The line in front of and behind us was long.  The young woman working the check out stand was obviously new at her work and fumbled with even minor procedures so that our line was being cleared more slowly than any others.  Nancy even remarked about how impatient I didn’t’ get.  She’s seen me in too many other similar situations, I suppose.  But, it was impossible to miss the features of the checkout girl’s face.  Sadly disfigured, either at birth or by accident, one side of her face was noticeably lower than the other.  Yet, despite all the bustling long lines, she kept an impossible to miss smile in the middle of her crooked face.  And, when she finished waiting on her customers, she extended a hand to each and expressed thanks for the privilege of serving them.  The warm and friendly smile and handshake communicated very clearly what she felt despite the face should put forward.

Of late, the face that Baptists have put forward to the world around us has been sadly disfigured by a conflict that has stirred among us for some twenty years.  And, whether we like to admit it or not, because we’ve spent so much time, energy and money screaming at each other, we’ve lost a great deal of whatever voice we ever had to the world that is not Baptist.  In two weeks, the Baptist General Convention of Texas meeting in Corpus Christi will make some very fundamental decisions about the way Baptists in this state will relate to each other and to other Southern Baptists around the world.  For years, many local churches in Texas all but ignored what was happening in the national arena.  Now, that is not an option.  What happens in Corpus in two weeks will affect and ultimately involve local Baptist churches whether they like it or not.  I’ve been asked to address the role Cliff Temple should play in all of this. 

It is not my purpose in twenty minutes of pulpit time to address all of the issues that have formed the history of Southern Baptist life since at least 1979.  My purpose is to clarify as definitively as possible the direction to which I believe should give leadership to this church as her pastor with respect to all that is happening.  And, at the risk of appearing simplistic, there are three things to which we must give ourselves.  Otherwise, we risk losing our voice in this world, Baptist or otherwise.  It is my intention to continue leading this church to do these three things as best I know how.

First, we must be responsible with our primary mission.  The words we read this morning have come to be known through the centuries as The Great Commission.  They were not a suggested course of action Jesus offered as one possibility among many.  They were his direct command, obedience to which was intended to shape the course of his church’s future until he returns.  (Matthew 28:18-20)  While churches have struggled through the centuries with how to accomplish what Jesus commanded, no church that seriously considers following Jesus can ignore the substance of what he said.

Jesus said we are to make disciples.  That means, through the proclamation and living out of all he taught, we are to lead others to follow Christ as their Lord and discover for themselves their God-given purpose in creation.  And, there are no boundaries.  When Jesus said, “all nations,” he meant for us to obediently cross all barriers, geographic, religious, socio-economic and racial as we carried his good news to all who would listen.  That is so central to what it means to be a church that, if a church loses that central focus, all else loses its significance. 

In time, as every church grows older, it faces a particular temptation that either proves its undoing or its opportunity to continually redefine its purposes according to the Great Commission.  It is the gargantuan temptation to slowly but surely evolve into an organization that uses the majority of its energies and resources for self-preservation rather than reproduction.  Born of fear, it is the temptation to allow itself to fall into the lethal trap of doing nearly everything it does for the purpose of making comfortable only those who are already a part of it.  Simply put, most churches exist for themselves.  Most churches exist only to make Christians more comfortable instead of obediently moving out into those places that can be risky, even dangerous.  Cliff Temple will always face the possibility of being no exception to that rule.  While a church should minister to and care for its members, Jesus’ commission calls on us to constantly be aware of those who have yet to come to a saving knowledge of his grace. 

In the hospital maternity wards of this city if the infant mortality rate reaches an inordinate level, that hospital will find itself in danger of being closed by the proper authorities.  Maternity wards have but one mission and that is to do everything possible to nurture new life into existence.  Yet, it’s amazing how long a church can go on functioning long after it has ceased to reproduce new life because its primary commitment, despite how it preaches or votes, is to make comfortable those who are already a part of it.

Despite whatever happens in any other church, our church must commit and recommit and then recommit herself yet again to defining and then fulfilling her unique role in fulfilling the Great Commission given us 2,000 years ago by our Lord.  That Commission supercedes every other task and gives priority to all else.  We ought to give our resources accordingly and partner with those who will help us do that.  We must partner with other institutions that have offered to help us fulfill our mission and let others who choose a different course go their way.  Buckner Baptist Benevolences is a good example of an institution committed to helping us find ever better ways of ministering the social and spiritual needs of our community.  The Baptist General Convention of Texas is yet another. 

Why do churches die?  They die for lots of reasons that don’t have one thing to do with the neighborhoods that changed around them.  They die from a lack of leadership.  They die because they stop making intentional and proactive choices and start living only in reactionary ways.  They die because too many of their leaders confuse ownership with servanthood.  They die because they stop thinking creatively about their options.  But, at the end of the day, churches don’t die because the neighborhoods around them change.  They die because they stop making disciples.  They fail to reproduce the new life that will outlive the membership currently in them.

