Not Your Grand-Daddy's Southern Baptist Church: My Reflections on Send Network Orientation

​I don’t have words to express what I experienced at Send Network Orientation at the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, GA this week— wait, yes I do. These past three days were an invigorating, challenging and inspirational reminder of why I love our networks and the SBC so much.

I was initially introduced to SBC life in 2009 but I really became acquainted with our networks and institutions in 2014 when I began working at Shindler Drive Baptist Church as a worship pastor. I remember attending my first state convention with my friend and pastor at the time, John Green. John loves our Southern Baptist heritage and has a distinct heart to see the gospel go to all the nations. I always say that John taught me everything I know about being Southern Baptist. I feel like this state annual meeting was my first lesson.

It seemed to be a somewhat contentious meeting where I kept hearing pastors go to the microphones making known their desire to get to a 50/50 allocation of the Cooperative Program giving of Florida Baptist Churches between the state convention and the SBC. It was all very confusing at first but I began to learn of our shared sacred effort of the Cooperative Program. I began to learn about what we share and do together as Southern Baptists.

Over the next several years, I learned more and more about our shared missionary zeal and efforts. I came to know and love NAMB, IMB, Send Network, our seminaries and so much more. In 2021, I became the pastor of Chets Creek Church North Campus in Jacksonville, FL. Chets Creek, under the leadership of Pastor Spike Hogan, exemplifies what being a sending church is all about. They have funded multiple ministries and had a huge hand in sending and helping launch numerous churches including ours, North Harbor Church. They sent us as an autonomous church as of the first of this year.

That brings me to Send Network Orientation. I am an endorsed church planter with the Send Network. As part of our training and development, we attend a three-day orientation at NAMB. This one was the biggest orientation in the history of NAMB with more than 300 planters! As I prayed, worshipped and learned with and from all these men, my soul was flooded with reminders of how important our mission is and how much I love our network.

The room was filled with young, cool cats in Jordans and some older brothers in polos and sport coats. (I’m some strange animal in between) I heard many different languages being spoken. We often sang in Spanish together. We prayed for one another; we confessed sin to one another. It was truly amazing. The gospel-fueled unity that was displayed in that room stood in stark contrast to the presidential address to the joint session of congress on Tuesday night.

That speech put our nation's division on full display. I’m not shocked at national division. That’s the nature of the beast. I’m not moved or stressed by calls to unity as a nation. We can have healthy and honest debate, but it seems we can’t have that anymore as a nation due to a spirit of pride and a belief that every conversation is a zero-sum argument where good-faith dialogue and flexibility are seen as weakness. Satan is good at this. Far too many of us watched President Trump’s speech as Democrats or Republicans and decided that every single thing he said was either completely terrible or every single thing he said was sacred. No in between. No compromise. No concessions. No flexibility. My greatest frustration is that this spirit has infiltrated the church and our beloved SBC. Too many of us are approaching these important conversations as “woke” or “anti-woke,” Trump or Never-Trump, conservative or not conservative enough and we’re not coming to the table with love, good-faith, understanding and honesty.

I often joke with my mostly white congregation that I’ve only been white since 2009. (I’m not white) Since then, we’ve been through Obama, Trump, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Me Too, go home, and so many other situations that have set our country on edge and at each other’s throats. Again, my lament is that this same spirit is in our network. It saddens me that many of my heroes who preach each week in suits and ties and many of my other heroes who preach in Jordans and ripped jeans have joined the world’s cacophony of zero-sum arguing, straw-man slaughtering, destructive behavior that threatens this network I love so much. I understand this spirit happening in the world but we should be better. We can be better.

This doesn’t have to be the spirit of our Southern Baptist Family. We have the potential to chart a better course. My latest glimpse of this was at our orientation. I learned and heard so much of how Southern Baptists are giving generously, serving sacrificially, and moving decisively for the gospel.

The gospel is worth our cooperation. The gospel allows for our disagreement. The gospel calls us to love and be patient with one another despite our differences. Our biggest problem isn’t wokeness. Our biggest problem isn’t racism. Our biggest problem isn’t woman preachers. Our biggest problem is lostness and our greatest responsibility is to take the gospel to the nations.

This is why I am Southern Baptist. This is why I am Send Network. I don’t know that there is a greater institution for pushing back darkness in North America and around the world in our context. We can do so much more together. I don’t know that there is a bigger or a better story of institutional redemption than the Southern Baptist Convention. I know it causes some people heartburn, but this is indeed not your grand-daddy's SBC. It’s not my grand-daddy's SBC who was victimized and oppressed by Jim Crow, segregation and oppression largely supported by the SBC and it’s not perhaps your grand-daddy's SBC who supported and benefited from such oppression. It’s also not the SBC that was founded largely to protect chattel slavery. I’m not ashamed to say that we’re not perfect but the Lord is redeeming this institution.
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I’m just a middle-aged, Black pastor who attended an HBCU (Historically Black College and University) for undergrad and then got a M.A. at Jerry Falwell Jr's Liberty University and has only been white since 2009 with some nice suits, sport coats and blazers, but also some button-down shirts and moderately nice sneakers (not Jordans) who pastors a mostly white SBC church who is asking his beloved SBC, can’t we all just get along? We’re worth it. Our family is worth it. The gospel is worth it.