SBC in Louisville
June 29, 2009
Last week, the Southern Baptist Convention met in Louisville, Kentucky. It was a jam-packed four days – two days of the actual convention and two days of pre-convention meetings. All of this was preceded by Crossover, a significant ministry evangelism project to impact Louisville with the gospel. Over 1,000 first-time professions of faith in Jesus were reported as a result of those events.
The convention itself was very focused on two things – the Great Commission and how SBC organizations are weathering the current economic downturn. Related to the economy, seminaries and mission boards reported they have trimmed budgets, prioritized spending, and made intentional plans to stay focused on their respective assignments. The reports on these matters were positive, hopeful, and determined. SBC leaders are not averse to making hard decisions and pressing ahead through rough times – economic or otherwise.
The major emphasis of the convention, however, was the adoption of President Johnny Hunt’s Great Commission Resurgence initiative. Based on a chapel message and paper by Dr. Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Seminary, the initiative is Dr. Hunt’s attempt to narrow the focus of the convention to the Great Commission and rally Southern Baptists to greater emphasis on missions and evangelism. Given the decline in our national baptismal and membership statistics, the urgency of this project is quite evident.
As part of energizing our focus on the Great Commission, clarion calls to pastors and other local leaders were issued in sermon after sermon. It would be hard to miss the point of this convention – get busy evangelizing! Another part of this emphasis, however, is organizational. The convention authorized Dr. Hunt to appoint a Great Commission Resurgence Task Force (which he has already named) to make recommendations and suggestions to the denomination for improving its organizational focus on the Great Commission.
This group has a formidable task. The Southern Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist denomination are not the same thing. The convention can speak authoritatively only to its agencies – not to churches, associations, or state conventions. The means the task force will need to lead by influence and by appealing to the common good of mission advance. Needless to say, in a denomination as large and diverse as ours, this will be quite a challenge.
Let’s pray for them and give them time to work before prejudging the possible outcomes negatively. At Golden Gate, we will cooperate with this process fully and make any changes necessary to improve our work. This is no time to guard turf or defend past success. The urgency of the times demands humility, frankness, and openness to improvement. May God give us the grace to move boldly ahead.
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The Southern Baptist Convention
June 19, 2009
What happens when a giant tent revival meets a flea market that then intersects the food court at the mall? Answer: the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting!
The meeting this year is in Louisville, Kentucky, with activities from June 20-24. The actual convention is June 23-24. The Golden Gate Seminary report will be broadcast live at www.sbc.net at 2:45 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, June 23. Be sure to adjust for the time zone changes where you are and join me for the live report.
The meeting is in Louisville to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Southern Seminary, the mother seminary of the SBC. Southern has some exciting plans to celebrate this important birthday and we congratulate them on their impact for the kingdom of God. On June 24, I will be attending the formal sesquicentennial celebration on their campus. Having just celebrated our 65th anniversary, our school feels like a gangly teenager compared to Southern!
There are always many events and activities associated with the convention – including aggressive local outreach and ministry projects. There is usually some controversy during the meeting – to be expected when thousands of Baptists get together with an “open microphone” format. Yes, one of the unique features of the SBC annual meeting is the opportunity for any messenger to address the convention. Messengers make motions, ask questions, give opinions, speak to issues, and sometimes say the funniest things! “Only at the SBC,” is about the only explanation possible for some of the things that happen.
Perhaps the best part of the meeting is seeing friends from across the country. We are a relational convention. We adopt procedures and policies – but at our heart – we still want to “know the heart” of the people in leadership. Building friendships and reconnecting with leaders on a more personal basis makes our work stronger and more effective.
The entire convention will be webcast, live, from gavel to gavel. While you may not be able to attend in Louisville, you can enjoy the show from your home or office. Watching the meeting is a primer in Baptist polity. The messages will inspire you, the reports will encourage you, the music will thrill you (if you like a heavy dose of Southern gospel and big choirs), and the business sessions will be interesting – to say the least.
See you in Louisville – or online as you share the moment with a thousands of your best friends!
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Training multi-cultural leaders
June 15, 2009
One of the questions I am most frequently asked is, “What makes Golden Gate unique?” That’s a fair question, most often asked by prospective students trying to discern God’s will about where they should attend seminary. There are several things that make us unique but one stands out above them all.
Golden Gate is different from most seminaries in our multi-cultural setting, our multi-cultural student body, our multi-cultural staff and faculty that reflect the diversity of our community, and our experience in training men and women for ministry and mission work in a world of growing multi-cultural pluralism. People who visit our school or attend one of our functions often comment on the diversity they experience. We have been doing this for so long it seems like second nature to us.
America is changing, but the typical mono-cultural Southern Baptist church doesn’t seem to grasp what is happening. When they do, their typical response is segmenting other ethnic groups rather than treating them as partners. While some segmentation can be helpful for evangelism, particularly when there are language barriers, eventually we have to learn to integrate our work and become partners.
