ORLANDO, Fla.?Charles Stanley?long-time pastor of First Baptist Church in Atlanta?and his son, Andy Stanley?pastor of the Atlanta-area North Point Community Church?appeared together on the platform of the Southern Baptist Pastors’ Conference June 14.

Charles Stanley was honored on the 25th anniversary of his election to a second, one-year term as SBC president; Andy Stanley, who was introduced by his father, delivered a sermon titled “Some things I’ve been thinking about recently regarding local church leadership.”

In a video montage that included several Southern Baptist leaders and pastors, Charles Stanley reflected on the 1985 Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Dallas, saying, “It was a very tumultuous time. In fact, it was just warfare. A time of great strife, disagreement, hardship in everybody’s life.”

Reluctant to allow his name for nomination as president in 1984, Stanley recalled that he had prayed, fasted and enumerated the reasons he couldn’t do it?and cited the others who’d do a better job. But after encountering God in a way “that scared me to death,” Stanley relented.

“When there’s so much at stake, you don’t count the cost,” Stanley told the Pastors’ Conference audience regarding the Conservative Resurgence. “You just decide you’re going to obey God and leave all the consequences to him. And one thing is for certain: you cannot fail obeying God; there’s no way.”

Stanley told the crowd he believes America “is in the most critical condition it has ever been, even including the Second World War.”

“We’re at the fork of the road,” he said. “And if there’s one group of people in America that can make a difference that’s lasting, it is God’s men, who stand in the pulpit, week after week.”

Andy Stanley called it “a real treat” to be with his father at the Pastors’ Conference before turning to the subject of church leadership. Andy recalled when, in the early 1990s, the Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A restaurants were facing stiff competition from the upstart Boston Market. Chick-fil-A leaders were trying to figure out how Chick-fil-A could get bigger, faster. Company founder Truett Cathy pounded on the table and said, “I am sick and tired of listening to you talk about how we can get bigger. If we get better, our customers will demand we get bigger.”

Applying Cathy’s prescription to church growth, Stanley said that getting better, and ultimately bigger, requires evaluation and clarification. “I think the local church should be the best-run organization in your town,” he said, because the church is “the vehicle through which the gospel is fed to and communicated to the whole world.”

Stanley cited the Intel Corporation, whose ever-escalating battle with Japanese companies in manufacturing computer chips ultimately caused the company to diversify and stop making the component. Intel leaders realized they needed to abandon their emotional attachment to what they’d always done and if they didn’t, they’d soon be out of the computer chip business.

Stanley lamented that “we fall in love with the way we do ministry.”

“Are you going to continue to be in love with a model of ministry, and simply flirt with the Great Commission?” he asked. “Or are you willing to fall in love with the Great Commission and abandon a model of ministry that you know in your heart is not making a difference in your city?”

Too many churches are making it difficult for unchurched and unsaved people to attend church, Stanley said. “We’ve created church for church people,” he said. “And that reflects a desire more focused on keeping people in the church that reaching those outside of it.”

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ORLANDO, Fla.?Under the banner of “Greater Things,” speakers during the 2010 Pastors’ Conference? held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla., June 13-14?focused on the Great Commission and the launch of a national campaign to help pastors adopt children.

Tony Evans of Dallas and Matt Chandler of Flower Mound were among those who preached to the conference, which precedes the SBC annual meeting each year. Other notable speakers included apologist Ravi Zacharias and California pastor Francis Chan.

‘BECOME KINGDOM PEOPLE’

Like a team of referees in a football game, the church of Jesus Christ on earth is not here to take sides between earthly teams but to represent the interests of heaven, Evans, pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, reminded pastors in the closing message June 13.

Instead, with few exceptions, churches have been “drawn in to take sides” and “missed the kingdom,” Evans said, thereby perpetuating divisions caused by such things as race and politics.

