As Shawn White pointed out, “Tradition is killing the convention, not conservatism” (June 11). I have witnessed this firsthand in my community.
As the wife of a church planter with the South Carolina Baptist Convention, I have found that our communities of lost and unchurched people (yes – right in our own communities!) are not looking for our pious-sounding “I am a Southern Baptist Christian,” nor are they impressed by our religious rituals. What they are looking for are unconditional love, acceptance and grace. You know, the kind that Jesus gives to each and every one who will receive him – not just to the ones willing to belong to the Southern Baptist Convention.
While I am not knocking our convention, I am suggesting that as Southern Baptists, we have often, in our traditional way of thinking, lost sight of the mission that Christ gave us in the first place: to preach and teach and make disciples. He did not tell us to argue and die on a hill for our traditional ways of doing church. He called us to be the church, and to love like he loves.
As for what Jeff Phillips stated about not hiring non-Southern Baptists to work in our churches (June 11): Give me a break! We are not an exclusive club of Christians – although that is what I have seen as I have been involved in and witnessed in many churches that are nothing more than family chapels who do some good things here and there in their community while missing the real opportunities that God gives them to reach the least and the lost and those who are far from God, never missing a beat with their routine, ritual way of doing church.
When will we just decide to do what the Word says instead of arguing over our opinions of who is right denominationally? When will we realize that the term Christian has become synonymous with “good person” in mainstream culture? The time to decide to be Christ followers has come.
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