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KATY?Bobby Welch is continuing his six?week tour across Texas, speaking at churches, sharing his Vietnam war testimony at “God and Country” rallies, and walking door-to-door to share the gospel. But each of these events is couched in an underlying passion to see the local church reach its neighbors and reverse a disturbing trend of fewer baptisms in Southern Baptist churches.
Welch, the Strategist for Global Evangelical Relations at the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, is also encouraging congregations to be a part of the convention in San Antonio, including the Crossover evangelistic outreach held prior to the convention June 9-10.
At an April 23 rally at the First Baptist Church of Katy near Houston, Welch told the sold-out crowd that although he was a Christian when he fought in Southeast Asia, he was not living the life of a believer. Consequently, he faced death with great trepidation and disgrace?not the fear of dying but the shame of facing his Lord after living a worldly life, he explained.
Welch was not expected to live when his limp, nearly lifeless body was loaded onto a helicopter from a field in Vietnam. When he awoke in a hospital days later he asked for a glass of water and a Bible. His recommitment to his faith was solidified.
That commitment is evidenced in Welch’s passion for evangelism. In an interview before the Katy rally, Welch spoke with urgency about the church’s commitment to winning the lost.
“The local church is everything,” he said as an explanation of why he is, once again, touring the country in an effort to stir local churches to action. The SBC, he lamented, is unable “to unify our efforts” for evangelism and discipleship. The declining numbers of baptisms within the convention are evidence of that lack of unity, he said, even though the SBC does some large-scale things such as the Cooperative Program well.
At the invitation of Jim Richards, executive director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, Welch is touring Texas in an encore to his “Everyone Can!” evangelism tour as SBC president from 2004-2006. Welch said his concern over the decline in baptisms is not about numbers. It’s not about filling pews. The decline, he said, indicates a lack of evangelism and discipleship effort at a local level.
“Are people coming into the church as in days past?” he asked. “Even the brightest spots are fading spots.”
There seems to be a cycle that, if uninterrupted, is self-perpetuating and actualizes itself in a consistent increase in church membership, he said.
“Baptism is a huge step toward discipleship,” he added, but baptism does not happen without evangelism. Evangelism leads to belief, to baptism, to discipleship, to church involvement, to more evangelism, Welch explained.
“One way to measure that?discipleship?is baptism. It is an indication of people coming into the church and getting involved.
“I have a suspicion that we’re leaving out all of it,” he said.
In the process of “doing church,” evangelism and discipleship are being left behind, partly because evangelism does not come naturally to most Christians, Welch said.
“Evangelism is the hardest thing to do. It is not our nature.”
Welch also said there is sometimes a resistance to intentional evangelism.
“In this day and time you can’t reach people with intentional evangelism,” Welch said, mimicking the argument of critics.
