Archive for the 'Pastors' Category
A Pastor’s Response to the Recent Report Released This Week on Declining Baptisms in the Southern Baptist Convention
A report was released on Monday, May 12, 2014, entitled, “Pastors’ Task Force on SBC Evangelistic Impact & Declining Baptisms.” If you did not see the report, I do hope you will take a moment to read it. There is also a brief video worth watching.
Acknowledgement of and Addressing the Problem
This task force has been meeting since last September, learning, listening, praying, evaluating, and strategizing with our North American Mission Board. I want to break down their acknowledgement of and how to address the problems contributing to declining baptisms.
Acknowledgement Addressing
1. Spiritual Problem Pray for Spiritual Awakening
2. Leadership Problem Model Personal Evangelism and Provide Pathways
3. Discipleship Problem Create a Disciple-Making Culture
4. Next Generation Problem Serve the Next Generation
5. Celebration Problem Celebrate Evangelism and Baptism
I want to thank all of our leaders who were involved in this study on behalf of our churches. I am most grateful for their service.
My Response to the Report
Most, if not all of these findings were somewhat expected, but they did a superb job in crystallizing our present situation for each of us to understand.
I want to share with you a few responses to these findings.
Before I give my responses, please know, as soon as I received this report, slept on it and prayed through it, I sent it to our staff Leadership Team, and requested: Go over this report this week with your teams; we will go through it in our Leadership Team meeting on Monday, plus our next entire Ministry Team meeting.
I share this with you today because I find the report helpful for us at Cross Church. We have talked through many, if not all of these at one time or another over the past six to twelve months. We are continually trying to find ways to improve in each of these areas at Cross Church.
My Responses:
1. Spiritual Problem: Yes, indeed we do. In a recent interview with Dr. Jason Allen of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, I stated specifically: Our greatest problem is spiritual, and our only hope is spiritual awakening.
As I have now spent time praying seriously in four different gatherings with 1,500 plus pastors of the Southern Baptist Convention, I can assure you, there is a growing sense of urgency that spiritual awakening is our greatest need not only in our convention, but in America. We must prioritize a major movement of extraordinary prayer personally, in our churches, across the convention, and among evangelicals in America and the world. We need spiritual awakening!
2. Leadership Problem: Yes, again! For months, I have been talking to our team about how God is burdening me greatly in the area of personal evangelism and how we must be much more intentional in sharing our faith with the goal of asking people to trust Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
I am very excited about an upcoming strategy that will be released soon by the North American Mission Board. It will provide a tool to equip our people in personal evangelism. In fact, I will use it on a Sunday morning during worship to equip our people, and then implement ways for engagement, intentionality, and accountability. Therefore, I agree 100% and pray daily for God to open doors and conversations for me to have gospel opportunities with others. The power is in the gospel. We must share it personally and preach it continually. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation!
3. Discipleship Problem: I agree again, and this is why we have taken our church into an organized weekly curriculum for small groups called Bible Studies for Life. This curriculum series is released by LifeWay, and I have the privilege to serve as its General Editor. At least 150,000 small groups use this curriculum weekly. We want our small groups exposed to the Word of God, and we are utilizing this series to help.
Additionally, we are becoming much more intentional on personal discipleship. We believe we have to have multiple ways to disciple people, and most of all, as the report states, “Create a culture of disciple-making.” There is much to say about this area. Needless to say, it is a very needed and ongoing conversation here at Cross Church.
4. Next-Generational Problem: There is no question in my mind that we must get serious about addressing this problem. I am becoming more intentional all the time about mentoring the next generation. I have done so for years, but in the past couple of years, I have taken it to another level.
It is imperative that we address this issue within our churches and our convention. I talked about this in my interview with Jason Allen, referred to earlier. Therefore, we must get serious about addressing this problem.
5. Celebration Problem: We know this, and have been in the process of changing it in our church. We do realize and recognize that we have to work hard at highlighting and celebrating life-change, personal soul-winning, and baptisms.
In fact, just about ten days ago, I announced our own task force within our own staff team that will evaluate everything: from website, to worship, to hallways, to our entire culture, recommending ways we can improve on celebrating. We were moving in this direction before this report was released. The staff members assigned to this task force are not connected to any of these areas. We wanted to give permission to the members of this task force to look at all these areas with fresh eyes. We will implement most, if not all, of their findings and recommendations.
In Closing
While deeply burdened by the findings released, I am very hopeful about us seeing it turned around within our convention of churches.
Through Christ and the Spirit’s power, we can.
I would encourage each of us to:
1. Wear this burden and act upon it personally and with your church corporately.
2. Talk to God about these things. He is the only One who can lead us and truly insure it is turned around.
3. Communicate these findings with your laypeople and your lay leaders. If you have a staff, communicate it with them also. Evaluate and help them wear this burden alongside of you.
4. When you go inside the Full Report from this group, you will discover these disheartening things: 25% of our churches reported no baptisms at all, 60% of our churches did not baptize one person between the ages of 12-17 years, 80% of our churches baptized one or zero persons between the ages of 18-29, and the only upward tick in trends is that we are baptizing more children 5 years and under as a convention of churches.
