Observations on young Baptists

As Alexis alerted us of, there has been a good discussion happening on the BGCT blog conerning Ken William’s article which appeared in the Baptist Standard last week. Alexis has asked me to post a version of my comments in that discussion here on the TBYPN blog.

These are my thoughts and observations.

First, let me say that I thought Ken’s piece was a good OpEd piece and I am glad the Standard ran it. With so much change on the horizon for the BGCT I am glad they made the choice to allow at least the whisper of the voice from the 20something generation of Church leaders be heard.

I think this debate is good, even as it exemplifies many of the divisions between generations as well as the rhetoric that has driven many 20somethings away from the church.

Here are a few observations from a 26 year old Baptist pastor on his generation of Baptist servants.

1) We are not as great in number as the number of Baptist leaders of our parents generation. But we are out there. We are serving. We have a voice and it is worthy to be heard.

2) We DO want something new. If you ask many my age about “Baptist Distinctives” they will list Business meetings, endless committee meetings, pot-luck dinners, Lottie Moon, Annie Armstong, and Mary Hill Davis.

The bureaucracy of church polity, associational, and convention life does not hold great appeal. At best it is tolerated. But no good alternative has yet to emerge.

Great appeal and hope is found in our historic Baptist Distinctives. We want to recover our understanding and fervent practice of these. We want to limit meetings, staid programs, and bureaucratic organization and strip these down to those that are absolutely necessary and mobilize all the resources of time, creativity, money, etc, that is freed in this process for Kingdom Work.

3) We want to go. This isn’t just our generation, but we are much less prone to send a check to a missions agency than we are to simply go ourselves. Wherever that mission field maybe. And we may not go through a Baptist sending agency.

The danger of this is that the pendulum may swing too far away from cooperative efforts. Cooperation for us may not be the Cooperative program, but will be in the form of a grouping of churches who share a common mission for a people or a place or a specific kingdom work. Hopefully the Cooperative program can remain a part of it too.

4) The label “liberal” does not apply to most of us, but it doesn’t strike fear and loathing in our hearts either. For that matter, neither does the term, “conservative.” By Baptist standards many of us are “liberal.” Many of us are not. Almost all of us have many friends and influences who truly are “liberal” and we feel we are the better for it. For many of us, “Fundamentalism,” is a much scarier label. Let’s just really try to limit the labels.

5) We do desire to unite instead of divide, but for most of our lives we have been taught division instead of multiplication; or, even simple addition. Therefore the BGCT Annual Convention may not hold the appeal that the NBC does, because it is not seen as just another meeting, but represents a chance to unite to some degree. We would never misunderstand a session about “Sexual Exploitation” with the misdeeds of Former President Clinton.

We are looking for a way forward. For many of us the NBC holds hope for the beginnings of a better way. It will most likely not be the solution.

Many of us are waiting for the vision that galvanizes us. And not just us, but our churches and our denomination as well. We know it surrounds the Kingdom of God and enacting the ethics of the Kingdom of God as laid out in the Gospels. We think it has something to do with practicing social justice and serving our neighbor and living missionally. We hope we are moving toward it. We are actively waiting…

6) Most of us identify ourselves as Follower’s of Christ who happen to be baptist. Not as Baptists.

7) Many of us may not know the exact definition of Social Gospel or the differences between the social gospel and social justice. We know we want to serve our neighbor. And for us that includes righting wrongs. Whether our neighbor literally is the person next door or happens to be an entire people group or nation. If the world were following our Creator, there would not be the need for social justice, the problem is that all of us aren’t, so the need is there.

None of this is new or terribly enlightening. It just adds to the discussion. Thank you Ken for the article. Thank you Baptist Standard for running it. Thank you Alexis for allowing me to be part of the discussion on this blog.

Fellow young baptists, in your opinion, who are we? What are our characteristics? What are we looking for? What are we working for?

Explore posts in the same categories: Baptist Distinctives, Emerging Adults, New Baptist Covenant, Texas Baptist Young Professional Network

Tags: Young Baptists

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