My earlier reference to SBC materials was a little cryptic. I meant that the Sunday School, VBS, etc. materials often seem to assume a much larger staff and program than many churches can manage. I attend a small SBC church in FAR northern New York. Montreal, Canada is the nearest sizeable city.

Speaking of world evangelism, why is there not a bigger push into the ethnic communities in our North American cities. The Montreal to Toronto corridor (about 300 miles end to end) is home to the VAST majority of Canadian citizens and we have only a few works going in that area. Toronto is the most ethnically diverse city in the world. They have 50 language groups represented in their school system. All these people have relatives and friends back home, often in countries closed or opposed to mission outreach. Just a thought…

Why, after refusing to join under the leadership of the SBC, are we still affiliated with the WMU? They have connections with other organizations with whom the SBC has parted ways long ago. Is it because of tradition? (We’ve always worked with them.) Is it because they own the copyright on Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong? (That would be “hard to sell” to the local congregations.)

Some of the language in the document sounds like a lawyer wrote it. Too much PC language. Who really talks like that, “the complete sufficiency of Christian Scripture”. Last time I checked, there is ONLY ONE Scripture. All the others who claim authority are FALSE.

“…every priority we embrace as a network of local Baptist churches.” I thought we were an interconnected Body?

“…refusing to be sidetracked by theological agendas…” Also known as FALSE TEACHING.

VIII. A Commitment to a Methodological Diversity that is Biblically Informed. Who talks like that, and what exactly does it mean? The church I attend is very small and the materials produced by SBC don’t work so well in the small setting.

Of course, number 9 is problematic. No comment needed.

Some things need some work.

In all honesty, I do not want the dollars going to a large national organization. It will only create the SBC equivilent of big government, which is power-based and rarely effective.

I think the majority of the money should stay local, for church planting, empowering churches to adopt people groups and have the church as missionary instead of paying professionals to do the job.

This would also allow states to focus on theological education, in particular the integration of all degrees with theological education. Why shouldn’t a state-affiliated college offer MDiv’s and PhD in theology, religion and ministry? It was make theological education more accessible, particularly advanced degrees. It would also allow for greater local contextualization. If a state convention doesn’t have an affiliated baptist college, they can partner with a like-minded Christian college in their area. Of course, they won’t turn out little SBC’ers, but I would suggest that is not altogether bad.

For this to be anything other than moving around legos, it needs to be deconstructed totally. Only then can we then can build with moldable plastic. The convention needs to decentralize rather than centralize more.

I’ve no issues with most of the other points, but for the document to be truly effective it will require a complete deconstruction of the entire convention.