A Church People

Southern Baptists have always been “church people.”   The local church, for them, has been the central focus of their ministries.   The local Southern Baptist church is an autonomous democratic body of believers professing to be under Christ’s direct rule and authority.   Most of the churches honor and respect their pastors as the spiritual leader of the church while retaining the ultimate responsibility for the congregation in its practice as a spiritual democracy.  This has important implications for missions.   One is that the Great Commission mandate of the church will be most effective when the pastor is guided to use the pulpit to speak for Christ in its behalf.  Another is that the church is most likely to practice the Great Commission when its pastor leads it in that direction.   This means that the pastor of a Southern Baptist church is the most influential factor in that church’s effort to live out the Great Commission.   It is important, therefore, for a pastor to understand what the Great Commission means and how the church is to practice it.  This is sometimes not even understood by those who train pastors and it is probably one reason why many churches fail to grow and to reach their community.   The Great Commission is too often seen only as an idea for international missions, not realizing that it is the key to success in the local church as well.

The importance of the local church among Southern Baptists should have still another effect in the mission efforts of the church and of its denomination.   It is that the Great Commission is most faithfully executed when it intentionally promotes the starting and growth of churches on the mission field.   Much modern mission effort has little to do with churches, but that should not be true of Southern Baptists.    As Southern Baptist mission efforts promote the multiplication of churches on the mission field, it creates a strong, permanent national base on that field for disciple-making and ministry.   American mission efforts will ebb and flow, but the national churches, if well orientated, will continue to grow and reach their nation.    Historic Southern Baptist efforts on the mission fields of the world were largely successful because they realized their primary task was to help raise national churches that would take permanent responsibility for winning their nations to Christ.   That is always true.