The Gospel Coalition

Topic: “With a Little Help from My Friends”

Summary: Is there a future for denominations? Will networks simply replace them, or will they reinvent themselves? What can denominations offer that networks of churches cannot? Describe the health of world missions and missionaries as you see them serving around the globe. Is the model of sending missionaries through a mission agency still effective? Or is church planting through healthy churches the way to go? Is there a lack of accountability plaguing most missionaries? How can that be changed? How does para-church help or hinder the local church in world missions?

Speakers: Jack Graham and Mark Driscoll, moderated by James MacDonald

Disclaimer: This is merely a summary of my notes, taken down live during the event. They may not be word-for-word and will need to be seen on video in order for their context to be fully understood. I will be updating this post every few minutes as the session goes on.

MacDonald: Take the whole gospel to the whole world with your whole heart. How can we steward this awesome message of the gospel more effectively to the ends of the earth?

Graham: No question that denominations are declining in impact. A lot of them should go away, especially if their theology and commitment to world missions is nonexistent. I’m part of the Southern Baptist Convention, not technically a denomination. We are a loose-knit association of churches, not unlike what you would call a network. We’ve chosen to cooperate together. I’m a Christ-follower first, a Baptist second, and a Southern Baptist third. We can do more together than we can independently. With the task we have at hand in world evangelization, getting together for the sake of the gospel is still viable. What I love about Southern Baptists is that it is a local church movement. It’s not a top-down hierarchical movement. We have an amazing amount of people who have given and resourced this denomination for ministerial training and world evangelism and church planting. We have 150 years of history, that indicates that we’ve been pretty good at what we’ve been doing. We need to get a lot better. People aren’t looking for labels, but for churches preaching truth and grace. Labels and denominational identity are decreasing, but there’s still high participation among Baptists in cooperating together. I’m in. I’ll stay in as long as we stay committed to a doctrinal resurgence. We’re the only denomination that reversed course when we were drifting left. Now we’re in the process of a missional resurgence. We’re paring things down. North American Mission Board is focusing on church planting. It’s a healthy denomination and we’re going to continue to be about the business of fulfilling the Great Commission, assisting and serving churches.

Driscoll: I’m not a Baptist, but I love the Baptists. The denominations provide things the networks don’t. Regarding Acts 29, we work across a few dozen denominations. What we are seeing are younger leaders who want dual affiliation. There are certain things the network can provide that the denomination can’t, and vice versa. There are great schools. A network doesn’t have those resources. Connections to global missions – like Cooperative Program, etc. I think we’re going to see more people with dual affiliation. In a network, I get to learn from people outside our team or tribe. I learn from others. It also gives us a place to be in community and have friendships without the politics or criticism that comes from within your tribe. A lot of guys like the benefit of both. What is transitioning now is what is your primary affiliation. Do you put Baptist on the sign? Or Acts 29 on the website? Or Sovereign Grace? Some say network is first allegiance, others say the denomination is first allegiance. The important thing is that churches are planted and people meet Jesus. Lots of money is being given to missions, but is a lot of work being done? The results are suspect. Is the culture being penetrated? Or are we having a hard time making a dent? Are we setting up a small, modernistic subculture in which people convert to a particular way of life?

MacDonald: Enough money has been raised in the North American church to pay for the Bible to be translated in every language almost four times. What should we do? Raise more money? Where is the hole with this money in it?

Graham: The question is the issue of accountability and stewardship. Best moment of my president of the SBC was when the 12 regional leaders of the International Mission Board… it was like a Pentecost. The integrity, the effectiveness of what these guys are doing… it’s only getting better. Take Haiti for example. 1800 volunteers (all from churches – mobilized through the denomination) treated thousands of patients. Shared the gospel with 25000 people. 272 new churches born. Is this thing worthwhile? Are they doing anything? These are some small examples – a microcosm of what happens on a daily basis. Can we do better? Absolutely.

MacDonald: My BS meter runs up when I hear about 272 new churches. What do we mean by churches? Do you know how long it takes to plant one church? It’s a lot of work.

Graham: The way you plant and the way Haiti plants is different. Where a pastor and a group has gathered together and established a ministry in a community? Are you judging how big it is?

MacDonald: You’re talking about a true foothold. You believe there are 272 Southern Baptist works with a pastor doing ministry in a group.

Driscoll: Statistically, in 5 years, how many will be in existence?

Graham: Good question. That doesn’t mean you stop throwing out the seed. You’re asking if it’s effective. I say they are. There are a lot of them. With the IMB, there are 163000 churches overseas of all different sizes, with their own pastors, indigenous. Denominations don’t have a little sizzle right now. I’ve always been intra-denominational. It’s about relationships. Yet, I am committed to the fact that what we have is worth saving. It was worth saving theologically. Just imagine if there was no Southern Baptist Convention.

Driscoll: Let’s do that!! Don’t ruin the moment.

Graham: Seriously, if there was zero and it went away completely. We know God is going to raise up others, ten more to take its place. But the influence of the salt and light of the culture, in the communities, its influence worldwide – if it went away, it wouldn’t be a good thing.

Driscoll: On record, I praise the Lord for the Southern Baptist Convention.

Graham: No question that cooperative evangelism across denominational lines is a good thing. There is a strengthening of the stakes theologically and a broadening of the tent for people of like faith.

