Part of the Solution, Not the Problem

aka What we can learn from crashing and burning:

I don't know if your dad told you to be part of the solution and not the problem as much as my dad did, but it is definitely one of the lasting pieces of advice he gave me. The SBC recently completed a "Younger Leader" emphasis, with discussion boards, meetings, and other various activities and events. While I think that Dr. Draper had a great idea, and there is much to be learned from/taught to those my age and slightly older in these types of interactions, this particular attempt ended up crashing and burning in a spectacularly visible way.

While I don't fault Dr. Draper, I do think that much could have been done to change the outcome of this focus. The problems began when the call to younger SBC "leaders" went out. For all the "leaders" we have in our seminaries, you know, not a single person involved in these events was a seminary student. That is, if there were any, they were either hiding or not saying much. For those who have not been to one of the seminary campuses in a while, these institutions are a veritable hot-bed of young leader activity. In fact, I would hazard a guess that you could walk across any Southern Baptist seminary campus between classes and encounter at least a dozen men and women involved in off-campus ministry, many of them as part of their job, secular and religious. While there are all these young individuals running around these institutions, who, dare I say it, know where "today's culture" is probably better than most people who are 35-45 do, when the invitation to participation in "younger leader" events is made, there was nowhere near the publicity at those institutions necessary to achieve successful turn-outs by those who are actually on board with the SBC in a substantive and committed way to the extent that most of our seminary students are. While it is hard to say why this happened from my perspective, as whether it was overlooked, thought unnecessary, or even dismissed is impossible to tell, it is clear that it did happen. If there was a "younger leader" event near me, someone ought to have been talking about it. They weren't. If you want younger leaders to show up, they have to know it is going on to be there. I only found out about it by mistake, and even then after the events were completed. Now, that's not to say that no one showed up. Some people did. And that's the next part of the crash scene we must visit.

In a nation full of young people, who, according to many recent surveys are becoming more and more conservative and traditional every day, it would be no surprise that there were some willing to show up to help the "old guard" see it from a "younger" perspective. However, perhaps due to the limitations of the first part of the crash scene (see above) or some other phenomenon, only the Postmodernists showed up. Wait a second! There were non-PoMo's there? Oh, well, lets put it this way. The discussion boards are filled with a plethora of emergent scrap, the repackaged whining of the new and improved seeker-sensitive church and not much else it seems. If there were any others at meetings and other places, you have my sympathy, but at this point, there is not much left accessible except these emergent rants. More about that later. You see, because we did not tap into our greatest number of currently active, in-touch with the culture, quite young, "younger leaders", we missed out on what could have been a very traditional, evangelical, Southern Baptist, non-postmodern process. That leads to the product of the events, crash scene part three.

Part three comes in two varieties. The first is the product of the discussion boards. Now, truthfully, I didn't have the patience or the ability to digest much more than three hours of reading the old discussion boards, so I may have missed a point or two that could have been helpful. With this in mind, there may have been beneficial, constructive, truly useful results I somehow missed. That said, in three hours all I saw was a whole lot of whining. Yep, things like, "no one listens to us" and "if things don't change we're all going to jump ship" and even "I've paid my 'dues', where's my spot in getting to say what goes?". Now, over and over they said things like "we don't want to run everything, just a voice", but then they proceeded to talk about how the "old guard" ran everything, and they were left out. So, for part one, the discussion boards, of crash scene three we have only a bunch of whining individuals.