For example, most Southern Baptists would vote Republican based on rightly placed concerns about certain moral issues, Evans said, but most of those at the National Baptist Convention, a historically African American group, would lean to the Democrat Party because they perceive that it values social justice issues.

Depending on the issue, sometimes Christians will necessarily come down on one political side or another, but the kingdom’s agenda must always dictate one’s loyalties, Evans said.

Noting that “the church of Jesus Christ is supposed to be a little bit of heaven, a long way from home” in the same way an American embassy represents the United States abroad, Evans said the church’s influence has been nullified because it has misunderstood its calling.

Citing Matthew 16, where Jesus told Peter that he would build his church on Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Christ, Evans said the best exegesis of the text connotes a collection of stones “hewn together.” In the same way, the church must be hewn together around “a common cause, a common impact.” If that were to a happen, Evans contended, there wouldn’t be both Southern Baptist and National Baptist conventions. Communities would be transformed, he said.

Christian convictions, not culture, must define God’s people, he said. “It is high time we become kingdom people,” representing the “King’s kids on the field of play.”

‘GRACE-DRIVEN EFFORT’

Chandler, pastor of The Village Church in Flower Mound, centered his message on the gospel as presented in 1 Corinthians 15. Noting that many churches are “primarily evangelism-oriented and not depth-oriented,” Chandler said the gospel affects not only one’s justification but sanctification as well.

Many churches and Christians have fallen into “moralistic deism,” which at its basic level points to behaviors that must be performed and/or avoided in order to receive the love of Christ, rather than to the atoning work of Christ on the cross, Chandler said.

Using D.A. Carson’s concept of “grace-driven effort,” Chandler explained there are two weapons found in God’s Word that grace provides: the blood of Christ, specifically described in Ephesians 2:13, and the promise of the New Covenant, found in Hebrews 9:13.

Grace-driven effort attacks the roots of sin in one’s life and not the branches,

ORLANDO, Fla.–Unity around the gospel and a new image before the world are priorities the next president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee will pursue when he takes office in October.

“My hope is that we can have a unified voice at every level, hope that there will be a strong encouragement to do missions more than we’ve ever done before,” Frank Page declared in a news conference on June 15.

Asked how he viewed receiving only 60 percent of the vote of Executive Committee members after several hours of closed-door discussion on June 14, Page responded, “It says to me that we’re a very divided group of persons. I think that which we see on the Executive Committee is indicative of what’s happening in our convention?that we have multiple opinions and are very free to voice those multiple opinions, sometimes very vocally, very strongly.”

Knowing that trust comes over time, Page said he is hopeful that a consistently positive and unified vision will build confidence in others.

“I think I have a track record of encouraging people in ‘followship’?that’s a part of leadership. I would hope those that may not have been initially voting for me realize that I can be a partner with whom they can work.”

Calling it a “mostly civil meeting,” Page said EC members realized they were able to express their opinions, be honest and receive answers to their questions.

Page, 57, most recently served as vice president of evangelization for the North American Mission Board, was pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., for nine years, and SBC president from 2006-08.

The pastorate gave him experience with “a complicated church filled with multiple subgroups of agendas much like the Southern Baptist Convention.” Having seen God bring about a transformation in a local church context, Page said in his new role of working with EC members, “I would work hard to bring about unity within that body.”

Having only been in the North American Mission Board role since October 2009, Page told Baptist Press he is puzzled somewhat by God moving him so quickly to the Executive Committee, but he identified three possible reasons for the short tenure.

“Number one, I think God gave me that time to see the inside of a denomination better than I would have as a pastor,” Page said. “I think he let me go to NAMB to let me see some of the inside, which I like some of it, some of it I don’t as I’ve looked on the inside of the denomination.

“Secondly, I think being a part of the GCR at the same time helped me provide a perspective to say NAMB has a unique missiological need, and I think that was an encouragement to some on the committee to see that NAMB does have a place separately than IMB,” Page said.

