In the meantime

What Will It Take to Bring Us Together?

This past Saturday morning I was eating breakfast in the lobby of our hotel in Nashville.  I couldn't help but overhear an interesting conversation from a couple seated at the table behind me.  The woman, a nurse, was relating an experience she had on September 11, 2001.  On that terrible day, she found herself with a patient, a doctor and a member of the hospital's custodial staff. They were all in the patient's room, watching the events play out on television.

She observed how the tragedy united that group despite their significant professional and cultural differences.  The doctor, the patient, the custodian and the nurse were suddenly all just Americans.  "The walls came down between us," the woman said to her breakfast companion.

I didn't attempt to join the conversation, but it certainly caused me to think as I headed back to my room how often it takes a shared crisis, problem or challenge to compel us to drop barriers and relate to each other on an equal footing. 

What will it take for the church to have a similar experience?  What could make the significant cultural and non-essential theological walls come down?  The inescapable conclusion is that it would take a 911-type tragedy to unite us.

But it is hard to imagine a tragedy worse than this: Thousands of people within the sphere of influence of our churches and our people die without Christ each and every week, while we are content to do our own thing in our own setting, oblivious to their plight.

It is a spiritual 9-11, and it is for the most part under our radar, while a myriad of issues that are trivial when seen through the eyes of eternity consume our time, energy and resources.

Are you a spiritual trainer?

The term "personal trainer" has become common over the last few years as more and more Americans have a desire to get in better shape and win the battle of the bulge.  A personal trainer is one who guides you through the process, showing you what you need to do to achieve your fitness goals.

Have you ever thought of yourself as a personal spiritual trainer?  If you are a pastor, minister, teacher, leader or mentor you are.  On his GrowthStarts blog, Randy Elster has an excellent continuing series going through I Timothy.  In his latest post, he deals with 4:8-10. Verse 8 reminds us that "bodily exercise is of some value, but godliness has value in all things." He points out that with the phrase "labor and strive" in verse 10 Paul is employing an athletic metaphor.

Randy lists three essential things you must do - and be - if you are to be an effective spiritual trainer:  1) You need to live out with your life what you say with your lips.  He points out no one would trust a personal trainer who is 50 pounds overweight and has a donut in each hand.  2) You need to keep learning and growing yourself.  Who wants a trainer who used to be in great shape but has let him or herself go?  And, 3) You need to be actively involved in training others. It may seem painfully obvious, but in order to be a trainer, you have to be involved in training others (not just talking or writing about it).

If you are involved in ministry in any form, you are a spiritual trainer!  To paraphrase Hans and Franz, you're here to pump... them up!  Make sure these three essentials are true in your life.

Check out GrowthStarts blog here.  You can find Randy's entire series on I Timothy here.

"Moving" Thoughts

CNN's Roland Martin has a piece posted on the website yesterday that is not what you normally read on CNN.com:

Continue to pray and meditate on being in a place where you are constantly being fed and taught. And if it feels like you are going over the same lessons over and over, don't fret and begin to badmouth the pastor and the deacons. That could simply be God's way of saying that you have graduated, and it's time to elevate yourself to the next spiritual level.

Martin's commentary is in response to a Pew Research study released last week showing 25% us had left the faith or denomination of our upbringing, and that non-denominational churches are growing rapidly.

Martin was raised Catholic but left the Catholic church in his late 20s and joined Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas.  When he moved to Houston, he joined Brookhollow Baptist, the "Church Without Walls."  (See earlier post Christ Prays for a Unified Church for a great video of Dr. Joel Gregory Preaching on unity at Brookhollow.)  When Roland moved back to Dallas several years later, for some reason he no longer felt he belonged at Friendship West.

He came to the conclusion that this was something God was doing in his life and it had nothing to do with the quality of the church, the pastor, or the people.  His advice is if God is leading you somewhere else, go there, but don't be bitter or speak ill of the place He is moving you from.

That is great advice.  So often when someone leaves a church and goes somewhere else, they trash the place they came from.  And the door swings both ways, too.  Often those left at the church trash the ones who leave.

The best perspective on this I've ever heard came from Dr. Jack Hayford.  Several years ago I had the pleasure of being in a small group of pastors who had lunch with Jack.  As we were talking around the table, he shared the story of a young couple at Church of the Way who he was very, very close to.  One day they came into his office and told him that God was leading them to another church, a smaller one where they could really make a difference.  Jack was devastated.  In his personal worship time the following morning, he said he poured his heart out to God - in essence whining to God - about the couple's departure.  He said, "Lord, you know how much I love these folks.  You know what an encouragement they are to me.  You know how I need them."

Jack said that as plainly as if it had been said audibly to him, God spoke to his heart and said, "Do you think you can be everybody's pastor, Jack?"  Those words made a profound impact on Hayford's heart, life and ministry from that day forward.  He realized that he can't be everybody's pastor, but he could love everyone, regardless of where they went to church.

Has someone left you recently to go serve, minister or attend somewhere else?  Rejoice that God is working in their lives and commit to pray that they will have a profound impact for the Kingdom where God is leading them.

Realize that you can't be everybody's pastor!

Read the Roland Martin commentary here.
Read about the Pew Research study here.

Blest Be The Tie

I have a confession to make: I am a Baptist. 

I've spent most of my life around Baptists. Over the years I've discovered that in Baptist churches there are a lot of things that are common to almost all of them.  Just like you can walk into a McDonald's anywhere in the world and order a Big Mac and know it will taste the same, you can go to most Baptist churches and find a lot of the same things on the "menu," if you catch my drift. Some of these things that are the same are good.  Some of them are not so good.

Almost all Baptist churches have regular "business meetings."  If your church has a congregational form of government, I suspect they have something similar to the church business meeting.  These are regularly scheduled gatherings where the "business of the church" is discussed.  And discussed.  And discussed.  And then that business is voted on, usually in the form of a "motion." Baptist Churches use "Roberts Rules of Order" to guide them in how to conduct these meetings. (As a child I used to wonder who this Roberts guy was and why was he causing so much trouble in my church?)

Going to church business meetings was great entertainment for me when I was a kid.  You got to see adults behaving really, really badly.  Sometimes, if you were really lucky, you'd get to hear them yell at each other.  But most of the time the comments were just condescending or sarcastic and frequently sprinkled with the term "Brother" or "Sister."("Brother Moderator, it is obvious that Brother Smith, the chairman of our Grounds Committee, believes that money grows on trees since he wants to spend $50 of the Lord's money to spray the shrubbery for bugs!")

At the end of the business meeting, no matter how contentious it had been, no matter how close people came to jumping across the pews and strangling their fellow church members, the people would stand up and hold hands across the aisle and sing this little ditty:

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above

I didn't have a clue in the world what those words meant when I was a little kid. But I did know what a tie was.  It was that awful contraption that you had to wear around your neck only when you went to church.  I would have to stand still long enough for my dad to tie it and when he was done he tightened it up and my face immediately started turning red and then blue from lack of oxygen.  I could certainly relate to "the tie that binds"!

When I was older I came to understand it was a song about how much we love each other, and how the love we have for each other here is a taste of what it's going to be like in heaven.

Say what??  We argue, fuss and fight for an hour or more and then declare that's what heaven is going to be like?  If that's true, I think I'll pass! (Thankfully it is not true - I rest in the assurance there will be no business meetings in heaven.)

But you know, now after many years of seeing the best and worst of people at church, I've sort of mellowed in my view of business meetings and the people who go to them.

Church business meetings are kind of like life.  We're not perfect, we sometimes say things we shouldn't, and sometimes we make complete idiots out of ourselves.  But through it all somehow God still loves us.  And through it all, we really do love each other.  You see, I've come to realize the singing of that song wasn't about how things were, it was a statement of how in our heart of hearts we really wanted them to be.  And how - praise the Lord - it will be in heaven.

So church - and I mean ALL of the church, not just the Baptists - let's stand up, hold hands across the aisle, and sing together:

"Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love..."

He Was Only Visiting This Planet

Larry Norman, the grandfather of contemporary Christian music went to be with the Lord early yesterday morning.  He had been dealing with serious health issues for the last 15 years but continued to make music almost up to the time he went home to heaven.

Norman's 1972 album, "Only Visiting This Planet" is considered by many to be the best Christian album ever recorded. His 1969 song "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" was repeatedly re-recorded over the years - by Randy Matthews, British rocker Cliff Richards, and DC Talk among others - introducing a whole new audience to Larry's music.  Over the course of his 40 year career, Larry Norman recorded over 60 albums.

Over the last few weeks, his heart began to give out.  His brother Charles said they spent the last week laughing, singing and praying together.  Larry also had them taking notes on new song ideas and instructions on how to continue his ministry after he was gone.

Late Saturday afternoon, Larry dictated the following message to his friends and fans:

I feel like a prize in a box of cracker jacks with God's hand reaching down to pick me up. I have been under medical care for months. My wounds are getting bigger. I have trouble breathing. I am ready to fly home.

My brother Charles is right, I won't be here much longer. I can't do anything about it. My heart is too weak. I want to say goodbye to everyone. In the past you have generously supported me with prayer and finance and we will probably still need financial help.

My plan is to be buried in a simple pine box with some flowers inside. But still it will be costly because of funeral arrangement, transportation to the gravesite, entombment, coordination, legal papers etc. However money is not really what I need, I want to say I love you.

I'd like to push back the darkness with my bravest effort. There will be a funeral posted here on the website, in case some of you want to attend. We are not sure of the date when I will die. Goodbye, farewell, we will meet again.

Goodbye, farewell, we'll meet again
Somewhere beyond the sky.
I pray that you will stay with God
Goodbye, my friends, goodbye.

Larry

At 2:45 Sunday morning, Larry's heart slowed to a stop and he stepped into heaven.  So many of his songs dealt with heaven, it is cool to realize he is there now and experiencing it firsthand.

For hundreds of thousands of people who came to know the Lord during the "Jesus Movement" of the 1970s, Larry Norman's words and music had a profound impact on their walk with the Lord, their understanding of our role as pilgrims passing through on our way to our eternal home, and the fact that the devil did not have to have all of the good music.

Larry Norman was 61 years old.

Mad Church Disease

Anne Jackson is a gifted and gut-wrenchingly transparent writer, communicator and blogger who has written several great articles for Relevant. She recently joined the staff of LifeChurch.tv in Oklahoma City, where she now lives with her husband.

Anne has a book coming out that I can't wait to read entitled "Mad Church Disease," set to be published by Zondervan in February, 2009.  (2009?  Really?  We have to wait a YEAR for this?  Arrrghh!!)

Anne is a pastor's daughter. Growing up she saw the church at it's worst, and saw the ministry take a heavy toll on her father and her family.  Along the way it took a heavy toll on Anne as well.

When you think about it, it's a miracle any of our kids ever darken the door of a church.  When I was in vocational ministry, we did our best to shield our children from the ugliness, but as they got older and more perceptive, that became increasingly hard to do.

In her online bio, there is a story about Anne hiding in a janitor's closet, spying on a deacon's meeting:

Why? Because Anne wanted to hear what went on that would cause her dad (a great, caring, loving dad) to fall into a depression, withdraw from his family, and spend hours away at work...or as some would call it, "ministry."

Although she didn't realize it at the time, the pain she saw her family go through while her dad pastored was causing a hole to form in her heart, a burden for the Church.

Seven years later and a couple churches later, as a sophomore in high school, Anne sat through an explosive church business meeting that led to her father's departure from that church. Afterward, she climbed up on to the church's fire escape and wrote a letter to God, giving him an ultimatum: Either she was going to part ways with the church entirely or she begged Him to give her a way to help bring restoration and unity.

That prayer was not answered immediately, which Anne interpreted as God not really caring if she left the church or not.  Like many "PK's," she went through a period of rebellion when she left home, getting involved in all sorts of inappropriate relationships and activities.  At 21, she wandered into a church where her future husband was playing guitar.  Over the next few years her personal faith was rekindled, but she soon discovered that the church was still as dysfunctional  - if not more so - than it was years before.  And she saw it was still taking a huge toll on people.  Serving on the staff of the same church she wandered into at 21, Anne found herself participating in the same church meetings she had spyed on years earlier.

Eventually, Anne wound up in the hospital with stress-induced gastrointestinal inflammation.  At that point, she came to the realization the church was interfering with her relationship with Christ.  A few months later, she resigned.

Rather than turning her back on the church, she renewed her determination to somehow be used to bring restoration and unity to it.  Out of that desire, the idea for "Mad Church Disease" was birthed. 

But until next February, we'll have to be content to visit the Mad Church Disease book blog and read Anne's personal blog posts.  (You can also sign up for regular updates on the book's progress on the Mad Church Disease site.)

I am convinced that God is going to use this book to answer Anne's prayer of so many years ago by helping bring restoration and unity to the church, and hope and healing to so many who are suffering from disillusionment, discouragement, and burnout.

Brother John

Bishop John Gimenez passed away last week and his funeral was today at 1:00 pm.  John was the co-founder of one of the East Coast's first charismatic megachurches, Rock Church in Virginia Beach, and the overseer of their network of 500 affiliated churches worldwide.  His massive 1980 rally Washington For Jesus mobilized half a million believers from all corners of the Body of Christ and helped solidify Ronald Reagan's ties with the church community.  He was a giant in the charismatic world.

And he was one of the kindest, sweetest-spirited men I have ever known.

When I was in graduate school, I took a production job with The Rock Church Hour television program, and worked with John and his wife Anne for nine months.  It was my first experience with a charismatic church.  I really didn't know what to expect, but I have to admit I was very skeptical.  John and Anne won me over from day one.  They were loving, gracious, sincere, and had a passion for Christ.  They were remarkably unassuming for people who were so well known.  John preferred to be called "Brother John" or simply "Pastor."

My time at Rock Church was also the first time I was ever in a multicultural and multiracial church.  All of the SBC churches I attended growing up or served at early in my ministry were all-white.  John said that when he and Anne started Rock Church they earnestly prayed it would be multicultural.  "I prayed, 'Lord, give us a church that looks like heaven, so when we get there, we won’t feel out of place'," John said in a 2007 interview.

When our daughter Faith was born a month prematurely, John called me into his office and with tears in his eyes prayed with me for Faith and Fonda.  Then he told me to leave, go to the hospital and not to come back to the church until she was home... and that I was on the clock until then.  After Faith came home from the hospital, John shared with the Rock Church family on Sunday morning how well she was doing, and then he featured footage of her on the nationally-seen broadcast.  My family in Georgia and Florida thought that was really cool - getting to see their granddaughter on The Family Channel.

John had a remarkable testimony.  He was born in New York of Puerto Rican parents and raised in Spanish Harlem. At an early age he was a drug addict and frequently on the wrong side of the law.  He went to prison at age 16. When he came to Christ he literally became a new man. 

Once we were in Washington, D.C. for the NRB Convention.  I went to his hotel room to ask him something and he answered the door in a T-shirt.  I saw why he always wore long sleeves.  His arms were covered with prison tats.  He must have seen the surprise on my face, because he pointed to them and softly said, "These are a daily reminder of what God delivered me from."

John never forgot where he came from and how far the Lord brought him.  The first time I ever heard the song "Give Thanks" John sang it while leading worship at Rock Church.  He cried as he sang it.  I cried while listening to it.  I told him later how much it touched my heart, and he said, "You know, when I got to the line that says, 'Let the poor say I am rich because of what the Lord has done for us' I realized that was my story, and I couldn't help but cry."

John loved to say when he introduced me to people that I was the "Southern Baptist missionary to the holy-rollers." I was in grad school when I worked there, so he also loved to joke that I chose grad school over getting a "cemetery degree." Through the good-natured ribbing, it was clear that he deeply respected my beliefs and accepted me unconditionally as his brother in Christ.  Knowing and working with John helped me to realize that it wasn't necessary for me to agree completely with someone theologically to love and respect them.