For part two of scene three, we have the fact that no solutions or plans or even ideas for a way forward came out of the event. Maybe because the PoMo's were trying to justify their presence or prove they are really Christians, or maybe even because they just haven't gotten over Dr. Carson's latest criticisms and they are just having a hard time dealing with it all. Whatever the case, we had a whole list of problems, and not a single solution among them. That is unless you consider a "napkin" to be the revolution of the century. From the Lifeway article here we learn "Harris proposed what may very well become known as the 'Napkin Test'. 'If you can’t tell somebody what you stand for in the space of a napkin, then you don’t clearly understand the message you are trying to communicate,' said Harris, pastor of Gracepoint Church, San Antonio, Texas, and featured speaker for the summit". Yep, that's it, put it on a napkin. And this is from a hired speaker, a guy they paid to come up with answers, not the participants, the "younger" ones that are supposed to be fueling this radical new thing. I'm sorry, but what size napkin are we talking about? A dinner napkin, the big giant ones a fancy dinners, or the little tiny ones they put your drink on at a restaurant? Soundbites aren't the answer to our irrelevance and disconnect with culture, nor to our need to involve younger guys and how to do it. Try telling President Bush that Judge Roberts ought to be confirmed based solely upon what can be put on a napkin and see what happens. What we are talking about is bigger than just a one liner or fancy diagram. We're talking about the future of our ministry as a cooperative body. We're talking about what it going to take to honor our predecessors and mentors, and protect the Resurgence they won while still looking toward the future. Just because the fight of the past is over doesn't mean we push past it and "move on". I'm not talking about continuing to argue on the doctrines of Inspiration and such, but about protecting our doctrines from the corruption of the emergents, the seeker-sensitive (sometimes the same people), the liberals, the uninformed, and anything else that comes our way. And here's the kicker. While the result of these meetings was a crash and burn panorama of disaster, they were right that things have to change.

So here comes my decision. I decided to be part of the solution, and not the problem. I am not going to whine. I will inform others, and try to get them to join me, or at least do their thing in the same general direction, but I won't whine. And, that's not all.

I cannot remember who said it now, if the person who told me this reads this, let me know so I can give you credit, but someone told me this past week, "we've done a great job of telling everyone what we are not and do not do, but they don't know who we are and what we do". So, I am going to do two things in solving this problem. Realistically, I am not sure we can ask for much more, because a lot of this is going to take improvisation and just working it out as we go, because no board room session will find the solutions we need.

First, I am going to get out there. We have a disconnect when it comes to making sense of the culture, and relevantly impacting it. So, I'm going to get out in it. Just like we were commanded to, be in it, not of it. I think this will be my new phrase, "in it, not of it". You want to know how to reach a college student? Talking to one is a good starting place. Knowing the people, figuring out what makes them click, why they do what they do, is the first step. And as much as I love Dr. Rainer and all his work, and even that Barna fellow comes out with something helpful now and then, but no list of facts or stats helps when Suzy is crying because her drunk father beat her dog and yelled at her mom and blamed it on Suzy because she drives him crazy, or whatever else is going on in her life. If you don't know what to say, just be there, and then work it out and tell her later, it'll be okay. We don't have to convert every person in 10 minutes, and we certainly don't have to fix every problem in one encounter. I would guess that the majority of the people who struggle with knowing how to reach the lost don't have many lost friends. Or if they do, they don't spend much time with them. I know I don't. So, that's my first step. I am going to get out there, and get to know some of them, and maybe, I'll understand the culture a bit better when I'm in it and not of it.

Second, I'm going to tell my new lost friends, at some point, who I am and what I do, not who I am not and what I do not do. In my last post I made the point that believers need to tell others about Christ, and pastors equip them to do it, not that the pastor is the only one doing "ministry", but the church does it, and pastors help. Here's the thing, pastors, by definition, do not cease to be part of the church as they become equippers of the church. So we still have the same burden as everyone else in the pews. So, if I want to live up to my role, then I have to be telling people about me and what I believe, and the sooner I get over the "nots" and "don'ts", we'll have a much easier time of connecting. If people say "oh your a Southern Baptist, the guys who don't drink and don't dance" then they don't really know who we are (thanks Mr. S for the line). We have to start helping people understand we are not the Disney-boycotters or the anti-homosexuals or the pro-lifers. We've got the Good News, and all most people know about us is that we've got the Big List of Rules. So, as I'm getting out there, I'm going to be talking about who I am and what I do, and if I do that enough, they'll understand what I do not do and what I am not on their own and we'll all be better off for it.

Now, I know I have said a lot. But I think its time we realized that the best way the younger leaders of the SBC can make a difference, and prepare ourselves for the handoff of leadership of the Big Show is to remember that the Convention and all its glitz is secondary to our calling, and to get out there and just do ministry. I am as guilty as anyone of wanting recognition and a "place at the table" or even just a sympathetic ear from those I respect and look up to, but I'm not going to play politics anymore. I'm going to get out there and fulfill my calling as a Christian by being a new kind of Southern Baptist, one who hangs out with the lost and tells them about who I am and what I do. I hope to see you there.