Southern Baptists Urged to Repent as New Course Is Set Emphasizing Outreach

Toward that end, Ronnie Floyd, pastor of First Baptist Church in Springdale, Ark., presented a "progress report" to the SBC's Executive Committee on the task force's work that included six "components" of a vision they believe Southern Baptists will rally around and experience renewed passion for the Great Commission -- making disciples of all the world's people groups.

To open his 90-minute presentation, Floyd drew on Joel 2:12-17 to deliver a challenge about the need for urgent, wholehearted repentance if Southern Baptists are to participate in the evangelistic harvest that will accompany the outpouring of God's Spirit in the last days -- and can be seen already beginning in some parts of the world.

"I believe with all my heart that God is calling us to return to Him now in deep repentance of our sin, in brokenness over our sin, denying our pride and selfishness and returning to God with complete humility," Floyd said. "The boasting, ego and pride that goes on in our lives, our churches and our denomination is unacceptable to God. The disunity in our churches and in our denomination is so wrong and sinful. We need to repent and return to God.

"With rhetoric we bemoan our dismal baptism numbers, our declining and plateaued churches, and our economic selfishness. The casting of criticism has resulted in a caustic cynicism that just adds to our rhetoric and writings," Floyd continued. "We attempt to treat symptoms rather than the root issues of sin and carnality. The rhetoric needs to cease and the repentance personally and corporately must begin. We need to repent of our sins and return to God.

"[W]e realize our number one need is to return to God in deep repentance and experience a fresh wave of His Spirit upon our lives, ministries and work of our denomination," Floyd said. "We need a fresh and compelling vision that will only come when we are right with Him."

Southern Baptists need to understand the "staggering" lostness of North America -- where 258 million of 340 million residents are estimated to be lost -- and the entire world -- where 4 billion of 6.8 billion people have little to no access to the Gospel, Floyd said. Penetrating such massive lostness requires each of the 50,000-plus Southern Baptist churches to become its own "missional strategy center," Floyd added.

"If we do not begin to understand the complexity of lostness in our own backyard and strategize to reach them, the lostness will never be penetrated with the Gospel," Floyd declared. "Business as usual and what we are doing as a whole is not working. It is said, 'Facts are our friends.' This is true, as long as we pay attention to the facts and do not act as though they are non-existent. If we deny the present reality of where we really are, we are jeopardizing our future and the generations who will follow us. We need to return to God and recommit ourselves to advancing the Gospel to all generations."

Floyd said he hoped the progress report the task force was bringing would be "clear and compelling" as it unveiled "some of the things we believe need to be done" to help Southern Baptists work together more faithfully and effectively to advance the Gospel. At the SBC annual meeting in Orlando next June, Floyd said, the task force will ask the convention "to accept this vision, endorse this vision and champion this vision."

SIX COMPONENTS

The six components of the task force's vision Floyd presented involve:

-- Calling Southern Baptists "to rally towards a clear and compelling missional vision and begin to conduct ourselves with core values that will create a new and healthy culture within the Southern Baptist Convention." The "missional vision" is "as a convention of churches, ... to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all the nations." The eight core values are Christ-likeness, Truth, Unity, Relationships, Trust, Future, Local Church and Kingdom.

-- Recommending the North American Mission Board "prioritize efforts to plant churches in North America and to reach our nation's cities and clarify its role to lead and accomplish efforts to reach North America with the Gospel." The North American Mission Board needs to be "reinvented and released" by implementing a direct strategy for planting churches in North America "with a priority to reach metropolitan areas and under-served people groups," Floyd said. The plan also calls for NAMB to assist churches in evangelism, discipleship and developing current pastoral leadership. It calls for NAMB to decentralize operations into seven regions and recommends releasing the entity from "cooperative agreements" with state conventions over the course of four years to free up money for national strategy.