Barnabas File

The messengers from First Baptist Church, Jefferson City, Tennessee, will not be seated at the annual meeting of the Tennessee Baptist Convention because they have called a woman as “senior pastor.”   According to the organization’s constitution and by-laws, this means that First Baptist is no longer a “cooperating church” although they still send funds to the state convention.   Of course, the church’s members also have the option of supporting other Baptist organizations as well.   This process is an expression of the Baptist principle of congregational autonomy. After 140 years of relationship, the convention is leaving the church.  Some have responded to the church’s desire to continue to cooperate with other Tennessee Baptist churches through the TBC as “ridiculous” and “co-dependent.”  They fail to understand several things about Baptist churches in Tennessee. First, believe it or not, members of a congregation have different opinion...

Tennessee Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is celebrating its 25 th anniversary this year.   I had the opportunity to serve as the coordinator of TCBF for slightly over 10 years.   So far, that is a record but one that I hope the current coordinator, Rick Bennett, will surpass. Both the state and national incarnations of CBF continue to evolve.  When CBF was born, Dr. Bill Leonard made a comment, “This is a difficult time in American life to be part of a denomination or to start a new one.”  CBF has skirted around the use of the “D” word in recent years.  Executive Coordinator Suzii Paynter has used the term "denomi-network" to describe CBF.  The terms “network,” “partnership,” and “fellowship” continue to be the preferred descriptors.  Most participants in CBF life seem to prefer a bit of ambiguity in describing the group and their relationship to it.  This allows for churches to continue to have multiple affiliations while still p...

Cecil Sherman, the first coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, said, “The son comes up at different times for different people.”  He was commenting on that fact that not everyone perceived the changes in Baptist life in the south at the same time and was leaving the door open for other Baptists to join the Fellowship movement. I have been reminded of this recently as friends who have continued to support traditional Baptist structures in our state have found themselves cast aside because they do not agree with the predominant agenda being pursued by those entities.  Twenty years after many Baptists, including myself, turned their backs on the old way of doing things, they are ready to move on.  The sun has come up for them.  I applaud their decision and identify with the grieving process they are going through. At least one acquaintance has suggested to me that this is a good time for Fellowship Baptists to take advantage of this disillusionme...

The story goes that a politician was once asked where he stood on an issue.  He responded, “Some of my friends are for it. Some of my friends are against it.  I’m for my friends.”  I thought about this story when I read the news reports about the latest annual meeting of the Tennessee Baptist Convention held in Memphis.   Many of my friends still find their place of denominational service through the state Baptist convention, so I am always interested in learning how they are getting along. The report in the Baptist and Reflector , the TBC paper, stated that the meeting had “the lowest messenger count in decades”—926 registered messengers from 419 churches.  (There are 3200 churches affiliated with the state convention in Tennessee.) This is even more surprising when one considers that about one-tenth of those registered were probably denominational employees (including directors of missions from 66 district associations). Editor Lonnie Wilkey su...