Mind of the Missionary

Recently the leadership of our denomination announced that at the next annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention a recommendation would be brought to add a descriptor for us, Great Commission Baptists. The response seems to be mixed.

Back in 1835 when our area association was formed most of our churches referred to themselves as United Baptists. This descriptor denoted the fact that about 1800 two branches of the Baptist family, the Regular and Separate branches, under the influence of the frontier revival called The Second Great Awakening, agreed enough on their theology to work together. However, in 1837 our association, like many others, divided over the issue of whether or not to support mission agencies. The result was our association took the informal descriptor of Missionary, and the association that was formed by the churches which did not want to support a mission board came to be called Primitive.

Then in 1845 the national mission board divided over the issue of slavery. The one that allowed for slavery took the descriptor of Southern and the one that did not took the descriptor of Northern. Our association and its churches agreed to support the Southern convention and also the Alabama Convention.

From my studies I have concluded that most of the Baptists continued to see themselves mostly as Baptists, and most of the churches continued to see themselves as Missionary and Alabama Baptists well into the 20th century. Only gradually did the term missionary come to be a descriptor primarily for African American Baptist congregations. And only gradually, did most of the Baptist churches in the south come to see themselves as Southern Baptists. For the churches in our association this probably came with the Rural Church Development Program of the 1950s. As our churches adopted the programs and the projects of the denomination they also adopted the descriptor of Southern Baptists.

Ironically, in this same period of time Baptist churches which decided to affiliate with the Southern Baptist Convention began to spring up all across the nation. Soon there were “Southern Baptist” churches in all 50 states. And soon people began to ask whether or not this was an adequate descriptor for who we are. All of the possible geographic descriptors like North American, American and Continental were already taken. So too were theological descriptors like Conservative and Fundamentalist. So, our leaders found a descriptor which, like the older missionary one, describes what we are focused on.

Interestingly, for more than a decade here in Alabama, we have focused on being Great Commission Baptists. So, if this descriptor is adopted in June, it will not call for much adjustment on our part. Personally, I like the idea of being a Great Commission Baptist Christian.

However, I would like to be known also as a Great Commandment Baptist Christian. It is, in part, for this reason, that I am offering the alternative descriptor of GC2 Baptist.

For one thing when someone asks what GC2 means we will have opportunity to explain that we are both loving and going people. It also will reveal to an inquirer what the core emphasis of the Christian faith is—love. We go because we love. (Some of my friends, when I shared this thought with them, suggested GC3 as the better descriptor—Great Commission, Great Commandment, and Great Casserole.)

Think about it. Change has happened before. Perhaps, it is time to change again. So, let’s make the most of it. Not just Great Commandment, but rather GC2 or GC3. (One observer suggested GC4, but I am not going there.)

Associational News

Highland recently licensed four men to ministry–Shawn Shirley, Devon Windom, Brent Edgeworth, and Steve Kelly. Three of them are enrolled in the current Pickens Bible Institute class on the Gospel of Matthew. They join an additional four called to ministry in recent years from Highland. God is to be praised.

Currently, we have three churches seeking pastoral leadership–Stansel, Bethlehem, Double Branches and Dr. Blackburn will be retiring from Forest this month after 30 years as its pastor.

Our team going to Brazil will leave on June 8 and return on June 18. The association will be contributing $5,000 again this year toward the cost of building a chapel for a new congregation there. Individuals and churches are encouraged to contribute as well toward the total of about $16,000 needed to construct the chapel. Our team of Buddy & Emily Kirk, Cynthia Colvin and Mack, Jeannie and Paul Fuqua will join with others from the University of Mobile and elsewhere. Pray for the team.

Work continues on the new building of our mission church, Covenant of Peace. Pastor Lonnie Hinton is hoping that the church will be able to worship in the building on Easter Sunday, April 8.

The North American Mission trip team will be going to Cumberland, Ky. This is a small town near Lynch where Mt. Pleasant sent a team 5 years ago. Our team will be working with a NAMB ministry, the United for Jesus Ministry. The dates are June 30 to July 7. The cost will be $400 for persons riding the bus and staying in the dorm. (Cost will be adjusted for persons driving their own vehicle and/or staying in a nearby motel.) The team will, as in the past, do day camps, clowning clinic, and a big block party on July 4th. There is opportunity for sports camps and light construction as well. The team can have up to 50 participants, The next meeting of the team will be at 2pm at the PBA on Sunday, March 11. Call the office and talk to Bonnie Windle to find out more about this effort. And pray for it.

Have you listened to our radio Sunday School lesson broadcast? It is on air at 8:00 A.M. on Sunday, 100.4 FM out of West Point, Mississippi. Mike Hall, Hershel Owen, Gary Farley, Brannon Pinion, Bob Little and Louis Johnson talk about the week’s lesson in the Life Words Quarterly. Encourage teachers to include the broadcast in their preparation. Tell the shut-ins and nursing home residents to listen.

A church field census for the Zion community has been scheduled for Saturday, April 7. We need 10 teams of 3 each to call on 25 homes each that morning. Put together a team and call the PBA office to let us know that you will be helping. Lunch will be served to the teams. Our hope is that we can find prospects who will help to revitalize the Double Branches church.

We want to thank a crew from Aliceville First for building additional shelves for the food pantry at the Baptist Center. This will be of great help to this ministry.

Please consider the possibility of putting together a mission team, perhaps in concert with other churches, that would do a local mission trip with day camps and a block party. For example, some week in June, a team might partner with Mt. Calvary in Geiger for day camps on a Wednesday thru Friday and then have a block party on Saturday. Team members would commute daily to Geiger. The sponsoring churches might take the team in a church van to the site and then use the van to pick up day campers. Call Bonnie Windle at the PBA to discuss this plan. This kind of thing would be a big blessing in communities hit by the storms of last April