The Future Has a New Face
The new face for Baptists is here this week in Houston at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly. Trust me, there are plenty of gray-haired folks here - sadly a good number of them are those whom I remember from Baylor and seminary days (almost all exclusively from the six SBC seminaries of the past) and from my experience of being a practicing Baptist minister the last thirty years. My contemporaries were raised and educated in another era that no longer exists. And it’s true my gang still exerts a strong influence over the affairs of our kind of Baptists. My generation is pastoring and staffing churches all over the CBF world. Many of them teach in colleges and seminaries and have a faithful role to play in shaping the future by training new leaders. While the new leaders are preparing, the current leaders still have gas in the tank for the needs of the church.
But no longer are we the only powerful group here as a new generation has found Baptist life to be invigorating and worth giving their lives to. For the last twenty years the new Baptist seminaries have been churning out young, intelligient and compelling young ministers. They are male and female and their gift to the church is less burdened by issues such as gender or race or other cultural issues upon which their elders seem stuck. The churches continue having a tough time accepting those differences as in the case of women in ministry. That will change, however, as this new generation assumes the great responsibilities given them and as the gender gap narrows. It’s obvious this younger generation will feel no compulsion for supporting the male priority that currently exists. Could you see Holmeswood pastored by one of these bright young women in the future? I can and hope you can too. By the way, we have two pastors on our staff with gifts for this and will surely pastor a church in the near future. The question should be, why not?
These younger pastors are graced by new programs that help seminary graduates make the tough transition from the classroom to the rigors of local church ministry. There are new programs of two-year residencies that provide ministry opportunities working with seasoned churches and pastors to give them chances to grow and develop for a couple of years before they are launched into churches with less collegiality and more of a sink-or-swim mentality.
I’m impressed with their holy sense of impatience as the church dawdles its way to the future refusing to recognize that some of the old patterns of false boundaries and old cultural mores have been left behind. They are less hung on structure and rigid rules of constitutions and bylaws and more into building communities of faithful followers of Jesus. Social justice and a pragmatic sense of ethics rule the day more than forms and hierarchies. It’s disturbing to those in charge because it implies that old order cannot continue, but it’s the wind of a new spirit that must blow.
Loneliness is a terrible issue for ministers and as I watch what’s going on with this new generation, I see how they’re being taught how to better care for themselves as ministry is less focused on programs and its measurable results and more focused on spiritual formation and the care of the soul - both for minister and laity.
At this meeting, the hotel lobby is the place to meet, and not so much in the seminars or worship services. There are laptops everywhere but that doesn’t mean these young ministers are consumed by them and non-communicative to those around them. Their laptops are useful in creating social connections that deepen their relationships with one another and the room buzzes with the genuine affection they have for one another.
We got a taste of that new energy last summer as Joey and Stacy Pyle spent the summer with us in an intern program established through our friend Hulitt Gloer at Truett Seminary. Joey and Stacy are a part of this new generation and have joined the staff of the Spring Creek Baptist Church in Oklahoma City to work alongside Preston Clegg, their creative pastor who’s about the same age. We can take heart with these new voyagers … they are bright, committed and carving their own paths as the trails carved by an earlier band of practioners have diminished.
Thankfully, new adventurers are stepping forward to take up the call of Christ in the world. Take heart, O church, for the face of the future is here and help is on the way.