“Third, I would have to say the biggest reason I think God brought me to NAMB was to help legitimize and motivate and encourage people in the GPS strategy,” Page said, referring to the God’s Plan for Sharing national evangelistic initiative he advanced while president of the SBC.

Evangelism will be encouraged as Southern Baptists unite around the common cause of reaching the world for the Lord Jesus Christ, he said in addressing his priorities.

“It is my goal that if God were to allow me to serve for 10 to 15 years, that our nation particularly and our world generally would be able to say, ‘You know, Baptists are good people. We may not always agree with them but we’ve changed our mind about who they are'” after having seen them as godly, loving, caring people who help their neighbors instead of judging them by what they are against, he explained.

Page said he hopes to establish a long-term vision for Southern Baptists while working with those elected to the office of SBC president.

“Perhaps the CEO is a little more behind the scenes that the president, and I’ve served in that role so I understand that, but I do believe the president and CEO [of the EC] has a crucial role in establishing a long-term vision and as a leader of the Great Commission Council [he] helps pull together a unified group who can work together to see the Great Commission accomplished.”

Reiterating his desire to unify, Page said, “I want to be someone who comes in, in a collegial atmosphere, not adversarial in the GCC, for example, to pull them together in a common direction. I think Baptists are way past being tired of hearing about fusses and turf wars and those kinds of things,” he added, crediting SBC president Johnny Hunt for trying to “pull us together.”

Asked if he sees the EC president as “first among equals” in setting a vision within that group of SBC entity leaders, Page said, “I think he is the primary coordinator of that group and so he certainly needs to share his vision with those persons. Certainly they don’t work for the CEO. We work together and the CEO is a coordinating leader in that regard.”

Page said: “I hope Southern Baptists can be confident that there will be a strong hand at the helm. I’m not intimidated by strong individuals at the various entities and am anxious to pull them together in a common direction. I also believe all of the entities need to abide by the business and financial plan of the convention and will clearly call that to the attention of entity heads on a regular basis.”

He acknowledged having had “major difficulties” with the progress report of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force released Feb. 22, though he ultimately supported the final report. “That doesn’t mean it’s the report I would have written. It doesn’t mean that I come to the table with 100 percent agreement with the final report, but it does mean I felt strong enough that I could agree with the intent.”

“It did not seem to be strong enough in support of the Cooperative Program, that there was too much micromanagement of the North American Mission Board and a free pass given to other entities. I also did have some concerns of taking 1 percent from one of the smallest entities to give to the largest,” he added, referring to the recommendation to increase the International Mission Board’s allocation to 51 percent by reducing the Executive Committee’s allocation.

“I do want more money to go to international missions. I do support the Great Commission Resurgence. I’m extremely excited about the challenges at the end of the final report,” he added. “Anyone on the task force will tell you I was vocal, sometimes too vocal,” Page said.

“You need to be ready to be true to who you are,” he added, answering a question about the experience of serving on an SBC committee or board. “Southern Baptists are tired of what I think are unstatesmanlike activities, always saying what you think your little group wants to hear. Sometimes we’ve just got to be honest with who we are in the Lord,” he said.

Asked what role he would play when the Executive Committee takes up the matter of cutting its budget to accommodate task force recommendations, Page affirmed the trustee process.

“I think we need to calm down and realize that those sets of checks and balances help guard us and guide us,” he stated. “The Executive Committee is charged by the Southern Baptist Convention as an ad interim group to look at how best to deal with the spirit of that recommendation, but to implement it in such a way that the cause of God’s kingdom is enhanced and not hurt.”

Asked about statistical evidence pointing to decline in the Southern Baptist Convention, Page said, “If one is looking carefully, you would find our worship attendance has increased the last two years in a row. Membership is important, but it is not as important as the live, warm bodies in the pew.”

