A few weeks ago we had special guest speakers from the BGCT (Baptist General Convention of Texas) come and talk to our class about not only what they did with the BGCT, but also how you can find parts of their roles in the first half of the Old Testament. These speakers were Paul Atkinson and Stephen Reeves.
I will start first with Paul Atkinson because I believe the stuff he said should be a really big eye opener, or at least the things he led to. I know they began to open my eyes. First to introduce Paul. Paul is the head of BGCT Church Planting. He is responsible to help those who feel led to start a church. He opened up with the reading of 2 Kings 6:8-22. This is the story of Elisha being surrounded by the men of the king of Aram. In the story, the king of Aram sends several hundred men to kill Elisha, while being surrounded Elisha's servant got scared and questions Elisha as to what to do. Elisha responds by saying that those who are for us outnumber those who are against us, and then Elisha prays and asks God to open up his servants eyes. In doing so the servant see basically an army of angels. Paul Atkinson used this passage to point out a few things. One of those things was that despite Elisha not having resources, (his army was a group of "preacher boys") God still can work. He applied this by saying that on average it takes about $2 million to plant a church. However, they usually only start a church with just under $10,000 (to be more precise it is $800/months). Yet despite this huge shortcoming, church planting still happens because as in Elisha what resources are available doesn't stop God from taking charge. He actually just uses those resources around (5 loaves and 2 fish). Which leads into the second point Paul made that day: that the resource of God is already there when we need it, we just have to ask God to open our eyes. Even though, this message can "preach," this is not what I really want to talk about.
One of the main things that I guess can be implied from part of the talk he gave us, I believe, is what I call the failure of the church. He stated that just along the border there are so many Hispanics leaving in poverty and crime. These communities hold on average 400 people and there are multiple communities in a section. (Forgive me on the numbers and the actual terms he gave these communities, I cannot remember either precisely.) He said that crime is so bad there that even the local police won't even patrol it. Yet what is so sad is that there are very few churches stepping out and reaching to that area. He even made the point that even though the church plants are BGCT churches and therefore baptist that most of them won't even put Baptist in the name, because they don't want those close ties to a "baptist" church. I am sure some of you might have even seen this trend. So the question I raise is this: why is this so? Is the church failing so bad that, one, church plants don't even want to be associated with baptist because of the stereotype and presuppositions that come with being called Baptists? Furthermore, why are these churches not reaching out to that Hispanic community? And that is just one case! I would dare say that this happens to any location you are in just instead of Hispanic culture fill in the blank with the African-Americans, homosexuals, homeless, etc. I don't want to point the finger and not blame myself, I know that in part I can be the blame too. I know at times I don't go out of my way, but for an entire community not to be reached is a shame! Here is what I believe part of the problem is, I believe that God is calling those people to go and reach them, but people are not answering that call! I also believe that because of the Americanization of churches today that we refuse to go to where there is trouble, or high crime, or people not like us and we don't go to those places thinking someone else will. What has gone wrong?
Stephen Reeves can definitely be put right here I believe. Stephen Reeves is one of the lobbyists for a group called Christian Life Commission. This group, though not specifically under BGCT but associated, works closely with the Texas representatives in order to lobby or show the representatives the views of Texas Christians. Notice I said Texas Christians, not BGCT Christians. They want to make sure that they lobby and stand of biblical grounds for the sake of the Bible, not BGCT viewpoints. They stand for "social justice" from a biblical perspective more or less. To give an example, the most recent political issue they tackled was the expansion of gambling in Texas. The interesting thing they are doing is they are not attacking things by saying they are "unchristian" what they are doing is stating hey we believe this goes against what we believe and here is why you shouldn't vote on it or pass it because it will do this to the community. In relation to the gambling debate, they argued that the main people going to the casinos if they got them would be low income and those are the very people who didn't need to lose their money, and we would just be creating another addiction which would then cause more people to fault on their loans, miss payments, etc. So it would be better, they argued if we didn't not expand the gambling.
Although this is very interesting the question that does arise out of this is what about the separation between church and state? This today is a big argument. I fully agree with what the CLM is doing, don't get me wrong, but for the sake of this blog and discussion just was wondering where is that line of separation? I believe whole heartily that most if not all will say there definitely is a line and should be a line, but do we move that line when it is convenient for us? Kind of something that I have been thinking is this: I definitely think there should be a line separating the state from the church. This is to keep official state religions out, and to keep a repeat of English history with the Anglican Church and Catholic Church from happening in America. But I do not believe there should be a line separating the church from the states. What I mean is this, I think the church should be involved in Government, but the Government not involved in the church. I know this is very confusing and this is why I am thinking about it and still don't have it figured out. But I believe that the church should decide in governing issues. Just think if the church would have stepped up more in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s what might would have happened. (Furthermore going back to the previous topic, if the church would have stepped up in the community to help the needy and poor at that time how things might have been different.) This is a hard topic I think to wrestle with because it encompasses so much. For instance how far should, if any, the church go with the government? Should we be completely opposed to war? Should Christians even fight in the military? Now before I get lambasted with comments saying I am opposed to the military let me clarify now, I am 100 percent with the military. I have friends going into the military who are hardcore Christians and who are in the military now and I even considered going into the military. I just ask these questions to begin to get us as Christians and as a community to think.
I know I have thrown some deep stuff to ponder, and probably very controversial stuff. I hope we can figure some of this out together in life and can even agree to disagree. But to end in a lighter note, a few days ago in class we were discussing in the Old Testament, and more specifically in Genesis that the family was very important to the Hebrew culture. That you did NOT go against family. So can it be said that Abraham is the first Godfather?
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