Is the MBC Completely Dysfunctional?

December 17th, 2006 | Posted in » Baptist Issues

Well, it appears the Missouri Baptist Convention is in the news again, this time because it has formed a committee to investigate the “theological soundness” of the organizations with which the MBC has relationships. The Missouri Baptist Pathway coverage is found here. Additional coverage from Baptist Press News is found here.

Now, I’m not an MBC insider by any means… but this looks like a theological witch hunt to me, especially given some of the nonsense I’ve seen on the Missouri Baptist Discussion List. The Pathway’s coverage is pretty benign (as one might expect), but Baptist Press gets into a few more details. The bottom line? A thriving (albeit non-traditional) new church from St. Louis (The Journey) chooses to host a weekly outreach in a pub, and all of a sudden we have a good portion of our executive board members in an outrage (BTW, the “grab a brew, share your view” quote is NOT from the church, but from the website of the brewery the outreach is held in). It appears they’re even going so far as to threaten to pull the church’s convention-funded loan.

Crazy stuff, if you ask me. It looks like the MBC is getting ready to beat the crap out of a church that’s added over a thousand members in four years for reaching out to the lost where they’re at… yet it freely and proudly partners with political entities that roll around in the mud all the time. Oh, and lest I forget… we’re spending millions of dollars on a lawsuit with five former MBC entities over who controls the makeup of their boards (how many missionaries could we have funded?!?). Are we really this dysfunctional?

I’m SO frustrated over this ongoing nonsense.

5 Responses to “Is the MBC Completely Dysfunctional?”

  1. By Bob Cleveland on Dec 17, 2006

    I bet the critics of The Journey are the Distant great-great-great-great-somethings of the Pharisees who griped that Jesus was eating at a tax collector’s house, too.

    Mac Lucado, I think it was, talked about his take on a conversation with Levi about how to reach Levi’s friends. No, they wouldn’t come to church. No, they all have jobs and are busy already. No, they probably wouldn’t just come to meet the Rabbi. But hey .. all his rowdy friends would be up for a party, so Levi threw a cookout and Jesus showed up.

    I think I like Jesus’ plan better. No wonder the MBC is having troubles. It may well not be man’s idea.

  2. By Bob Cleveland on Dec 17, 2006

    ++++++WHOOPS Alert++++++

    Max, not Mac.

  3. By Kevin Bussey on Dec 17, 2006

    John,

    I wish I knew how you really feel. :)

  4. By Paul on Dec 17, 2006

    I know a number of pastors in Missouri. It all seems so very sad.

  5. By micah on Dec 18, 2006

    John, the Kansas-Nebraska state convention seems nicer all the time :-)

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