SBC aims to build families
___By Bob Allen
___Associated Baptist Press
___NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)- America's largest Protestant denomination wants to become a major force for family values, Southern Baptist Convention leaders say.
___The SBC Executive Committee voted unanimously Feb. 19 to establish a blue-ribbon council to marshal denominational resources in a "cohesive and concerted strategy" for strengthening families in churches and society.
___The initiative builds on a historic 1998 amendment to the SBC's official doctrinal statement defending traditional families, including a controversial tenet that wives must "graciously submit" to their husbands.
___Morris Chapman, the Executive Committee's president and chief executive officer, will appoint members to the new Council on Family Life. The council will work under auspices of the Executive Committee for two years, in cooperation with other SBC agencies with ministry assignments related to the family, and report any recommendations to the SBC as a whole.
___Chapman said the council would work to "elevate the sense of family life" among Southern Baptists.
___"We're not trying to establish programs, but we are trying to say maybe God will help us establish a movement for family life in the Southern Baptist Convention and in our world," Chapman said.
___The council will develop strategies that "identify Southern Baptist churches as 'great for the community because they are great for the family,'" according to a report and recommendation by an ad hoc SBC committee on family life appointed by Chapman last year.
___"America's families are in trouble," said former SBC President Tom Elliff, chairman of the ad hoc committee, in a report to Executive Committee members meeting in Nashville.
___"The very fabric of our society, the family, is being eaten away," continued Elliff, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Del City, Okla. He cited statistics of record divorce rates, increasing numbers of children born out of wedlock and attitudes that undermine traditional views of family.
___Americans know their families are in trouble, Elliff said, but "they don't know where Southern Baptists stand" on the issue. One reason for that, he said, is "our own families are in trouble," noting that divorce rates among Southern Baptists are not much different from the public at large.
___While the SBC, through various denominational entities, offers a number of successful ministries to families, many people don't perceive it to be one of the convention's top priorities, he said.
___"Why shouldn't we be known as the people who are friends of the family?" Elliff asked.
___While programs such as LifeWay Christian Resources' True Love Waits teenage-abstinence campaign have received acclaim, Elliff said, "Southern Baptists as a whole have never declared war" on problems affecting the family.
___The report by Elliff's committee, titled "Pursuing God's Plan for the Family," lauds a 1998 family amendment to the Baptist Faith & Message doctrinal statement for establishing "the biblical foundation for our understanding of the family and the roles God has ordained for each family member."
___Following adoption of the family amendment, "Southern Baptists served notice that we were taking seriously the responsibility of our churches to minister to the family, providing strength and encouragement through every possible means."
___Chapman amplified that concern at the 2000 SBC annual meeting, the report said, when he urged Southern Baptists to "save the family" and created the SBC committee on family life by executive appointment.
___The report touches on the problem of sexual abuse by ministers, saying: "We believe God would be pleased by a renewed call for servants whose lives are characterized by fidelity in the home."
___It also advocates compassion for people affected by divorce, calling for "authentic ministry to those whose lives and families have been fractured and ravaged by the adversary, seeking to provide the kind of compassionate restoration and encouragement so typified by our Savior and made available through the grace of God."
The Baptist Standard
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