Fighting the Good Fight

Sorry I haven’t blogged in quite some time. While others were “fighting” for the soul of the SBC, I was at children’s camp fighting for the souls of the kids there. We had approx. 160 kids with 38 salvations. It was a great week. Not only did I see God work in the hearts of many kids, I got to renew friendships and make some new friendships.

I did keep up with the news of who the President of the SBC was. As I thought, Frank Page won the vote. I believe it was because of the split vote between Floyd and Sutton and the fact that Page’s church gives 12% to the cooperative program. Floyd and Sutton falls way short of this number. I applaud Page and the church he pastors. It is a great testimony that bigger churches can give to the cooperative program and still have money left for other mission projects through the local church. I will be in prayer for him as he leads our convention this coming year.

One troubling bit of news that was reported this last week was Henderson Hills Baptist Church and the vote that will be taken in July concerning Baptism and church membership. I will be writing more on this later, but from an article in the Stillwater News Press dated Monday, June 12, 2006, the pastor, Dennis Newkirk, stated that he did not want to “cause dissension among Southern Baptist or separate from the State’s largest denomination.” If Henderson Hills votes to not require baptism for membership, in order to diminish dissension, it should voluntarily separate from Southern Baptists and take the word “Baptist” from its name. As Baptists, we have a cherished history of theological distinctives that separate ourselves from other denominations: Priesthood of the believer, religious liberty, and believer’s baptism, just to name a few.

This issue has caused me to rethink my position concerning missionaries not being appointed for service who have not been baptized in a SBC church. Could someone from Henderson Hills be nominated from that church who has not received believer’s baptism? I am sure there are rules to prevent this, but what are we willing to diminish in order to cooperate? As I have previously stated, I will be writing on the subject of baptism and membership in future blogs.

Aside from the turmoil concerning baptism, Children’s Camp was great and I am back and pumped for Youth camp in July.