Tim wrote:
On Jun 22, 8:28 am, "mmc" wrote:
"HK" wrote in message

...



Southern Baptists look for cures to stagnation
'Great Commission Resurgence' » Leaders will present declaration at annual
meeting this week.
By Adelle M. Banks
Religion News Service
Salt Lake Tribune
02:56:55 PM MDT
Decades of painful conservative-moderate fights. Stagnant baptism rates.
Membership malaise. Surveying the state of the Southern Baptist
Convention, seminary president Danny Akin can sum it all up in six words:
"Business as usual is not working."
Seeking to turn things around for the nation's largest Protestant body,
Akin has teamed with SBC President Johnny Hunt to draft a "Great
Commission Resurgence" declaration that will be presented to the Baptists'
annual meeting June 23-24 in Louisville, Ky.
The goal is to find a new way forward after several high-profile campaigns
to boost the number of baptisms -- a key measure of vitality and an
article of faith for Baptists -- fell flat.
Hunt told one Baptist newspaper that the SBC is like a ship that is
"adrift" and needs to consider ridding itself of unnecessary "cargo."
For the Rev. Micah Fries, a 30-year-old pastor of a Southern Baptist
church in St. Joseph, Mo., such analogies are appropriate for a
denomination that has grown in size and bureaucracy in its more than 150
years of history.
"We need to lose some excessive baggage," he said, noting a worrisome $30
million shortfall in an international missions offering that will reduce
the number of missionaries deployed oversees.
Reduce the number of missionaries? When I met a family of SB missionaries in
post war Croatia, my first thought was "just what these people (Croats)
need- another f-ing religion"
When I met SB missionaries in Al Hilla, Iraq in 2003, the first thing that
hit was that we'd end up finding them in the desert without thier heads.
Don't know if they were intact when they left, but going door to door and
telling Muslims they got it all wrong doesn't seem like something to put on
the 'ol life insurance form.

Mike, The missionaries don't go "door-to-door" to the muslims. Usually
the Muslims come to them. and the misionaries don't normally lose
their heads.


they get shot.

http://www.christianaction.org.za/ar...RY_DOCTORS.htm

oddly enough. the missionaries treated a young man about two weeks
earlier, and this is how he responded to the missionaries and their
clinic.


And what is the purpose of a Southern Baptist "missionary" hospital?