with Charles Wade
This week marks the beginning of Charles Wade's tenure as executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. As he embarked on this new role, the Baptist Standard asked Wade to reflect on his task and what he sees ahead for Texas Baptists.
Q.
___ How has God uniquely prepared you for this task at this time?
___The most crucial matter is that during the process by which the committee asked me to
serve Texas Baptists in this role, Rosemary and I came to the deep conviction that God was calling us to take up this task. Through the years, God has given me a heart to draw people together, to find ways to work together, to respect and value every person. It is my prayer that I can do that for Texas Baptists.
___Since there is no school where you can learn how to be an executive director for a state Baptist convention, the preparation has to be more experiential in nature. The best preparation for this task for me is that I have been a pastor of churches since I was 15. That's 43 years! I have worked with wonderful Christian people in small and large Baptist churches. Wherever I have served, I have observed in church members magnificent faith, loyalty to Christ and his church, generosity, willingness to serve and earnest prayer.
___I also have had the opportunity to serve as moderator of associations and as president of our own convention. I have served on the Baptist Standard and Dallas Baptist University boards. I worked as a member of the State Missions Commission.
Q.
___ First Baptist Church of Arlington is known for Mission Arlington and its creative, dynamic outreach and ministry to the community. What do you hope the BGCT will be known for when your tenure ends?
___That we were faithful to God, loved the people, grew to be more like Jesus and put our arms around this state and the world.
Q.
___ What are our greatest challenges?
___To hear clearly the heart of God for our world. If we can focus there, then we will find a way to work together for the sake of a lost Texas, nation and world.
Q.
___ What about our most difficult obstacles?
___It's not apathy nor inertia that troubles us. We are enthusiastic for the most part and very busy doing good for God. But we need to improve our ability to reach out to our state with its many cultures, its changing demographics and its burgeoning population facing increasingly urban issues. We will work with the small rural churches and the inner-city neighborhood churches to help them be as healthy as possible. Many of them are doing remarkable ministries for Christ right now. We will work with our talented and eager young ministers to help them grow strong churches wherever God plants their lives.
___Some people, of course, think our most difficult obstacle is dealing with denominational conflict. But our greatest challenge is to be salt and light to a secular world.
___I want to work with all Texas Baptists. No one is unimportant to me. I want to work
with Baptists in our nation and around the world who share our vision. We need to work with everyone who will help us reach out to a world that is very lost and very much in need of Christ.
___The needs in Texas are great. The resources in Texas are great. Committees appointed at the request of our convention will carefully study the very best way the churches in Texas might respond to Texas and worldwide needs, and we will bring forward the results of their study. Hopefully, their report will be so convincing that it will be clear what we need to do. But whatever is done, every Texas Baptist church will be free to make its own decision and cooperate to the level of its confidence and agreement with the report.
Q.
___ What are our brightest possibilities?
___That God will smile on our efforts and bless us supernaturally in our faithful obedience to his call to love him, love all those who need us, and to go tell the good news so the whole world may know. What a thrill it would be to us all if God should trust us with a sweeping revival in our land. We have the church infrastructure and the institutions of service so that we could nurture and mature the fruit of such a revival. God help it to happen in our time.
___Texas Baptists can make a difference for God in this state. We can be a helpful influence on the Baptist world, helping keep Baptists anchored to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to Scripture, to evangelism, to church planting, to Christian education and discipleship, to biblical morality, to ministry in Christ's name, to the Baptist vision of soul liberty, to principled public life and church autonomy under the Lordship of Christ.
Q
___ How do you expect the BGCT to relate to the SBC?
___I will try to help Texas Baptists work with Southern Baptists in every way we can. Our goal is to share the gospel with the world, to put our arms around our state and world and hug people everywhere up close to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We will work with everyone who wants to do that and will let us partner with them.
___There are concerns. Have there been too few representatives of mainstream Texas Baptist life included on the boards of the SBC? Have there been too many attacks on the BGCT by some Southern Baptist leaders? Have there been too many accusations that fellow believers don't believe the Bible when the issue is a difference in interpretation? There has seldom been affirmation of the strong financial contributions from Texas Baptists.
Q.
___ Do you think the BGCT can hold together?
___Certainly. When churches look carefully at all the ministries they support and in which they are partners through the BGCT, they are going to be reluctant to walk away.
___Associations of churches are vital to our cooperative ministries in Christ's name.
___I have asked the associational directors of missions to help me visit with the pastors and laypeople of the churches. I want to hear from them. I want to know their concerns. I want them to know me. I want us to pray together. Together we can move forward to reach out to the people of Texas.
Q.
