Floyd presents GCR task force 'progress report' to SBC Executive Committee

NASHVILLE (FBW) ? When Southern Baptists meet in Orlando in June they will be faced with the choice of retreating to the past, preserving the present, or rising to a future of advancing the Gospel to the nations, Great Commission Resurgence Task Force Chairman Ronnie Floyd told the SBC Executive Committee meeting Feb. 22 in Nashville.

In describing the SBC meeting as a "moment that will define the future for generations to come," Floyd said it could "show that Southern Baptist are a unified people, Bible-based, Gospel centered, and set on fire by the Holy Spirit, believing we must join together like never before in presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all the nations."

Underscoring the interest in the GCR report, Floyd spoke to a packed 400-seat auditorium in the SBC building, which included in the audience Executive Committee trustees, various denominational leaders from national and state convention entities, pastors, and laypersons.

During the 90-minute presentation, Floyd said the GCRTF is offering six "components" of a "new and compelling vision for the future":

a "missional vision" with eight "core values,"

a "reinvented" North American Mission Board,

the authorization of the International Mission Board to work in North America,

movement of the ministry assignment for Cooperative Program promotion and stewardship from the Executive Committee to state conventions,

affirmation of the current Cooperative Program definition while creating a new category of "Great Commission Giving," and

increase of the IMB's CP budget share by one percent by cutting the Executive Committee's budget by the same percentage.

Floyd was joined by five other members of the task force in assisting with the presentation, billed as a "progress report."

During its deliberations, Floyd noted the task force has received 137 specific recommendations, receiving "vast correspondence" from Southern Baptists. The task force website has 6,128 prayer partners from 1,574 cities, 49 states and 30 countries.

Before outlining the specific recommendations, for 30 minutes Floyd elaborated on Joel 2:12-17 and passionately described the need of Southern Baptists to grasp the "staggering" lostness of North America and the rest of the world, as well as to face their ineffectiveness in impacting that lostness.

"I believe with all my heart that God is calling us to return to Him now in deep repentance of our sin, in brokenness over our sin, denying our pride and selfishness and returning to God with complete humility," Floyd said.

He decried the "boasting, ego and pride" that too often characterizes Southern Baptists and said the "disunity in our churches and in our denomination is so wrong and sinful."

Although the task force is recommending changes, Floyd said that's not enough.

"We realize our number one need is to return to God in deep repentance and experience a fresh wave of His Spirit upon our lives, ministries and work of our denomination," Floyd said. "We need a fresh and compelling vision that will only come when we are right with Him."

Citing examples of Christian conversions in the Muslim world and other advances of the Gospel around the world, Floyd said, "I believe we are on the brink of the mightiest outpouring of the Holy Spirit to have ever occurred in the world."

Answering the question of why a GCR is needed, Floyd said, "The lostness of North America and the entire world is staggering."

Of the 340 million people in North America, he said 258 million are estimated to be non-Christians. In seven western states, 92 million live, 82 percent are lost and only 3,983 Southern Baptist churches exist, and 2,276 in California. In nine northeastern states, nearly 55 million people live, with 83 percent non-Christian and only 1,068 Southern Baptist churches.

Globally, Floyd said, 5,845 people groups have no access to the Gospel ? 4 billion of the world's 6.8 billion are unreached. An estimated 90 percent of the world's population is non-Christian.

"Please understand: To the degree we grasp lostness will be the degree we are willing to do whatever is necessary to penetrate it," he asserted, noting many Southern Baptists are practical Universalists, acting as if "lostness does not exist."

In the midst of such lostness in North America and the rest of the world, Floyd cited various statistics demonstrating Southern Baptists are less effective today than in the past.

Although the U.S.'s population has doubled since 1950 and the SBC has more than 17,000 more churches since then, Southern Baptists baptized 33,887 less people in 2008 than in 1950.

Floyd said he and his task force have been "gripped by the reality of the lost condition of our world and about our condition as a denomination."

The task force has been given a vision by God, which the SBC will be asked to "accept," "endorse" and "champion," he said.

Floyd then outlined the six components of the GCRTF's vision.

Missional vision
Southern Baptists will be asked to endorse a "missional vision and to begin to conduct ourselves with core values that will create a new and healthy culture" in the SBC, Floyd said.