I am only going to write a very brief post on this and get back to work on crunching some numbers for my 9 to 5. I have followed the twitter stream throughout the afternoon and listened to the live feed when I could. I read a few moments ago that the Great Commission Resurgence has passed. Praise God!
Literally take a moment and praise God. If you haven’t read the Great Commission Resurgence document then you really should read it. I signed it when I heard what the first article was. It reads as following.
I. A Commitment to Christ’s Lordship. We call upon all Southern Baptists to submit to the
absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ in all things at the personal, local church, and
denominational levels. (Col. 1:18; 3:16-17, 23-24)
Scripture is clear that Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Therefore, Jesus Christ must be our passion
and priority and we should aspire to both know Him and love Him more fully. We must long to
see Him have preeminence in all things. We desire to see a Convention of Christ-centered,
“Jesus-intoxicated” people who pursue all that we do by God’s grace and for His glory. We
believe we need the ministry of the Holy Spirit to lead us into a new and fresh intimacy and
communion with the Lord Jesus that results in greater obedience to all that He commands.
Christ’s Lordship must be first and foremost in a Great Commission Resurgence or we will miss
our most important priority and fail in all of our other pursuits.
To be fully candid I am not always on the same terms as the SBC. I am working through a few things that are making me reflect on my commitment to continue to be a part of the SBC. That is another series of post entirely. I was greatly encouraged when I read this document and I believe it should be adopted by every denomination that truly loves God and is being used by Him.
If the SBC were to adopt the radicalness of the Lordship of Christ in all things then it may go through a real and lasting revival. It would cause two things to occur. First many of the unregenerate in the pews would either have to admit their state and fall before the thrown of grace or leave the pews. Second it is likely a revival would break out and many people would come to Christ.
The Apostle Paul said that to be saved of Jesus that one must “confess with their mouths and believe with their hearts that Jesus is Lord.” Imagine if the largest Protestant denomination in the US where to do this. It would be amazing.
I am very glad that the SBC voted to adopt this resolution and even that it appointed a task force that will see how to make this happen across the denomination. The SBC being built up of autonomous churches could make the application of this commission very hard to accomplish. Southern Baptist like most modern evangelicals are fiercely independent of outside bodies telling them what to do in their local autonomous congregations. The design of the church hierarchy is more American than Apostolic but nevertheless it is the case for the current SBC and likely will present the greatest obstacle to accomplish the tasks of the Great Commission Resurgence.
The fact that it passed is a great sign of hope for the SBC. The time of celebration needs to end now though and the serious hard work of making it happen has to begin today. If it does not start today then it will be looked back on in history as nothing more binding and transforming of the SBC then the official “Disney boycott” of 1997. It will have made everyone feel good for a moment but ultimately it will prove to have been a waste of everyone’s time and worse yet resources diverted from expanding the Kingdom of God. May God forbid that from happening. Let the work begin. If you are a Southern Baptist read the document and ask God how you can help make it happen.
Possibly related posts:
- thoughts of a book title against Brian McLaren
- Reflections from Reinhold Neibuhr
- Ever wanted to read one of the great works of Western Civ?
- NT thoughts on OT problem books
- 7 Great Things to be thankful for since 1997