G - Great Commission Focused R - Repentance from Arrogance and Divisiveness I - Intentional in Seeking Unity T - Total Commitment to the BFM2000 S - Sensitive to the Views of Others
Like it our not... Southern Baptist are a very diverse group of people. You may not agree, but I believe that is a good thing! I know there are those within the Southern Baptist family who are obsessed, it would appear, with imposing their identity and doctrine upon all Southern Baptist regardless of the utter destruction such an agenda would have to the Convention if successful.
I believe there is great strength in diversity, even if it means that we must at times agree to disagree on some pretty important stuff. Other denominations have gone down the path of seeking a very "narrow identity", and sometimes even a "forced conformity", and each time it has not ended well for them.
Just as most of us have our own preference for what we like to eat for breakfast, most of us have a preference for the church in which we worship. We want breakfast made "our way"... and we church done "our way". Let me just say that "there is absolutely noting wrong in either of these". One of the great blessing of freedom in this great nation is that if I don't like what they are serving for breakfast at one restaurant I can simply go somewhere else. Don't like what they are serving at McDonald's? Then go to Waffle House. Don't like what they are serving at Waffle House? Then go to Denny's. No, where we get into trouble as Southern Baptist is when we feel the need to order breakfast for everyone else.
Have you ever saw a couple at a restaurant and the man ordered for both himself and his wife (without asking her)? I don't know about you, but on the few occasions that I have witnessed this I got a knot in the pit of my stomach because it was obvious to all that the wife was living under the domination of her husband. Is this what any of us really want for the Southern Baptist Convention? I certainly hope not, because the movie Sleeping with the Enemy depicts what will happen if any one group of Southern Baptist think they can "rule" over the convictions of other believers... it will not end well.
Perhaps it is time that all parties within the Southern Baptist Convention started allowing their brothers and sisters to order off the menu for themselves? And don't forget the G.R.I.T.S "I'll have mine with a little cheese please".
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