Last week, two prominent Chinese leaders visited me to discuss our mutual work in the future. Their most significant training need is equipping second-generation Chinese leaders who can bridge the gap of the changes happening in American Chinese churches. Those churches, largely Mandarin or Cantonese speaking (depending on the setting), are morphing into multi-cultural churches as the second and third-generation emerges. Increased intermarriage with Anglos and people from other ethnic groups is also part of this changing landscape. These leaders came to me because of our seminary’s reputation for training these type leaders. My hope is our partnership on this project will make a significant difference in the future.
The current issue of
On Mission magazine, the flagship publication of the North American Mission Board, is about multi-ethnic ministry. One of the statistics quoted is that there are now 300,000 Afghans living in the United States, with the largest concentration of 40,000 in the Bay Area. Many of them live in one community – locally called “little Kabul.” There are restaurants, movie theaters, and other businesses serving this community. Our students who are preparing for international service have a perfect laboratory for learning language, culture, etc. in this community. And, this example is replicated over and over again near both of our California campuses.
We thank God for our setting, the vision of our forefathers to become a seminary that reflects its setting, and for the opportunities we have for training people in the future. We are here “for such a time as this” and expecting great things as God continues to work through us.
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Times are changing
June 8, 2009
Last week, as part of our commencement ceremony at the Northern California Campus in Mill Valley we honored our “Golden Graduates.” It was the 50th anniversary of the first graduating class since the seminary moved to its current location from Berkeley, California. There were many special moments in the two-day celebration. One really stood out for me.
The Golden Graduates were seated outside the arena on benches since there was no seating in the student assembly area prior to the processional. Just before we marched in, we organized the Golden Graduates and brought them into the staging area through the back doors of the arena. The current graduates erupted in a spontaneous ovation when the older graduates entered the assembly area. It was a powerful moment as current graduates honored their predecessors.
One of the current graduates wrote me a letter of appreciation for including the Golden Graduates in the ceremony. Then he made an interesting observation. All of the Golden Graduates were, by ethnicity, Anglo. They were an accurate representation of their era and the seminary’s focus at the time. He contrasted the Golden Graduates with the 200+ current graduates recognized that night. A large majority of them were non-Anglo, people representing the nations of the world.
Our current graduates represent the seminary as it is today. We have large numbers of international, second and third-generation, and other minority students. When all of these are combined, they total about 55% of our student body. Our faculty and staff also mirror this diversity, although not yet to that percentage among our faculty. Our community is representative of California culture, particularly urban culture.
The United States is becoming less Anglo, more multicultural, more intercultural, and multilingual. We have embraced these changes and prepare students to minister in this milieu. Times are changing, American culture is shifting, and we are preparing leaders for the world that is, not one that has passed.
So, while we celebrate the Golden Graduates, we also celebrate Asian, Hispanic, African, and European graduates – along with hyphenated Americans descended from these major cultural groups. Golden Gate is uniquely positioned, both geographically and by conviction, to equip people for ministry to the nations. It’s a privilege and honor to work in this environment.
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Blessed and Humbled
June 1, 2009
Last week we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Golden Gate Seminary being located on Strawberry Point in Mill Valley, California. The seminary started in Oakland at Golden Gate Baptist Church in 1944. It soon relocated to Berkeley, California and finally moved to our present location in 1959. To celebrate, we invited all the graduates from 1944 through 1959 to return to campus. We had two days of receptions, banquets, tours, and other fun events. The highlight was opening the time capsule placed in the cornerstone in 1959.
Special guests included John Carl Warnecke, the architect who designed the campus (age 92!) and the Joe Morris, president of the first graduating class (also 92!). We heard stories from many of the graduates who told us about the early days of the seminary. Here is one of my favorites.
A young pastoral candidate in Texas learned of Golden Gate and decided to pursue training in California. The seminary, at that time, had only a handful of students. He drove from Texas and arrived on a Saturday night. He slept in his car on the parking lot of the Golden Gate Baptist Church where the seminary started and Dr. Isam Hodges, its first president, was also the pastor. The young man attended the service, told Dr. Hodges of his desire to enroll in seminary, and was invited home for lunch. That afternoon, it was arranged for him to preach the following Sunday in view of a call at another local Baptist church. He then got back in his car, returned to Texas, loaded his wife and child in the car (along with their meager belongings), and set out for California. They returned in time for our student to appear before the church and be called as their pastor. All of this long before the interstate highway system was built!
This story, and countless others like them, inspired and blessed us. They also humbled us. The founders and early builders of our school made remarkable sacrifices to create something out of nothing. The people who founded our school were visionaries but the students who came to Golden Gate in the early days also took a great risk. They came to a school that was more promise than proven fact. Yet, because of their willingness to be early adopters our school has grown to be a leading international provider of theological education and ministerial training.
When the Golden Graduates led the processional into the spring commencement ceremony last week, my heart swelled with gratitude for their investment in our school and the privilege of hosting them back on campus. It’s good to look back, not just to remember, but to be inspired. Thanks Golden Graduates for your investment in our school and for blessing us with your presence on campus last week!
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