Demise of the "Big Six?"

How those internal fights do so much for making disciples. Satan just loves to get the christian busy, busy, busy, and not producing so that the fruit of the dead can be preserved and pickled. :type:

 

That's hilarious "tried to do"

 

If you take that position then you will get fired upon from both sides. But that is what happened to Jesus. Neither side did not know what to do with him, nor did they like what he said and taught.

 

First, if a woman enrolls in any regular catalog program of Southern, be those programs undergrad, graduate or doctoral, she will take the exact same courses as the men.

Second, if a woman -- who is not a seminary student, but the wife of a seminary student -- enrolls in the Seminary Wives Institute, she will take a full course of study that includes Baptist History, Baptist Theology, Baptist Polity, course work on teaching (Sunday school, discipleship, etc.), course work on public speaking, and other theologically-driven content course work. These courses are taught by the DEANS of the seminary, and also by Dr, Mohler himself. How many pastors out there wish they could sit in a course on Baptist history or theology by one of the deans of the most influential seminary in America? That's the advantage the wives of students have at Southern...

Along side that work, she will also be able to enroll in courses that teach the wife of a pastor or missionary how to host events for groups of people, marriage and family skills -- geared first to her own marriage and family -- but also things that can be taught in the church to further the ministry, and there are other courses that can be taken as electives that teach things related to homemaking, such as sewing and cooking classes. For a young married woman, these courses have proven to be a blessing and they are well attended.

I posted links above. Check them out.

 

Of note, the CBF has, so far, refused to disavow itself from the SBC. They are a splinter group (pun intended) that still resides within the greater SBC family while they work to steal churches and associations from the SBC. That, in and of itself, is a very disingenuous work. Their cries of "Baptist liberty" are far from what the Scriptures say. I predict they continue to decline until they are nothing more than a couple of lines in the history book of the Baptists.

 

Everyone of the things you listed were once taught at the local church level. What happened? There was a time when many churches had people who took courses through the SBC and the books for the courses were published by Convention press. The people who took those courses were given a certificate of completion when they were finished. Where are those books now? Just try to buy one.

While 80% to 2/3 of the churches in America or plateaued or dying how many of those things you listed teach ladies to meet the most urgent need in America? The churches are bleeding and they are teaching those things? What are they thinking? Are they in la la land?

 

I don't think the CBF is working to steal churches, if so they are doing a lousy job. I too have problems not with the CBF, but with churches who continue to support both the SBC and the CBF. This will continue as long as people are allowed to designate their missions giving in most of these types of churches. Though most of our missions giving goes to CBF or BGCT we still have some folks that designate missions money to SBC. It is only a handful of older folks but we think it is best to allow folks to decide where they want their money to go. Fortunately it only goes to missionaries and not any of the seminaries or other SBC entities.

 

Who will teach them at the church level? Right... The pastor and his wife, plus the other leaders and teachers of the church.

Why on earth would anyone disavow the education of the pastor's wife? As he trains in seminary, she does so as well -- with coursework specifically designed to assist her in being his helpmate in ministry as well as in life.

I have been blessed to be a part of several research projects that examined the decline of the local church. There are many reasons that these churches are dying, some tied to discipleship, others to culture, others still to a warped doctrine that is anything but Scriptural, though proof-texted as such. Mostly, they are filled with old people who only look over their shoulders at the "glory days" of their church -- and who work (and FIGHT) to return to what worked SO WELL way back then -- even though our world has passed them by.

 

:thumbsup: Except that they are vibrant, and working continuously to develop leaders that will press the church forward in the coming era.

For instance, this weekend, Southern hosted over 1000 college students for a major conference, where some of the best speakers and teachers on earth were gathered to instruct these students in the Word. You can see the videos of the event here:

http://events.sbts.edu/gmaa-collegiate/livestream/

We will host a like event with over 1000 high school students in several weeks. We've been doing this for several years now.

I know... a couple thousand students are but a drop in the bucket, but reaching several thousand students a year with solid biblical teaching, exposition, and challenge is better than letting them sit around in their BSU eating pizza.

