Kelley: Return to ‘discipleship foundation’

SHERWOOD – Southern Baptists have abandoned the biblical process of sowing and reaping, and the consequences have been plateaued and declining baptisms, said Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

KelleyPreaching the final sermon of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention’s 2012 State Conference on Evangelism and Church Growth Jan. 24, Kelley used an agrarian analogy to remind Arkansas Baptists of the “amazing story of how Southern Baptists became the largest non-Catholic religious body in America.”

Kelley pointed to how Southern Baptists once embraced the biblical foundation of sowing and reaping found in 1 Corinthians 3:6, which says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.”

“In 1945, the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) baptized about 257,000 people. In 1955, the SBC baptized about 417,000 people,” said Kelley. “But since 1955, the SBC never yet reached the mark of 450,000 baptisms. We doubled in baptisms in 10 years but then could not increase 35,000 in more than 50 years.

“What happened to the harvest? What happened to the farm?”

Kelley said for many years he believed Southern Baptists were simply a “harvest-oriented denomination living in the midst of an unseeded generation.”

Now, Kelley said, he believes there’s more to the story.

“Today I say, ‘We are more like gardeners working the window boxes than farmers working the fields,’” he said. “We are the grandchildren of farmers keeping harvest stories alive over coffee and dessert at family reunions.” 

Money not the issue

Kelley said money is not the excuse for declining baptisms.

“In 1906, W.W. Hamilton created the first department of evangelism for the SBC. With no budget allocation at all, he found a way for the department to make a great impact and grow to include more than 20 evangelists,” said Kelley, adding that embezzlement by the treasurer nearly bankrupted the Home Mission Board (now the North American Mission Board), resulting in shutting down the evangelism department for a decade.

“In 1936, Roland Q. Leavell was asked to relaunch the department with only one staff member – himself! With little or no money and no assistance, he laid the groundwork for the greatest period of fruitfulness in the history of the SBC.”

And it was during the years between 1945 and 1955 – when the SBC doubled in baptisms – that the evangelism department staff never grew to more than three people, including a secretary, said Kelley.

“Money is important, even very important, but it is not the critical issue reducing our fruitfulness,” he said. “Having more money will not turn things around.”

Kelley said the power of the gospel isn’t the critical issue either.

“Our message has the same power to transform any human life today that it had in the first century of the church,” he declared.

Kelley said he believes the crucial issue is discipleship.

“The spiritual state of the farmer (our churches and leadership) – not the abundance of the harvest – is the root of problems in SBC evangelism,” he said.

What is wrong in Southern Baptist life today is that “we are not anointed” and that “we have been ‘atom-ized,’” said Kelley.

“The conversion of a soul to Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit,” he explained. “The stirring of a church and community in revival and awakening is a work of the Holy Spirit. Neither of these works of the Spirit are typical in SBC churches today.”

Kelley explained that many Southern Baptists are atom-ized because “many have become so focused on discovering a method that works, they fail to realize an integrated process is far more important than any one method that is a part of the process.”

‘New’ Methodists

“Southern Baptists are becoming the new Methodists,” said Kelley.

Explaining that he loves Methodists – especially because of the key role they played in the first and second Great Awakenings – Kelley said today’s Methodists have changed through the years and are less focused on evangelism and missions.

“(Their) passion for holy living has been replaced by behavior blending with the culture,” he said.

For example, said Kelly, “One of their greatest theological fights is over the normalcy of homosexuality. Most surprising, they have set new records for the fastest loss of membership in the history of the church in America.”

Kelley said Southern Baptists must rekindle and “get a fresh grip on the baton” of what he called a “disciplistic worldview.”

Southern Baptists must become “distinctive” once again, he said.

“(We) are not losing our voice,” said Kelley. “We are losing the distinctiveness of our voice in the music of today’s culture. We are blending in more than standing out.”

Reiterating, Kelley told the crowd, “The most crucial issue in SBC evangelism today is reinventing a process to bring our children, youth and adults to spiritual maturity in an evangelistic way.”

“As Jesus Himself noted in Matthew 5:13-14, ‘Salt that is not salty is not good for anything but throwing out. Light that is under a bushel is useless.’”

Quoting 2 Chronicles 7:14-15, Kelley said it is time for Southern Baptists to humble themselves, pray, seek the Lord and turn from their wicked ways or suffer the consequences.

Kelley said, “The Lord goes on to say, ‘But if you turn aside … then I will pluck you from my land … and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight.’”

Kelley concluded, “In times past, God has worked through our Southern Baptist churches in a mighty way. In times present, God is not working in a mighty way through our churches. 

“How are you going to respond to this? How am I going to respond to this?”