A telephone survey conducted recently by the respected Barna Group of 600 senior pastors revealed that the ministers were more concerned about outreach and evangelism than they were about getting their members to give more money.
KirklandThe results of the survey might be viewed as surprising and pleasing, given the tenor of the times as churches struggle to make ends meet financially with banks foreclosing on a record number of religious facilities – some 200 of them – since 2008.
When asked in an open-ended question what areas of church life they would like to see developed or to grow during the next year, 46 percent of them pointed to outreach and evangelism. Only 3 percent of the pastors mentioned stewardship or giving.
Also, according to the survey, 32 percent of the pastors said they wanted to develop or grow specific areas of ministries at their churches, citing most often ministry to children and youth.
The survey does not necessarily indicate any trend. It does offer encouragement that a goodly number of pastors sense what is important for the church to do, with assurance that money will follow mission.
The poll of pastors is particularly a positive sign, given the Great Commission Resurgence that is in its formative stages in the Southern Baptist Convention and among the various affiliated state conventions.
The departing words of Jesus – “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you -” – are echoing around the SBC and the SCBC as implementation becomes the key to success in the GCR endeavor.
As conventions, associations, churches and individuals comply with the “Go” command of our Lord, we can, and should, expect an increase in baptisms. If more baptisms say the right thing about those who are immersed, an important first step will have been taken toward discipleship. But only a first step.
A disciple is, by definition, a learner. This is why the Great Commission follows up baptism with the holy directive of teaching.
“A Question to Answer” was the title of a column that appeared in the Portraits publication of Arizona Southern Baptists. It was written by Steve Bass, who leads the Arizona Baptists.
He was a temporary associate pastor at his home church in Oklahoma at the time. The pastor was ill, so Bass agreed to step in for him at a baptismal service for “an older teenage girl who had prayed to receive Christ and make Him the Lord of her life.”
Following the Sunday evening celebration of baptism, Bass walked to the back of the church to turn off the lights and lock the doors.
“And there she was,” he wrote, “the same teenager I had baptized 20 minutes earlier. Dressed in her fresh set of dry clothes and with wet hair, she was ready to walk out into the night. I began by congratulating her on her baptism, and then she dropped the question: ‘Preacher, what do I do next?’?”
“For the life of me,” Bass wrote, taken aback by the question, “I froze. All that education, all those Greek verbs I could conjugate, all those missiologists I could quote, all of those church statistics I would give – and yet, at the all-important question of a baby Christian, I froze.”
“I wonder,” he pondered, “if our churches haven’t frozen.”
“Okay,” he concluded, “so have your church answer the question. A new baby in Christ is standing before you and asks, ‘So, what do I do next?’ Well?”
For churches and for individuals who seek to be obedient to the Great Commission, this is no time to “freeze up.” It is a time for rejoicing when anyone of any age confesses Jesus as Lord of his or her life.
But then what?
To answer that, the ultimate goal of any new believer is to become more like Christ day by day in a process that never ends for any of us on this earth. And this gives rise to another question: How does that happen? What does it look like?
It is the responsibility of the church and its members to accompany and encourage “baby Christians” of any age along their sometimes confusing, and often disappointing, journeys of faith. They must struggle, with more or less success, to live dynamic lives loyal to Jesus, serving their church and their communities and giving consistently of their time and other resources – all the time developing spiritually.
Baptizing converts to Christianity will add to our church rolls perhaps, but it will not alone make disciples. We cannot minimize the importance of baptism. But baptism must be followed by teaching that leads to obedience to what Jesus said for us to do. If we do not get both parts right – believer’s baptism and Christian education – the result will be churches filled with ineffective members who will remain “baby Christians” and therefore immature disciples of our Lord.