 

All I can say is what on earth has happened to the Northern (or since you can't possibly be old enough to know them as "Northern" the American...) Baptists since the split?

Where are your people? What are they doing? Why are you shrinking to nothingness? To call SBC entities or people non-entities is almost funny, except that it isn't...

2009 data from: http://www.ncccusa.org/news/090130yearbook1.html

2010 numbers from: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/decline.in.us.mainline.denominations.continues/25305-2.htm

Note that I'm not in any "war" against American Baptists. Far from it! They are the predominant Baptist church in my home state of Wisconsin, and I've spent many a fine day at their Green Lake retreat center.

But I am at war with the liberal theology that is causing the ABUSA to fail. Getting more liberal isn't the answer. Getting more scriptural is. I would like nothing more than for the ABUSA to regain their footing and begin again to major on the gospel (like they did when they had evangelistic trains that criss-crossed the USA and Canada!), start new churches, and live according to the Scriptures. I have lost and dying family members that live within a stone's throw from an AB church and they've never heard the gospel. My best hope for my lost family is to plant a gospel-believing church right next to the one that is, for all practical reasons, apostate.

 

To that, we can agree...

 

American Baptists have maybe sixty churches across the state; just one of the IFB groups mentioned by Squire has nearly twice that number.

 

And still no one actually out sharing the gospel... :BangHead:

 

It still is... Approximately 3% evangelized. We're sending missionaries to foreign soil where the people are more evangelized.

My family members live all over the state, predominantly in the eastern to mid-central zones -- West of Milwaukee, Watertown, and up into Adams County.

I know of many of the churches in the areas of Wisconsin that I am most familiar. The typical Baptist church (of any stripe) averages less than 50 members (usually less than 25) and they are typically weird people compared to the culture at large. They either tend to legalism of a Pharisaical nature, or they are liberal to the point where they no longer believe God or God's Word in any sense that leads to being called "church." There are some good congregations who are doing good work -- evangelizing, growing, reaching, preaching, etc. But they tend to be far apart and way too few.

There is also a major cultural issue that most people would never get if they had not lived in that area. Baptists are seen as a "cult" in Wisconsin. They are equated with Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and worse. Sometimes for good reason, as I mentioned above, but in general because the predominant Lutheran and Catholic background of most of the people (almost everyone is baptized as an infant, even if that is the only time they ever enter a church building in their life, they self-identify with Catholic or Lutheran) who preach against Baptists in much the same way some Baptists preach against everyone else.

My own mother almost had a heart attack when my wife and I joined a Baptist church (SBC, and the only SBC church in a 5-county area). Her own father beat her when she attended a Baptist church once with a friend. She never got over it, and also never considered that her Father was wrong -- and that his form of "Christian practice" (RC) was very unlike the Scriptures that tell us very clearly to love. She still doesn't get it, even after almost 25 years, with me becoming THE family pastor -- weddings, funerals, etc. Her attitude is very typical, but most Baptists will never learn of that sort of thing for they are not building relationships with people who are antithetical to Baptists. Seemingly, the Baptists are more happy to simply segregate and remain aloof to the populace at large.

 

Though, I'm a Californian born and bred. I graduated from Maranatha BBC in Watertown in 1981. The school was started in 1968.

After four years I can say, yes Baptists of all most any stripe would stand out in the surrounding communities. Look at the demographics. The state was heavily settled by Scandinavian Lutherans and German Lutherans and Roman Catholics. These two parties had for the most part settled into a Cold War here in the States with neither "poaching" from each other. Add to that the whole curis regis (?) view of community religion. Not to mention German Lutherans tend to look at Baptists through their own historical perspective. They look at us as a bunch of radical anarchists ala Muenster. It's late so I'll stop here.

 

The few times I stumble across blogs written by CBF-leaning Baptists, I notice that myself. Why do they still have to bash the SBC for what happened 20+ years ago, especially when many of them don't even support the SBC.:BangHead: