Is there a generation gap in the Southern Baptist Convention?
An ongoing conversation involving pastors and leaders across the generational spectrum suggests that a denominational disconnect does exist. What to do about it remains up for discussion.
A 2008 study of attendance at SBC annual meetings showed the percentage of messengers in the 18-39 age group steadily declining since 1980 – the early days of the SBC’s conservative resurgence – and dropping sharply since 2004. The percentage of messengers in the 60-plus age group has increased dramatically since 1980, while the attendance of those under 40 has declined more than 50 percent.
Cold hard facts – but, for some, an unmistakable signal.
Peter Beck, assistant professor of religion at Charleston Southern University, writing in The Baptist Courier a few weeks after the 2008 annual meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, said the average age of attendees appeared to be at least 60. “Our annual gatherings have become age-graded, and we’re failing the test,” he said.
“We need to identify and enlist (not reward) the up-and-coming leaders who will lead our denomination for the next 30 or 40 years – while the giants of our recent past still walk the earth and can mentor their replacements,” Beck said. “We must remember that the future of the Southern Baptist Convention is not in the past.”
SBC president Johnny Hunt and SCBC president Rudy Gray both have said they want to see a greater proportion of younger Southern Baptists represented in leadership ranks in the denomination. In fact, Gray has made it a priority in the lead up to the SCBC annual meeting in November.
“The South Carolina Baptist Convention is multigenerational,” Gray said. “We need to look at ways to make our meetings more reflective of our multigenerational composition.” While the annual meeting is not the only measure of denominational work, it is a strategic one, Gray said, adding that he and SCBC planners are crafting a “different environment” for this year’s annual meeting. “Our emphasis will be on the family,” he said, “and that, by nature, encompasses all ages.”
Gray also said it is his “prayerful intention” that the SCBC’s Committee on Committees will appoint a slate of leaders who will be a “true multigenerational representation” of the SCBC.
Denominational Disconnect?
“The reality is that younger people are not as involved as those over 40 at our annual meetings,” Gray said. “The real question is why? As we discover answers to that question, our challenge is to seek God’s guidance in making the needed adjustments so that we can be genuinely more multigenerational.”
In an e-mail query, the Courier recently asked ministers under age 40 to discuss the relevancy of the denomination to their day-to-day ministries.
Douglas Mize, 39, minister of evangelism and outreach at Taylors First Baptist Church, said he was 29 when he attended his first SCBC annual meeting, where he observed that he was among the youngest present. “Unfortunately,” he added, “at age 39 I will still be among the youngest ministers.” Mize, who has been active in denominational work, recently serving on the teller committee for the SBC annual meeting, said he sees the convention as a “useful tool” for evangelism and missions, but a tool that may need sharpening. Still, he said he remains optimistic that “our best days are ahead as we identify ways to support and proclaim the gospel without distorting its supreme message.”
Billy Baugus, 41, youth and children’s pastor at First Baptist Church, Wagener, said Southern Baptists “spend way too much time stuck in the past” and that 1950s-era Sunday school and traditional worship services are no longer effective in reaching what he calls the “now” generation. “We must be willing to change our ways and bring the word of God in relevant means to this generation,” he said.
Brad Ferguson, 38, pastor of Tega Cay Baptist Church in Fort Mill, echoed Baugus’ call for fresh methods for reaching people with the gospel. Ferguson said he favors using small “evangelistic home groups,” in which church members invite unchurched neighbors into their homes for Bible study, as a way of “discipling people into salvation.”
Dwayne Morris, 40, minister of evangelism and discipleship at First Baptist North Spartanburg, said the SBC is “way behind” in providing resources to young leaders. “One need only search for church leadership conferences on the Web to discover that young leaders are looking for avenues to be challenged as leaders and build networks for day-to-day support,” he said. “Young leaders don’t have time to wait for annual assemblies.” Morris said one way denominational relevancy can be measured is the availability of “quality resources” that are quickly accessible.
Will Browning, 31, a North American Mission Board church planter and pastor of Journey Church in Summerville, said many of his generation are “flocking” to voices outside the convention for ministry direction from those who “seem to have a true desire to see our generation succeed. I fear that if the convention doesn’t try to attract the current generation, then in the coming decades the cupboard – is going to be bare – leaving our beloved convention impotent.”
