disciples across North America and around the world!

For the GCR to succeed, however, we must experience something that the GCR failed to seek: a change of heart that comes only from the movement of the Holy Spirit among a people totally surrendered to God.

It is my opinion that the reason we see declining baptisms and missions support is that Southern Baptists practice missions as a church program that they can choose to give to in order to send someone else. The Bible, however, teaches that once we have surrendered our lives to Jesus as Lord, WE will carry out His mission by BECOMING missionaries.

Until we recognize that Christ’s mission of reconciliation is the responsibility of EVERY believer and that EVERY disciple is called to be a missionary, we are just rearranging existing furniture on the ship we call church.

I challenge you in your quiet time with God to ask

·         Why over 80% of believers have NEVER shared their faith with a nonbeliever? When was the last time you shared your testimony with a nonbeliever?

·         When was the last time your church commissioned a missionary or someone who surrendered to the call to the ministry or a mission team? Why has it been so long? When was the last time you participated in as well as gave to a mission endeavor?

·         How much of your church budget is focused on Sunday morning activities as compared to efforts to carry the Gospel beyond the walls of the church building?

·         Why is it that whenever we hear sermons and challenges to go make disciples like Jesus commanded, our actions end with giving rather than going?

In agreement with the GCR Report, let me say we must begin to give sacrificially to carry out Christ’s mission and we must make sure we and our leaders are using those resources effectively. But in 30 years of service to Christ’s mission, I have discovered that missionaries never need to be begged or coerced to give sacrificially. However, I have noticed it takes powerful persuasion to get mission-supporters to personally live like missionaries.

Let’s you and I live like missionaries, following Jesus in all He asks, and equipping other disciples to join us on Christ’s journey. Then I think we will experience the kind of resurgence Southern Baptists are praying for!