This past week, I was standing outside of our convention’s annual Pastor’s Conference when I heard that all too familiar alert from my Treo letting me know that I had a new e-mail. I pushed the e-mail button and noticed that there was an alert from The Baptist Courier entitled, “Have We Forgotten Why We Cooperate?”
Now, just to be honest, I was expecting for there to be an increased emphasis on the Cooperative Program as the convention was just a day away, but when I opened the e-mail and began to read, it wasn’t about cooperating at all. What I read was a none-too-veiled attack by the chairman of one of our convention’s agencies upon the chairman of another. Sad.
When I got back to my office, I pulled up the “open letter” from Bill Curtis and began to read, in detail, what he had written about Bill Harrell. I have known Bill Harrell and the great ministry of the Abilene Baptist Church since I was first called into the ministry. I have fellowshipped with “Brother Bill” (as his people affectionately refer to him) on many occasions, had him in my pulpit and enjoyed learning from him what it means to be a pastor and a faithful preacher of the Word. I know Brother Bill’s spirit, and find the accusations and conclusions drawn by Bill Curtis to be contrary to what I know of this wonderful pastor.
I do not know Bill Curtis, but as I have read and reread this “open letter,” there are several things I have noticed that, I believe as cooperating Baptists, we need to be very careful about.
First, with all of the problems that NAMB has faced didn’t need this kind of publicity. The chairman of NAMB ought to be trying to work with the chairman of the Executive Committee, not against him. As my wise mother taught me when I was growing up, “If you can’t say something nice, you shouldn’t say anything at all.” Wise counsel for those in leadership positions. (I know Bill Harrell well enough to know that, out of proper decorum, he will not respond to Bill Curtis’ letter, so I chose to. Also, it is puzzling to me why Bill Curtis felt that he was the one who needed to respond to an article in The Christian Index which quoted Bill Harrell.)
Second, I agree, and have expressed my concern to various convention leaders, about the drop in baptisms and growth among Southern Baptists. However, simply changing terminology (“evangelistic Calvinism”) or promoting the Cooperative Program to ever-increasing degrees is never going to replace the hot hearts for evangelism and the corresponding baptisms in the churches of our convention leadership. As we have heard so often, “everything rises and falls on leadership,” and sadly right now, according to our convention annual, there are very few leaders.
Finally, if we really believe that we are to be “cooperating Baptists” (and the church where I serve gives 11 1/2 percent to the CP), then it must be more than just along financial or denominational lines, or even theological lines – it must also be along personal lines.
I would urge all of our leaders and pastors to realize that the most important thing isn’t our personal positions or even the bureaucracy of our convention. The most important thing is the fact that we have lost souls around us who still need to be saved. If we can’t cooperate on that, then nothing else matters.
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