MacDonald: Southern Baptist is not about a person. The network seems to be establishing the platform of a leader. Do you have concerns?

Driscoll: Godin talks about tribes with a leader and a way to communicate. Networks are tribes. Leader or leaders say where they’re going, what they’re doing. The same is true of the SBC. There are tribal leaders and tribes within the SBC. There are networks within the Baptist denomination. Reformed guys. Charismatic. Global missions. House church people. Tribes within the broad umbrella. What’s true of the network is true multiple times over in denominations.

Turning to the bullpen

Graham: The peanut gallery.

MacDonald: I’d like some peanuts.

Loritts: How do you keep fluidity in the movement? Denominations move toward institutionalization. It kills flexibility.

Graham: By focusing on local churches. Local churches stay fluid. If it becomes top down, that’s the death. And I think it should happen. What concerns a lot of us is people trapped in liberal denominations. Grandma is buried outside the church. She’d leave too if she could! Southern Baptists are plateaued, but not within ethnicities. We are growing in ethnicities. Pentecostal denominations are the only ones actually growing. You keep it fluid by focusing on the local church.

Driscoll: There’s a movement and an organization to support the movement. But when it becomes an institution, the focus is on preserving the institution, and then it becomes a museum.

MacDonald: Man, movement, monument, museum.

Driscoll: We’ve got to get back to movement and mission. That’s true for all of us in local churches. Talking about what we used to do, rather than doing something.

Graham: You go to the SBC, it’s like a snowstorm hit. Gray hair. Young leaders are trying to make this decision. Younger pastors will have dual affilition. I think that’s a good thing. Denominational executives probably think it’s bad, but as a pastor, I think it’s good.

Jakes: I’m supportive of dual affiliation. The only caveat I see among independent churches is when a church runs into crisis (morally, financially), there is no authority there to come in and speak to that church. It’s the wild, wild west. If you tighten the lanes, they jump off the boat.

Driscoll: We have network captains, regional leaders with established churches. That church and their elders would be involved with the pastor and we would be involved in removing the pastor.

MacDonald: All we can take away from the church is its name. What are you able to remove? What changes for that guy?

Driscoll: The network is not a prison, but a home. You don’t have to be there, you want to be there.

MacDonald: That was so warm. I was going to cry right there. You’re not normally that tender.

Driscoll: Just happy to be here. When someone who knows and loves you looks you in the eye and says “I worry about your soul.” The best discipline is in the context of loving relationships. Sometimes we have more relational authority because of the investment.

Furtick: We are a Southern Baptist church. From the perspective of the 31 year old, I’m not playing the youth card. Just maybe to say to my denomination – let’s not be too cavalier to dismiss infrastructures that people have sacrificed to build and we have benefited from. Where is the honor for prices paid in the past? We need to have respect for the pioneers who paved the way. When we decided to affiliate with the Southern baptist Convention, people said we wouldn’t reach anyone. But I had been trained in two Southern baptist schools. We felt a sense of loyalty (not that supersedes loyalty to Christ) that we should stay in the SBC.

Cordeiro: Are we going to be empire builders or kingdom builders? If we can continually reinvent ourselves back… it’s leadership. You have key leaders in a denomination. If the leaders are good, the denomination is good for that generation. The caliber of leadership within those frameworks… that is what makes the framework.

MacDonald: The character of the leaders and the caliber of the leaders is more important than the framework.

Text question: Has the church focused on global missions at the expense of local mission?

Graham: No. Local churches start in Jerusalem. If you punt on local evangelism and only do global ministry, you are failing the task. A whole new movement of people are going overseas in Haiti or Romania, and they come back as stronger witnesses locally. Enlarge the heart of an individual and the church, you have better home missions. Seattle is a mission field. Dallas is a mission field. Don’t export what you’re not doing at home.

Text question: Mark, why did you choose not to affiliate with a denomination?

Driscoll: I had no denominational background. We looked for a Bible-believing church in Seattle, and the one we were interested in was independent. I want to help lead Acts 29 across multiple denominations. My being independent allows me to bring together guys from lots of tribes.

Graham: You are loved and respected by younger Southern Baptists, Mark, including me. At Mars Hill, it is raw evangelism in a dark culture. There is a great deal of respect among Southern Baptist leaders for Acts 29 and what you are doing.

Driscoll: If we can love and serve and help leaders across denominations, I feel called to that.

MacDonald: I’m not anti-denominational. I was ordained in the Baptist church. But as we’ve tried to plant churches, we’ve found that denominations come forward and put strictures on us. The denominational distinctives have kept us from going further. Why has Acts 29 had the struggle to connect with denominations?

Driscoll: We are well-loved by SBC leadership, E-Free leadership. Our experience has been very warm and friendly, more than I would have expected. Not everything on the internet is representative of the influential leaders of the denomination.

Graham: Clarify for me. Reformed? Or Reformed-thinking? If you are going to be in Acts 29, do you have to confess Reformed theology? If I’m only 3 in the tulip?

Driscoll: If you get 4, we let you in. If you get 3 and I like you, we’ll flip a coin and let you in.

Graham: So Acts 29 is more narrow than the SBC.

Driscoll: We’re not trying to be Calvinists. We’re trying to be evangelists.

MacDonald: I’ve been blessed by my friendship with you, Jack. You are not sectarian. You respect everywhere you see the gospel going out. Mark, you cooperate with everybody who loves Jesus Christ and is committed to this book.