The church of America needs spiritual revival and America needs spiritual awakening. We must pray for a movement toward extraordinary prayer! Only this will move us to a higher and deeper commitment to reaching our towns, cities, states, country, and world to faith in Christ. Therefore, “Oh Lord, give us spiritual awakening!”
Yours for the Great Commission,
Ronnie W. Floyd
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.
Pastors: How do you meet your Ministry Budget goal in the summer?
Pastor, let me ask you a very important question: What is your strategy to meet your Ministry Budget this summer? Do you want to meet it? Do you expect to meet it?
I want to share with you an idea we have practiced for years. With the exception of two years during the last twenty or so, we have been able to meet our Ministry Budget goal during the summer. This simple strategy can be used in any size church and result in success.
Step 1: Determine your Summer Program of Giving goal
What is the weekly budget requirement for your church? Determine this over a fifty-two week year. Then, multiply this weekly budget requirement goal by the number of weeks during the summer. For example, we always use the Sundays from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend. This is usually fifteen weeks.
Therefore, for simplicity, let’s imagine your weekly budget goal is $10,000. If you multiply this goal of $10,000 per week by the fifteen weeks from Memorial Day Sunday through Labor Day Sunday, your Summer Program of Giving goal for the summer would be $150,000.
Step 2: Effectively communicate the Summer Program of Giving goal to your people
How do you do this? Let me suggest the following:
1. On the second Sunday of May, communicate the Summer Program of Giving goal to your people. Using the financial scenario in the above illustration, I would counsel you to say something like: “Church, Sunday, May 25, through Sunday, August 31, is fifteen weeks. During this fifteen week period of time, our Summer Program of Giving Goal is $150,000. This is what it will take for the fifteen weeks of this summer, to operate our church at an optimum level. While many of you will travel, we need the ministry to stay strong. Therefore, I will keep this goal and our progress toward reaching it before you weekly. We can do this for the glory of God. All we are doing is taking the weekly requirement of $10,000 and multiplying it by these fifteen weeks. Our goal is $150,000 during these fifteen weeks. Let’s do it for the glory of God.”
2. Write a letter during the week following the announcement to your entire church family. In this letter, you are extending the same kind of challenge, and perhaps telling them how this will fund major ministry projects like summer camps for children and teenagers, Vacation Bible School, and many other things. Ask them to be faithful weekly, whether they are present or not, so that we can reach this goal. Appeal to them to give before they leave town, right after they return, or use technology to give while they are away.
3. Use the weekly bulletin or handout, as well as any mailouts to the church family, like a newsletter, to help communicate the vision. This is so important; keep it before the people in every way possible.
4. In the weekly bulletin and subsequent mailouts, develop a simple progress gauge to show how you are doing toward the goal. You can use a thermometer, some kind of timeline, or something else. You are always showing:
- Your goal of $150,000 or your actual goal
- The date and where you should be on this date
- Actuality of where you are at this specific time
For example, let’s say at week #3, you are communicating something like this:
- Summer goal: $150,000
- Need to date: $30,000
- Actual Giving to Date: $32,000
Therefore, you are telling your people, at this present time you are ahead of your need to date.
5. During the summer, perhaps around July 15, do a major newsletter piece that communicates what the money given to date has been able to do thus far. Perhaps report what went on in June through your Vacation Bible School, summer camps, or something else. Talk about lives being changed and saved by the grace of God.
Step 3: Tell the story for 1-2 minutes weekly during your offering appeal and prayer
For example, “Church, let me tell you some fabulous news. Because of what you give to our church, this week we were able to influence 200 children through our Vacation Bible School, of which 40% were not members of our church. Besides this, to God’s glory, twenty-five children came to know Jesus Christ. This morning, we will baptize ten of these children. Why? All because you gave to our Summer Program of Giving. Thank you for what you are doing.”
Do not give just a financial appeal, but tell the story of the power of the gospel through your ministry.
Step 4: Celebrate the victories God gives you over these fifteen weeks of your Summer Program of Giving
On that last week or two if you are still behind your goal, perhaps you could write another letter to your people, asking them to finish strong. Ask them if they have been faithful to honor God with the first-tenth of everything each week for the first thirteen weeks of the summer. If not, appeal for them to make up these last two weeks by Sunday, August 31.
When you reach the goal, and usually you will, you will secure financial solidity for your church’s Ministry Budget. Why? If you can make the summer goal, you can usually make the overall budget goal. You are pulling up the most challenging time for your church financially. Then, celebrate, celebrate, and celebrate more what God has done because the church has been faithful to give.
The only two times we have not made our goal were unique times. One time, we were only a few dollars away. We chose not to make a final appeal because we were in a building program at the same time and all was fabulous in giving. The second time was a summer following the economy bombing nationally and locally; therefore, we planned accordingly in a wise manner and just understood the times in which we were living.
Here at Cross Church in the summer of 2014
Our Summer Program of Giving Goal here at Cross Church from May 25 through August 31, is $4,950,000. This includes not only our budget requirement, but an additional $100,000 for scholarships for our summer camps. Therefore, if we meet this goal, we not only fund our budget summer goals, but we also fund scholarship assistance for our summer camps. Pray for us. We will pray for you.
Yours for the Great Commission,
Ronnie W. Floyd
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.