BradHoffmann.com

I was there for the Great Commission Resurgence debate at the SBC 2010 in Orlando. Approximately 10,000 registered messengers listened with a number of vocal participants engaged in the rhetoric. I assert few can disagree with the tenets proposed by the Great Commission Task Force. They are appropriate, sound, and necessary. However, I do believe we need more than just a statement on paper; we need action – action from a passionate, broken, and surrendered heart. In all actuality, that’s what I find missing from our convention today. Southern Baptists are a proud people and to our disgrace. Pride has never been an attitude or condition, which God has honored. We can devise all the man-made plans we can conjure up, but without the leading, direction, and vision from God these plans are all but futile. The solution isn’t to fund the Cooperative Program to greater heights; it’s to make God’s agenda our agenda. More money isn’t the cure to what ails us. If what we’re doing doesn’t work, then spending more money on old methodologies from cold hearts will only realize the same results. Then again, are we after numbers, or are we after souls? Are we concerned with hearts or are we concerned with measurable numerical data? I’m one of those that is convinced our data is skewed. We’re baptizing lost people for the sake of numbers. We’re claiming illegitimate data for the sake of “looking good” in the eyes of objective men. God doesn’t always measure the way man measures – for God looks at the heart.

I’m one who believes our greatest challenge isn’t the lostness in America or around the globe; it’s us. We are the greatest obstacle to others coming to know Christ. Why are younger people staying away in droves? They don’t want what we’re selling. Our complacency, religious peddling, and ungodly behaviors serve as a barrier for seekers. They look at us wondering, “I don’t want that – it’s hypocritical, void, and without meaning.” Why? Because we’re more concerned about the opinions and consumeristic mentality of Christians than we are about those who are lost and perishing. Our sin as Southern Baptists (and other Christians) is merging a lost culture onto the freeway to Hell. Until we get over ourselves, we’re going to continue to witness declines, apathy, and retreat. Until we get right with God, our efforts are going to be void of God’s power. Our answer isn’t going to be found in methodology, it’s going to be first discovered through a changed heart. I have heard others say, “We need revival.” How true that is! Yet, revival comes at a cost – repentance. Until we repent, we will not see a genuine moving of God among Southern Baptists, our churches, cities, or nation. The machine is in motion, yet I think God has left the building. Where is the call for Repentance? Where is the call to rid one’s self of sin? Where is the call to turn from seeking self to seeking Christ? When will we really begin for focus on the majors, rather than spending all of our time on the minors? Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! You slumbering giant of potential – REPENT!