Outgoing SBC President Frank Page suggests that the Southern Baptist Convention should make some changes or the denomination will see a drastic reduction in numbers.
From the MondayMorningInsight:
“If we don’t start paying attention to the realities … by the year 2030, we will be proud to have 20,000 rather than 44,000 Southern Baptist churches.” That’s a quote from outgoing Southern Baptist Convention President Frank Page recently. According to a report in the Tennessean.com, Page believes the 16.2 million-member convention faces the same challenges that bedeviled other Protestant denominations — lower birthrates, aging demographics and a culture increasingly hostile to Christianity. In response, churches tend to circle the wagons and hang on for dear life.
“You’ve got massive numbers,” he said, “maybe not a majority but massive numbers of evangelical churches out there, yes, Southern Baptists also, who are small groups of older white people holding on till they die.”
Page says more outreach is needed in the SBC. He further suggests that the convention must embrace diversity if it hopes to survive. It must be more welcoming to ethnic groups and younger generations.
From Tennessean.com:
One of Page’s major tasks as president has been to change the public image of the convention. Too many people perceive Southern Baptists as mean-spirited, angry conservatives, he said. That image, he believes, is based on political talking heads and Republican culture warriors, and not on the actions of ordinary Southern Baptists.
He’s particularly angered at the actions of Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas-based congregation known for spewing hatred toward homosexuals and for protesting at military funerals.
“People have said, ‘Does it bother you that they are called Baptist?’ ” he said. “I say, it bothers me even more that they are called a church. Remove the Baptist from the issue or the argument. To call yourself a church should hold you to a very high calling and high standard that they do not live to.” …
While Page teaches that homosexual behavior is sinful, he also focuses on other sexual sins. If a couple comes to the church and is living together, the church insists the couple gets married before they can become members. And the church has gay people who attend, but are not members as well. Page says the church is not going to turn anyone away.
“We have people that are living together, we have homosexuals who come here, and who are not joining, because they are loved and cared for and they hear the Gospel,” he said. “We say you are welcome here. Do we have some requirements for membership? Yes. We are not going to back off those. But if you don’t meet those or don’t want to meet those, we are still going to love you.”
That kind of attitude exists in many Southern Baptist congregations, Page says, and that gives him hope for the future of the convention.
He describes himself as cautiously optimistic, believing that most Baptists would rather love their neighbors than bash them with the Bible.
(side note: The Nick & Josh podcast have a great interview with Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church. Listen to Pt 1 & Pt 2)