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FORT WORTH?”If the church does not learn to deal with the poor, we simply can never fulfill the Great Commission,” said New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary President Chuck Kelley just three days after hurricane winds and massive flooding devastated the campus.
Kelley hopes to raise an estimated $6 million to launch a program of social work that will honor what he described as “a New Testament model of both proclamation and ministry” occurring in the local church simultaneously. “The disconnect has been in place quite a long time,” he said, referring to a tendency of Southern Baptist churches to emphasize one or the other of these two priorities.
Noting the large population of poor people in all urban areas, Kelley warned: “The consequences are going to manifest themselves. It may not always be a hurricane, but it is a time bomb waiting to happen.”
As people observe the generosity that Kelley said characterizes Americans, they “look past skin color, socio-economic class and see the needs” of individuals. “You can’t do that in the church without a pastor first teaching his people from the Bible that this is a biblical model of what a church is. The mission God has given us includes sharing of the gospel and also the doing of ministry. It has to be taught from the pulpit,” he insisted.
Furthermore, Kelley said, “The volume of the Baptist witness in New Orleans can increase dramatically” through the rebuilding effort. In the past, he said, Southern Baptists had never been a player, but merely a “whisper in the noise that was New Orleans.” Now, Baptist groups cycling through the city to rebuild will help people realize, “We’re not going to leave New Orleans.”
Through a well-established program known as Mission Lab, churches will continue to bring mission groups for a weeklong experience of ministry to an urban area. The seminary provides housing, meals and ministry opportunities at an affordable cost. Typically, over 2,500 high school students lead mission projects across New Orleans over a 10-week period. College students fill in during spring and fall breaks. More recently, senior adults began participating in the work among the homeless, alcoholics and impoverished citizens.
“They have a wonderful week and God uses them. Then as they’re riding on the bus back to the church, everyone begins talking about how great it was and they wonder if their own city has anything like this. They ask, ‘If we did it in New Orleans, why can’t we do it in our city?'”
From grandparents sitting on sidewalks alongside “gutter punks” to those who admit to having never touched the skin of a black person, Kelley said they are sharing their faith, anxious to return for another week of ministry the next year.
“We’re not a church and we can’t go out and reach, baptize and disciple people, but we can be the facilitators for the church and take some of our expertise to help where we need help. We can provide the context for them that is relatively safe and let people find out some things about themselves they didn’t know,” he said, referring to the need for experience ministering among the poor.
“There is a way for Southern Baptists to start making some of those adjustments and it’s encouraged me as churches have reached out to people in the storm, taking them into their homes, their shelters, enrolling them in school and getting them clothes. They’ve had contact with them and are finding it’s not that hard.”
Kelley recognizes Southern Baptists have “a huge, long way to go” as they tackle a problem that began with “some bad exegesis.” He spoke of the belief that because deacons were chosen to wait on the tables, pastors should simply do the preaching while the members do ministry.
“We forget that Stephen was one of those doing ministry and he was martyred for his faith. Philip was a deacon and he became an evangelist. We separated the two functions,” he said, contending that often “evangelism became proclamation and ministry became missions” among Southern Baptists during an earlier era.
As Southern Baptists rediscover the biblical pattern of joining evangelism to missions, they will be a part of changing lives among the urban poor, he said.
“Instead of changing our whole ministry philosophy, we need to take some small bites,” he said, suggesting involvement in disaster relief. “There’s this enormous release of energy and a freshness of vision” without “changing or compromising our evangelical witness.”
As one of a few schools indicating its interest in continuing to hold classes and remain in New Orleans, Kelley said, “People remember things like that. The new New Orleans is going to be much more open to a Baptist witness than ever before,” Kelley predicted.
