Great Commission Resurgence: Rewinding the Tape by Peter Lumpkins

  Robert Reeves has served since 1998 as the communications director for the Kentucky Baptist Convention following previous service with the Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children (now Sunrise Children’s Services) and Connie Maxwell Children’s Home (the children's ministry of South Carolina Baptists). Reeves background is in professional journalism (//link).

As a vocational writer, he offers interested Southern Baptists a taste of history leading up to the roaring twenties when Southern Baptists were convinced God had placed in their hands the explicit responsibility to gospelize to the ends of the earth. How better to do that, they reasoned, than a cooperative effort. Hence, the birth of what we all know as the Cooperative Program.

In a four-part series, Reeves documents a representative portion of the interaction--both pro and con concerning the CP--which took place among Southern Baptists (links below).

What strikes the reader is the indisputable likeness of the rhetoric from as far back as 1913 surrounding the "Efficiency Committee" and the rhetoric now surrounding the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force.

A rewinding of the tape, if you will...

In language familiar to those who recall Dr. Danny Akin's now infamous remark toward state conventions as "bloated bureaucracies," Dr. A.T. Jamison, then president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, referred to looking to the Cooperative Program as a means of doing well-defined missions as "denominational machinery."

Moreover, Jamison went on to lament the lack of focus on the local church the CP was creating.  Our young brothers at B21 could very well identify with Jamison's lament.  They appear to be suggesting the GCRTF will restore missions back to the local church (//link).  Many of us curiously wonder when missions left the focus of the local church.

Of further interest--particularly in light of Dr. Al Mohler's absolute assurance to the 2009 SBC messengers that the task force he was moving to be appointed would only be interested in asking questions about being more efficient with CP monies, not changing the structure of the CP or the SBC--was Jamison's insistence he was not advocating any change in the way the CP had been established. 

Jamison insisted:

“Nor shall I even assert that certain changes should be made to our present plans...My effort to is to call attention to certain principles.” 

Finally, to those ever insisting today "denominationalism" robs the world of more  and more missionaries, Reeves comments,

'Supporters emphasized that there were missionaries ready to go to the field who were unable to go because of the lack of funds. “Scores of young people, feeling the leading of God, have prepared to go and carry the gospel to all the world” but are “compelled to remain at home,” one author wrote in questioning Baptists’ commitment to the foreign mission field.'

Apparently, the Foreign Mission Board was continuing to solicit even more monies from churches to be given directly to the Board apart from CP funding.  The old societal approach to giving never lacks a ready audience (//link).

Is Reeves on target referring to this as deja vu?

Check out Reeves' entire series below.

With that, I am...

Peter

GCR is Deja Vu All Over Again--Part I

GCR is Deja Vu All Over Again--Part II

GCR is Deja Vu All Over Again--Part III

GCR is Deja Vu All Over Again--Part IV

     

Comments

[Debbie Kaufman]

I agree with this statement made in Part 1.

You might say that Southern Baptists just keep repeating themselves in revisiting the same issues and feel that is a bad thing. I would make the argument, though, that rather than the length of this discussion being a discouraging sign, it is actually an encouraging one. I say this for two reasons. First, just because something was discussed nearly a century ago doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss it now. Circumstances, organizations and generations change and conclusions that made sense at an earlier time may not make sense today. Second, and more importantly, the history is showing that we keep having this conversation because Southern Baptists really love and are committed to missions. I am proud of that continuity. The fact that the reason we want to keep revisiting the way we do things is because we keep wanting to see if there are better ways to obey Jesus’ command to take the gospel everywhere. That’s a very good thing.

I guess I am asking what is your point Peter. All these posts and I am not getting what the bottom line is.