The annual meeting for Southern Baptists is finished, and here are some of my observations for the several days in Indianapolis. Regardless of the headlines you’ve read or the assessments you may or may not have heard on social media, remember this, Southern Baptists may never win the headlines. Our wins happen in the churches, seminary classrooms, and mission fields as the gospel is preached, theological fidelity practiced, and unreached peoples are engaged with the gospel.

Polity matters. One of the more helpful insights for me came from the 9 Marks at 9 event on Monday as Jonathan Leeman discussed the differences between connectional and cooperational denominations. He described connectional denominations as ones with structures that decide doctrine or practice for local churches (in varying degrees see the Roman Catholics the United Methodists). Leeman described the Southern Baptist Convention as a cooperational denomination. Churches remain autonomous with their own local church polity, statements of faith, and practices. In essence Southern Baptist Churches are not member churches of a denomination, but rather autonomous churches that cooperate for missional purposes. Because churches aren’t members, they send messengers who can attend and participate in the business based on the church’s cooperative giving. Giving through the denominational mechanisms allows churches to send and seat messengers as representatives to the annual meeting. The SBC can and does decide the grounds for seating messengers. This is the job of the credentials committee.

The SBC is complementarian and considering churches who are “not in friendly cooperation” remains a difficult process. If you’ve read any headlines, they probably highlighted the failure of the “Law” amendment to become a part of the constitution. Amendments to the SBC constitution have to pass by a two thirds majority in two consecutive annual meetings to become established. The proposed amendment stated that churches in friendly cooperation affirm, appoint, or employ “only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.” The stated aim of the amendment was to make the process of not considering churches in friendly cooperation more economical. As it stands now, the credentials committee can consider a church “not in friendly cooperation” on the grounds of doctrine or practice out of bounds with the Baptist Faith and Message or a church whose doctrine and practice on LGBTQ issues, sexual abuse issues, or racism issues are in contradiction to the stated position of the SBC. Churches that have women as pastors have also been considered “not in friendly cooperation.” This process happens on the convention floor and requires a messenger vote. While the proposed, but failed “Law” amendment, may have made the process more economical, I personally believe that dealing with this issue on the convention floor provides a healthy and weighty grief for the messengers. It offers the messengers consistent opportunities to articulate the complementarian position of Scripture that reserves the role of pastor for qualified men and in so doing, teaches the denomination. Our current, and for the time being at least, continuing process affords this opportunity to affirm our established conservative, complementarian position while allowing the messengers to function as a voting, disciplinary body. While cumbersome, the current process is weighty and closely aligns with the healthy process of church discipline in local congregations.

Leadership and character is indispensable. Too many SBC and evangelical leaders with large platforms and well-recognized names have fallen in sin or leadership folly. It is wonderful to begin well, but God has called us to finish well. To this observation, I express gratitude to Dr. Albert Mohler at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for more than 30 years leading the flagship seminary of the SBC, to Dr. Danny Akin at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary for more than 20 years at SEBTS, and to Dr. Jeff Iorg who retired from Gateway Seminary to take on the role of the President and CEO of Executive Committee for the denomination. These men are representative of the many thousands of obscure baptist pastors and leaders who remain faithful to their calling and service to Jesus Christ. May we learn from their example and remain faithful.

Our large and diverse body will always have differences of opinion. In the lead up to the annual meeting, much is made of our disagreements and divisions. And we will always have them. I have great friends on various sides of different doctrinal and practical issues facing Southern Baptists. Several tried to convince me of their positions this week. And our polity allows for any messenger (some of them affectionally referred to as “crazy uncles”) to bring motions or speak to the messengers at microphones. Our diversities and “crazy uncles” are part of what makes the SBC special.

We have much work left to do. I mean this in two ways. First, the SBC remains cooperative for the spread of the gospel to the nations (see next observation for more detail). But even as we celebrate what has been done and is being done, we reflect on the great task in front of us. With nearly 3000 unengaged, unreached people groups, the frontier project of the SBC is to send pioneer missionaries and researchers to find, evaluate, and begin the process of evangelization of these people groups. Second, the SBC has moved the needle on handling sexual abuse issues, but is not there yet. The Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force (ARITF) has made progress in curriculum development, but has not completed the ministry check website. Southern Baptists must remain vigilant in establishing protocols to protect and defend those who attend our churches. The work of justice and congregational care in this area is far from complete.

Missionaries and mission sending remain the central reason for cooperation. Eighty-three missionaries were commissioned or re-commissioned to the field this week. Some will go to places where the gospel is not welcome. Some missionaries were not able to introduce themselves with their own voices or show their faces because of the security risks in the places they will go. Recently, the IMB celebrated the retirement of 40 career missionaries whose cumulative service was more than 1100 years. These missionaries who have given their lives or who are going to the field for the first time ought to be our heroes and the ones we celebrate.

The location and weather for the annual meeting was excellent. Indianapolis was a fantastic host city. Hotels and amenities are in close proximity to the convention center. Even with large crowds, the plethora of restaurants surrounding the vicinity handled the messengers and visitors easily. But the most excellent thing about Indianapolis was the weather! Comfortable, not sweltering weather for an SBC annual meeting was a plus for this year’s meeting.

Here are some of my favorite quotes for the week:

“If we evaluate the SBC on twitter, we’ll hate it. If we evaluate the SBC in the convention hall, we’ll like it. If we evaluate the SBC by working with a missionary on the field, we’ll love it.” Dr. Juan Sanchez

“Between the Great Commission (Mt. 28) and the Great Multitude (Rev. 7) is the Great Pursuit, the responsibility of the church to reach the nations with the gospel.” Dr. Paul Chitwood

As imperfect as we are, we remain solidly biblical, theologically diverse, and missionally committed as the largest Protestant denomination in the country. For those that live in proximity to Wilkesboro Baptist Church, I will take the Wednesday evening gathering on July 10 at 6 pm in our church sanctuary to discuss more of these denominational details and answer questions about the state of the SBC.

Photo by Corbin Mathias on Unsplash