Pastor's Points - July 2021
Dear Church Family,
I pray you all are doing well and enjoying your summer and the warm weather that marks this time of the year. Our summer ministry schedule is in full swing, and at the time of this writing we are on the fourth day of VBS which has been going extremely well! Thank you all for stepping up and volunteering to minister to so many children! It has been wonderful!! I want to thank Pastor Bryan Gotcher specifically for his leadership as he has planned and organized to offer ministry to our children in partnership with all our wonderful volunteers!!
I want to update you all on a few of the items that were discussed at our national Southern Baptist Convention. The meeting was held in Nashville, Tennessee on June 15-16. There were a few different items that I found of importance.
1. We elected a new president of our convention. His name is Ed Litton, and he is the lead Pastor of Redemption Church in Saraland, Alabama. I did not personally vote for him but will be praying for him and ask God to give him the wisdom that he needs as he presides as the president of our convention over the next year.
2. There was a call for there to be more transparency in our entities that we support through the Cooperative Program. A special task force was approved to investigate the allegations about the mishandling of sexual abuse allegations by the Executive Committee of our convention. There will be a report issued next year at our annual convention meeting in Anaheim, California as to this matter. Sadly, there was no movement on more transparency in our other entities such as our seminaries, North American Mission Board, and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. My concern as a pastor in the SBC is that we should have accountability and transparency as it relates to what is being taught in our seminaries, as well as a financial accountability of all our entities. I pray that we will see more movement in these areas of concern.
3. The convention adopted a resolution that made a statement about the Sufficiency of Scripture above any all other worldviews or ideologies. The statement in and of itself was not bad other than I wish it would have called out Critical Race Theory (CRT), and Intersectionality by name. You may wonder why I feel this way. Because in 2019 our convention was presented a resolution known as Resolution 9 which stated that CRT and Intersectionality could be used as analytical tools to help us understand the truth of scripture, especially as it relates to how people of different ethnicities relate to one another to combat racism. In 2019 when this resolution was presented there was a lot of confusion as to what CRT, and Intersectionality were. In my opinion we did a disservice to our convention by doing this and believe it would have been helpful to be clear on our repudiation of CRT and Intersectionality in our resolution this year. Politicians, school boards and parents are all willing to call out Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality for the godless, problematic, theories that they are. I believe the Southern Baptist Convention should be clear as well. These “analytical tools” do not help us better understand each other from our differing ethnic backgrounds. They ultimately encourage racist understandings and cut against the very heart and hope that the Gospel brings to a hurting world that is lost in sin.
4. I was elected to serve as a trustee at Southeastern Theological Seminary in Wake Forrest, North Carolina. Please pray for me as I serve in this role. All our seminaries, and other entities have trustees that are to hold in trust these institutions for the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention. I believe some of the problems we have with a lack of transparency and broken trust has happened because our boards of Trustees have not held in “trust” our schools and other entities well. Trustees must fully support the institutions they hold in trust, but they must also be willing to hold the school or entity to account for its actions and decisions. This is what is expected of Trustees, and it is what will be expected of me. I ask that you pray for me to take seriously the appointment that has been given to me. I will need your prayers.
As we know, our church is fully autonomous, which means that there is no hierarchy from the Southern Baptist Convention that controls us or dictates to us in any way. We choose to freely associate with the SBC. I am thankful for that. Oakhill will continue to minister in the name of Jesus Christ, while using God’s Word as our only source of truth for all aspects of our ministry and discipleship efforts. I love the Southern Baptist Convention. I want to see us flourish for the glory of God. But that can only happen if we understand that Scripture is inerrant and we know it all to be true, but we must also understand that Scripture is sufficient for all of life and that we do not need any other worldview or ideology to live out our faith in a way that is pleasing to our Lord!! We are going to continue doing what God has called us to do as a local church until the Lord comes again!!
I love you and I love being your pastor,