Noting the 2.2 percent increase in baptisms, Page said, “With the GPS focus that NAMB has now strongly in place, we’re going to see a significant turnaround in baptisms. Even in an era of increasing anti-denominationalism, major denominations can make a turnaround.”

A native of Robbins, N.C., Page holds a Ph.D. in Christian ethics focusing on moral, social and ethical issues from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, along with a master of divinity degree from Southwestern. He earned a bachelor of science degree with honors from Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina, majoring in psychology with minors in sociology and Greek.

Page is the author of several books, including “Trouble with the Tulip,” a critique of the five points of Calvinism, and commentaries on the biblical books for Jonah and Mark. He also contributed as lead writer for the Advanced Continuing Witness Training material. Page was named to President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships in February 2009.

ORLANDO, Fla.?Messengers to the 2010 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting passed, with little discussion, six resolutions on topics ranging from “the scandal of Southern Baptist divorce,” to the proposed lifting of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, to the Gulf oil disaster.

“What the committee tried to do this year was speak clearly and convictionally but speak as forgiven sinners and not as outraged partisans on any issue,” Resolutions Committee chairman Russell Moore told reporters after the adoption of the resolutions. “We wanted to make clear we were speaking from the point of view of the gospel as those who deserve only condemnation ourselves, with every word of prophetic warning also extending a word of grace and mercy in Christ. Also, to make sure we are speaking first to ourselves.”

Moore, dean of theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and preaching pastor at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, said the resolution on Southern Baptist divorce is one example of that. To his knowledge, he said, no resolution since 1904 has spoken directly to the divorce issue even though it has been mentioned in other resolutions.

“We have to speak just as clearly and with just as much force and alarm?indeed, with more so to the sins that are rampant among ourselves?as we do to the things that are on the outside,” Moore said.

?The first resolution, titled “On the Centrality of the Gospel,” not only acknowledges biblical teaching on the nature of the gospel but also encourages pastors “to keep the gospel foremost in every sermon they preach,” that churches “display the gospel by transcending ethnic, racial, economic, and social barriers due to our unity in Christ,” and that “we commit to speak to the outside world as those who are forgiven sinners, who have received mercy as a free gift, and not as those who are morally or ethically superior to anyone.”

Moore said the committee “wanted to make a very clear statement at the very beginning that we believe the gospel is central not only in our evangelism, although that is certainly true, but in every aspect of the Christian life.” He said the committee tried to reflect the gospel message in every resolution.

?A resolution “on family worship” called it “integral to laying a foundation for multi-generational faithfulness to the gospel (Psalm 145:4) and a necessary complement for the strengthening of the local church to fulfill its commission (Matthew 28:18-20).”

The resolution further called parents “to consider times of family worship to be an opportunity to introduce their children to the gospel, to train their children to seek the salvation of their friends and neighbors, and to pray for the nations. ?”

?The resolution “On the Scandal of Southern Baptist Divorce” laments that churches have tended to speak only in “therapeutic terms rather than in terms of both repentance and forgiveness.” It calls on churches and pastors to hold biblical standards for marrying couples and to proclaim the “Word of God on the permanence of marriage.” It resolves to pray “the next generation will see the gospel not only in the counter-cultural nature of our verbal witness but also in the counter-cultural love and fidelity of our marriages.”

?The resolution “On the Gulf of Mexico Catastrophe” acknowledges the ecological and economic havoc and mourns the 11 people killed in the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. Further, it notes “the symbiotic relationship between the Gulf of Mexico and the hardworking residents of the Gulf Coast,” and that “Our God-given dominion over the creation is not unlimited, as though we were gods and not creatures ? accountable to a higher standard than profit alone.”

The resolution calls on Southern Baptists to pray for an end to the disaster and to aid those affected, for “governing authorities to act determinatively” to end the crisis, and for “full corporate accountability” for damages and cleanup. The final paragraph anticipates “a fully restored creation in which the reign of God is seen ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ (Matthew 6:10).”

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