God bless you, Brother John.  I'll see you in the morning.

Watch the CBN tribute to Brother John on the "700 Club" here.

A Great Question

Late last week I had lunch with my friend Randy Elster.  Randy is Pastor of Spiritual Formation and Leadership Development at NorthStar Church.  (I have a theory that the more spiritual you are, the longer your title, so Randy is obviously VERY godly!)  I always enjoy fellowshipping with Randy.  He is incredibly well-read and I am always uplifted and challenged by talking with him.  We share a common background as worship leaders, and we have the battle scars to prove that we served churches in "transition" in their worship style!

Freemason Abbey, one of of my favorite restaurants in Norfolk, Virginia.  The building used to be the Second Presbyterian Church.

During the course of our lunch conversation, Randy asked a really fascinating question - one that I kept thinking about for the rest of the day.  "What do you think is going to happen to the thousands of traditional churches when our parent's generation is gone?"

It's an insightful question.  So much attention is given these days to new church plants, as it should be.  New churches reach people at an exponentially higher rate than existing churches.  But what about the tens of thousands of existing churches, especially those who are "on the bubble" in terms of their very survival in the years ahead?

My initial response to Randy's question was to point out the example of a church in our area that once had around 500 people in worship.  Sadly, the combination of a changing neighborhood and an unchanging church resulted in them declining to the point that they approached a large church in the area asking them to take over the church.  They could no longer pay to keep the lights on, much less pay a pastor or staff. 

I've had a couple of days now to mull Randy's question over. While my initial response was to predict a negative outcome, happily, that is not always the case. There is no doubt that in the years ahead some, maybe many, small churches will cease to exist. But some, maybe many, will not. I think there are three basic scenarios that face smaller traditional churches over the next two decades. 

Scenario #1 - The church, motivated by a deep love for their community and a heart to do whatever it takes to reach them, makes changes and adapts their methods to fit the people they are trying to reach. As a result, new people - in many cases a new generation and/or a new demographic - become a part of the church. Their presence breathes new life, new vision and a new excitement into the church.  This is not simply a Utopian dream; stories of these "turn around churches" abound today. 

Scenario #2 - The church makes superficial change or change for change's sake in an attempt to fix the problem.  They do what they see growing churches do without understanding the why of the equation.  Those changes - the wrong things done for the wrong reason - cause friction in the church and don't appeal to anyone outside of it. The church's decline is accelerated by serious internal conflict.  They assume people will come if they make changes, and are surprised when they don't.  They essentially put a fresh coat of paint on a barn that was about to fall down.

Scenario #3 - The church refuses to change or adapt, believing the church exists for those who are currently members of it.  At some point, the doors will close forever.  The "death" of the church may happen quickly, or it may experience a slow decline, depending on factors such as the financial viability of the church, the stability of the community around it, etc.

The single most important change a church can make is to change it's focus from inward to outward.  Yet there are hundreds if not thousands of examples of churches making superficial changes in worship style, programs, or administration, none of which will make an significant difference in and of themselves. 

Harry Piland is an evangelistic visionary who was years ahead of his time. Decades ago, he famously observed, "Your church exists for those who are not yet members of it."  When a church truly embraces and embodies that idea, it can't help but grow. 

When that philosophy is rejected, the dying process has already begun.

I Don't Know

On Tuesday, February 5, while many were voting in the Super Tuesday primaries, a series of killer tornadoes ripped through the south, killing at least 59 and wounding hundreds more.  In rural Macon County, Tennessee, 14 people were killed and many more left homeless.

Rev. Michael Welch, pastor of the Lafayette United Methodist Church mobilized his congregation to serve, opening the church as a family crisis center.  The pastor spoke several times to reporters on Wednesday about his desire to help the suffering. He went first thing in the morning to the command center to offer his services, and was quickly put to work, designating his church as the place where families with missing loved ones could gather and wait for word of their loved one's fate.

