Jerry Rankin has once again posted a very, very, very strong word at his blog regarding the state of our convention and reaching the nations with the lost with the Gospel (i.e., fulfilling the Great Commission).
Read the whole thing here.
Consider some strong excerpts:
"Why change? Because the world is changing and Southern Baptists are changing. When the changes external to an organization exceed internal changes, the organization is moving toward irrelevance and ineffectiveness. A management guru observed, 'An organization is in decline if it ever tries to adapt its work to fit its organizational structure.' It is a mistake to assume that continuing methods that were successful in the past will continue to be effective in the future.
"How entities are organized is simply the means to fulfill its objectives. The Southern Baptist organization and structure is not an end in itself. But to refuse to change and try to make a changing world fit our structure is foolish. What is the saying defining insanity as continuing to do things the same way but expecting different results? Everyone is saying, “We need a Great Commission Resurgence.” But the voices continue, “But don’t touch the state conventions, don’t change our SBC entities, don’t think about tweaking the Cooperative Program.” It doesn’t leave much room for making changes that can bring us back to become a spiritually vital, efficiently focused, cutting edge entity for reaching a lost world if most of what we do is off limits.
"The IMB is trying to reach a changing world. We can no longer presume upon the financial resources of the SBC for continuing to appoint unlimited numbers of missionaries."
And again,
"The Southern Baptist Convention is structured by a legacy of historic bylaws that make it immune to change. In fact, it is designed to resist change. No visionary personalities are able to lead us to navigate the challenging environment of the 21st century. We are in bondage to leaders of the past who established how we would do things in the 19th century, in 1925, and ever since. Generations of inhibiting policies have continued to accumulate over the years. Proposals for innovation or change are readily deflected as “out-of-order” or referred to the Executive Committee or the authority of the relevant board which readily dispenses with anything that would change its status quo.
"We must ask the right questions. What does the current situation and trends call for us to do right now? If we make the right decisions, where is this going to lead? We cannot wait until we get there, confronted with new obstacles and challenges; we must anticipate what will come next and be positioned to make the next innovative and strategic decision. And of course, to do what needs to be done and assure our relevancy in the future, we have to be courageous in deciding what we cease doing, no matter how effective it might have been in the past."
What he says in his post is great for all SBCers to consider, and really, offers some great wisdom and advice for leaders in all contexts and situations.
Regarding what he does when thinking about the future, he says:
We have tried to stay on the cutting edge of effective mission strategy by constantly asking four questions with regard to three primary areas—overseas strategy, constituent relations and organization. The four questions are:
• What is working and needs to be continued and reinforced?
• What is working but needs to be strengthened and adjusted to be more effective?
• What is not working and needs to be changed?
• What is not working, is no longer relevant, and needs to be eliminated?
We boil this down into a brutal effort to stay focused on the task by asking:
• What NOW?
• What NEXT?
• What NOT?
Great, yet difficult, questions for any leader to use for evaluation.
Thank you God for Dr. Rankin!
[March 21, 2010]
Since this original post, Dr. Rankin has written a follow-up post to clear any misunderstandings and apologize for any criticism against his friend, Morris Chapman. You can read his follow-up post here.
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