February 25, 2002
SBC leadership promotes EKG unity
___By Bob Allen
___Associated Baptist Press
___NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)--Top executives of Southern Baptist Convention entities and affiliated state conventions have come together for an unprecedented joint proposal to focus and expand the witness of Southern Baptists.
___Called Empowering Kingdom Growth, the emphasis calls for enlisting every Baptist entity from the local church to the national convention to focus attention on Jesus' prayer that the kingdom of God be experienced on earth as it is in heaven.
___Carlisle Driggers, secretary of an eight-member Cooperation Task Force formed two years ago, noted that while the nation's largest non-Catholic religious body is growing more slowly than in the past, it is not in decline or worried about survival.
___"At this point in time, we have every reason to be planning for expansion and development," he said in an 18-page report delivered to state convention executive directors Feb. 14 and again to the SBC Executive Committee Feb. 18.
___"We are inviting Southern Baptists to come together around a spiritual focus to be known as Empowering Kingdom Growth, which we pray will lead to the greatest spiritual movement for Christ on earth since he first voiced the Great Commission," Driggers said in the report.
___Both groups endorsed the concept unanimously. It will be presented again to the Executive Committee in a condensed form June 10 and then to messengers attending the SBC annual meeting June 11-12 in St. Louis.
___The recommendation calls for continuation of the Cooperation Task Force, with Morris Chapman as chairman, to "work on issues of cooperation involving the states and the SBC."
___It also expands that group by adding four pastors to form a new EKG Task Force "to devise specific directions for the months and years ahead."
___If the concept wins approval from the SBC, Driggers will co-chair the new EKG Task Force with James Merritt, who completes his term as SBC president in June. Other members being nominated for the council are state executives Bob White from Georgia, Wyndell Jones from Iowa and Anthony Jordan from Oklahoma; the presidents of the SBC International Mission Board (Jerry Rankin) and North American Mission Board (Bob Reccord) and Golden Gate Seminary (Bill Crews); and pastors John Avant, John Hays and Don Beall.
___"The question for Southern Baptists is: Why can we not be kingdom people?" Driggers wrote. "Why are we hesitant and given to distractions such as power concerns, money, doctrinal differences, gender issues, congregational size, worship styles and outdated organizational practices?"
___Executive Committee member Calvin Whitman, pastor of Applewood Baptist Church in Wheat Ridge, Colo., objected to that paragraph, saying doctrinal differences and gender issues were too important to be listed alongside secondary issues like worship style.
___"We are not saying doctrine or gender issues are just distractions," Whitman said.
___"We can take that out of there," Driggers replied. "Just don't get away from the point."
___Since Southern Baptist churches, associations and state and national conventions are autonomous in their own spheres, Driggers acknowledged not everyone will embrace the focus. "But hopefully a majority of our people (will move) together for kingdom growth," he said.
___Chapman offered a similar observation. "Some may choose not to go with us, but we harbor no hatred," he said.
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