The next day, the Lafayette congregation was mourning the loss of their pastor and his family.  Pastor Welch, his wife Julie, and their two daughters, Hannah and Jesse, were killed when a tractor trailer struck their van as it was stopped in congested traffic. Ironically, the truck that killed the Welch family was carrying donated relief supplies.

The 160-member congregation was looking forward to Sunday, when their pastor would help them grapple with the inevitable "why?" that arises when a tragedy strikes such as the killer tornadoes.  Instead, the pulpit was filled by a Methodist Conference official, and the LUMC family now also has to deal with the sudden loss of a beloved pastor and an outgoing, wonderful family.

Ruth Stafford, a part-time secretary at the church said, "We're all just numb in disbelief. We want to wake up from this nightmare."  She, too, was looking forward to Sunday's worship.  "I felt like Michael had this all under control, and he would make everybody feel better on Sunday," Stafford told a friend.  No one felt better on Sunday.

Mike Pennington, Director of Missions for the Bledsoe Baptist Association, talked to Pastor Welch about disaster relief efforts several times on Wednesday.  It's hard for him to believe his friend and co-laborer is gone.  "It's just heartache on top of heartache,'' Pennington said.

What can you say when faced with such a senseless loss, especially one that is heaped on top of a already heartbreaking situation?  Surely this is a case where there are no words.  In John 11, Jesus was faced with the loss of his friend Lazarus and he wept.  He didn't weep for Lazarus - He knew He was about to speak three words and Lazarus would be restored to life.  Jesus wept because He felt the pain, hurt and anguish of Mary, Martha, and those who loved Lazarus.

God's word tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15). Sometimes we try to come up with words when there really are no words.  Only tears.

A few years ago, Fonda and I were asked to sing at the funeral of a small child who had died suddenly of SIDS.  We stood at the front of the church as the family came in.  The sight of the funeral director coming down the aisle carrying the tiny casket in his arms was devastating.  Seeing the anguish and despair on the faces of the parents was almost too much to bear.

What can you say in a situation like that? 

Ben Hatfield, our Pastor Emeritus, was asked to preach the service.  Everyone there had the same question on their hearts: Why?  I'll never forget Ben's words:  "There are times when the most loving, compassionate, wisest thing that you can say is 'I don't know.'  This is one of those times."

I know we live in a world broken by sin, and natural disasters are a part of that brokenness.  But I don't know why the lives of every student at Union University were spared and yet 59 other people died in the surrounding areas.  And I certainly don't know why an already grieving congregation had it's pastor taken from them so suddenly and so tragically.

But God does.  He sees the whole picture where we only see in part.  And, in the words of Spurgeon, where we cannot trace His hand, we can trust His heart.

The message on the church sign in front of Lafayette United Methodist Church this week says it well: "Our loss is heaven's gain.  We will miss you, Pastor."

Friends in Both Places

The story is told that at a social gathering author Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) walked up on a lively conversation about heaven and hell.  When the participants asked Clemens to weigh in on the matter, the quick-witted writer said he would rather not comment because he had friends in both places.

Jimmy Carter sings with Gov. Sonny Pardue and William Shaw at the New Baptist Covenant meeting

That anecdote summed up how I felt about weighing in on the meeting this past week dubbed the "New Baptist Covenant." I have friends in both camps, both conservative and moderate Baptists.  Many Southern Baptists dismissed the gathering outright, pointing to both the high-profile participants (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Al Gore) and the timing (the same week as Super Tuesday) as evidence it was nothing more than a partisan political event.

Another reason for my reticence is that saying anything positive about moderate Baptists can get you in as much trouble with some conservative Baptists as Barack Obama got in with the Democrats for saying something vaguely positive about Ronald Reagan.

I am a theological conservative, but I have a passionate desire to see evangelicals end the rancor, bickering and fighting that has seriously damaged our credibility with the people we desire to reach with the Gospel. I earnestly long to see the Body of Christ united, but I am also deeply concerned when Baptists publicly deny that salvation is found in Christ alone and deny that John 14:6 means what it says ("I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Father but through me.")

