Why I Want to Die a Southern Baptist

Why I Want to Die a Southern BaptistHeath LambertSouthern Baptist BedlamLast week I talked about why I am a convictional Baptist. This week—just over eight weeks before the Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, Florida—I want to explain why I am a Southern Baptist and why I want to be one for the rest of my life. A commitment to being a Southern Baptist requires a bit of explanation because there are plenty of Baptist denominations that are not Southern Baptist. The Southern Baptists may be the largest Protestant denomination in America, but they are far from the only one. If you want to be a good Baptist, you have options.And many conservative Baptists have been exercising those options lately. We can afford to be honest that in the last several years, the eyes of the Southern Baptist Convention have been blackened and our nose has been bloodied. We have chosen leaders who have embarrassed us, betrayed us, and let us down. We allowed enemies of the gospel to weaken our convention and take our money under the guise of protecting victims from sexual abuse. We have made foolish decisions that have perpetuated debates about the practice of female pastors, which our convention does not embrace but has not fully resolved. The last few years have been embarrassing. Some have decided to leave the convention, many are thinking about it, and others have decided to stay away.But I am not going anywhere, and I hope you won’t either. More than that, I hope you will redouble your commitment to our imperfect convention. There are several reasons why.Southern Baptist PeopleThe first reason I want to die a Southern Baptist and hope you will too is because of the wonderful Christians in the Southern Baptist Convention who changed my life. For me, that goes all the way back to 1994 when I got saved. Back then, a Southern Baptist Church paid for me, a poor kid from a broken home, to go on a retreat to hear about Jesus and learn about the Bible. While I was on that retreat, a Southern Baptist layperson named Sue Baumgardner told me I was a sinner and that Jesus died for me. I believed what she said and trusted Christ for the very first time. Over thirty years later, she is still an important part of my life, and my kids call her Mimi.Sue is just one woman from one church. There are countless others. I spent ten years of my ministry serving Southern Baptists as a professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. My classrooms were full of young Southern Baptists sent by their churches to learn about theology and Scripture. Millions of Southern Baptists I never knew paid my salary and trusted me to train the future ministers of our convention. That is a trust I was grateful for every day.Today, it is the joy of my ministry life to serve as the Senior Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida. Our church has been deeply invested in the convention for decades—providing crucial leadership during the years of the conservative resurgence and investing many, many millions of dollars over the years. This is a commitment I want to maintain during my time at First Baptist.I love the Southern Baptist Convention because I love Southern Baptists. These people are my tribe, and it is part of my mission in life to care for them and serve them in any way I can.Southern Baptist ConvictionsAnother reason I want to die a Southern Baptist is because of our Southern Baptist Convictions. Those convictions are communicated in The Baptist Faith and Message, and I love them. It was a joy to sign my personal commitment to The Baptist Faith and Message when I was a professor at Southern Seminary, and I am thankful the document has served as the official confession of faith for First Baptist for over a quarter century.The Baptist Faith and Message clearly communicates our belief in the great and glorious God of heaven and earth and the reality of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. It tells the truth about Christ’s ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. It accurately describes the nature and offices of the local church. It reflects the biblical teaching on The Great Commission, human sexuality, Christian liberty, and many more crucial truths than I have the space to relate here.The Baptist Faith and Message has facilitated our denominational unity for decades. And Southern Baptists really believe it. Sometimes people misunderstand the ongoing debate our convention is having about female pastors and think Southern Baptists are compromising on the matter. Don’t believe this. Southern Baptists know the truth and are willing to tell the truth. Our disagreements have been mostly procedural in nature over the best way to address the matter.In a world of confusion and compromise, Southern Baptists stand on the rock-solid truth of the Word of God. I love them for it.Southern Baptist MissionA final reason I want to die a Southern Baptist has to do with our mission in the world. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest missions-sending agency in Church history. Every year, we fund thousands of missionaries to take the gospel to the world in fulfillment of Christ’s Great Commission. We also plant churches across North America, and every year we train thousands of young men and women who will be the future servants of the church. The ability to do this comes from individual Southern Baptists and their churches who choose to send hundreds of millions of dollars every year outside their local setting, convinced we can accomplish more together than we ever could alone. Southern Baptists are disagreeing right now about the best way to steward those dollars, but even that cloud has a silver lining. It is a reflection that every Southern Baptist investing money in our mission wants to ensure we are the best possible stewards of precious Great Commission resources. A Time for Advance, Not RetreatHonestly, every time I think about the Southern Baptist Convention, I get excited, and my commitment to it grows. I know some are deciding in the opposite direction, and I respect the decision of faithful pastors and churches to make wise decisions about the best way to steward their time, money, energy, and relationships. But for me, I don’t see seasons of conflict and difficulty as times to retreat, but as times to advance. Countless Southern Baptists have made investments in me, and I feel an obligation to make a return on that investment. The vast majority of Southern Baptists fully embrace our convictions and want to see them built up, not diminished. Our missional efforts are worth every effort to preserve and strengthen. This is no time to back down, but to stand up. That is why I am excited about our convention meeting this June in Orlando. Every week, I talk to pastors who are excited about what is happening and excited about what we have the opportunity to do. They want this year to be the year we take a stand, address problems, and move toward strength and unity.I share that enthusiasm and hope you do too. I hope you and the messengers from your church will make plans to come to Orlando and work to ensure that our convention, which has done so much good in the past, is prepared to do even more in the future.