Being Baptist is being a witness, Vestal exhort

July 9, 2001

Being Baptist is being a witness, Vestal exhorts
___ATLANTA--The "Baptist witness" is defined by evangelism, discipleship and prayer, Daniel Vestal stressed during his coordinator's report to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship June 29.
___For many people, "Baptist" means being argumentative and quarrelsome, divisive or political, acknowledged Vestal, staff leader of the 10-year-old Fellowship.
___"In contrast to these notions, I want to address being Baptist from the perspective of Christian discipleship and congregational formation," he said. "As long as being Baptist is a matter of preserving institutions or protecting conventions, or even passing on the name 'Baptist,' it will become increasingly irrelevant in the 21st century.
___"Present and future generations must discern that the Baptist witness is ... a call to personal conversion to Jesus Christ and then personal growth in Christ.
___"Each individual is free and responsible before God," Vestal insisted. "No one can coerce or force another to faith. No authority, ecclesiastical or secular, can guarantee faith. It must be voluntary or it is not authentic."
___But faith is not lived out in isolation, he added. "The personal experience of grace then leads to the congregational experience of grace. ... Then growing out of this personal and community experience of grace, Baptists have been passionate about communicating that grace to the world in word and deed."
___In order to evangelize people around the world and help them grow in faith, Baptists have cooperated voluntarily in this common endeavor, Vestal said.
___"The purpose of this connectedness ... is not to mandate conformity ... but to foster cooperation for mission," he explained.

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