Is the South Carolina Baptist Convention ready, or even willing, to “put on fresh clothes,” to “become different” as a denomination?
KirklandThat is what change is.
This edition of The Baptist Courier carries articles by the two announced nominees for the presidency of the South Carolina Baptist Convention — Sonny Holmes and D.J. Horton. In the opinions of both, change is necessary.
For Holmes, the mission of Southern Baptists at every level has become “predictable.” “Our work is defined by routines, systems and structures that have disconnected us from a fast-moving, changing world.”
Horton looks down the road to 2020 and asks, “What do we want our convention to look like in the year 2020?”
“If we don’t ask this question,” he says, “then our convention will surely not die; it will be even worse — we will become irrelevant.”
Holmes speaks of the need for “fresh winds of spiritual renewal to sweep our land,” while declaring, “We can bring fresh vibrancy to our work by keeping the organizational dimensions constantly new.”
Horton describes the current picture in the SCBC as “not good,” but added, “It is also not hopeless.”
In the statements by Holmes and Horton — statements requested by The Baptist Courier — it is evident that the time for change is here and past due.
At the recent White Oak Conference Center event, A Day of Prayer for South Carolina Baptists, Jimmy Draper, retired president of LifeWay Christian Resources, called on the nearly 170 participants at the conference and the several hundred watching it on their computers via video streaming to pray that they will be “willing to accept the changes coming to our convention.”
Probably, he had in mind primarily the Southern Baptist Convention, of which he was president.
Still, his prayer for “a willingness to accept changes” is appropriate for us in South Carolina as well.
The South Carolina Baptist Convention meets Nov. 16-17 in Columbia. It is safe to say that change will be on the minds of most, if not all, of the messengers.
This question is preeminent, and will set the convention’s future course: How should the SCBC respond to the Great Commission Resurgence, and how will that response impact state ministries?
Holmes says, “Without delay, our entire leadership network must discern and implement Great Commission strategies that bring the work of our convention, agencies and institutions into the 21st century.”
Horton wonders “which of our institutions need more financial support” and then asks, “Are there any institutions that have run their course and accomplished their tasks?”
He favors a process of simplification, a “focus on a handful of tasks that we will accomplish together as a convention of churches.”
Holmes calls for a “church-planting culture as part of the ‘new thing’ God is doing in our nation and world.”
Convention president Fred Stone reads the times clearly and is an advocate of necessary change. “We must find new ways to better utilize all of our resources,” he says in a separate article in this edition of the Courier.
Stone recognizes, too, the importance of the Great Commission Resurgence and South Carolina’s response to it. If the convention approves, he will appoint a South Carolina Great Commission Task Force to develop a plan outlining the state’s response to the national GCR initiative.
Holmes says this: “Jesus defined our mission and our message. They do not change. He likened the gospel to new wine, and warned that it could not be contained in a worn-out pouch. If this comparison is about the Good News and the organization entrusted with sharing it, it provides spiritual guidance for continued structural renewal. God’s church, even denominations, must never become stale.”
Horton hopes that the SCBC will have the 2020 vision he writes about, which means “choosing to look far enough down the road that we ask and answer the right questions now of our convention, our churches and, most importantly, ourselves. May God help us to do this, or may he move us out of the way if we do not.”
The articles by the presidential nominees reflect the clear thinking and adventuresome faith of each. Both attended the Day of Prayer event at White Oak Conference Center — and prayed together.
Messengers will decide whether Sonny Holmes or D.J. Horton will be the next president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. To vote for either one is to vote for change within a convention on mission “to urgently take the whole gospel to the whole world that all may be whole.”