As some of you may know, Southern Baptist Convention President Bobby Welch has recently issued the Everyone Can Kingdom Challenge. The lofty goal is nothing less than witnessing to, winning and baptizing one million people within a single year.

As part of this program, Welch is calling for the creation and implementation of Associational Baptism Rallies, calling for each of the 1,188 Baptist associations across the nation to hold two such outdoor rallies over the next year, between October 1, 2005 and September 30, 2006.

The article quotes Welch as saying “My prayer is that we will have bold, urgent, creative leadership emerge out of every association to have two of these baptismal rallies in that one year and that these rallies will begin to spring up all over the different parts of the country.” Welch continued to expound his vision, stating that “when people read about them and hear about them that they too will go and do likewise, and we’ll have in the course of 12 months these sparks turn into a raging wildfire of a fresh work for God and Christ across America and around the world.”

We must certainly admire Welch and his good ‘ol boys for their zeal. 1,000,000 new Southern Baptists in the upcoming year is no small goal. However, it will not begin to put a dent into the some 10.7 million M.I.A. Southern Baptists that we’ve discussed earlier. No matter their good intentions, it seems that the Everyone Can Kingdom Challenge is misguided at best. The Southern Baptist Convention currently has more missing members than many denominations have present. The number of missing nearly doubles the number of those attending, and all Welch can see fit to do is bring in one million more.

It seems that the resources of the Southern Baptist Convention would be better spent in reviving and reforming their existing members (both present and missing!) before they invested in bringing in one million more; many of whom will enter otherwise dead churches. It is a sad reality that most of our Southern Baptists churches are ailing to say the least and dying to be blunt.

Rather than deal with the issue on the level of church health, Welch continues the fine SBC tradition of looking for a band aid. His solution is pep rallies centered around baptism. Don’t misunderstand me for an instant; I am a theologically convinced Credobaptist and I uphold the doctrinal significance of baptism. I just don’t think it’s going to help the Southern Baptist Convention in the slightest.

Southern Baptists would do well to heed the minority voices amongst our ranks such as Mark Dever, wisely calling our attention to the state of the church. In his book Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Dever laments that “The purpose of too many evangelical churches has fallen from one of glorifying God simply to growing larger, assuming that that goal, however achieved, must glorify God.” I fear that this is exactly what we are seeing with the Everyone Can Kingdom Challenge and it’s call for one million new Southern Baptists. It will do no good to bring more people into churches that aren’t equipped to disciple them in the first place.

While this sentiment seems to have grassroots support, and local pastoral involvement, those at the top of the SBC foodchain seem sadly insulated. Many are still riding the wave of the “Conservative Resurgence,” and have neglected the fact that the seeds of destruction planted in our churches during the liberal years are in full bloom. Local churches have long been neglected and many SBC churches are on the brink of extinction. Many pastors feel isolated and ill-supported, while many members don’t have the slightest clue what the church ought to look like as the Body and Bride of Christ in the first place.

I publicly challenge Southern Baptists everywhere to turn their attentions inward. Challenge real spiritual growth in your people, take care of the spiritual health of your congregation, implement church discipline and meaningful membership; focus again on the Glory of God as your ultimate goal. Until these things happen, the Southern Baptist Convention at large is piling more people onto a sinking ship and lamenting that there are still empty seats while ignoring those jumping overboard.

Visit the Southern Baptist Convention website.
Visit the Everyone Can Kingdom Challenge website.
Read the article from Baptist Press.
Read the Resolution on Integrity in Reporting by Tom Ascol.
Read Southern Baptists, An Unregenerate Denomination by Jim Elliff.
Read Wikipedia’s entry on The Little Engine That Could.