{"id":902,"date":"2010-10-06T05:00:55","date_gmt":"2010-10-06T11:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=902"},"modified":"2010-10-06T05:00:55","modified_gmt":"2010-10-06T11:00:55","slug":"the-gcr-never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=902","title":{"rendered":"The GCR: Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou never want a serious crisis to go to waste \u2014 and what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you didn\u2019t think you could do before.\u201d\u00a0 <\/strong>Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama<\/p>\n

There are almost 7 billion human inhabitants of planet Earth. At the most generous estimate, somewhere around 1 billion are believing Christians. That means that over 6 billion people are lost, without Christ, and thus without hope. Of these 6 billion, over 3.5 billion have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Over 6,000 people groups are without any Christian witness. There is no way that Southern Baptists can make real progress toward reaching these unreached people groups unless we experience a genuine Great Commission Resurgence. We must see a tidal wave of evangelistic and missionary passion, or the numbers of unreached people groups will only grow, and lostness will spread.<\/strong>\u00a0(Urgency: A World of Lostness\u00a0from GCR Final Report)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just a few short years ago, after the back-to-back elections of two strong, cooperating Southern Baptists — Bobby Welch and Frank Page — as Presidents\u00a0of the\u00a0SBC,\u00a0who would have thought that the\u00a0Convention’s ruling class\u00a0would put into motion such radical changes that will not only lead to the slow death of the Cooperative Program<\/a>, but will inevitably\u00a0lead to the end of the Southern Baptist Convention as we now know it.\u00a0 In recent days, I have become increasingly concerned about the direction and future of the Southern Baptist Convention.\u00a0 While some may think that I and others are alarmists\u00a0for daring to point out where the GCR — if fully implemented as written\u00a0and followed to its logical conclusion — will lead us, I seem to recall that there were folks back in the heyday of the CR that were not afraid to sound the alarms when they saw our great Convention headed toward dangerous waters.<\/p>\n

In the mad, rushing current of change — which is the\u00a0essence of the GCR — I find it curious that people who are otherwise conservative — Biblically, Theologically, Culturally, Politically, Socially, Fiscally, Religiously, etc.\u00a0— are suddenly acting like radicals when it comes to the future of the Southern Baptist Convention.\u00a0 And, so that I am not misunderstood, I think that we always have to be radicals for Christ as we “present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all the nations <\/em>(Component One:\u00a0 Getting the Mission Right from GCR\u00a0Final Report).”\u00a0 I don’t think that you would get that much argument from\u00a0Southern Baptists, including this one, that there is a crisis in our nation and world — the vast lostness of people — that necessitates all of us to recommit and refocus upon the Great Commission, both individually, as churches, and as a Convention of cooperating, autonomous churches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I address the radicalization of the SBC,\u00a0I’m talking about the political agenda that is at play across the SBC landscape, from our missions agencies and seminaries to the Executive Committee and our Baptist State Conventions.\u00a0 What was billed as an effort to help all Southern Baptists more effectively carry out the Great Commission in\u00a0actuality is being used to radically transform the Southern Baptist Convention into a “fellowship” or “movement” of more independent, less cooperative churches.\u00a0 Are there problems with the Cooperative Program that need to be fixed so that we can do missions and ministry better?\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 Do State Conventions need to look for ways to be better stewards of God’s money that has been entrusted to them through CP?\u00a0 Without a doubt.\u00a0 Can Southern Baptists at every level make changes — both spiritual and structural — that will help us to be more faithful in our Gospel witness?\u00a0 Yes!<\/p>\n

But, here’s the rub.\u00a0 If you didn’t know any better, you would think that the SBC establishment, not known for their admiration of President Obama, has taken a play out of his playbook.\u00a0 After all, never let a crisis go to waste.\u00a0 In the aftermath of the economic meltdown that began in 2008, one of the major pieces of legislation that President Obama and his allies in Congress wanted to enact was comprehensive health care reform.\u00a0 After much arm-twisting and shady backroom deals and broken promises of transparency, enough votes for passage of the Health Care Reform Act were secured in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives and signed into law by President Obama.<\/p>\n

Because the bill itself was over 2,000 pages long, almost no one knew (or knows) what is in it.\u00a0 Every day, we are learning more and more about the consequences of this major health care overhaul.\u00a0 And, most of what we are hearing is not good, at least if you are a small-government fiscal and social conservative.\u00a0 The conservatives in Congress — mostly Republicans — were not against health care reform.\u00a0 Almost everyone, both\u00a0inside and outside of Washington, understands the need for change in our nation’s health care system, including insurance and tort reform.\u00a0 But, conservatives saw as unwise the Federal Government’s takeover of a sector that accounts for 1\/6 of the U.S. economy.\u00a0 To most conservatives, the comprehensive Health Care Reform Bill was not only an unwise expansion of the Federal Government, but also a radical departure from the constitutional philosophy that has made this country great.<\/p>\n

Now, ask yourself these questions:\u00a0 Why is the SBC establishment, who I would venture to guess is almost universally opposed to the radical changes that will be brought about by the Health Care Reform bill, advocating and implementing such radical changes within the Southern Baptist Convention?\u00a0 Why\u00a0are the ruling elites within the Convention so determined to\u00a0have\u00a0the SBC undergo\u00a0an extreme makeover in such a short period of time?\u00a0 If this “Great Commission Giving” doesn’t pan out, what is\u00a0Plan B?\u00a0 (Oh, that’s right.\u00a0 There is no Plan B.)\u00a0 I could go on and on with questions, but you get the point.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

At its heart, the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force’s Final Report was not so much about “how Southern Baptists can work more faithfully and effectively together<\/em>” (its\u00a0official\u00a0authorization from the Convention),\u00a0as it is about the methodological philosophy that seeks to radically reprioritize\u00a0and redefine what it means to be a cooperating Southern Baptist.\u00a0 From\u00a0the weakening of CP through “Great Commission Giving” to\u00a0the election of Kevin Ezell\u00a0as NAMB\u00a0President to\u00a0certain Baptist State Conventions recommending their own version of the GCR\u00a0(including a “50-50 split of CP funds) to the “considerable changes” coming to NAMB\u00a0to the as-yet-unnamed IMB President, the momentum for radical change continues to grow with each passing day.<\/p>\n

The SBC establishment, including the GCR\u00a0Task Force, gained what they believe was a major victory when messengers to the SBC Annual Meeting in Orlando voted to approve the Final Report and Recommendations.\u00a0 Perhaps it was.\u00a0 Or, maybe the victory was merely pyrrhic.\u00a0 Either way, there is a crisis in our Convention.\u00a0 And for grassroots Southern Baptists,\u00a0we simply cannot\u00a0waste time\u00a0sitting back or being silent as the momentum for radical change accelerates!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou never want a serious crisis to go to waste \u2014 and what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you didn\u2019t think you could do before.\u201d\u00a0 Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama There are almost 7 billion human inhabitants of planet Earth. At the most generous estimate,…<\/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":[10,24,37],"tags":[129,3372,433,434,454,583,728,822,3392,868,3393,996],"class_list":["post-902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooperative-program","category-great-commission-resurgence","category-southern-baptist-convention","tag-barack-obama","tag-cooperative-program","tag-gcr","tag-gcrtf","tag-grassroots","tag-kevin-ezell","tag-north-american-mission-board","tag-rahm-emanuel","tag-religion","tag-sbc","tag-southern-baptist-convention","tag-transparency"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-ey","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902","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=902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}