In California this past week I was awed by the redwood trees.  As fascinating as their size and beauty is what I discovered about the way they reproduce.  The locals told me you can’t hardly kill a redwood because it is made up of what is called meristematic tissue.  No matter what happens to the original trunk, redwoods will continue to reproduce themselves at the root.  All throughout the redwood forest are huge trunks, the size of small cars, that died years ago.  Yet, they are surrounded by several other smaller trees, new growth from the original root.  One significant difference between a redwood and a church is that what a tree does rather automatically a church must do intentionally or it dies. 

The greatest danger any church faces in a changing neighborhood if it continues to devote the majority of its resources to only keeping those who are already a part of it comfortable is not that it will cease to exist.  The greatest danger is that it will become irrelevant.  Irrelevancy should concern us far more than survival.  First, we must commit ourselves to being responsible with our primary, Christ-ordained mission.  Second, we must tell the truth.  (Ephesians 4:7-16)

As I understand Paul’s words in Ephesians, the only possibility we have of being the kind of church that reproduces new life is if we individually and corporately work toward a greater understanding of all that we can know about the Christ who has revealed God to us.  In other words, the only way we can be responsible for telling the truth is if we are in the process of seeking it ourselves.

We have learned that we can’t let our dog, Beau, out of our sight at home.  While some dogs have a natural instinct for staying close to their master, Beau’s only instinct seems to be following whatever scent is six inches in front of his face no matter where it takes him.  Too many who call themselves disciples are like that, as well.  While they would never admit to turning the reigns of their conscience over to anyone else, they will follow the latest trend in worship or church leadership no matter where it might be leading them.  Paul’s stern warning, “we must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine . . ..”  (Ephesians 4:14)  Telling the truth implies that we are in the process of taking seriously both the God-given privilege and responsibility of seeking the truth for ourselves.

While it may appear that what is going on in our convention is about nothing more than politics I believe that what is going on is about something on a more fundamental level.  Politics, like the hammer to the one holding it, is good or bad depending strictly on what the one wielding it intends to do with it.  What is going on is nothing less than a decision about whether we are going to turn the reigns of our consciences over to others or whether we are going to continue accepting the responsibility to study the word of God and concluding, under his personal leadership, what we believe that means for us as individuals and as a church.  As Dr. Bill Pinson pointed out so very well last week, that leads to a kind of messy theology.  But, is there really any other way?

What is in the process of being decided is nothing less than whether we believe that Jesus is Lord, even over the Bible, and whether every Baptist church has the right and responsibility to believe, worship and serve independent of any other authority than the Lordship of Christ.  I’m not going to Corpus because I honestly believe hanging out with a bunch of Baptist preachers is a great vacation.  I’m going to cast my vote, as an individual believer in Jesus Christ as Lord, for what I believe will affect the outcome of the way we do church and missions in this world for generations to come.

There is one last, though not least, thing we can and must do.  We can love.  Scripture binds us to speaking the truth, in love.  Jesus said that the defining characteristic of his disciples would be their love for one another.  (John 13:35)  The apostle Paul later intoned that the absence of love voids all other attributes of Christian character of any substance or ultimate meaning.  (1 Corinthians 13)

When we moved into our current home, we inherited the home security system the previous owners left behind.  Several days ago it started malfunctioning.  Besides messing up our phone system, the master control switch keeps sending out this high-pitched beep every ten seconds and we can’t turn it off.  If I seem a little ditsy today it’s because I’ve been suffering from security alarm beep torture for several days.  We’ve tried calling different services over the weekend.  But, no one wants to service a system they didn’t install and even the previous owner doesn’t remember who that was.  Nonetheless, we’ve learned to ignore the noise as best we can.  Under normal circumstances, it would alert us to any number of problems.  But, now, it’s just an irritating, meaningless noise.  And, so are all the sermons we preach and the good deeds we do in the name of Jesus himself, scripture says, if we do not love those to whom we give our gift. 

Others who call themselves Baptists may not choose to affiliate with us because we practice any of number of things we not only believe the gospel allows but even compels.  But, regardless of what we believe and regardless of who chooses or does not choose to work with us, no one can stop us from loving.  And, it will be how we love that ultimately defines us as disciples of Jesus more than any other thing we do or say.

The story is told of a gunman charging into a restaurant in which Billy Graham was dining that particular day.  As the robber worked the crowd he took everyone’s jewelry and money except Billy Graham’s.  Finally, Dr. Graham asked the man, “Why are you robbing everyone else but me?”  The robber stopped, looked at Dr. Graham and said, “We Baptists have to stick together.”