A little background for those who were unaware - former President Jimmy Carter and Mercer University President Bill Underwood planned and organized a gathering of Baptists, admittedly mostly high profile, theologically moderate Democrats, seeking to counteract the negative image that most people have of Baptists.  Southern Baptists were invited to participate.  Carter personally reached out to many SBC leaders, some of whom are friends of mine, inviting them to attend.  Of those, some politely declined the invitation after praying about it, but wished them well in their efforts.  Some, like SBC President Frank Page initially had unkind things to say about the event, but softened their rhetoric after receiving personal assurances from Carter that his motives were not political.

Others chose to stay away and criticize the event - some in a decidedly sarcastic and mean-spirited way - via the media.  In essence, those folks chose to make political hay with their constituency by accusing Carter and his friends of making political hay with their constituency.  Funny how being "political," like gossiping, is always someone else does.

Last year, SBC President Frank Page reacted to the planned meeting by saying he would not take part in a "smokescreen left wing liberal agenda."  In recent weeks, Page stated Carter had "expressed his deep desire that this meeting be nonpolitical and Christ-honoring." He added, "I always affirm bodies of believers who gather for that reason. My promise of prayer support continues to be that this meeting will exalt the name of Christ, will point human beings toward the need for a personal relationship with Christ who alone can bring salvation."

By contrast, Dr. Richard Land, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission sarcastically called the meeting "The Democratic Party at Prayer." In January of last year, Land was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, "I'm not going to question their motives," and then proceeded to do exactly that for the last 12 months.  He implied those who didn't see the event as blatantly political in its timing (the week of Super Tuesday) and choice of speakers (mostly Democrats) were ignorant, naive, or both.  "Anyone who thinks all of that amounts to coincidence, I've got beachfront property in Arizona I'd like for you to look at," said Land.  (Actually, Dr. Land, the event was timed to coincide with the Atlanta gatherings of two groups of black Baptists who have been estranged from their white Baptist brethren since before the Civil War - NOT Super Tuesday.)

There was one prominent Southern Baptist on the platform - Georgia Governor Sonny Pardue, a member and Sunday School teacher at First Baptist Woodstock and a staunch conservative.  Welcoming the group to Georgia, Pardue proclaimed to the audience his “joy to stand up in front of you as a Baptist.”

As for the meeting itself, it was a mixed bag. Several speakers - mostly in breakout sessions - got about as political and negative as you could get.  But for the most part, the plenary speakers - including Bill Clinton, perhaps the most partisan politician on the planet - sounded a conciliatory tone, calling for moderates and conservatives to work together with kindness, graciousness, respect and love.  Here is a sampling:

Jimmy Carter: "Among the unsaved people on earth, what is the prevailing image of Christians today? It's not the dedicated and inspired work of our missionaries. It's not the great preaching of Billy Graham or others who inspire people. It's the image of divisions among brothers and sisters in Christ as we struggle for authority or argue about the interpretation of individual verses in the Holy Scriptures."

Bill Clinton: "The reason we have to love each other is because we all might be wrong... we did not come here to ratify each other's good deeds. We came here to seek a Covenant of reconciliation... We should not let our response to the people who disagree with us be dictated by what they say about us or even how they treat people that we care for. If there is any chance, any chance, that this Covenant can become an embracing one, that there could once again be a whole community then there has to be the chance of Love, the chance that we might not give up our differences but find that our common humanity matters more."

It remains to be seen what if anything in terms of real change will come out of this meeting, but it is a positive thing that moderate Baptists gathered in Atlanta and spoke words of love, respect and reconciliation toward their brothers and sisters in the SBC.  Hopefully, the SBC response will be gracious like Frank Page's assurance of prayer support, not Richard Land's sarcastic and demeaning zingers.

Duke Divinity School's Curtis Freeman had an interesting take on the future impact of this event: 

“If this meeting is about shaking a fist at evangelicals and the Southern Baptist Convention, it will have a very short shelf life. Then it becomes about anger and pride. It becomes the negative motivation of trying to say what we are not. What I like about this particular meeting is there are positive steps we as Baptists can take together.”