Hans Wunch, 36, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Ware Shoals, said he believes the Cooperative Program is “the greatest vehicle for getting funds to areas of need,” but that the CP is “undervalued by our leadership, under-supported by our churches and not understood by the average lay person.” Wunch, a former South Carolina Pastor’s Conference vice president who has served on key SCBC committees and currently is a member of the Executive Committee, said the Cooperative Program has “lost focus,” pointing to a decline in giving at a time when giving has risen for missions-specific offerings like Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong. Even though the SBC has “won the war for the Bible, some of the soldiers have unspent ammunition and are continuing to find targets in brothers in Christ,” Wunch said.
Bridging the Gap
D.J. Horton, pastor of Anderson Mill Road Baptist Church, a growing congregation in Spartanburg County, is representative of a crop of young leaders who envision a radically different Southern Baptist Convention – one stripped of institutional restraints – if it is to thrive in spreading the gospel in the 21st century.
He is young, 31, but already he has served as vice chairman of the Executive Board of the South Carolina Baptist Convention and believes that young leaders need to work from within the convention to effect change. “You can stand outside and throw rocks, or you can get inside and be involved,” he said. “There’s room under the tent for a lot of different guys and lots of different methodologies and ministry philosophies.”
Horton said he has not experienced push-back from his elders, men who he says were “reaching people when we were in diapers” and deserve respect and honor. “I believe there is a strong desire among the older leaders to get the young guys to the table,” he said. “I have never felt that my voice wasn’t heard. I’m finding people who want to talk.”
One of the things he wants to talk about is moving past the mid-20th century denominational model of building and growing institutions. He envisions a Southern Baptist Convention that is instead fully focused and financially invested in a network of church-planting movements around the world.
“When you see the fastest growth of Christianity in the world today, what you find is a loosely joined organization of church-planting movements,” he said. “We’ve got to move away from institutionalism and into a very mobile, very fluid church-planting, disciple-making, pastor-producing group of people who come together because we share a passion for evangelism.”
“What we’ve got to recognize is that people in my generation do not write checks to institutions anymore,” he said. “They give to visions. We’ve got to recast that vision and show them what we’re doing. There may be some wonderful ministries that had a tremendous season of influence, but their season may have come to an end, and we need to move in a different direction.”
Horton said he sees the Cooperative Program as a powerful tool for evangelism. “I believe in the Cooperative Program,” he said, but added that it has a “self-defeating problem” because with its creation in the early part of the 20th century, there was also created a “disconnect” between the local church and the international missionary.
Horton believes the Southern Baptist Convention will “never look the way it did” in the middle part of the last century. However, the self-described optimist believes the SBC can still be “one of the largest, most conservative evangelical denominations in the world and continue to reach people.”
“What we used to do and what we’re going to do are different. How quickly we realize that, and start having those conversations and engaging young guys who are intelligent and who bring something to the table, will determine whether or not we make the turn.”
‘Carrying Forward’
“We are an aging denomination, and we need the involvement of younger people,” said Gray. “The older generation needs to welcome them in, and the younger generation needs to carry forward the commitment to Christ within our denomination that is characteristic of our history.
“We need each other in order for our denomination to survive and, hopefully, thrive. But, most of all, we need people at whatever age who are committed to Jesus Christ and devoted to obeying his truth in this age.”
In his Courier article, Beck wrote: “In light of the past, we must admit that what our elders so valiantly fought to accomplish (the “conservative resurgence”) is simply too valuable to trust to just anybody. But trust is what we must do. Thankfully, we have good reason to trust the next generation.
“These young men and women are, as the apostle Paul reminded Timothy, our children in the faith. They have to come to Christ under our watchcare. They have been discipled in our churches. They have been trained in our seminaries by a cadre that was hand-picked by the leaders of the ‘resurgence.’ They are, in essence, second- and third-generation disciples of our current leadership. Until we embrace these sons and daughters in the faith, our denomination will waste vital energy and time protecting us from us. We don’t have time for that.”
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