By Randy C. Davis
President and Executive Director, TBMB
We are going to meet. We are actually coming together, in person, to represent more than 40,000 churches that comprise the network of churches called the Southern Baptist Convention.
While gathering for the annual SBC isn’t that earth shattering in itself – after all we’ve been doing it every year since 1845 through wars, pandemics, heated (and needed) theological debates, cultural shifts and massive economic downturns – it is a big deal this year because of the unceremonious way the global COVID-19 pandemic brought an abrupt end to us having the convention last year. And like you, I’m excited to be gathering together.
However, there is a great danger to our future gathering if we allow our focus to stray from our purpose and results in “mission drift.” Possible? Absolutely, look at institutions like Harvard and Yale that were birthed as bastions of Christian values and biblical conservatism. You’d have to search long and hard to find a vestige of those roots on today’s campuses.
I’ll repeat what I’ve heard my friend and president of the International Mission Board, Paul Chitwood, say many times. “When the Great Commission is not the lead topic of conversation in Southern Baptist life, the other topics tend to divide us.” [Read more…]