My friend Bill Leonard, at Wake Forest, spoke in Houston recently at the luncheon sponsored by Associated Baptist Press. I didn’t get to go, due to financial constraints, but his remarks have been posted in various Baptist periodicals, reported by Robert Dilday and Ken Camp. Some of them really struck a chord with me. See if they do with you as well, especially if you have at least some Baptist sympathies…

• Baptist denominational systems across the U.S. are in transition and being redefined, spawning a number of issues that are complicating and clouding the Baptist landscape.
• The once-formidable Baptist presence in the U.S. retains its significant numerical dominance, but the demographics reflect a denomination in decline, torn by internal controversies on one side and mega-church competition on the other, held together by an aging constituency, faltering finances and turbulent identity crises.

Why?

• Cultural transitions are now “normative” in Baptist communities.
• Openness to unfamiliar cultures is increasing.
• Denominational adherence matters less and less to religious Americans.
• Moderate Baptist groups, e.g. the Alliance of Baptists, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and Texas Baptists Committed, have reached a numerical and financial plateau.
• Baptist churches are renegotiating their “Baptistness.”
• Baptists under the age of 45 are unfamiliar with intact denominational systems.
Then Bill says, and I completely agree with his findings, that developments in evangelism and theology of salvation have left “many Baptists uncertain as to what conversion means, how it is experienced and what is the most effective means for declaring the gospel.”

Bill is not one just to delineate the problems and not offer solutions. He says we must…

• Recast our idea of religious pluralism and how to engage it. We must “ask what we mean by the nature of our witness and the tone of our voice.”
• Respond to the connectionalism of media… that reconnects old communities and facilitates new ones.
• Learn to live out a “responsibility of the minority.”
“We have an opportunity,” he says, “to recover a lost witness in a society where our voice may not be privileged but it must be heard, where we rediscover the power of witness in a society… that pays less and less attention.”

If you would like to read Robert’s and Ken’s article, you will find it at http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4204&Itemid=53

Pastoring a congregation that consistently struggles with identity, purpose and the need to recast its witness in the community, I find the issues Bill speaks of to be not only in my front yard but right in my face. Folks, it’s a new day in being followers of Jesus and doing it within the Baptist framework. I definitely invite responses.

And I promise my next entry to be lighter in tone.