Simon Cox Blog: The Future of Southern Baptist Evangelism: A New (Closing) Series

Monday, 13 June 2016

The Future of Southern Baptist Evangelism: A New (Closing) Series

The math doesn't lie: Southern Baptists need new evangelistic momentum.

Cultural challenges

A negative view of engaging culture, and being negatively viewed by culture, remains a thorn to SBC effectiveness. And, to be honest, some leaders have exacerbated this problem.

Many think being on the front line of the culture wars for decades is "fighting for the faith." There are things worth a fight, but we've sure found a lot of fights to wage.

For many of our neighbors, our warring is interpreted as being against them. You can't reach a people and war with a people at the same time.

As of yet, we've not made it to the point where we have, as SBC Executive Committee President Frank S. Page has suggested, become known for what we are for rather than what we are against.

Yet, we simply cannot continue building walls between ourselves and the culture, then castigate people on the other side for not climbing over.

That means our churches need to change, and part of that change has to be a renewed emphasis on evangelism.

Effective evangelism

The fact is, we seem to have lost our passion for evangelism. Baptists love evangelism as long as somebody else is doing it.

Baptists love baptisms so much that we named our denomination after them. Yet, there are fewer and fewer. Evangelism, and the baptisms that flow from Gospel proclamation, must be our focus again or we need a new name that does not involve the waters of biblical baptism.

And, yes, that evangelism has to change in some ways, and innovation and change are just not bad things, Southern Baptists.

The Gospel needs to be proclaimed, and Southern Baptists need to get more serious about proclaiming that same Gospel in new ways.