___Many Baptists maintain that missions and evangelism provide the "glue" that holds us together. Is this still true?
___Missions and evangelism have always been significant to Baptists. When people
believe everyone has to use the same approach, then things begin to come unglued. Texas Baptists have a wonderful sense of unity around this. We know we all believe the Bible. We know we believe people need to be saved. We know the gospel is the news about Jesus, the virgin-born, sinless, crucified and risen Savior, who will save all who call upon him. We have made sacrifices of life and financial resources to take this gospel to Texas and the world.
___Texas Baptists want to work together to get this job done.
___And we know if we do it well, we are going to need our universities and seminaries, and if we are going to be truly Christian in our ministry to people, we need child care, hospitals and care for the aged. In fact, one of the keys to early unity among Texas Baptists was the desire to see Buckner's children's home and Baylor University grow and thrive. Our institutions are still very important to us.
Q.
___ What do you think of the reconciliation movement among Texas Baptists?
___I applaud every effort to help us talk to one another, understand one another, pray with one another, forgive one another wherever we may have hurt one another and move forward together. My thanks to those who have led in this work.
Q.
___ The state's ethnicity is becoming increasingly plural, with Hispanics increasing
in both numbers and influence. What are the implications of this demographic change for the BGCT?
___One of the great stories in BGCT life is the increasing leadership of Hispanics in Texas Baptist life. This year, Mateo Rendon is chairman of the Administrative Committee, Rudy Sanchez is chairman of the Executive Board, Lorenzo Pena is first vice president of the convention, and there were three Hispanics on the search committee to find the new executive director.
___But more important is the renewed vigor in many Hispanic churches, the growing mission vision, the starting of hundreds of new churches, (there are now about 1,000 Hispanic congregations) the work in many associations where the Hispanic presence is celebrated and honored, and the exciting developments at the Hispanic Theological School in San Antonio and the Valley Baptist Missions/Education Center in Harlingen.
___Texas Baptists are diverse. The BGCT is no longer an Anglo convention. This will increase as our work with African-Americans (over 600 churches) and Koreans, Vietnamese, Chinese and dozens of other groups continues to grow. Every one of these people groups is important. I look forward to serving with all of them.
Q.
___ Many people believe the gap between rural and urban/suburban Texas is widening, with our rural areas declining in population and economic opportunity, while the urban/suburban areas are increasing. What are the implications of these trends?
___The BGCT will continue to work diligently to help our rural and inner-city churches find ways to survive, then thrive. The work of our bivocational ministers is crucial in this
regard. I honor their magnificent service and ministry.
___Our leadership training, church development and ministerial assistance programs are all keys to helping us work with associations and churches in developing strong churches, large and small, to serve the people of Texas. This will be, along with the ethnic churches, a very high priority with me.
Q.
___ Do you plan a restructuring of the Executive Board and its related entities?
___Many changes in the structure of our Executive Board staff have been made over the past few years. However, since it has been several years since there has been a comprehensive revision of the BGCT staff structure, I plan to ask the Executive Board to let me bring to them a plan to restructure the Executive Board Staff wherever needed. It is too early to know what this will look like. Some preliminary studies have already been done.
___The staff is serving well, but we ought always to be open to ways to improve. Whatever we do will be designed to help us serve the churches and get the gospel out to Texas and the world in the most effective, creative and responsible way possible.
Q.
___ How will the BGCT relate to associations in the coming decade?
___The BGCT honors the work of the associations. They are generally very healthy and are significant partners in the work we all are doing. Our BGCT staff is careful to work with the associational leadership in every way. We want to pray and plan together. We want to maximize our efforts. We need each other.
___I hope the study committees that have been appointed by the convention officers will be able to come up with valuable insights and recommendations that will help our associations be even stronger and will resolve the concerns that have been surfaced. Our staff will seek to be helpful to them in their study.
Q.
___ How can Texas Baptists capitalize on and thrive in the midst of the change that is likely to characterize the next decade?
___There is no reason for Texas Baptists to be timid about the future. If the Lord tarries, he will give us courage and wisdom as we face the new opportunities before us. Our people are well trained, they are on the cutting edge of technology, they are ready to embrace the opportunities for witness that lie ahead, they are ready to put their lives on the line for Christ and the cause of missions. I relish the thought that what will be, if God wills, will be greater than anything we have yet seen. Our call is to be faithful and persistent and open in the midst of change.
Q.
___ What are your prayer concerns for Texas Baptists in the coming years?
___All the things I have talked about above. Let me add two more: Please pray for me. This is a great challenge. I want to be faithful to God and to you. Pray for my family. They love God and the churches. I want that to still be true when I get to the end of this assignment God and Texas Baptists have called me to do.
Q.
___ What comes after Texas 2000?
___I don't know just now. But I will ask the Executive Board to help me work with staff to prepare a theme and plans for ministry and mission advance. And I suspect that the goals I have outlined above will be included in some way in the plan. There will be time and opportunity for input from the churches and pastors across the state. I will depend on the Baptist Standard to help us get the word out at the right time.
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