{"id":2706,"date":"2011-09-27T01:00:51","date_gmt":"2011-09-27T07:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2706"},"modified":"2012-03-02T16:17:45","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T23:17:45","slug":"sbc-name-change-silence-of-statesmen-is-deafening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2706","title":{"rendered":"SBC Name Change: Silence of Statesmen is Deafening"},"content":{"rendered":"

“There arises defining moments in our personal lives, our churches, and our
\ndenomination. I believe we are at one of those crossroads.\u00a0 In the
\nfinal analysis we must trust our process, our common goal of bringing the Gospel
\nto the world, and each other.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Who was the Southern Baptist statesman who uttered these words and what was the context within which they were said?\u00a0 None other than Dr. Jim Henry, former Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Orlando and a former two-term President of the SBC, in his endorsement of the GCR<\/a>.\u00a0 During his tenure as President of the Convention, Dr. Henry had occasion to visit Southern\u00a0Seminary and stay in the Seminary’s Guest House.\u00a0 At the time, my wife and I were the hostess and host of the Guest House.\u00a0 During our\u00a02 1\/2 years in that position, we saw many chapel speakers, prospective professors, trustees, and former,\u00a0current, and future SBC Presidents stay in one of the four rooms in this\u00a0two-story colonial home which served as a kind of bed-and-breakfast for really special guests of the Seminary.<\/p>\n

I full-well remember Dr. Henry’s\u00a0visit because\u00a0my wife and I worked\u00a0extra hard to make sure that the Guest House was spotless and that Dr. Henry’s had everything he needed to make his\u00a0short stay as comfortable as possible.\u00a0 The one thing that we failed to do was to make sure that the Guest House television, which had been sent out for repair, was back in time for Dr. Henry’s first night with us.\u00a0 That generally wouldn’t have been a problem, but the Atlanta Braves were in the World Series that year and one of the games was on that night.<\/p>\n

While other guests may have been perturbed\u00a0that there was no working television on which to watch the game, Dr. Henry was the\u00a0epitome of grace.\u00a0 Even after our mortifying (at least to us) mistake,\u00a0the next morning in chapel Dr. Henry took the time to publicly thank us for our hospitality.\u00a0 Not that we were looking for public recognition, but Dr. Henry was the ONLY\u00a0person to so publicly thank us.\u00a0 I say all that to say this:\u00a0 Dr. Henry, in my mind, is one of the real deals.\u00a0 Whether\u00a0interacting with\u00a0him in person or watching his Deacon training material (like our Deacons and I did\u00a0Monday night), Dr. Henry is one of the SBC’s true statesmen, a Godly man who\u00a0walks the walk and talks the talk and treats all people with grace, dignity, and respect.<\/p>\n

Another statesman is Henry’s fellow Florida Baptist pastor, Bobby Welch, former Senior Pastor of FBC\u00a0Daytona Beach and also a two-term President of the Southern Baptist Convention.\u00a0 When I served as an Associate Pastor at FBC\u00a0Poinciana, FL,\u00a0we took a group to Daytona Beach for FAITH Training.\u00a0 While there, I had the opportunity to meet Pastor Bobby.\u00a0 Later, when I was serving as Pastor of Grundy Baptist Church,\u00a0a church affiliated with the Baptist General Association of Virginia, Bobby Welch,\u00a0on his Presidential “Everyone Can” tour,\u00a0stopped by the Virginia Baptist Mission Board in Richmond\u00a0to meet with\u00a0BGAV\u00a0Executive Director John Upton.\u00a0 It would have been easy for\u00a0Pastor Bobby\u00a0to avoid talking to Dr. Upton, the leader of a state convention that many SBC elites have open disdain for, but he took the time to encourage the churches of the BGAV, churches which continue to\u00a0support CP and the SBC\u00a0Missions Offerings with millions of dollars each year.\u00a0 With his\u00a0passion for evangelism and his strong support of the Cooperative Program, Bobby Welch is another man\u00a0who is not afraid to take\u00a0principled and courageous stands, despite the cost.<\/p>\n

