June 25, 2001

SBC task force urges churches to 'rescue our families'
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___NEW ORLEANS--Southern Baptists must rescue the American family from the precipice of peril, according to the first report from a task force created to do just that.
___The Southern Baptist Council on Family Life presented guidelines for developing a family-saving strategy and creating "Great Commission Families" during its report to the

DELIA, JOSEPH AND JOE RODRIGUEZ listen to a presentation during the "Claiming God's Mission for Your Family" conference June 15 sponsored by the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The Rodriguez family, including daughter Samantha, attend Theo Avenue Baptist Church in San Antonio.

Southern Baptist Convention June 12.
___The next day, the convention approved a resolution calling for "covenant marriages," a step also designed to strengthen the family.
___Peril facing the family punctuated several presentations during the SBC meeting in New Orleans.
___"We believe it is time for us to decide as a convention that we're going to stand for the families in America," stressed Tom Elliff, a former SBC president, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Del City, Okla., and chairman of the family council.
___The council cited a litany of American family woes, including:
___ "One million children a year see their parents divorce."
___ "Thirty-five percent of our nation's children live apart from their biological fathers."
___ "In the last 40 years, pregnancies out of wedlock have increased 600 percent."
___ "In less than 40 years, cohabitation by unmarried couples has increased almost 1,000 percent."
___ "Fifty percent of children who do not live with their fathers have ... never stepped foot in their father's home."
___In his SBC president's address, James Merritt also emphasized the decline of families.
___"There is an assault on the family today that is unparalleled in the history of the human race, and much of the damage is self-inflicted," said Merritt, pastor of First Baptist Church in Snellville, Ga.
___"Increasingly, we are seeing fathers abdicate the throne of authority by allowing children to execute a bloodless coup of the home," he claimed. "Go to any mall in America, and you will see kids wandering aimlessly like rudderless ships with colored hair; Mohawk haircuts; rings coming out of noses, lips, eyelids and belly buttons, and you wonder, 'Where is Dad?'
___"No wonder the inmates are running the asylum and the monkeys are running the zoo."
___SBC Executive Committee President Morris Chapman, who proposed the family emphasis a year ago, also decried the decline of the family.
___"For the first time ever, married couples with children make up less than 25 percent of the America population," Chapman said, citing data from the 2000 U.S. Census. "It's our prayer and hope we'll be able to save the families of America."
___The Census data Chapman referenced show 23.5 percent of U.S. households are comprised of married couples with children in the home. That reflects a decline of about 2 percent in the decade of the 1990s. However, married couples either with or without children in the home still constitute 52 percent of U.S. households.
___Census data reveal the decline is due in part to Americans living longer, with more widows and widowers alive than ever before, as well as Americans as a whole waiting until later in life to get married and have children.
___In taking on the task of saving America's families, the Council on Family Life will not reproduce work of SBC agencies, Chapman noted. The council "has been formed to sound the alarm that the traditional Judeo-Christian values of the family are under assault."
___The council's interim report to the convention outlined five guidelines to structure its work as it develops long-term strategies.
___The council noted a family-saving strategy must:
___ "Draw together both our resources and our people with the goal of elevating our families and the meaning of the word 'family' to God's standard as clearly stated in Scripture."
___The SBC articulated that meaning in a 1998 amendment to the SBC Baptist Faith & Message statement. It gained most notoriety for stating wives should "graciously submit" to the "servant leadership" of their husbands.
___ "Deal with both our internal practices and the external perception of our convention."
___This guideline would lead to strategies to help Americans see Southern Baptists as "great for the community because we are great for the family."
___It also would address breakdowns in Southern Baptist families. "Sad to say, even in the church too many marriages are meeting their Waterloos in divorce court," SBC President Merritt lamented. "We need to get back to the biblical understanding of marriage, that marriage ... is a divine covenant bound together in heaven that should never be broken before a holy God."
___ "Assist in the development of strong Great Commission-oriented families."
___"Great Commission Families" will be based on "scriptural principles of moral purity and fidelity," practice consistent family devotionals, exhibit faithfulness to ministries of the local church, practice financial responsibility and participate in evangelizing non-believers.
___ "Enable pastors and church leaders to mutually identify and affirm key biblical principles for marriage and family."
___In his president's address, Merritt insisted, "Our convention ought to be known as a family-friendly convention and as a convention that unapologetically stands for marriage between a man and a woman, period."
___ "Emphasize our desire to provide an authentic ministry to those whose lives and families have been fractured and ravaged by the adversary; seek to provide ... compassionate restoration and encouragement typified by our Savior, made possible by the grace of God and consistent with the clearly stated principles of the Scripture."
___The status of marriage and related issues also was on the minds of messengers to the convention. Six items presented as motions or resolutions from the floor addressed homosexuality, with one calling on President Bush to declare June Heterosexual Family Pride Month.
___The resolutions committee brought a statement on covenant marriage that passed without discussion or dissent.
___The resolution encouraged Southern Baptists "to commit themselves to the biblical principles expressed by the covenant marriage movement."
___The family council's task is large, Elliff acknowledged as he looked to its work over the coming year.
___"Families are not going to be rescued simply because we hope so, simply because we think God owes us," he said. "But because we decide we're going to do something about it."
___

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