The New Methodists Reflections on the SBC Today

The New MethodistsReflections on the SBC Today

Dr. Chuck Kelley

In 1945 SBC Baptized 257,000In 1955 SBC Baptized 417,000

WOW!

Farmers need land

(church planting)

Climate

(decisional preaching)

Farmers plant Seed

(Personal Evangelism)

Farmers cultivate after planting

(Biblelationships)

Farmers harvest

(Revival Meetings)

The Key:Not Methods

SBC Genius the InTeGraTeD

Process

Had a GREAT Process!

Land = Church PlantingClimate = Decisional PreachingPlant = Personal EvangelismCultivate = Sunday SchoolHarvest = Revival Meetings

Old McBaptist, with

The SBC Way of Doing ChurchUnconsciously

Embodied the Biblical Process of Sowing and Reaping

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase

(1 Corinthians 3:6)

In 1945, SBC Baptized 257,000In 1955, SBC Baptized 417,000

Since 1955, SBC has never

baptized 450,000

What Happened to the Farm?

Southern Baptists are a Harvest-Oriented Denomination

Living In the Midst of an Unseeded Generation

But Now I Say:

We are more like Gardeners working the Window Boxes

than Farmers working the Fields

We are the Grandchildren of Farmers

Keeping Harvest Stories Alive Over Coffee & Dessert

at Family Reunions

Methods Not Crucial Issue

Bible speaks little of methods

Fire, Oven, MicrowaveAccomplish Same Purpose

Tasks always Outlive Methods(Even Yours!)

Money Not Crucial Issue

1906 – Created Evangelism Department with NO Budget

1936 – Relaunched Evangelism Department with ONE Person

1945-55 – THREE People in Evangelism Department

Gospel’s Power Not Crucial Issue

Angola Prison–Worst Setting–Worst Prospects–Awesome Results

Discipleship the Crucial Issue

The farmer, not the harvest, is the root of problems in SBC Evangelism

1. We are not Anointed• Conversion – Work of the Spirit• Revival – Work of the Spirit

Neither Conversions Nor Revival

Typical SBC Churches

We are Distracted • By a quest for Methods• By Theological Identity• By Fiscal Restructuring • By Uncertainty

Today we are more like a driver in unfamiliar territory than a racer roaring down

the track.

3. More ImportantlySouthern Baptists are Becoming the

New Methodists

I Love Methodists!Key Role in Two Awakenings

Evangelized American FrontierHoly Living a Core Value

Taught SBC about Harvesting

Today’s MethodistsEvangelism and Missions

Greatly Diminished

Behavior Blending with Culture

Greatest Theological Fight Over Normalcy of Homosexuality

Setting Records for Decline

SBC as the New Methodists• Universalism Settling into our Pews• Tolerance Overtaking Conviction• Behavior Blending with Culture• Plateau Becoming Decline

Since 1983 I have been saying

70% of SBC Churches are plateaued or declining

If Traditional Measurement of Growth Used in 2007

Number of Growing Churches Same

Number of Plateaued Churches Smaller

Number of Declining Churches Larger

8,765 (28.0%)

8,765 (28.0%)

13,323 (42.6%)

13,323 (42.6%)

8,765 (28.0%)

9,174 (29.3%)

Our Great Commission momentum as a Convention

has vanished.

SBC Discipleship Process1. Sunday Night Program2. January Bible Study3. Periodic Study Courses4. R.A.s/G.A.s/Youth Camp

ETC.

In era of our greatest growth typical SBC churches had more

discipleship activitiesthan evangelistic activities

We were discipl-istic

The Biblical Worldview that unconsciously inspired Church as Farm in SBC Life is like the baton for the USA Men’s Relay in the Beijing Olympics

That Biblical Worldview Inspiring Evangelistic Discipleship

DroppedBetween SBC Generations

We neither maintained nor reinvented discipleship

process. While others run the race, we need a fresh

grip on the baton of a dicipl-istic worldview

Put Another Way:We put so much emphasis

on how our way of Doing Church

affected the LOST, we failed to notice how it was

affecting the SAVED

Changes made for church to be more welcoming to the unchurched, but little done to make evangelistic discipleship more desirable to believers

The most significant and influential death in the

modern history of the SBC was the death our

Discipleship Process

The defining characteristic of Southern Baptists at our best

is a passionate evangelistic discipleship

We refused to let go of one in order to pursue the other

When we loosened our grip on one to strengthen our grip on the other, we ultimately weakened our

grip on bothDRAMATICALLY

We do not knowWho We Are

The World does not knowWho We Are

Lost friends, neighbors do not knowWho We Are

Our problem is not that more of us don’t witness to our

neighbors. Our problem is that more of us do not

look like and live like Jesus.

If we do not produce children, youth, and adults

who live out a biblical worldview, no strategy for doing church will make us salt and light in the world

Southern Baptists are not losing our voice

We are losing the Distinctiveness of our voice in the

music of today’s culture

The Lesson

Aggressive Evangelismwithout

Aggressive Discipleshipwill eventually

undo itself

The Most Crucial Issue inSBC Evangelism Today isReinventing a Process for

Spiritual Maturity involving

children, youth, and adults

We need discipl-isticchurches!

Is there more to SBC problems than this?

YES!But there is at least this!

We are BecomingThe New Methodists

2 Chronicles 7:14-15 ESV

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

2 Chronicles 7:19-20 ESV

“But if you turn aside...Then I will pluck you up from my land… and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight...”

In times past God has worked through our SBC Churches in a mighty way

In times present God is not working in a

mighty way through our churches

If we do not repent now, only one question remains:

To what wall will our children return to weep and remember

the glory of what the SBC was?