There are undoubtedly other senior SBC statesmen who I could name, but\u00a0both\u00a0Jim Henry and Bobby Welch epitomize\u00a0the very best\u00a0in Southern Baptist leadership, from the local church pastorate to the Presidency of the nation’s largest Protestant\u00a0body.\u00a0 If there was ever a time when we needed statesmen-leaders to take to the stage in the life of our Convention, it is now!\u00a0 Apart from his GCR endorsement prior to the June 2010 Orlando Convention and his interview with Baptist Press\u00a0in the days leading up to that same Annual Meeting<\/a>,\u00a0Jim\u00a0Henry and Bobby Welch, respectively, have been silent, at least publicly, about the\u00a0ever-expanding radical changes that threaten to divide\u00a0the churches\u00a0of the SBC.<\/p>\n

During 2010, both Jim Henry and Bobby Welch saw the Convention at a crossroads.\u00a0 The GCR\u00a0crossroads will be minor compared to the crossroads we are headed\u00a0for in New Orleans.\u00a0 What sets GCR\u00a0Part I apart from GCR Part 2 (a.k.a., the Name Change “Study” Task Force)?\u00a0\u00a0Quite simply, the current process has been abused in an unprecedented and unconstitutional <\/a>way by the ruling elites within the Convention who do not think that the rules apply to them.\u00a0 Those in power, who have apparently forgotten that they were once part of the rank-and-file, now\u00a0believe that they can bring about unity\u00a0by trampling upon the rights of grassroots Southern Baptists.\u00a0 Perhaps they need to be reminded what Bobby Welch said just last year<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Without a doubt, when churches have that wide, deep and sacrificial level of support overall \u2014 they will, of course, respond more favorably and quickly to things that process by way of their base and commitments.\u00a0 Understanding this fact is exactly why I, for two years, practically lived out in that huge SBC environment via bus, car, plane, foot, etc. That, in turn, created an extraordinary grassroots groundswell for something near and dear to their hearts. It was also directly helpful immediately to their personal calling and task at their local church for reaching and discipling lost souls.\u00a0 To most on the field, this grassroots path is viewed and appreciated as a very sharp contrast to what they consider to be the so-called \u201ctop down \u2013 our idea\u201d approach.\u00a0 The grassroots road is a road less traveled but it is the only path to our only hope \u2014 which is \u201cunity of purpose\u201d for the sake of lost souls! (emphasis added)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When our leaders use a “top down — our idea\u00a0approach” to implement an illegitimate process which\u00a0will likely result in a recommendation — after only nine months of “study”\u00a0— to change the name of the SBC, grassroots Southern Baptists will not only distrust the process, but will\u00a0distrust those who\u00a0have so irresponsibly forced more radical changes on an already weary people.\u00a0 We stand at the crossroads once again.\u00a0 It is far past time for the SBC’s statesmen-leaders to rise up publicly and say to\u00a0those in power, “Enough is enough!\u00a0 For the unity of purpose for the sake of lost souls, stop the\u00a0mad rush\u00a0towards\u00a0the radical redefinition of the SBC before the division is too far gone!”\u00a0 So far, the silence is deafening.\u00a0 But, the grassroots Southern Baptists are\u00a0waiting.\u00a0 Which statesman\u00a0will speak up before it’s too late?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“There arises defining moments in our personal lives, our churches, and our denomination. I believe we are at one of those crossroads.\u00a0 In the final analysis we must trust our process, our common goal of bringing the Gospel to the world, and each other.” Who was the Southern Baptist statesman who uttered these words and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,35,37,1],"tags":[117,142,172,3372,1382,1383,1385,433,454,3383,465,555,1384,1381,868,3401,3393,921,1386,1387],"class_list":["post-2706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-great-commission-resurgence","category-religion","category-southern-baptist-convention","category-uncategorized","tag-baptist-general-association-of-virginia","tag-bgav","tag-bobby-welch","tag-cooperative-program","tag-first-baptist-church-of-daytona-beach","tag-first-baptist-church-of-orlando","tag-first-baptist-church-of-poinciana","tag-gcr","tag-grassroots","tag-great-commission-resurgence","tag-grundy-baptist-church","tag-jim-henry","tag-john-upton","tag-name-change-study-task-force","tag-sbc","tag-sbc-name-change","tag-southern-baptist-convention","tag-southern-seminary","tag-statesman","tag-top-down-approach"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-HE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2706"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3199,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706\/revisions\/3199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}