The Fall of a Convention?

For those who are not familiar with the process, yearly every church in the Southern Baptist Convention will complete the Annual Church Profile. This ACP tracks for the convention the health of Baptist churches around the country.

The ACP report for 2008 was recently released. The report shows a decline in the number of baptisms and in total church membership. This is the second year the convention has declined in both of these categories.

There are two men who are sounding the trumpet for change in the convention. One is Ed Stetzer, who works for Lifeway Research. Ed has an interesting blog about this continuing decline.

The other is by my friend Dr. Chuck Kelley, President of New Orleans Baptist Seminary. Chuck recently preached in chapel about how the SBC has become the "new Methodists." The article about his message is very interesting. He explains that the decline of the Methodist convention occurred when they failed to continue to evangelize and disciple people. Chuck says the "SBC are the new Methodists" because we are in danger of following the decline of the Methodist denomination.

I will close by quoting Ed Stetzer again: "Are we hurting enough to make the changes we need?"

A Tribute

Today I joined several of our church members in a work day at the church. It was an opportunity to paint the trim on the new building the church recently purchased and perform some landscaping.

While several of our youth, parents and workers were painting, several others were busy doing some landscaping in front of the church. Having some flower beds to add some beauty to the front of the church has been a dream of many for several years.

One of those who had dreamed of some landscaping was my friend, Roger Taylor. Roger, I'm sure is looking down from heaven seeing his dream. Roger and I had joked several times about him coming in the middle of the night and pulling up the old shrubs that were in front of the church. One of Roger's dreams was to see some beautiful plants and flowers decorating the landscape of the church.

I couldn't help but think about Roger. He would have been working as hard or harder than anyone today. It is tribute to my friend to see the plants and flowers providing some beauty to the church.