Diana Bridges preached a sermon Sunday entitled “Celebrating Scaffolding.” The title came from a sign she saw on the Scottish isle of Iona. She talked about spiritual practices as a means of building our connection with God. You should read or watch her message if you didn’t catch it Sunday. 

The San Antonio Youth Chorale is in New York City on tour this week. They left at 3 a.m. Sunday morning! Hopefully, they were able to get a nap. 

This week is the General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, aka CBF. CBF is our main denominational partner, which was founded in 1991. CBF was founded as a shelter of conscience for those who no longer found a home in the Southern Baptist Convention following the fundamentalist takeover— especially once women in ministry were no longer welcome in Southern Baptist life. 

Last week, the Southern Baptist Convention voted on the “Law Amendment.” This was to codify the demands for association within the Southern Baptist Convention that would essentially say that any church with a woman on staff with the title of “pastor” would be kicked out. The amendment barely failed to get the ⅔ vote it needed to pass. 

Meredith Stone of Baptist Women in Ministry writes, “The 61% of messengers who voted for it (66% was required to pass) demonstrate that women in ministry are still devalued.”  Last year, Mike Law Jr., senior pastor of Arlington Baptist Church in Virginia, posted a list of churches affiliated with the SBC that have women on staff with “pastor” in their titles. That may not seem like a big deal at first. But, when you consider the extremism within the ranks of the SBC, anyone on this list is in a vulnerable situation. Not only does this threaten the unity and ministry of churches, but it could put some of these women in a dangerous situation as the focus of unstable religious extremists. 

To learn more, you can read Meredith Stone’s article here. 

The CBF and the SBC operate very differently. CBF is a movement or association of Baptists cooperating for a greater purpose. SBC owns a lot of entities, land, and institutions. SBC makes policy statements and does business at their gathering. Over the last 40 years, the convention has wrenched power away from autonomous churches (and faithful people) to centralize power among a small faction. The local churches, local believers, and local associations have ceded power to a smaller and more extreme group of men.

CBF is different. CBF conducts very little business, passes no resolutions, and owns no institutions. It’s an association of Baptists who see the gifts of those present as a means of leveraging what we have for the greater good. At first, we might wonder if this kind of association is worth it. What do they do? Think about the power of association (or fellowship).

In 1831, the French Count Alexis De Tocqueville traveled to cities, towns, villages, and settlements across the newly formed United States. He was amazed to see how communities were created anew on prairies and forests. He concluded the key to those community creations was the hundreds of small groups the pioneers formed. He said, “Nothing, in my opinion, is more deserving of our attention than the intellectual and moral associations (of North America).” 

As the world changed in the 1800s, with a new country (a new world forming!), De Tocqueville recognized the power of associations in leveraging the power of the people to create communities where plurality could flourish. 

It seems like a convention has a way of acquiring power from the people, while an association (or a fellowship) leverages the gifts of the community for the sake of all. Associations become powerful when they connect the gifts of many individuals. 

Ah, there it is— this is a stewardship of vocation, identity, and gifts. When we notice and name the gifts of our community rather than the threats within it, we leverage the power of who God is creating us to be. 

Grace and Peace,
Garrett