Barnabas File

At various times, I have used this blog to point to the changing face of denominationalism in the 21st century. One example came across my desk this morning. This is the time of the year when Baptist churches present their budgets for the coming year to their congregations for adoption. Often these proposals are published in the church newsletter and released to the world. One such church newsletter came in the mail today that included the church’s proposed 2009 budget. The item that stood out for me was the change in the amount allocated for “cooperative missions.” This is the amount (usually a percentage of projected budget gifts) that the church intends to send to a denominational group to support missions. This may be the Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, or some combination of the two and their respective state organizations. In so doing, the church relinquishes the control of these funds to another body—a convention, a fellowship, or a missio...

I have had the opportunity to work with a couple of churches that were trying to clarify who they were and what they should do. In both cases, the first thing the pastor said was, “We have done a survey.” This action is not unusual in churches in their situation, but I have found that a written survey is not always the best step to take initially. Here’s why. First, a survey produces information, but this is often information in a vacuum. Without some preparation and understanding of the context, how does one know what questions to ask? Trained researchers start with a hypothesis, then they determine what questions they will ask. Second, communication comes first. The first step in dealing with congregational issues should always be verbal communication, usually with a small group or groups that are representative of the congregation. In this interpersonal communication, issues may be identified, needs expressed, and the right questions can begin to be formulated. Third, writing ...

In December 1969 I was in the middle of my last year in seminary. I was married with one child and another on the way. Louie Farmer, who had been my Baptist Student Union director in college, invited me to go with him and a group of college students to Mission 70, a missions and ministry conference for college students and young adults scheduled to be held in Atlanta between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Since I was networking (although I did not know that term in those days) and looking for a job in collegiate ministries, I gladly accepted his invitation. A day or two after Christmas, Bro. Louie and I found ourselves in his car on the way to Atlanta with two young African-American women in the back seat. I don’t remember how long that trip from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to Atlanta, Georgia, took but I do remember that the two college students did not get out of the car to eat when we stopped (and I am not sure they ever went to the bathroom) as we crossed Alabama and made our way ...

One of my favorite quotes is, “It is better to have tried something and failed than to have tried nothing and succeeded.” This came to mind as I was clearing out files in preparation for my departure from the Tennessee Cooperative Baptist Fellowship at the end of the year. Although we have developed some successful projects and relationships over the past ten years, I was struck by how many we attempted that did not succeed or result in an ongoing relationship. We have developed a healthy relationship with twelve ministry partners. All but two of these have been included (or are presently included) in our Tennessee Partners in Missions offering. These are ministries whose values and ministry goals match those of TCBF. All are independent of our organization, but they are our friends and they honor us by giving us the opportunity to work with them. On the other hand, there are at least 15 ministries with whom we have tried to establish an ongoing relationship, but this has not developed...

In a recent devotional written for the Smyth and Helwys publication Reflections, Bruce Lampert tells this story about legendary Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. Someone asked Bryant the secret of this success. He pointed out that there was not secret. “I’m just an old plow hand, but I have learned how to hold a team together—to lift some up and calm others down—until finally, as a team, we’ve got just one heartbeat. So there are just three things I would say. If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes real good, you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.” Allowing for a little false modesty on the coach’s part, he has identified a key ingredient to team success—alignment. We may have different gifts and strengths, but we can learn to work together and pull in the same direction. Of course, this means that each of us must be willing to pull our share of the load! The real challenge in any ...

My colleague Mike Young loaned me his copy of Phyllis Tickle’s new book, The Great Emergence , so that I could do a quick scan. The thesis of the book is that we may be experiencing a seismic shift in the nature and practice of the Christian faith. This change may well “rewrite Christian theology—and thereby North American culture—into something far more Jewish, more paradoxical, more narrative, and more mystical than anything the Church has had for the last seventeen or eighteen hundred years.” (p. 162) There is much to consider in this little book, but here is one item that certainly impacts how we operate as Fellowship Baptists. Tickle explains the difference between “center-set” and “bounded set” Christian movements. “Bounded-set” groups define their boundaries. Their rules determine who is in and who is out. “Center-set” groups are doing what they are committed to do and allow individuals to decide how close they are to the center. Traditional churches are “bounded-set” people whi...

During the 2008 Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in Memphis, participants were involved in a discernment process to address the question, “What has God prepared for us now?” Through prayer, discussion, and response to a written survey, they were asked to rank six primary topic areas and 47 specific issues in their importance to the CBF movement. This is one element in a process of planning for the future. A preliminary report produced one very interesting result. The top ranked issue in both discussion groups and the written survey was “invest in young Baptists.” There were other significant responses, but I want to camp here for a few minutes. One reason that this is so interesting is that this has not been the place where the CBF movement has put its greatest emphasis up to this point. Certainly, we have supported theological education, developed the student.go missions program, and partnered with the Passport ministry for youth and children, but these emphases account...