How the Mighty Fall & the SBC part 2

This is the second part of our review of Jim Collins book, How the Mighty Fall and we will examine the second stage he discovered in his research: 'The Undisciplined Pursuit of More.' Does his analysis match reality with the Southern Baptist Convention. I believe it does. One of Collins's markers for this stage is "unsustainable quest for growth, confusing big with great.'

The Second World War was the impetus for a great population migration. People moved to find jobs to support the war effort. They moved from the farm to the city, they moved from the south to the north, from the east to the west wherever the war took them. This led to an enormous increase in the number of Southern Baptist churches. New churches sprang up where Southern Baptist had never be before: California, Ohio, and other states in the mideast and midwest. This was a good thing. However many of those churches were the mirror image of their home churches in south. Most of the members were displaced southerners. It meant these churches would and some still do struggle. I remember when I graduated from seminary I got a letter from a church in Toledo, Ohio that began this way, "We noticed your wife is a nurse...." In other words come to our church and serve for free. I know there are people in Toledo who need Jesus but starting dozens of churches that will constantly struggle and always do so is not the answer. The sheer quest for more led to bad strategic decisions.

To support the postwar expansion the SBC created three new seminaries in the 1950s: Golden Gate in northern California; Midwestern Seminary in Kansas City and Southeastern in North Carolina. That was an expensive decision that committed millions of bucks to buildings and infrastructure. It was also an attempt to replicate a church culture that worked fine in the south but not elsewhere. Perhaps a better strategy would have been to negotiate and establish a 'House of Southern Baptist Studies at Gordon-Conwell (Boston); Conservative Bapt Seminary (Denver) and Western Seminary (Portland). This would have speeded up the process of raising up indigenous leadership. NAMB's Strategic Focus Cities is a step in the right direction. Wish it had happened fifty years ago.

Finally, our unquenchable thirst for more led to some faulty evangelism training. In the last 30 years we used EE, then CWT which we ripped off from James Kennedy, and lately FAITH. If there's a letter in the alphabet related to evangelsim training I've had it. That's good but it's only good when it becomes our story. The main problem with our evangelism in the last thirty years is that its focus has been on the decision side rather than the disciple-making side. Conversion is not the end, it just the beginning. It should be reflected in how we share the good news.

Johnny Hunt is right: a Great Commission Resurgence must be personal; it must begin with us. Then we can make smart, strategic decisions as a denomination and fulfill the Great Commission.

How the Mighty Fall & the SBC part 1

It's been nearly two weeks since I've posted a new blog. Sorry about that but my life has been going at warp speed. In the last ten days I taught leaders at The Church at the Cross in Grapevine, Texas and Oakland Heights Baptist Church in Longview, Texas. The subject was adult Bible study. Great time with leaders & learning. Yesterday, our family helped our oldest son David move into Brooks Residential College on the campus of Baylor University in Waco. We're proud of him and excited to see God at work in his life. Finally, I just completed a new resource for the churches we serve: a Children Ministry Assessment for First Baptist Church, Lewisville, Texas.

As I wrote in a previous post I'm beginning today with a five part discussion of Jim Collins book, How the Mighty Fall and if there is application between his findings and the health of the Southern Baptist Convention and its churches, agencies and institutions. To briefly review, Collins has identified five stages of decline in businesses and organizations:

Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success

Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More

Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril

Stage 4:Grasping for Salvation

Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance and Death

Today, we begin our discussion of stage 1: Hubris Born of Success. Nobody questions our success. In the years following the Second World War Southern Baptist became the biggest denomination in America, expanded our reach outside the south and southwest, saw record enrollments in our seminaries and supported a growing numbers of missionaries in the world. I am grateful to God for His blessings and for those who have gone before us and provided leadership during those times. Godly men and women like Baker James and Eloise Cauthen, Gaines S. Dobbins, Harry Piland and pastors like R. G. Lee and W. A. Criswell. This is not a criticism of that generation. But we must ask the question, "What happened?" Is our stagnant state the result of external or internal factors, spiritual or institutional?"

Collins and his research team discovered four markers that characterized each of the first four stages:

• Success entitlement, arrogance. This happens when people begin to believe that success or growth will continue no matter what the organization does. If it is true that nothing succeeds like success it is equally true that success can and often gives birth to pride. Many Baptist at all levels thought and acted like our growth was "automatic, and would continue on and on unabated into the future." I once heard a denominational leader brag that in one new work state in the midwest we had a church in every county. It wasn't true and he should have known it. It was a terrible strategy! That kind of church planting was blind to the millions of people in that state were living in the urban areas within that state. Pride blinds us and will lead us down the wrong road.
• Neglect of a primary flywheel. When this happens leaders neglect the "growth engine" in our case church planting and evangelism. A church planting strategy that refuses to focus limited resources to critical areas dissapated time, energy and resources. Evangelism training became programs. In so many ways our lay people were miles ahead of us. In the past 30 years I have had evangelism training through Evangelism Explosion (E.E.), Continuous Witness Training (C.W.T.); an EE Baptist rip-off, Romans Road and FAITH----if it's a part of the alphabet I've had evangelism training using it. It was great. It was helpful but unless it is personalized and becomes our story it can sound like an Amway presentation. To rebuild our growth engine we should do two things: start less churches with more committed resources in strategic places and our evangelism should be conversational and personalized.
• "What" replaces "why." Collins says what happens is that the rhetoric of success replaces understanding and insight. Denominational leaders for the most part missed the mega-church phenomena. Many believed Sunday School could grow on autopilot refusing to acknowledge the societal changes impacting our churches, i.e. a growing number of women in the workforce and increasing mobility, just to name two. Ed Stetzer is right:"facts are our friends.
• Decline in learning orientation. In too many areas we kept our heads in the sand, refusing to listen to our own people. Some were concerned about a lurch to the left in some of our seminaries and were simply laughed off. Insolation in our churches, agencies and seminaries led to institutions with short memories. That always leads to trouble.
• Discounting the role of luck, (since I don't believe in luck, I'll call it discounting God's sovereignty and blessing). We (I'm including myself) not only took our eyes off the ball, we took our eyes off God, thinking that we had built the denomination's success not not God Himself.

Pride eventually marginalizes businesses, ministries, churches and denominations. Repentance for our pride and institutional arrogance must occur before the renewal begins. I pray it so.

Let the conversation begin!

Back in a few days with more. See ya then.