There is much on the horizon for the SBC

After reading a number of blogs this week it seems that the SBC meeting this year could be an important one. From the issues with the IMB and it's proposed policies to the voting in of a new President and the promotion of many higher ups in the convention of Johnny Hunt.

The issues with IMB are complex as it is hard to separate the rights they have as an organization to set policy for who is to be sent to the mission field with the amount of say they should, in essence, have over the local church. Since the SBC really only exists once a year at the annual convention it is issues like this that set the tone for the coming years.

The issue of who will president is important as it to sets a tone. The man that is chosen will say much about the direction of the convention. Will the convention continue to go down the road of focusing on baptisms and confessions rather than going deeper and truly seeking to have a regenerate church membership? I for one would like to see a call for purging the roles of the Southern Baptist Churches of those that by there lack of attendance negate their membership. Let’s get the attendance in weekly gatherings to mirror our roles instead of having membership being so inflated. With this the case it would be good to see the new president be willing to show the way. So many of the men that seem to be mentioned as presidential material have memberships that far exceed their weekly attendance and no matter their baptism numbers the actual ratio of regular attendees to members seems to be spiraling downwards. Also of importance would be to have man that is theologically adept so that regardless of their position on the Doctrines of Grace they can fairly articulate the opposing sides views, this is not the case with many that may be named for this position, especially Johnny Hunt.

There is still hope for the convention but as Tom Nettles shows in his book Ready for Reformation there is work to be done and changes to be made. Reform has to start somewhere and I feel it will tend to come from those that may not have been so ingrained in Southern Baptist life or those that have been on the front lines for some time and now have more reinforcements to work towards the needed reforms.

Tom Ascol’s blog is a good source of information on this and Tom has a good manner in his dealing with the issues.