Feb
19
2009
A Plea to the Current Leadership of the SBC
Please share your wisdom!
As the weeks go by, I continue to see articles and hear comments about the loss of young pastors from the ranks of the SBC. Some of the current leaders in SBC life worry that their concerns are not being heard by the younger crowd. Others lament the fact that when their concerns are heard, they are often misunderstood or misinterpreted on blogs.
To those who have courageously led our convention in these past years and those concerned about the future of the SBC: may I make a humble suggestion?
Release your resources.
Give away all sermons and conference talks for free on the internet.
Let us hear your heart!
One reason why pastors like John MacArthur and John Piper have such a large following among young Southern Baptists is because all their sermons (audio and manuscript) for the past 30-40 years are available online for free. I suggest that Southern Baptist pastors look to these men as an example of how to invest in younger pastors. Make your resources available online, for free.
Consider the recent pastor’s conference at First Baptist in Jacksonville. Talk about a line-up! I would love to listen to the conference talks by Al Mohler, Paige Patterson, Matt Chandler, Johnny Hunt, Jerry Vines, Ravi Zacharias, and a whole host of others. But to my dismay, in order to listen to the conference, I will have to purchase more than $50 worth of CDs (I don’t even listen to CDs!), wait for them to be delivered to my home, download them to my computer, and then download them to my Mp3 player.
Consider the lack of efficiency in this outdated method. Someone is paid to bundle up CDs and ship them across the country. So I’m paying for the cost of a CD, postal service, and a handler that can send me the CDs that I will immediately convert into Mp3s anyway. Why not cut out all the middle, inefficient waste and just put the Mp3s online for free?
But some might say: No one will come to next year’s conference if the resources are widely available.
Actually, it works the other way around. Want to see more young people showing up at your conference? Stop charging for outdated media materials and start posting them online. This year’s conference resources are next year’s advertising. Just ask the coordinators of Together for the Gospel or Desiring God (conferences which post materials online immediately following each session).
The same is true of preaching. Want young people to listen to your sermons? Then open up the archive. And please… do not charge for sermons… The days when a popular pastor could have a lucrative cassette tape or CD ministry are coming to an end.
One way that those of you who currently lead of the SBC can invest in us younger pastors and seminarians is by providing your wisdom to us free of charge. So…start a podcast. Flood the world wide web with your resources. Give everything away, and then watch how God blesses.
We look forward to hearing your heart!